KARACHI, March 6 The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has asked the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) to immediately stop ongoing massive dredging and reclamation of land along Clifton beach since it is illegal and in total disregard of the country's environmental laws, it emerged on Saturday.
The dredging work was being undertaken by the KPT as part of its programme to build a deepwater container terminal. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had performed the groundbreaking of the dredging and reclamation works on April 18, 2009.
Speaking to Dawn, Sepa Director-General Naeem A. Mughal said that the KPT through a letter on Saturday had categorically been informed that it could not continue the dredging and reclamation of land without obtaining a statutory environmental clearance.
He said that at the moment the work being undertaken by the KPT was illegal and against the environmental laws.
The port has also been asked first to fulfil the requirements communicated to it in line with the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (Pepa), 1997, to avoid a fine and prosecution.
Conservationists had already apprehended significant adverse environmental, ecological and social impact of the new port development activities, particularly in the absence of any independent monitoring and approved environmental management plan.
In an interview reported earlier, KPT General Manager retired Brigadier Syed Jamshed Zaidi had told Dawn that after reclamation of eight-million-cubic-metre land, it would be handed over to a Hong Kong-based firm, which had agreed to initially invest 450 million dollars, for developing it into a fully-fledged state-of-the-art container terminal. Some of the berths planned under the terminal project would become operational by the end of 2012.
According to sources, Sepa in its latest communication to the KPT says that after some news reports and site inspection by its officers it had been established that dredging and land reclamation on a large scale has taken place along Clifton beach near the Oyster Rocks Islands, which is probably part of construction and development of some deepwater container terminal project of the KPT.
The agency also referred to Section 12 of Pepa and said that the approval of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) by an environmental protection agency for all the development projects was mandatory. Section 12 reads “No proponents of a project shall commence construction or operation unless he has filed with the government agency designated by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency or Provincial Environmental Protection Agency, as the case may be, or, where the project is likely to cause adverse environmental effects an environmental impact assessment, and has obtained from government agency approval in respect thereof”.
The sources said that Sepa had further pointed out to the KPT that a legal provision (Section 19 of Pepa, 1997) made it mandatory for the government agencies, local authorities or local councils as well to abide by Pepa while undertaking projects. Any non-compliance warrants action against the management of the organisation concerned.
Sepa, in its letter addressed to the KPT general manager, directed to immediately halt the dredging and reclamation of the sea until an EIA report is submitted and approved thereof by Sepa.
It also asked the KPT to ensure submission of the EIA report within next 15 days otherwise the matter will be referred to the Environmental Protection Tribunal.