|
 Kattupalli is an island 25 km north of Fort St. George, about 5 km beyond Ennore in North Chennai. Measuring 25 km by 5 km, this island has 10 hamlets and 10 fisher colonies. The Bay of Bengal laps it on the East, the Ennore backwaters to the South, the Buckingham canal on the West and Pulicat Lake to the North. This green spot in an otherwise industrialised area is now gravely threatened.
Unique features of Kattupalli are its natural permanent sand dunes and availability of fresh subsurface water almost everywhere. The dunes support plenty of greenery. Other vegetation is in the form of casuarina and cashew groves, along with coconut and paddy. The groves prevent sea erosion, in contrast to Manali and Tiruvottiyur hardly 10
km away where erosion is a serious problem.
Till recently, one could reach Kattupalli only by boat. But now, a bridge has been built across the Buckingham Canal and a five km road laid up to the North Chennai Thermal Power Station (NCTPS), newly constructed at the southern tip of the island. Over the rest of the island, bullock carts and tractors continue to be the only means of transportation. The Pulicat Bird Sanctuary is about 8 km away and Kattupalli itself has animals like foxes, rabbits and a variety of birds.
 The NCTPS itself holds out environmental threats in the form of fly ash slurry and effluents seepage and the discharge of warm/hot coolants. Now in addition, the Tamil Nadu Government plans to establish the Ennore Port there, a satellite to support the main Chennai port and for landing coal from
Orissa for the NCTPS. There is also a plan to set up a Petro Park, with among other things facilities to offload and store Liquid Natural Gas. Ecologists fear that these plans will wipe out three villages -- Kalanji, Kattupalli and Vayaloor Kuppam -- and turn the area into an ecological wasteland.
These plans violate several laws and rules. For one thing, such industrial activity so close to a bird sanctuary is forbidden. For another, industrial activity within 500 metres of the High Tide Mark (HTM) in the Coastal Regulation Zone is in violation of CRZ rules. (However, newspaper reports say the state government has re-classified the area's zone to suit its plans. The Ennore Port Project involves more than Rs 100 crores, which makes it a mega-project. But it has been declared 'minor' to circumvent environmental clearance, which is apparently not required for minor ports.
 The Ministry of Environment and Forests had granted only 400 hectares of Kattupalli island for the port, but a total of 1053 hectares have been taken over. The ministry had further specified that no blasting of the Karikal and Bodaparai hills should be done. But 16 hectares of the Karikal Hill have been quarried. Ecologists warn that effluents and sewage, besides the flyash slurry and coolant discharge, will pollute the waters of the Buckingham Canal, Pulicat Lake and the surrounding area, killing aquatic life and seriously damaging the ecosystem. Among other threats they envisage: ground water salination from dredging, formation of destructive oil scum from thermal water and effluents release, coastal erosion and atmospheric pollution. There is also the threat of acid rain caused by the sulphur and nitrogen dioxides released from the thermal station getting mixed with moisture in the air and coming down in precipitation.
About 600 families living in three villages will be displaced by the projects, which will also swallow fishing grounds, agricultural land, salt pans and plantations, depriving people of their livelihood. The construction activity will erode the sandbar separating Pulicat Lake from the sea, wiping out villages on it and destroying the lake's identity as a lagoon with its own inherent ecology.
 Ecologists believe that no further development activity, other than the existing NCPTS - since it has already been established - should be undertaken. The port and petro park should be shifted to other locations, which would also help spread development activity over a wider area. The fly ash waste should be converted into bricks or given away free to entrepreneurs and not stored on site. The coal smoke must be filtered before release through smokestacks and cooling towers should be installed to cool the water used in the plants before release into water bodies.
Akshaya
More articles
|
