After Rampal, furnace oil power plant at Mongla!
THE news item published in a Bangla newspaper on December 21 that PDB is planning to set up a 150 MW furnace oil power plant near Mongla is alarming. The report comes at a time when Unesco World Heritage Centre, Ramsar Secretariat and environmentalists in the country have expressed serious concern about the impact of the oil spill in the Shela river on the biodiversity and ecology of the Sundarbans, a national and international heritage site. The report further says that permission has been accorded to a private company without inviting tender! The plant will be run by furnace oil and the electricity produced will cost Tk. 17.75 taka per unit.
It was learnt that a proposal from the company, processed by the PDB, has been sent to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. The plant will need 10.5 lakh litres of furnace oil daily to run. It will daily need 3 oil tankers of the size that sank in the Shela river on December 9. That means there will have to be a permanent oil reserve of 20 million litres.
When people throughout the country have been protesting against setting up of the Rampal power plant within 14 km of the Sundarbans, some sectors of the government continue to take such moves fraught with danger and risk. Okaying such proposals, defying environmental regulations, highlights the ignorance, callousness and indifference of the policy making cell of the government. Environmentalists and eminent people have expressed their concern reiterating the fact that setting up power plants in the vicinity of the Sundarbans, whether it is coal-based or furnace oil based, will put the Sundarbans at grave risk. We can neither create nor replicate another Sundarbans but we can set up power plants in any other place in the country.
It would be folly to be complacent that the Sundarbans has recovered from the damage of the recent oil spill, rather the spill has started taking its toll. Oil spills often result in both immediate and long term environmental damage, some of which can last for decades. When an oil slick from a large spill reaches the shore or beach, the oil coats and clings to every grain of sand and mud. If the oil washes into coastal marshes, mangrove forests or wetlands, fibrous plants and grasses absorb the oil which can damage the plants and make the whole area unsuitable for wildlife habitat.
When this oil begins to sink into the marine environment, it can have the same effect on underwater ecosystems, killing or contaminating many fish and smaller organisms that are essential links in the global food chain. Even a small amount of oil can be deadly to a bird. By coating the feathers, oil not only makes it impossible for birds to fly but also destroys their natural waterproofing and insulation, leaving them vulnerable to hypothermia and overheating. As the birds preen their fathers to restore their natural protection, they often swallow some of the oil, which can severely damage their internal organs and lead to death.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 killed somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 seabirds, thousands of sea otters and many rare bald eagles. The spill occurred in 1989 but a 2007 study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that oil spill was still trapped in the sand along the Alaska shoreline. There is no reason to think that damage to mangroves and marine species due to this spill will disappear in just about a week or a month, as our shipping minister is prone to believe.
Even when marine mammals escape the immediate effects, the oil spill can cause damage by contaminating their food supply. Marine mammals that eat fish or other food that has been exposed to an oil spill may be poisoned by the oil and die eventually. The long term damage to various species, and to the habitat and nesting or breeding grounds those species depend upon for their survival, is one of the most far-reaching effects caused by oil spills.
Studies conducted by the Fisheries and Marine Resources technology experts at Khulna university say that oil spill has hampered the growth of micro-organisms like phytoplankton and zooplankton that are at the base of the food web in an aquatic environment to the extent of 40% to 80%. Moreover, aquatic species that have failed to migrate will have consumed oil, and this will have devastating effect on the fish population.
Projects like Rampal or Mongla that went ahead defying expert and public opinion, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) restriction, and with total disregard of environmental safety and ecology in other countries of the world had to be abandoned later in the face of public protest, resentment and criticism. People had to pay an unacceptable and unnecessary price when such reckless development projects were implemented defying public opinion. After the 'World Commission Report on Dams' was made public, four dams across the Snake River in Washington were decommissioned because they threatened the survival of salmon, a prized fish.
The decision about Rampal power plant was taken ignoring the opposition from the environment and forest ministry and in defiance of the regulations related to conservation of wild life and biodiversity in the country.
At the height of a long debate and persistent mounting protest, it must be said that the Sundarbans forest, a unique national and world heritage site must be left on its own. The government must review its decision of setting up power plants in the vicinity of the Sundarbans. The explanation given to the people that Rampal power plant would be super critical and will not emit any toxic gas or ash that will endanger the biodiversity and wild life habitat of the Sundarbans, must be taken with a grain of salt. Only time can tell what will happen and it must be noted that any untoward change on the delicate ecology of the Sundarbans will be irreversible.
The writer is a columnist of The Daily Star.
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