22 July 2020
Director General,
Central Environmental Authority,
104, Denzil Kobbekaduwa Mawatha,
Battaramulla
Dear Sir,
COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED SEETHAWAKA GANGA HYDROPOWER PROJECT (SGHP)
BIO DIVERSITY IN THE AREA
E FLOW CALCULATION
SILTATION RELATED ISSUES
ABSENCE OF STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
NO REFERENCE TO THE ACCUMULATED IMPACTS
PUBLIC HEARING
Finally, we request you to arrange an ORAL PUBLIC HEARING for us to make a submission on these matters,
CONCLUSION
Absence on a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEIA), no study on the accumulated impacts, leads to inadequacy of baseline information to make hard to come up with a final opinion. We hope you remember in our court case SC FR 57/2017 we have come to an agreement on the importance of the SEIA however it had an unfortunate ending due to the U turn taken by the Sustainable Energy Authority due to political reasons and the pressure by the mini-hydro developers. It would have provide adequate baseline and consensus on the remaining capacity of the Sithawaka Ganga for mini-hydro power and some of the doubts would not have aroused. Absence of such a study we remain doubtful about the carrying capacity of the Sithawaka Ganga and the true impacts.
However, We strictly urge you to consider above matters and the proposed environment management plan to make sure no serious negative environmental impacts and maintain best safety practices during the project implementation.
Thank you
Yours sincerely
Hemantha Withanage
Centre for Environmental Justice
Indika Rajapaksha
Environmental Officer