The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : "NEERI report has very little primary data"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 28, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

"NEERI report has very little primary data"

T. Ramakrishnan

Study on Sethu project does not throw light on the impact on scientific parameters

CHENNAI: : The Environmental Impact Assessment report on the Sethusamudram project does not throw much light on the likely impact on the scientific parameters, according to M. Ravindran, former Director, National Institute of Ocean Management, who headed the four-member team formed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.

(Prepared by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), the EIA report was an important input for the Centre to sanction the project.)

In an interview with The Hindu , Dr. Ravindran said the report was based on the data collected by different agencies at different points of time for different purposes. "It has very little primary data, relevant to this project, and is a bunching of different reports, lacking coherence," he said. The report was silent on the characteristics of soil and oxygen depletion during dredging and operation of the canal, besides wind current and wave conditions at times of cyclones.

Another important aspect left out of the report was microbiology, which had a bearing on fishing and the livelihood of fishermen. The traffic management plan was dealt with "scantily." And there was no mention of a disaster management plan in case of accident or oil spill, Dr. Ravindran said. Besides, the NEERI report had not presented any environmental management plan, which should have been formulated by a competent body. The committee of experts comprised representatives of Anna University's Centre for Environmental Studies, Annamalai University's Centre for Advanced Studies in Marine Biology, and the Government Fisheries College, Tuticorin.

The panel, constituted in March to go into the environmental aspects of the project, submitted its report to the State Government a couple of weeks ago. It studied the EIA report and the minutes of deliberations of public hearings.

Pointing out that the Sethusamudram channel was different from the Suez and Panama Canals, Dr. Ravindran said Sethu was an offshore canal whereas the two others were formed through cutting across the Isthmuses (narrow-connecting strips of land) of Suez and Panama."It is for the first time that a canal of this nature and size is being excavated in the open sea." Emphasising that the impact of dredging and dumping had to be studied exhaustively, he said when the "virgin soil" is going to be disturbed, there had to be a "thorough scientific investigation" of its impact.

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