The Hindu, January 21, 2015
The debate over the possible biodiversity impact of the
Athirappilly hydroelectric project has resumed with the Environmental
Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment all set to
consider the project proposal mooted by the Kerala State Electricity
Board (KSEB).
The KSEB had recently submitted a
report to the Ministry on the availability of water in the Chalakudy
river system. The board is hopeful that the project would be cleared, J.
Baburaj, Director (Generation), KSEB, said. Once the Ministry approves
the proposals, the project will take off, he said.
Renewed bid
It
was following a report of the High-Level Working Group (HLWG) on the
Western Ghats that the KSEB renewed its attempt to get the project back
on track.
Incidentally, the Western Ghats Ecology
Expert Panel had rejected the project, highlighting its impact on the
riparian ecosystem of the region.
Meanwhile, a group
of scientists had questioned the biodiversity impact report, prepared by
a scientist of the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and
Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, which was used by the board for
piloting the project.
They had also written to the
HLWG stating that the “project – the seventh dam along the 145-km course
of the river – will no doubt be a death knell to the last remaining
population of endemic species of flora and fauna of the river as the
reservoir will be a totally unconducive habitat for the specialised and
adapted species.”
The report was prepared on a
request from K. Kasturirangan, the chairman of the HLWG, after a debate
on the biodiversity impact of the project, T.V. Sajeev, Head, Entomology
Department, Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), Peechi, said.
The habitats of dragonflies, spiders, a host of fish varieties, snakes, and amphibians, including fossorial fossil frog
Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis,
and the migration routes of elephants would be impacted by the proposed dam, Dr. Sajeev said.
Unique location
According
to the report, the riparian forests along the river are a location in
the southern Western Ghats where three important hornbill species
coexist.
The proposed dam will have compounded impact
on biodiversity caused by the existing dams, which have resulted in
loss of riparian forest continuity, change in river flow and vegetation
type, and local extinction of low elevation riverine species, the report
said.
A few scientists from the KFRI and the
Zoological Survey of India, Kozhikode, and activists of the Western
Ghats Hornbill Foundation and Malabar Natural History Society had
contributed to the report, he said.
