Rampal Coal Power Project: A curse for the world
If anyone votes “yes” to coal based power plant, please ask the Americans. With over 500 coal based power plants dotted around the USA today, each American goes to bed every day with the guilt of being the largest polluter of this planet.
For America it had all started very early 20th century. Cursed by naivety, greed and ignorance, America launched itself to building hundreds of these power stations all over its territory. No matter what happens to our mother earth, its priority was to get prosperous. And America’s prosperity came at a cost, currently being paid by the entire population of this world and Bangladesh being in the forefront. In 2011, utility coal plants in the United States alone emitted a total of 1.7 billion tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide), the principal cause for global warming.
In 2010, a motorcade carrying a top delegation arrived at the Shapmari Koighardashkathi area, about nine kilometers away from the Sundarbans mangrove forest under Rampal police station of Bagherhat district.
As unsuspecting villagers looked on, the members of the delegation stood by the main road and discussed, frequently pointing their fingers at the vast agricultural expanse stretching before them. For the villagers of Rampal and the rest of the world, the three 20th century American curses had just landed at their doorsteps.
Suicide: The pollution from a coal powered plant
The Bangladeshi state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) and the Indian state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) agreed to jointly develop a coal based power plant in one of the most ecologically sensitive areas of the world. When completed the two-unit plant will produce 1320 MW electricity for our prosperity. The project was named Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company (Pvt) Ltd (BIFPC)
In the process of agreeing to such a project at such a location the government ignored so many adverse consequences that scientists and environmentalists around the world are surprised and worried. The very location of the plant, 9 kilometers (six km for a bird’s flight) from the Sundarbans, violates one of the basic environmental requirements, which demands such highly polluting projects to be outside a 25-kilometer radius from the outer periphery of an ecologically sensitive area.
The Rampal project clashes with the Ramsar Convention too. The Ramsar Convention is the only global environmental treaty that deals with the preservation of wetlands. Bangladesh signed the convention in 1992. Sundarbans and Tanguar Haor are marked as Ramsar areas.
Interestingly, the way the project got approval in Bangladesh remains a joke that could never be cracked with the Indian authorities defending its ‘Wild Life Protection Act 1972’. The Act prohibits building a power plant (let alone coal based) with wildlife reservations, national parks and forestry within its 15 kilometer radius.
It is hard to comprehend why one should select an area for a highly polluting mega project like coal based power plant so close to the Sundarbans, declared a global heritage site by the UNESCO in 1997. It is even harder to conceive how the present government, which has been globally so vocal against climate threats, is so adamant in setting up this mega project in Rampal, so near to one of the most fascinating mangrove forests in the world. It is also hard to believe that the same ‘environment friendly government’ had decided to declare a part of Poshur and Andharmanik rivers sanctuaries for dolphins. The Poshur and Andharmanik are just round the corner from the Rampal plant.
Let’s look into what Rampal horror project, stretching over 1,834 acres of land, might reserve for us, if implemented. According to US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, the plant is likely to burn around 4.75 million tonnes of low quality Indian coal annually. The burning of coal would generate some 300,000 tonnes of ashes and around 500,000 tonnes of sludge or liquid waste. It would also emit a huge volume of carbon dioxide, some other toxic gases (see list below) and tons and tons of airborne particles.
The plant will need to import 4.72 million tons of coal per year. This massive freight will need about 59 ships each having 80,000-ton capacity that would be taken to the port on the bank of the river Poshur. The 40-kilometer waterway from the port to the plant winds through the Sundarbans. The very traffic through the mangrove could trigger a range of disasters for the area. There has already been an environmental disaster when an oil tanker carrying furnace oil, collided with a cargo vessel late last year. Within a week of the accident, the oil spill spread over 350 square kilometres in the Sundarbans, and threatened trees, plankton, fish and even dolphins, not to mention the damage it did to the whole mangrove ecosystem. Environmentalists say the coal-carrying vehicles which shall power the proposed Rampal power plant, are often not covered and scatter large amounts of fly ash, coal dust and sulfur.
From the scanty information available about the project scientists also presume it will possibly use deep tubewells to draw an estimated 25,000 cubic meters of water a day, required for the thermal generation. Extraction of such a volume of water every day will certainly cause the groundwater level to drop, bringing in fresh threats of disaster.
More alarmingly, the relatively hotter wastewater from the plant — treated or not – will be dumped into the river, threatening all aquatic life form in the vicinity and far away places.
Socially the project is set to cause havoc too. Displaced villagers, mainly dependent on agriculture, have already lost their dependency on farming. The impact will definitely reflect on the internal migration issue.
Now let’s look into what our heritage, the Sundarbans, has reserved for us for centuries. The exceptional biodiversity of the Sundarbans makes it the pride of the entire humanity. The Sundarbans is home to a wide range of flora and fauna, including the Bengal Tiger, 260 bird species, estuarine crocodile, spotted deer, the python and many other animals. The forest is a major player in the continual ecological processes such as monsoon rains, flooding, delta formation, tidal influence and plant colonisation. The Sundarbans is crisscrossed by a formidable network of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands of salt-tolerant mangrove forests.
Are they cursed too?: The spotted deer of the Sundarbans.
Sundri and Gewu species of trees dominate its landscape and patches of Nypa palm and several other mangrove species naturally create an amazing flood and storm barrier for the millions who live around it.
The Sundarbans is already facing threats from pollution, deforestation, rise in salinity and extinction of many species mainly due to human carelessness, ignorance and lack of implementation of laws, poaching and illegal wildlife trade.
Human interference on the Sundarbans, in the name of development, has never been more intense. To export coal, building of a deep-water anchorage at Akram Point, in the middle of the Sundarbans is now underway. The construction of a naval shipyard nearby is also nearing completion. The list of so-called development projects in or dangerously around the Sundarbans is becoming larger and larger by the day. Ministers are publicly earmarking Sundarbans areas for setting up ship breaking yards. Here we are not exploring the intentions of the big international companies eyeing the world heritage site for exploration of oil and gas.
The Rampal coal based power project is a blatant curse for the world that our government is miserably failing to acknowledge.
Researched and written by Morshed Ali Khan
Photos : Courtesy
Short URL: https://reportsbd.com/?p=473
Posted by Reportsbd
on Jun 11 2015. Filed under Environment, Home Slide, Special Features.
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