“‘Major flaw: Colombo Port City Project sand mining licence not obtained as yet”
Responding to the comments of Prof. Naazima Kamardeen of the Department of Commercial Law at the University of Colombo that a sand mining licence had not been obtained as yet by the project proponent which were reported in Business Times of September 22 under the above title, leader of the Colombo Port City’s Environment Team W. A. D. D. Wijesooriya has sent the following response which was also stated at the same forum where Prof. Kamardeen spoke:
“A comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was carried out over June-December 2015,which covered key components including dredging of sand for reclamation, supply of rock material for construction of offshore breakwaters, edge revetments/sea walls etc sand barriers, marina basin, artificial beaches and other relevant coastal protection structures.
This EIA covered the components including coastal engineering, ecological, water quality, traffic management and air/noise/vibration aspects and archaeological impact assessment. The EIA was reviewed by a Technical Evaluation Committee appointed by the Coast Conservation Department (CCD) where 34 members including the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) were present. Following the public consultation and Technical Evaluation process the project was approved with 72 conditions by CCD. Subsequently, the Mining License was obtained from the Geological Surveys and Mines Bureau for the extraction of 65million meter cubes of sand.”
He further added that a separate EIA was conducted in 2017 for the development and infrastructure activities within the Colombo Port City reclaimed land, which was approved with 50 conditions on August 21, 2018. This EIA covered components including waste management, noise/vibration, air and water quality, traffic management, ecological aspects, and archaeological impact assessment. The EIA received only two observations during public consultations compared to the over 200 observations for the previous EIA.
He also noted that the project company, CHEC Port City, shifted its previous plan to extract sand from site 1 as it was overlapping some fishing grounds and reduced the focus area for site 2 due to similar reasons. He also revealed that over Rs.36 million per annum has been allocated for monitoring activities, according to the Environmental Management Plan.
The CHEC Port City early this year successfully reclaimed 269 hectares of land from the sea to begin the second phase of the project by utilising an estimated 65 million cubic metres of sea sand and approximately 3.45 million cubic metres of rock for marine structures.