Right of way

On March 23, Greenpeace Inter' national issued full page
advertisements in the international press to draw attention to the
Olive Ridleys, which come annually to the beaches of Orissa's
Gahirmatha to nest . The advertisement drew on the hype around the
cheap car Nano by Tata, the company building the Dhamra port
along'wtth the L&T group, to raise alarm about the impact of an
upcoming port on the endangered turtles. The port at Dhamra is less
than five km from the Bhitarkanika National Park; it is 15 km from the
Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary. The beaches are one of the world's
largest nesting sites for the turtles. The turtles didn't nest there
last year; this year's nesting season-from December to March-hadn't
seen any turtles. March 24 brought a surprise. Unaware of the
advertisement-and the talk of construction work driving the turtles
away from the beaches where they breed thousands of olive coloured,
heartshaped shells emerged from the waters off the Gahir' matha coast
They were seen floating in the inshore waters around sunset.
This cycle continued from March 24-30, and the Dhamra Port Company Ltd
said the event vindicated their stand that the port does not pose .any
threat to the turtles. The company argued there were occasions earlier
when the turtles did not visit the Orissa coast Mass nesting did not
happen in the early 1980s and the late 19OOs. "The port construction
started in late 2007," a company spokesperson said. So, why didn't the
turtles come to the beach in certain years? The answers are not
known;" there are only anecdotes. People in the Kend' rapara district,
under which the beach lies,' say missile tests on the Wheeler island,
close to the Gahirmatha sanctuary, and fishing ports could be the
reasons. But there are no scientific studies to back these
conjectures. The state government, port authorities and,
conservationist&-local and international""': who claim the port
disturbs the turtles have; possible impact on turtles. The port
company had invited activists for talks to allay the impact of the
port on the turtles, if any, but the, green groups are not ready to
meet till the, company stops construction.
With talks in limbo, the port is now half complete. Violations in the
clearances given to the port have not been debated publicly because of
the impasse on the impact on the turtles. Take the example of the
environmental impact assessment (EIA) report This raises interesting
questions even about other¬port projects.
The Dhamra Port Company claimed to have all the approvals before
starting the port's construction in 2007. A Pune-based consultant
wrote the EIA report for the Dhamra port in 1997, when it was to be
built by. Internal Sea Port. Then, the port was to come up on Kani ka
island off the coast, near the mouth ofpM~ river Dhamra. In 2004, the
state government moved the location of the port to the main .land,
close to the Gahirmatha sanctuary.
The new proposal envisaged a bigger port than previously planned-cargo
handling' capacity increased to 83 million tonnes per, year compared
to the 25 million tonnes per' year proposed earlier The EIA
notification, under which the port was cleared, does not allow such
expansion.
"The Orissa government did not get new studies done because it found
the new site' most suitable for a deep sea port. Besides, Dhamra is
the expansion of an old project, so the question of a new EIA does not
arise," said A K Panda, the state's deputy secretary of port
development. There is a distinct advantage in labelling a project an
expansion of an old one: it goes for clearance to the Union: surface
transport ministry, which is charged: with developing Infrastructure
like ports. A new project, however. must get the nod from' the Union
environment ministry, responsible, for safeguarding the environment. ;
A 2006 report, by the International Union, for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), on the scoping mission of the Dhamra port project contradicts
Panda. It said: "The new port significantly dwarfs the old port in
terms of size and potential environmental Impacts. In our view the
port is really not an expansion of an old port, the two are not even
adjacent." It also said the port would see a growth in industry in the
area. "If the port becomes a net importer of raw materials, industries
would want to be as close to the port as possible. While the port
itself might be committed to may not be so." These concerns do not
find a mention in the ETA, which addresses the turtles in two of the
160 pages. The EIA says the port site is not the nesting ground for
turtles and hence won't affect them in any way. MCN disagrees:
"Turtle hatchlings are attracted to bright lights, and it is possible
the". hatchlings will be misguided and head inland towards the port
rather the"" offshore."
There is little mention of possible impact of erosion or dredging on
turtles in the EIA. Men asked for a comprehensive environmental
management plan. So the company commissioned in 2008 a study to the
National Institute of Oceanography in Goa to find out if dredging
would affect nesting beaches. The study would be complete in May 2009;
initial findings suggest erosion and accretion of the beaches is a
natural process and an annual cyclical phenomenon and cannot be
attributed to dredging at the port site. IUCN officials suggested
safeguard measures. Nicolas J Pilcher, co chair of IUCN's Marine
Turtle Specialist Group, said mitigation measures work well and the
company had taken a proactive stand in this regard. He added IUCN
brought the world's best science to the table, which would benefit the
project. But conservationists do not buy the explanation because the
mitigation measures are limited only to the Dhamra port site. "There
have been no impact studies on ancillary and downstream projects-ship
building yard, steel plant, fertilizer plant-as a result of port,"
said a report by Sudarshan Rodrigues and Aarti Shreedhar of ATREE. The
Orissa state government is planning 11 ports, including Dhamra. The
state wants to be on par with other maritime states and has proposed a
slngle window agency for development of ports and Inland waterways. At
this point, the Importance of regulations and safeguards cannot be
overstated.

The New Indian Express, 23rd May 2009