OVER TROUBLED WATERS

The hastily launched multi-crore Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project is a scientific and ecological disaster in the making. Here's why. By S S Jeevan

It is a proverbial case of putting the cart before the horse. The Rs 2,427.40-crore Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project (SSCP), launched with much fanfare in Madurai on July 2, 2005 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is throwing up more questions than it set out to solve. The SSCP aims to provide a route linking India's eastern and western shores, doing away with the current need to circumnavigate Sri Lanka. But scientists and environmentalists have voiced concerns of constructing the canal in an ecologically sensitive region as well as the way the project has been "rushed" without even a detailed scientific study.

Ironically, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) sounded the first alarm in March 2005. The PMO note asked for the project to be put on hold till a proper evaluation of specific issues was made. The note severely criticised the "rapid" study by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, whose report was cited to get the quick approval.. The institute -- which comes under the Union government -- has been associated with several controversial environment studies in the past and has reportedly limited experience in marine issues.

"The canal project faces the problems of sedimentation, cyclonic disturbances and dumping of the dredged sediments which have not been effectively tackled in the NEERI study. NEERI neither considered the sediment contribution from the rivers flowing into the Palk Bay nor from the previous cyclones, with the result that the study did not pinpoint the source for 99..4 per cent of the sediment volume in the region," the PMO note said. But strangely enough, within three months of having drafted the note, the Prime Minister and the entire political establishment gathered in Madurai to launch the 150-year-old dream.

150-YEAR-OLD PROBLEMS
The idea to build a canal was originally conceived by British Commander A D Taylor of the Indian Marines in 1860. After Independence, the government constituted a committee headed by A Ramaswamy Mudaliar in 1955 to examine the feasibility of connecting the Gulf of Mannar with Palk Bay. The committee recommended that the canal project be linked to the Tuticorin Harbour Project. The report was put in cold storage, and in 1963, only the Tuticorin port project was sanctioned. A number of committees were set up since then and each of these committee reports "further validated" the earlier reports. It is significant that Taylor's idea was conceived on a different route where there will be no turbulent sea or churning water currents. However, the present route is through one of most volatile regions in the world. The canal project area is dangerously located in a cyclone-prone region. According to Current Science, between 1891 and 2000, around 64 cyclones have known to have hit the Tamil Nadu coast. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) too considers the coastal stretch between Nagapattinam and Pamban (the canal project area) as a "high-risk zone".

Meteorological records reveal that 23 storms have crossed the project area in that period. For instance, the super cyclone in 1964 devastated Danushkodi, a coastal town near Rameshwaram and part of the SSCP area. Reports suggest that an entire train was washed away during this cyclone, taking along with it hundreds of students. And even today one can see the battered Danushkodi railway station invaded by seawaters. "A large part of the old Danushkodi town lies buried under the sea," Pavalam, a 50-year-old fisherman in Danushkodi told the New Indian Express.

What is worrying is that the NEERI report completely ignored the impact of a future tsunami on the SSCP. Says Dr C P Rajendran, one of India?s top geologists, who is with the Centre for Earth Science Studies, Thiruvananthapuram: "The open question is that whether the deepening activities would 'create a new deep water route' for a future tsunami to reach the west coast with a devastating impact." The PMO, in fact, found the information furnished by NEERI about the effects of tsunamis and cyclones "incomplete" and there were huge gaps in the knowledge about "the sedimentation regimes existing in the various micro regions of Palk Bay". "Had the Sethusamudram shipping canal been operational at the time of this (December 2004) tsunami, the currents in the Palk Bay and the associated turbulence would have damaged the canal considerably and would have caused a wide dispersal of the dredged material placed at seas," the PMO note says.

"In terms of expertise on marine issues NEERI's credibility is wanting. The fact that NEERI had only done a "Rapid" Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and not a comprehensive EIA and that the area and period of primary data collection was little or nothing accounts for an unscientific EIA being passed off by the Ministry of Shipping and MEF," says Ossie Fernandes, co-convenor of Coastal Action Network (CAN), an organisation spearheading the campaign and fighting for the rights of fisherfolk. Scientists point out to India's lack of understanding of complex geological phenomenons. Sethusamudram is the part of an ocean that is being constantly bridged by natural sedimentation processes, and nature has been at this work for hundreds of thousands of years. "The current tsunami crisis in the Bay of Bengal makes us to rethink the whole issue? The SSCP is not feasible technically at the present moment, with the current level of understanding of the sedimentation and meteorological regimes of the project area," says journal Current Science.

It is also a mystery then that how project officials convinced the Prime Minister without even doing a tsunami-impact study. Officials at the Tuticorin Port Trust (TPT) -- the nodal agency to implement the project -- are yet to respond to a questionnaire sent by this newspaper on these issues.

MARINE THREAT
Ecologists say the impact of the project on this unique and fragile ecosystem will be disastrous. The Gulf of Mannar (GOM) falls in the Indo-Pacific region and is considered to be one of world's richest marine biological resources. The Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve is the first Marine Biosphere Reserve not only in India, but also in South and Southeast Asia. The GOM thus constitutes a live scientific laboratory of national and international value. It has 3,600 species of plants and animals that make it India's biologically richest coastal region, according to CAN.

Says Commander G V K Unnithan of Indian Navy (Retd), who as part of the anti-Tamil insurgent operations during 1995-96 spent considerable time watching the ecosystem of this region: "During that time I have closely watched the sea from helicopters and boats. I have seen colonies and coral reefs. It is shocking that NEERI says there is only sand." It is interesting to note that the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation is engaged in a unique promotion of alternative options for livelihood security in the region, including community-owned small industrial units and a community-managed artificial reef programme.

Experts say that India has had the experience of dredging navigation channels near the shipping ports, but it will be the first time we are going to dredge a navigation channel, located 30 to 40 km away from the coast. The SSCP involves massive dredging -- an estimated 84.5 million cubic metres of sand -- that will need safe disposal. Statements from the environment and shipping ministries reassure that the project will pose no threat to the coral reefs and the marine wealth of the GOM. However, it is still not clear as to how and where the dredged material will be dumped for safe disposal. "The question is how would the cyclones rework the dredged material to be dumped at various sites, although fortified with embankments," asks Rajendran.

The migration of birds in this region is natural and limited due to the two different ecosystems prevalent and generally separated by the Adams Bridge. The dredging will certainly disturb the system and large-scale forced migration will take place, says Unnithan. But when it happens from the shallow Palk Bay to deeper GOM, the fish will be lost forever due to the proximity of the much deeper Indian Ocean.

Unnithan, who is now a member of the Bombay Natural History Society, says, "They (NEERI) should have collaborated with institutes such as NIO, CMFRI, ZSI and GSI and come up with first-hand scientific work. Instead, they have depended heavily on secondary published data." He adds that the Indian Navy was given a sub-contract by NEERI for hydrographic studies. But there is no evidence to show that they were carried out. Unnithan says that if it (the study) was in favour of the canal, why was it not made public? Another threat arising out of the project is the pollution that would be created by ships in such a narrow channel. The prospect of their grounding or even a collision of ships containing coal or oil will lead to an ecological disaster.

MAROONED
The Sethusamudram project is also set to affect the livelihood of millions fisherfolk in the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu. But very little has been done to prepare a roadmap for rehabilitation and re-location of the affected people. Fishermen in Danushkodi, for example, say that they had heard of the project but had no clue if they would be asked to relocate or offered compensation. Many NGOs working for these fishing communities say that the public hearings for such projects are a farce. "The first series of public hearings were scrapped. Then in November 2004, another series were scheduled which were compartmentalised. Then the TPT went to court and got the project cleared," says Unnithan. "Most often the public hearing panel is not constituted with persons of integrity and scientific credibility,? says Ossie Fernandes. And public hearing reports by the state pollution central boards are shrouded in secrecy -- the anti thesis of a public hearing, he adds. "Big projects usually mean that poor people like us will be promised compensation and then asked to relocate," Muniamma, a fisherwoman from Danushkodi.

India's tryst with big projects has usually thrown up the same problems: they are hurriedly conceived and even poorly implemented. As we have seen with the Sardar Sarovar Project the rehabilitation of the affected people still remains a distant dream. In the case of the SSCP, there has been a mindless hurry to launch the project, without adequately addressing the core scientific and ecological problems. The project is plagued by other problems as well: many experts are now beginning to question the economic and technical validity of the project and the issue is threatening to boomerang into a diplomatic stand-off with Sri Lanka, which has also voiced its protest against the project. "We believe that the Tamil Nadu government can still step in as the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board has not given a 'No Objection Certificate' to the project. And one of the grounds for granting clearance by the MEF is the report of the public hearings," adds Fernandes.

Meanwhile, the Union government has belatedly constituted a monitoring committee to assess the environmental impact of the SSCP. Its members include Dr S Kannaiyan of the National Biodiversity Authority, Dileep Biswas, former chairman of the Central Pollution Control Board and S C Sharma, additional director-general (Wildlife). Moreover, some 15-odd committees have also been constituted by Union Ministry of Shipping and Port Trust to look into the other aspects of the project. But whether these efforts are just to please the project's critics or can they lead to a real change in the developmental mindset of the political establishment, only time will tell.

(New Indian Express, July 31, 2005)