Environmentalists punch holes in EIA on Muthurajawela land reclamation

by Rathindra Kuruwita

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report on the Muthurajawela land reclamation activities for the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant had a number of holes and implementing the project would have devastating ecological, hydrological and socio-economic impacts, environmentalists said yesterday

They said that given that fact Sri Lanka, too, would stop using LNG by the 2040s, the entire project would be a waste of public funds.

Environmental Officer at the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) Indika Rajapaksha said that the project required the filling of 47 hectares of land, 30 that belonged to the Sri Lanka Land Development Corporation and 17 that belonged to the Wattala Divisional Secretariat.

“The project is to use 1.1 million cubic metres of sand from sea and the sand will be taken from a sand burrowing site that was used previously for the Port City Project. However, those who prepared the EIA do not know the current status of the site. We have already burrowed 60 million cubes of sand to the Port City from this site. These will definitely have an impact on the fish, corals and sea grass beds, which in turn will have a devastating impact on the fishermen in the area,” Rajapaksha said.

Meanwhile, filling up 47 hectares of marsh land would have a significant impact on the flood retention capacity of Muthurajawela, he said. The EIA erroneously stated that only 1% of the flood retention area would be reduced by the project, however the real number was close to 25%, Rajapaksha said.

“The EIA does a neat trick. When those who prepared the EIA, calculated the total flood retention area, they had also considered a lot of land in the Negombo lagoon. However, if we look at the flood retention area of Muthurajawela it’s only 207 hectares,” he said.

The CEJ Environmental Officer said that in 2020, Professor. Prasanthi Gunawardena of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura did an ecosystem survey of Muthurajawela marsh and estimated its annual value at Rs. 2.74 billion.

Meanwhile, independent energy expert Vidhura Ralapanawe said that the earliest LNG plants at the site will be built only in 2027. However, the policy of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration is to have 70% of power through renewable energy, he said. Moreover in August 2019, Sri Lanka had pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050.

“To meet either of these goals, we can’t have a fossil fuel plant after the one that will be built in 2024. However, the CEB says it plans to build two LNG plants in 2027 and 2033. These plants can’t be built, because it’s against policy. Recently, President Rajapaksa has insisted that he will not support the construction of fossil fuel plants and that he is quite serious about his renewable energy goals. So, what is even the point of filling the marsh land?,” Ralapanawe asked.

He said that if the government went ahead with the project, it would be another indication of the lack of communication between various branches of the government.