SRI LANKA: Govt Taken to Task for Environmentally Unsound Project

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Jul 29 2002 (IPS) - Sri Lanka’s vocal environmental lobby is turning the heat on a move by the government to build a hydroelectric power project in the country’s central hills.

Already, green activists have attracted international support for their effort to stop the 150-megawatt project, which would dry up seven of the country’s most beautiful waterfalls, on the grounds that is an economically, socially and environmentally unfriendly project.

“The Rainbow and Green group in Japan have told us they have put the Sri Lankan issue on their agenda, ” says Piyal Parakrama, president of Sri Lanka’s recently formed Green Party of the project, which is due to get Japanese funding. “That’s a positive sign that global green groups would also campaign against the project.”

“We will lose some of our most beautiful waterfalls that have attracted visitors from here and abroad for decades. This is a natural heritage that must be preserved,” asserts Hematha Withanage, executive director of the Environmental Foundation Ltd (EFL), the country’s biggest environmental watchdog.

The Upper Kotmale hydropower project, as it is known, would also mean the relocation of more than 400 families and affect the environment in many other ways.

Four years ago, EFL sought a court injunction against the same project at Upper Kotmale, in the hills of this South Asian island nation. In a court settlement, EFL agreed to submit its objections to the secretary of the environment ministry, who then considered the objections and issued a fresh order for the project.

However, little happened thereafter until three months ago, when the United National Front (UNF) government, in power since last December, decide to revive the project to help address serious problems with electricity. Cabinet approval was granted and a funding agreement signed with Japan.

The move not only triggered protests among activists, but also prompted a Cabinet minister to jump on to the anti-project bandwagon because of its human costs to the families to be relocated.

For Withanage, Colombo’s efforts to revive this project are perplexing because it has been on the drawing board since 1985 and has over the years been rejected by three state-appointed technical committees comprising some 50 Sri Lankan scientists.

“I just can’t understand why they need to go ahead with this project when all the committees have offered another option in the same location with much less environmental destruction,” he says.

In February, the government pushed through legislation in creating an Energy Supplies Act (ESA) to generate emergency power and meet rising demand. The government said it was suspending certain laws for a two-year period under the act to enable emergency power plants to be installed without any hindrance.

This followed desperate efforts to stimulate the energy sector and induce the private sector to install new power plants and halt a power crisis that has been on since July 2001 due to a prolonged drought.

Year-long power cuts were lifted only in June after the government obtained emergency thermal power plants, raising the cost of electricity to the consumer.

A combination of delayed power projects, official bungling and delayed monsoon on three consecutive occasions led to last year’s power crisis. It crippled national production and led to the cost of goods rising.

With hydropower still contributing to a near 90 percent of the installed power capacity, the country is heavily reliant on monsoon rains for its agriculture and domestic water consumption.

But the government’s approach to address the country’s power crisis – through measures such as the ESA – do not impress Dr Janaka Ratnasiri, scientist and president of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS), and other environmentalists.

They describe the February legislation as draconian, since it bars any legal action against power plants, including those might be unsustainable ones.

Green Party’s Parakrama says that the Upper Kotmale project will not meet the government’s expectations in the first place. The project would generate only 70 megawatts of power contrary to the 150 megawatts that the government says it would generate, he explains.

According to him, one avenue that can help meet the country’s power demand is the reduction of transmission losses by the state-run Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). “Out of the total capacity of 1,500 megawatts capacity that the CEB generates annually, there is a 21 percent or 350 megawatts loss through transmission,” he points out.

Sri Lanka’s approach to solving its power problems also raises questions about the country’s “development paradigm,” says Withanage.

Environmental activists here say the government should use the abundance of wind, solar and wave energy in addition to mini hydropower schemes in Sri Lanka, instead of resorting to large hydropower and thermal power projects that have bigger environmental impact.

But there are more signs of big power schemes ahead. Already, there are signs of what green activists’ next tussle will be — a government proposal to build a 300-megawatt coal power plant in the eastern seaport of Trincomalee.

“We are waiting to see the full proposal and collecting a lot of information right now,” says Withanage.