Cheyyur power plant is disaster calling: Greens
Environmentalists are up-in-arms saying the mistakes that led to the Chennai floods are being repeated in Cheyyur.
Chennai: A new case study titled “Chennai Today; Cheyyur Tomorrow – Impact of Rains on Cheyyur UMPP 4000MW Thermal Power Project” has highlighted the hydrological implications of the proposed 4000-MW Cheyyur thermal power project.
Environmentalists are up-in-arms saying the mistakes that led to the Chennai floods are being repeated in Cheyyur, where state and central Governments are pushing for a 4000 MW coal-fired power plant that will encroach on waterbodies and block drainage routes, thereby making the area highly prone to flooding.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, hydrogeologist J. Saravanan, Dr T. Swaminathan, Prof (Retd), IIT-Madras, and Dr. S. Janakarajan, Prof (Retd), Madras Institute of Development Studies, said the Chennai floods should teach us that development that harms nature will be disastrous.
They said revenue records reveal that the project will encroach on more th-an 160 acres of water bodies, including backwaters, tidal flats, ponds and streams. As per Public Works Department records, Cheyyur has 81 irrigation eris, including the 10th century Vedal eri.
Locating the power plant in such an ecologically and hydrologically sensitive zone will imperil the power plant and surrounding communities. The Cheyyur case is a classic example of how things go wrong. The activists claim that the project proponent has made fraudulent declarations to the government stating that there are no waterbodies in or near the project site. It has assumed maximum 24-hour rainfall of 280 mm whereas on December 1 alone 380 mm of rains fell in one day in Cheyyur.
Despite these flaws being pointed out, the Ministry of Environment & Forests and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board have cleared the project. “The blame for any future floods in this area will lie squarely on the TNPCB and MoEF officials that have cleared this project,” said Nityanand Jayaraman, a writer and social activist.
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