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Magazine
"Tiger or Science?": A rejoinder
This is a rejoinder to "Tiger or Science?" published in The
Magazine (June 29), about the India-based Neutrino Observatory
(INO) and its proposed location under the Nilgiri
mountains. There are several glaring factual errors and misconceptions
in the article, the most important of which we highlight
and correct below.
The article states: "New roads through the forests will be essential".
Response: No new roads will be constructed through the forest.
The tunnel portal (entrance) to the underground INO lab will be
located within the Singara campus of the TNEB, which is not in
the core zone of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve or in the Mudumalai
Wildlife Sanctuary. There is already a road available; this is one
of the reasons for choosing this site. In addition, no forest land will
be cleared or occupied.
The article states: "As the construction is scheduled to take about
four years, this involves 130 truck trips going through every day!"
(for debris disposal)
Response: No more than six round trips, in daylight hours only,
will be made per day. The debris (granite from excavation) will be
stored at the existing yard a few hundred metres away from the
portal in Singara TNEB campus, until all construction and detector-
related material has been transported. About half of the debris
will be used locally to line the tunnel and cavern and for other
construction.
The remaining will be moved out in a phased manner, not
exceeding six round trips per day during daytime. This number
includes that required for the transport of the construction material,
and iron for the detector also.
This will be a small addition to the existing traffic average of 5-6
vehicles per HOUR in the daytime from Singara to Masinagudi
and more than 100 vehicles per DAY one way from Bandipur
towards Mudumalai/Theppakadu, on the route to be traversed by
the trucks.
The article states: The INO project is "one of the best-kept
national secrets in recent times" and the perceived "lack of transparency
or information about the project to local people".
Response: Details of the project, as stated in the article, are
available on the website http://www.imsc.res.in/~ino and there is
no secrecy involved with such a large-scale basic sciences project.
The web-site has been in operation since 2002. Furthermore, INO
members have been in contact with environmental scientists,
environmentalists and local people in the past two years.
Apart from the Ooty meeting referred to in the article, there was
a detailed presentation of the project and discussions in Tamil
were held with people of the local villages at the Gram Sabha
meeting in Masinagudi. A meeting with environmentally interested
people took place more than a year ago when they were shown
the proposed portal location and other details about the Project.
INO members will be happy to have more such meetings to
clarify further. The INO group is well-aware that the site for the
proposed laboratory is in an ecologically sensitive zone and is
eager to implement all possible ways and means to reduce the
disturbance during the construction phase of the project. (The
disturbance is anyway expected to be negligible during the operation
phase).
INO is proposed as a model project that will combine basic
research in neutrinos (physical sciences) with sensitivity to nature
and conservation (ecological sciences).
Hence, the answer to the question posed in the title of the
article is "Tiger AND Science" and it is possible to achieve this
co-existence.
D. INDUMATHI, M.V.N. MURTHY AND G. RAJASEKARAN, INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
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