meters deep at Adams Bridge. The aim of this project is to reduce the travel time of Indian ships that have to circumnavigate Sri Lanka. The Navy and Coast Guard have formulated the initial plans and the Tuticorin Port Authority is its implementing agency.  It deserves the attention of the people of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, for any benefits it brings may be accompanied by grave environmental damage.

With the new Indian Government in place, the DMK party of Tamil Nadu that has obtained the portfolio of the Ministry for Shipping and Environment of India seeks to implement this project. The Minister of Shipping (T.R. Baalu) said in his first news conference that

“the feasibility report is scrapped. No more waiting for feasibility reports … A copy of the application to the state PCB (Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board) will be forwarded to me. I will ask my colleague – A.Raja, Minister of Environment and Forests belonging to the DMK – to ensure speedy clearance for the Sethusamuduram project” (Asian Tribune, June 1, 2004). 

 

Internationally, if a project risks disturbing the environment or proving a nuisance or hazard, then its proponent is required to ensure that the project is safe, that damage is minimized and adequate steps are taken to ensure that consequences are managed.

Here the proponent, an arm of the Tamil Nadu State, is under pressure from state politicians to implement the project. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) team is usually under pressure to produce a report favoring the implementation of the project as the proponent pays them.  The project approving authority is under pressure to ensure its approval as evident from the quote of the Minister. With the proponent, the consultants and the reviewers under political pressure to expedite the project; will the Tamil Nadu authorities balance the risks and benefits to their citizens fairly?

 

Although, a summary of the Environmental Impact Assessment has been released by the Port Authority of Tuticorin, the details of the excavation that has been planned or the engineering of it has not been released. For example, the summary EIA report dismisses the possibility of various small islands being submerged in the long-term and does not explicitly address the risk of dredging leading to ocean currents short-circuiting through the Palk Straits. As another example, consider the proposal to manage environmental impacts in the summary EIA:  

·        Traffic of crude tankers will be allowed with vigilance to ensure no possibility of spillages

·        Oil spill contingency plan will be drawn up to prevent spread of spillage in Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay Area

·        Ships shall not use anti-corrosive paints on the ship bottom and will have proper sewage treatment plants

·        Discharge of oily waters, bilge, ballast, treated sewage and pillage of cargo will not be allowed in the Gulf of Mannar.

·        Accidents by collision of ships with fishing boats will be totally prevented.

 

This prompts obvious questions for Sri Lanka, such as

• How will collision of ships with fishing boats be “totally prevented” when smugglers and militants have been crossing the Palk Straights at will for several decades? 
• One of the selling points of the project is that India can use the canal for military operations. Will the warships be subjected to rules in emergencies? Will there be a ban on nuclear vessels?  
• What if saboteurs and suicide attackers ram oil tankers or warships? Who shall respond to it on the Indian and Sri Lanka sides? What penalties will ensue if there is an oil spill? 
• In case of failures or shortcomings in the EIA and project implementation, will there be an independent mechanism to compensate victims fairly and pay for clean up and restoration?  Shall the victims in Sri Lanka be compensated? 

 

The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, USA was only ranked 53rd in terms of size of tanker spills: but because it was close the coast, humans were tremendously affected.  It brought about the greatest clean up effort in history, the greatest programme of scientific study, the greatest news media coverage and by far the greatest settlement for damages – all this was possible because of the infrastructure (legal, scientific, technical, advocacy, media) in the United States of America. But neither Tamil Nadu nor Sri Lanka have such an infrastructure to deal with an oil spill. The damage even from a small spill may be grave as two coasts bound these shallow Palk Straits.   

 

When the risks are grave, one should be careful even if it has only a small chance of coming to pass. The Sri Lankan government should proactively conduct an assessment of risks, impacts and mitigation options and engage with the Indian side. After all, neither pollution nor monsoons nor toxins nor fish respect political boundaries.

 

 

Oceanography of the Palk Straits

 

The changes in ocean currents will depend on the details of the excavation. The danger lies, in the following. As the passage is cut, the current across the Straits will increase and will gorge the passage deeper and wider. It will lead to a cycle, with the rise in current and the enlargement of the passage feeding each other. Finally, the currents in-between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, which go around Sri Lanka may short-circuit through the Straits.

 

To understand, why such a short-circuit is possible, we need to know about the ocean currents in the Indian Ocean close to Sri Lanka.  Here, currents that come travel along the equator, those that come from open seas and those driven along the coasts of India, merge, clash and set off eddies and waves. The ocean current is driven from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea during the North-East monsoon and from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal during the South-West monsoon.  During the NE monsoon, the East Indian Coastal Current (EICC) travels down the East coast impelled by the monsoon winds and fed by the discharge of the rivers along the West Coast. These currents are particularly rapid when there are heavy rains or cyclones.  During the South-West monsoon, the West Indian Coastal Current (WICC) travels down the West Coast. To the South of Sri Lanka, during the South-West and North-East monsoons the Equatorial Monsoon Current (EMC) flows West and East.

 

Computer models of the ocean circulation around Sri Lanka have been implemented at various research centres. One difficulty in simulating the flow around Sri Lanka is, that there is no estimate of the actual volume of water that flows across the Palk Straits. When the gap between Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu is kept closed, the regional oceanic behaviour is reproduced realistically. When a narrow channel is left open across the Palk Straits, the currents gush rapidly through it distorting the ocean currents. Since, the sea is shallow across the land bridge from Mannar to Rameshwaram, there will be little flow across it as intuited by the model. If indeed there was a sufficiently large passage, part of the EICC and WICC will gush through the Straits

 

Possible Environmental Impacts of Deepening the Straits

 

a) Biotic Life and Fisheries

The littoral oceans are far from homogeneous. The flow of rainwater and river-water and seasonal coastal currents have over millennia set up a complex geography of the biotic life. If the currents change, so will the temperature, the salinity, the nutrients and the biotic profile. If one were to shock this ecosystem by flushing the Bay of Bengal into the Arabian Sea through it, the biotic life will be irrevocably altered. After all, the Palk seas are tranquil enough that banks of oysters have formed. Along with the biotic life and the food chain goes the fish. Since there is heavy fishing in the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar, the implications are serious.  

 

b) Oil Spills and Pollution

Apart from accidentall oil spills, ships flush wastes and unwanted cargo into the sea. Lately, there have been oil slicks reaching the Western Coasts. At present, pollution and oil slicks to the South of Sri Lanka will be transported away from the peninsula and diluted in the Indian Ocean by the ocean currents. However, if the Palk currents are increased, more pollutants and discharges from ships travelling through the straits will reach the Tamil Nadu and Western Sri Lanka coast.  

 

c) Dust and Toxins from the Excavation

Digging up the ocean passage will stir up dust and toxins that lay beneath the ocean bed. It boggles the mind to imagine the impact of such massive dredging. The corals in the region have begun to die because of a modest rise in sea temperature. These interventions are minor compared to what may come if the coastal currents are substantially increased. There has been no systematic survey of the geology of the ocean bed that is to be excavated.

 

d) Coastal Erosion

An upsurge of coastal currents can lead to higher tides and more energetic ocean waves that will erode the coast. Indeed many of the harbours and coastal structures may become vulnerable as they have been designed based on the present ocean dynamics.

 

e) Climate

Only now world over scientists understand the profound impact of the oceans on climate. The winds, salinity, temperature and moisture fluxes in the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea affect the details of the island’s climate.

 

 

It may be that the hazards, that are speculated on, are remote -- but who knows. One should be cautious when there are grave hazards, even if the odds are small. Such a project should have been preceded by detailed multi-faceted studies of the seas, adequate publicity regarding its form and wide consultation.

 

Laws, Politics and Diplomacy

 

All of these environmental impacts will bear on Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and maybe Kerala. Even if this project was carefully planned and executed, there would still be pervasive environmental impacts. It is one of those tragedies of environmental affairs that projects with immediate human and cultural damage garner attention, while those that could profoundly alter our habitat but remain out of sight, do not. The oceans remain out of sight and oil spills, waste dumping and over-fishing are neglected.

 

Sri Lanka and India have an agreement dividing the sea between the two countries in 1976. One promise of the agreement was that there would be no international shipping in the Straits. In addition, there is the law of the seas that should be respected. 

 

Sethusamudram will be a cut through the Indian side of the Straits. Yet, its impact will not only be on India but also on Sri Lanka. On the Indian side, the DMK ministers are confident of approval of the Indian environmental authority. But under the present laws, the issue of environmental assessment will not come up on the Sri Lankan side. Hence, the intervention of the current Ministry is to be applauded.

 

The old concepts of property rights that demarcated sovereignty based on geography are suspect for regional environmental issues. What sense does it make to claim sovereignty over the fish that swim with no care, the atmosphere or the oceans that cross sovereign boundaries? Only now are the lawmakers trying to improve on this and one cannot wait. The regional environmental impact is best addressed through bilateral consultation.

 

This project has been presented as a done deal conceived 130 years ago by a British Colonial Officer in an attempt to forestall opposition in and out of India? The colonial British civil servant was wont to come up with such grand schemes knowing little and caring little for the welfare of the inhabitants.   The response to this project must not be in terms of military gains, politics and diplomacy alone. The health, habitat and livelihoods of the coastal dwellers and fisherfolks should not be left to the tunnel visions of politicians, military or officers of the ex-British Empire.  

 

Lareef Zubair  is a researcher at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, slmohn@sltnet.lk and Founder, Sri Lanka Meteorology, Oceanography and Hydrology Network. http://www.climate.lk/