That there is no area in the Kavuthi Malai and Vendiappan Malai of Tiruvannamalai that is ‘ecologically fragile’ and that iron ore does not contain any toxic element are just two of the claims of the Tamil Nadu Iron Ore Mining Corporation that are being pooh-poohed by environmentalists and forest officials.
The claim has been made in the executive summary of the Rapid Environment Impact Assessment (REIA) report and the Environment Management Plan submitted with the application seeking approval for iron ore mining in the reserved forest of Kavuthi Malai and Vediappan Malai.
Mark Cherniak, a scientist with Environment Law Alliance World Wide (E-Law), US, says: ‘The area of the project is a forested area and forests are among the most threatened and vulnerable ecological assets around the world.
Supporting his view, local forest officials, too, say that it is ironical to classify the two hills as not ecologically fragile. Forest officials had explained to the Central Empowerment Committee that visited the area before forest clearance was given for the project that mining operations would disturb the entire ecosystem of the district.
‘If lakhs of trees are felled it will lead to soil erosion, affect the ground water storage and disturb the wildlife. The forest is home for endangered species like monitor lizard, pangolin and more than 60 varieties of birds’, they say.
The assessment report says that no top soil is expected to begenerated in the mining plan period and the waste shall be dumped in the pre-determined dumping place outside the mine area.
But Piyush Sethia of ‘Speak Out Salem’, the NGO that spearheads the anti-mining movement, says: It is literally impossible to mine without removing the topsoil of the hills. Forest officials too concur with him.
On the pre-determined dumping place outside the mine areas, Sethia points out that it has not explained about the place selected for the waste disposal.
Disputing the point that iron ore does not contain any toxic element, Cherniak says, ‘acid-mine drainage from an iron ore mine in China has caused alarming levels of cadmium and lead to contamination of surface water and locally-grown rice and vegetables,’ citing a scientific publication ‘Agricultural soils irrigated acidic mine water: acidity, heavy metals, and crop contamination’ in the Australian Journal of Soil Research.
Though the assessment report says that afforestation will be done over the waste dump slopes by spreading or utilizing the topsoil segregated and stacked separately, in the previous pages of the report, it is stated: ‘No topsoil is expected to be generated in the plan period,’ enviornmentalists point out.
Then, it is not known from where the water - the report says that the requirement will be about 560 cubic million/day - will come from, when the district administration has already reduced the supply from Sathanur dam for irrigation from 110 days to 90 days per year, says Kumar Ambayiram, a local environmentaal activitist.
Above all, the report is silent on where beneficiation and pelletization plant, which will require at least 100 acres of land, will be set up, points out Sethia.
Source: Express Buzz
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