The Hindu : Kerala News : Proposal for submerged reef project `ignored'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 31, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Proposal for submerged reef project `ignored'

By K.S. Sudhi

KOCHI, DEC. 30. Two successive Governments have sat on a proposal for setting up a submerged reef at Alapad in Kollam that was battered by tsunami on Sunday.

If implemented on time, it would have helped develop a wide stretch of beach in the area, which would have absorbed the impact of the killer waves to some extent, saving lives and property.

Artificial Submerged Reed (ASR) Ltd. Marine and Freshwater Consultants, New Zealand, had submitted the proposal to the LDF Government in February 2000 and later to the UDF Government in November 2001 for implementing the project in association with the Centre for Earth Sciences Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.

The then Water Resources Minister, T.M. Jacob, had announced in the Assembly that the reef project would be implemented. After the declaration, no steps have been initiated for taking up the project. After the widespread death and damage, the State Government has declared that a sea wall would be constructed for protecting the area. The New Zealand firm plans to resubmit the project, which is considered superior to sea walls along the cost, to the State Government in the wake of the widespread damage caused in Alapad, Joseph Mathew, project manager of the firm told The Hindu .

Dr. Mathew, an alumnus of the Cochin University of Science and Technology, now based in New Zealand, reached the State a couple of weeks ago.

It was at the request of the Water Resources Department that the ASR prepared the project in 2000 and the then Water Resources Minister, P.S. Sreenivasan, suggested Alapad for the project, Dr. Mathew said.

Submerged reef

Submerged reefs are created by bags made out of geotextile material. The bags filled with sand are laid offshore at a distance ranging from 200 to 300 metres. The reefs thus laid rotate the sediments and develop beach in the area, he said.

The life span of reefs is 40 years or more, as compared to the short life of the seawalls. The bag makers have offered 25-year guarantee for their product. The estimated cost of one kilometre reef would be Rs.3.5 crores, he said.

Dr. Mathew was of the view that coir fibres from the State could be used for making geo-textile bags and the cheap labour available in the State would further reduce the cost of the project. The firm has set up a reef at Gold Coast, Australia, and has bagged orders from the U.S. Navy for setting up one in New York and several European countries, he said.

Marine habitat

Though the reefs are no answers for tsunamis, they provide recreational and public amenity and improved fishing and marine habitat. They offer shoreline protection solution with low environmental impact and the visual amenity is not impaired in the coastal area.

With suitable design, an offshore reef would be useful in the rough monsoon period for fishing in the reef's shelter and for providing better access for small boats to the water, like a small harbour, said a project report submitted to the Government.

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