KARACHI: The government must stop the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) from running a coal yard in Shirin Jinnah Colony and dumping of coal in different areas of the city as this has seriously endangered both human life and environment.

This demand was put forward by an air quality expert at a discussion held at a local hotel on Thursday.

Titled ‘Media briefing on petition on air pollution in Karachi’, the event was organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NEFH).

“Apart from the coal yard in Shireen Jinnah Colony, the KPT is dumping coal at 25 different locations in the city. No safety measures exist at these locations nor safety is ensured during transportation of coal, endangering both human life and environment,” claimed Saquib Ejaz Hussain, an expert on air quality, calling upon the government to take notice of the situation and force KPT to follow environmental laws.

The KPT, he pointed out, had started dumping coal in other parts of Karachi after the high court, taking action on a petition filed in 2014, ordered the trust to limit the height of coal stockpile in Shirin Jinnah Colony to five metres.

“While they reduced volume of coal stockpile in Shirin Jinnah Colony, they started dumping coal at other sites in Karachi,” he explained, adding the KPT had been running the coal yard without carrying out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study of the hazardous project for many years.

Two EIAs were conducted on the coal yard only after the court gave relevant directives, he said.

“The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), a major stakeholder in the case, made coal yard’s operation conditional to fulfilling a long list of safety measures after the court took up the case. None of which have ever been followed by KPT as coal is dumped, handled and transported in complete disregard to environmental laws,” he said.

Mr Hussain also shared recent data of air quality collected from Clifton Block 1, Clifton Block 2 and Shireen Jinnah Colony, the areas badly affected by coal yard’s operation, which showed that the air was filled with fine dust particles which posed serious threat to health.

Residents of these areas had again sought recourse from the court.

To a question, he said around 900,000 tonnes of coal was being imported yearly and brought to Karachi, which would see an increase in coal-based activities as more projects within Sindh and elsewhere become operational.

Hundreds and thousands of tonnes of coal was then transported in other parts of the country in open trucks, he said, adding that 10pc of coal was lost if it was transported in this way.

An ideal situation, according to him, would have been that the government opted for renewable energy options for electricity generation. But, since huge investments have already been made, public emphasis now should be on how to force the government to implement environmental laws.

“We don’t know about the quality of coal being imported in the country. Ironically, there are no standards on coal quality as well,” he observed.

Mr Veno Advani, a Supreme Court petitioner in a case pertaining to country’s rapidly degrading air, spoke about his struggle in pursuing the case.

“The most important thing is that there is little realisation about the severity of the situation as we can’t see that we are inhaling extremely bad air,” he said, adding that children were the most vulnerable to the ill effects of poor quality air.

Qazi Ali Athar, a senior environmental lawyer, regretted public apathy when the case of Thar coal came and needed strong opposition.

He was of the opinion that coal as source of fuel should be completely rejected as the world, including China, which is making huge investments in Pakistan in coal-based projects, was moving away from this resource.

Expressing disappointment over the performance of environment tribunals, he said: “They have been of no use because a citizen can’t directly approach them. There is a long procedure and ‘matters’ are settled at the Sepa level before they could reach the tribunal.”

He criticised the way the government went ahead with the nuclear power plants in Karachi, ignoring environmental safeguards and violating its own rules and regulations.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2018