Showing posts with label water management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water management. Show all posts
27 May 2010
Water and Irrigation in Pakistan
An enlightening talk by Dr. Danish Mustafa of Kings' College London
05 April 2010
War or Peace on the Indus
Dr. John Briscoe is a former World Bank official who specialized in water. He is now the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering, Harvard University.
Dr. Briscoe makes a strong case regarding water sharing between India and Pakistan through the Indus Water Treaty. It is cool calm voice in a sea of hysteria, and it should be given serious consideration.
Taken from The News (http://www.thenews.com.pk/arc_news.asp?id=9&arc_date=4/3/2010)
Anyone foolish enough to write on war or peace in the Indus needs to first banish a set of immediate suspicions. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am a South African who has worked on water issues in the subcontinent for 35 years and who has lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (in the 2000s). In 2006 I published, with fine Indian colleagues, an Oxford University Press book titled India's Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and, with fine Pakistani colleagues, one titled Pakistan's Water Economy: Running Dry.
I was the Senior Water Advisor for the World Bank who dealt with the appointment of the Neutral Expert on the Baglihar case. My last assignment at the World Bank (relevant, as described later) was as Country Director for Brazil. I am now a mere university professor, and speak in the name of no one but myself.
I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries. I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late.
Is there an inherent conflict between India and Pakistan?
The simple answer is no. The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the water of the three western rivers to Pakistan, but allows India to tap the considerable hydropower potential of the Chenab and Jhelum before the rivers enter Pakistan.
The qualification is that this use of hydropower is not to affect either the quantity of water reaching Pakistan or to interfere with the natural timing of those flows. Since hydropower does not consume water, the only issue is timing. And timing is a very big issue, because agriculture in the Pakistani plains depends not only on how much water comes, but that it comes in critical periods during the planting season. The reality is that India could tap virtually all of the available power without negatively affecting the timing of flows to which Pakistan is entitled.
Is the Indus Treaty a stable basis for cooperation?
If Pakistan and India had normal, trustful relations, there would be a mutually-verified monitoring process which would assure that there is no change in the flows going into Pakistan. (In an even more ideal world, India could increase low-flows during the critical planting season, with significant benefit to Pakistani farmers and with very small impacts on power generation in India.) Because the relationship was not normal when the treaty was negotiated, Pakistan would agree only if limitations on India's capacity to manipulate the timing of flows was hardwired into the treaty. This was done by limiting the amount of "live storage" (the storage that matters for changing the timing of flows) in each and every hydropower dam that India would construct on the two rivers.
While this made sense given knowledge in 1960, over time it became clear that this restriction gave rise to a major problem. The physical restrictions meant that gates for flushing silt out of the dams could not be built, thus ensuring that any dam in India would rapidly fill with the silt pouring off the young Himalayas.
This was a critical issue at stake in the Baglihar case. Pakistan (reasonably) said that the gates being installed were in violation of the specifications of the treaty. India (equally reasonably) argued that it would be wrong to build a dam knowing it would soon fill with silt. The finding of the Neutral Expert was essentially a reinterpretation of the Treaty, saying that the physical limitations no longer made sense. While the finding was reasonable in the case of Baglihar, it left Pakistan without the mechanism – limited live storage – which was its only (albeit weak) protection against upstream manipulation of flows in India. This vulnerability was driven home when India chose to fill Baglihar exactly at the time when it would impose maximum harm on farmers in downstream Pakistan.
If Baglihar was the only dam being built by India on the Chenab and Jhelum, this would be a limited problem. But following Baglihar is a veritable caravan of Indian projects – Kishanganga, Sawalkot, Pakuldul, Bursar, Dal Huste, Gyspa… The cumulative live storage will be large, giving India an unquestioned capacity to have major impact on the timing of flows into Pakistan. (Using Baglihar as a reference, simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, suggest that once it has constructed all of the planned hydropower plants on the Chenab, India will have an ability to effect major damage on Pakistan. First, there is the one-time effect of filling the new dams. If done during the wet season this would have little effect on Pakistan. But if done during the critical low-flow period, there would be a large one-time effect (as was the case when India filled Baglihar). Second, there is the permanent threat which would be a consequence of substantial cumulative live storage which could store about one month's worth of low-season flow on the Chenab. If, God forbid, India so chose, it could use this cumulative live storage to impose major reductions on water availability in Pakistan during the critical planting season.
Views on "the water problem" from both sides of the border and the role of the press
Living in Delhi and working in both India and Pakistan, I was struck by a paradox. One country was a vigorous democracy, the other a military regime. But whereas an important part of the Pakistani press regularly reported India's views on the water issue in an objective way, the Indian press never did the same. I never saw a report which gave Indian readers a factual description of the enormous vulnerability of Pakistan, of the way in which India had socked it to Pakistan when filling Baglihar. How could this be, I asked? Because, a journalist colleague in Delhi told me, "when it comes to Kashmir – and the Indus Treaty is considered an integral part of Kashmir -- the ministry of external affairs instructs newspapers on what they can and cannot say, and often tells them explicitly what it is they are to say."
This apparently remains the case. In the context of the recent talks between India and Pakistan I read, in Boston, the electronic reports on the disagreement about "the water issue" in The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express and The Economic Times. (Respectively, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Water-Pakistans-diversionary-tactic-/articleshow/5609099.cms, http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/ article112388.ece, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/india/River-waters-The-next-testing-ground/Article1-512190.aspx, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Pak-heats-up-water-sharing/583733, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Pak-takes-water-route-to-attack-India/articleshow/5665516.cms.)
Taken together, these reports make astounding reading. Not only was the message the same in each case ("no real issue, just Pakistani shenanigans"), but the arguments were the same, the numbers were the same and the phrases were the same. And in all cases the source was "analysts" and "experts" -- in not one case was the reader informed that this was reporting an official position of the Government of India.
Equally depressing is my repeated experience – most recently at a major international meeting of strategic security institutions in Delhi – that even the most liberal and enlightened of Indian analysts (many of whom are friends who I greatly respect) seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the great vulnerability and legitimate concern of Pakistan (which is obvious and objective to an outsider).
A way forward
This is a very uneven playing field. The regional hegemon is the upper riparian and has all the cards in its hands. This asymmetry means that it is India that is driving the train, and that change must start in India. In my view, four things need to be done.
First, there must be some courageous and open-minded Indians – in government or out – who will stand up and explain to the public why this is not just an issue for Pakistan, but why it is an existential issue for Pakistan.
Second, there must be leadership from the Government of India. Here I am struck by the stark difference between the behaviour of India and that of its fellow BRIC – Brazil, the regional hegemon in Latin America.
Brazil and Paraguay have a binding agreement on their rights and responsibilities on the massive Itaipu Binacional Hydropower Project. The proceeds, which are of enormous importance to small Paraguay, played a politicised, polemical anti-Brazilian part in the recent presidential election in Paraguay. Similarly, Brazil's and Bolivia's binding agreement on gas also became part of an anti-Brazil presidential campaign theme.
The public and press in Brazil bayed for blood and insisted that Bolivia and Paraguay be made to pay. So what did President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva do? "Look," he said to his irate countrymen, "these are poor countries, and these are huge issues for them. They are our brothers. Yes, we are in our legal rights to be harsh with them, but we are going to show understanding and generosity, and so I am unilaterally doubling (in the case of Paraguay) and tripling (in the case of Bolivia) the payments we make to them. Brazil is a big country and a relatively rich one, so this will do a lot for them and won't harm us much." India could, and should, in my view, similarly make the effort to see it from its neighbour's point of view, and should show the generosity of spirit which is an integral part of being a truly great power and good neighbour.
Third, this should translate into an invitation to Pakistan to explore ways in which the principles of the Indus Waters Treaty could be respected, while providing a win for Pakistan (assurance on their flows) and a win for India (reducing the chronic legal uncertainty which vexes every Indian project on the Chenab or Jhelum). With good will there are multiple ways in which the treaty could be maintained but reinterpreted so that both countries could win.
Fourth, discussions on the Indus waters should be de-linked from both historic grievances and from the other Kashmir-related issues. Again, it is a sign of statesmanship, not weakness, to acknowledge the past and then move beyond it. This is personal for me, as someone of Irish origin. Conor Cruise O'Brien once remarked, "Santayana said that those who did not learn their history would be condemned to repeat it; in the case of Ireland we have learned our history so well that we are condemned to repeat it, again and again."
And finally, as a South African I am acutely aware that Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, chose not to settle scores but to look forward and construct a better future, for all the people of his country and mine. Who will be the Indian Mandela who will do this – for the benefit of Pakistanis and Indians – on the Indus?
Dr. Briscoe makes a strong case regarding water sharing between India and Pakistan through the Indus Water Treaty. It is cool calm voice in a sea of hysteria, and it should be given serious consideration.
Taken from The News (http://www.thenews.com.pk/arc_news.asp?id=9&arc_date=4/3/2010)
Anyone foolish enough to write on war or peace in the Indus needs to first banish a set of immediate suspicions. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am a South African who has worked on water issues in the subcontinent for 35 years and who has lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (in the 2000s). In 2006 I published, with fine Indian colleagues, an Oxford University Press book titled India's Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and, with fine Pakistani colleagues, one titled Pakistan's Water Economy: Running Dry.
I was the Senior Water Advisor for the World Bank who dealt with the appointment of the Neutral Expert on the Baglihar case. My last assignment at the World Bank (relevant, as described later) was as Country Director for Brazil. I am now a mere university professor, and speak in the name of no one but myself.
I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries. I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late.
Is there an inherent conflict between India and Pakistan?
The simple answer is no. The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the water of the three western rivers to Pakistan, but allows India to tap the considerable hydropower potential of the Chenab and Jhelum before the rivers enter Pakistan.
The qualification is that this use of hydropower is not to affect either the quantity of water reaching Pakistan or to interfere with the natural timing of those flows. Since hydropower does not consume water, the only issue is timing. And timing is a very big issue, because agriculture in the Pakistani plains depends not only on how much water comes, but that it comes in critical periods during the planting season. The reality is that India could tap virtually all of the available power without negatively affecting the timing of flows to which Pakistan is entitled.
Is the Indus Treaty a stable basis for cooperation?
If Pakistan and India had normal, trustful relations, there would be a mutually-verified monitoring process which would assure that there is no change in the flows going into Pakistan. (In an even more ideal world, India could increase low-flows during the critical planting season, with significant benefit to Pakistani farmers and with very small impacts on power generation in India.) Because the relationship was not normal when the treaty was negotiated, Pakistan would agree only if limitations on India's capacity to manipulate the timing of flows was hardwired into the treaty. This was done by limiting the amount of "live storage" (the storage that matters for changing the timing of flows) in each and every hydropower dam that India would construct on the two rivers.
While this made sense given knowledge in 1960, over time it became clear that this restriction gave rise to a major problem. The physical restrictions meant that gates for flushing silt out of the dams could not be built, thus ensuring that any dam in India would rapidly fill with the silt pouring off the young Himalayas.
This was a critical issue at stake in the Baglihar case. Pakistan (reasonably) said that the gates being installed were in violation of the specifications of the treaty. India (equally reasonably) argued that it would be wrong to build a dam knowing it would soon fill with silt. The finding of the Neutral Expert was essentially a reinterpretation of the Treaty, saying that the physical limitations no longer made sense. While the finding was reasonable in the case of Baglihar, it left Pakistan without the mechanism – limited live storage – which was its only (albeit weak) protection against upstream manipulation of flows in India. This vulnerability was driven home when India chose to fill Baglihar exactly at the time when it would impose maximum harm on farmers in downstream Pakistan.
If Baglihar was the only dam being built by India on the Chenab and Jhelum, this would be a limited problem. But following Baglihar is a veritable caravan of Indian projects – Kishanganga, Sawalkot, Pakuldul, Bursar, Dal Huste, Gyspa… The cumulative live storage will be large, giving India an unquestioned capacity to have major impact on the timing of flows into Pakistan. (Using Baglihar as a reference, simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, suggest that once it has constructed all of the planned hydropower plants on the Chenab, India will have an ability to effect major damage on Pakistan. First, there is the one-time effect of filling the new dams. If done during the wet season this would have little effect on Pakistan. But if done during the critical low-flow period, there would be a large one-time effect (as was the case when India filled Baglihar). Second, there is the permanent threat which would be a consequence of substantial cumulative live storage which could store about one month's worth of low-season flow on the Chenab. If, God forbid, India so chose, it could use this cumulative live storage to impose major reductions on water availability in Pakistan during the critical planting season.
Views on "the water problem" from both sides of the border and the role of the press
Living in Delhi and working in both India and Pakistan, I was struck by a paradox. One country was a vigorous democracy, the other a military regime. But whereas an important part of the Pakistani press regularly reported India's views on the water issue in an objective way, the Indian press never did the same. I never saw a report which gave Indian readers a factual description of the enormous vulnerability of Pakistan, of the way in which India had socked it to Pakistan when filling Baglihar. How could this be, I asked? Because, a journalist colleague in Delhi told me, "when it comes to Kashmir – and the Indus Treaty is considered an integral part of Kashmir -- the ministry of external affairs instructs newspapers on what they can and cannot say, and often tells them explicitly what it is they are to say."
This apparently remains the case. In the context of the recent talks between India and Pakistan I read, in Boston, the electronic reports on the disagreement about "the water issue" in The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express and The Economic Times. (Respectively, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Water-Pakistans-diversionary-tactic-/articleshow/5609099.cms, http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/ article112388.ece, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/india/River-waters-The-next-testing-ground/Article1-512190.aspx, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Pak-heats-up-water-sharing/583733, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Pak-takes-water-route-to-attack-India/articleshow/5665516.cms.)
Taken together, these reports make astounding reading. Not only was the message the same in each case ("no real issue, just Pakistani shenanigans"), but the arguments were the same, the numbers were the same and the phrases were the same. And in all cases the source was "analysts" and "experts" -- in not one case was the reader informed that this was reporting an official position of the Government of India.
Equally depressing is my repeated experience – most recently at a major international meeting of strategic security institutions in Delhi – that even the most liberal and enlightened of Indian analysts (many of whom are friends who I greatly respect) seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the great vulnerability and legitimate concern of Pakistan (which is obvious and objective to an outsider).
A way forward
This is a very uneven playing field. The regional hegemon is the upper riparian and has all the cards in its hands. This asymmetry means that it is India that is driving the train, and that change must start in India. In my view, four things need to be done.
First, there must be some courageous and open-minded Indians – in government or out – who will stand up and explain to the public why this is not just an issue for Pakistan, but why it is an existential issue for Pakistan.
Second, there must be leadership from the Government of India. Here I am struck by the stark difference between the behaviour of India and that of its fellow BRIC – Brazil, the regional hegemon in Latin America.
Brazil and Paraguay have a binding agreement on their rights and responsibilities on the massive Itaipu Binacional Hydropower Project. The proceeds, which are of enormous importance to small Paraguay, played a politicised, polemical anti-Brazilian part in the recent presidential election in Paraguay. Similarly, Brazil's and Bolivia's binding agreement on gas also became part of an anti-Brazil presidential campaign theme.
The public and press in Brazil bayed for blood and insisted that Bolivia and Paraguay be made to pay. So what did President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva do? "Look," he said to his irate countrymen, "these are poor countries, and these are huge issues for them. They are our brothers. Yes, we are in our legal rights to be harsh with them, but we are going to show understanding and generosity, and so I am unilaterally doubling (in the case of Paraguay) and tripling (in the case of Bolivia) the payments we make to them. Brazil is a big country and a relatively rich one, so this will do a lot for them and won't harm us much." India could, and should, in my view, similarly make the effort to see it from its neighbour's point of view, and should show the generosity of spirit which is an integral part of being a truly great power and good neighbour.
Third, this should translate into an invitation to Pakistan to explore ways in which the principles of the Indus Waters Treaty could be respected, while providing a win for Pakistan (assurance on their flows) and a win for India (reducing the chronic legal uncertainty which vexes every Indian project on the Chenab or Jhelum). With good will there are multiple ways in which the treaty could be maintained but reinterpreted so that both countries could win.
Fourth, discussions on the Indus waters should be de-linked from both historic grievances and from the other Kashmir-related issues. Again, it is a sign of statesmanship, not weakness, to acknowledge the past and then move beyond it. This is personal for me, as someone of Irish origin. Conor Cruise O'Brien once remarked, "Santayana said that those who did not learn their history would be condemned to repeat it; in the case of Ireland we have learned our history so well that we are condemned to repeat it, again and again."
And finally, as a South African I am acutely aware that Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, chose not to settle scores but to look forward and construct a better future, for all the people of his country and mine. Who will be the Indian Mandela who will do this – for the benefit of Pakistanis and Indians – on the Indus?
28 February 2009
Four million threatened by contaminated water
Another report indicting the waste water treatment system in Pakistan. The more I think about it, the more it seems that Pakistan's water policy must not only focus on conservation. It must also focus on cleanup.
Four million threatened by contaminated water: Report
Four million threatened by contaminated water: Report
The lives of nearly four million people of Thatta, Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan and the rural parts of Hyderabad districts were under threat due to the supply of highly contaminated water. - File photo.
THATTA: The lives of nearly four million people of Thatta, Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan and the rural parts of Hyderabad districts were under threat due to the supply of highly contaminated water. These districts of lower Sindh get water through the irrigation system of left bank canal system of Kotri Barrage, including Phulelli Canal, Pinyari and Akram Wah.
This has been observed in a survey jointly carried out by UNDP-GEF-SGP, its partners BDRO Badin Development, Research Organization, and Javaher-al-Bukhari foundation.
‘Populace of these districts depends solely on the canal water for consumption as the underground sweet water was not available. The water of these canals was dangerous for health due to the dumping of highly toxic and hazardous waste at various points to the tail-end of the canals in Badin and Thatta districts,’ said Masood Lohar, while talking to Dawn here on Wednesday.
Citing the findings of survey Lohar said, nearly 20 to 25 tons of solid waste, from almost 60 per cent areas of Hyderabad city and its surroundings, was dumped into these canals daily. The solid waste included municipal/domestic waste, industrial waste, animal waste, combustible and non-combustible waste, hospital waste and other types of effluents.
Industrial waste was very dangerous for health; according to recent reports it accounts for fatal diseases among people. There were around two hundred big and small industrial units on the encroached banks of these canals and in the adjacent areas of Hyderabad city alone. The chemical waste from these units was thrown into the irrigation canals without any check by the concerned quarters.
Report further said, the waste water of different localities of Hyderabad city – having no other alternative for drainage – was dropped into these canals through 36 big and hundreds of small inlets.
Mohammad Khan Samoon, an environmentalist said, the situation always compounds in the Rabi season when only small quantity of fresh water is released, while the flow of the sewage remains the same in canals. The details gathered by the survey team revealed that around 1.5 million gallons of gutter water was released into the canals daily.
Lohar emphasized, that the Sindh government should immediately constitute a task force to ensure implementation National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS), adding that without proper measures thousands of human lives are exposed to several deadly diseases.
Over the years, Pakistan’s population has seen a tremendous increase. In the census of 1951 the population was 33.7 million, which has now risen up to 150 million. In 1951, per capita water availability was 5,269 cubic feet which has come down to 1,126.
Beyond the impact of population growth itself, the demand for fresh water has been rising in response to industrial development, increased reliance on irrigated agriculture, massive urbanization, and rising living standards.
With growing issues of water scarcity, distribution inequalities, water pollution, loss of ecosystems and the generation of effluents, Pakistan was categorized as a country under water stress.
These are tremendous challenges that need a sane and de-politicized response. The whole water debate, therefore, has to be rephrased in a radically different way to help people move away from entrenched, interest based positions on particular infrastructure development schemes, and towards more rational, integrated and practical approaches covering the whole water sector.
In fact, considering the global and national water scenario, the time has come to take a clear and principled stand to stop the systematic devastation of the water systems.
The report warned of epidemics in the lower part of Sindh if necessary measures were not taken to tackle this sensitive issue and advised the functionaries of district government Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, Tando Mohammed Khan to either install treatment plants for purifying toxic water or to dig out drains parallel to these canals to carry away the sewage and other pollutants.25 February 2009
Environment: Untreated waste into River Chenab
Another good bit of environmental reporting by Ali Raza of The News. What we are doing to our rivers is a crime. Not just against nature, but against all the people who live downriver. Pollution like this not only contaminates crops, but poisons the communities who are dependent on canal water for everyday use.
Environment: Untreated waste into River Chenab
Environment: Untreated waste into River Chenab
21 July 2008
Nestle in Sheikhupura
Nestle is expanding its water purification facility in Sheikhupura. Because this is a water treatment scheme that costs more than Rs. 25 million (and because the extraction of water has the potential to cause adverse environmental effect), Nestle was required by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997 to commission and submit an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project. It hired NESPAK to conduct the EIA.
WWF - Pakistan has slammed the EIA report.
I was told of the Nestle EIA a few days ago by a fellow Nabeela Ahmad, an advocate who also teached environmental law at LUMS. My first reaction was to dismiss the concerns, but Nabeela, quite rightly, pointed out that my skepticism would be justified as long as we lived in a world where water and access to water is treated like an entitlement. This is true (and she won the argument by convincing me). We often overlook the fact that most of us get flowing water 24/7. This is quite anomolous for a third world country. The fact that WASA still pumps water to most of the city's resident's speaks volumes about it (though some would say WASA does bugger all, which is also true!).
The point is that water can't be taken for granted. Nestle's activities in Pakistan have been fairly well documented by an ActionAid report. What's most depressing is the report clearlyunderlines the total lack of appreciation amongst the powers that be that water is a scarce resource (as opposed to a right or a commodity), and that our water usage should be regulated in this light. We cannot continue to let companies like Nestle pump water to be sold for profit, especially when it reportedly does so inefficiently and while government agencies responsible for water supply do not/can not do it for profit.
The WWF has commented on Nestle's EIA report. The comments look something like this:
The report tries to distort some basic facts by portraying extension of existing Bottled Water project as Water Purification Plant resulting in underestimation of the scale, complexity and potential impact of the Project.
The report does not describe the hydro-geological conditions in general and potential of the water aquifer in particular. There is no data or scientific information on water balance to assess the impact of withdrawing groundwater, which is the most important impact parameter. Pumping large quantity of water can affect the ground water level and availability in the area leading to major social and environmental disaster, therefore identifying a need to conduct a thorough water balance study. This study should atleast address important questions regarding following questions:
- What is the groundwater availability in the area?
- What is the current level of extraction for various purposes?
- What will be the daily rate of extraction of water? (The report proposes the water extraction on hourly basis).
- What will be the radius of influence due to groundwater extraction by this industry? What is the current rate of groundwater decline in the area? And how will the new plant alter/affect this equation?
Following are few other observations:
- In the report on page E-1 (last 3 lines), gives a totally different picture of water withdrawal. There seems to be a mistake in the unit. Instead of liters, it’s mentioned in m3. Even if we assume that it is in liter, still the water withdrawal is very high.
- The existing plant is producing 34500 bottles per hour. For this the total water withdrawn is 413,950 liters/hr, which looks unreasonably very high. As for every one bottle, Nestle is withdrawing 12 liters of water, which is highly wasteful and inefficient. The ratio of water consumption and bottle water production should not exceed (litre to litre) 3:1.
- Furthermore, data on wastewater discharge from the plants is also confusing.
- Measures concerning impacts of construction and operational activities of the proposed plant on the local / surrounding community are not considered in the impact assessment study.
- It is mentioned in the report that the water samples are taken from “the locations” for water quality testing and is also mentioned in the report that the locations are specified in the table below. However, tables to which text refer to does not explain or indicate the location (refer to section 4).
- The mitigations proposed do not correlate with the impacts identified during the assessment (refer to section 5 of the report). For example, it is mentioned in the report that air emission can cause health impacts including throat, eyes nose irritation, but at the same time the impacts are considered minor. Also as is mentioned in section 5.3.2, percentage or level of emission of PM is not specified.
- As is said in the report that the sewerage and drainage system of the area will improve, however, HOW it will be improved is not specified.
- The company should also incorporate groundwater monitoring, recharge and wastewater reuse / disposal into their Environmental Management Plan (EMP).
We strongly urge EPA Punjab to return this report, halt construction of proposed plant and ask the proponent to conduct a comprehensive scientific water balance study of the area.
It's time to take water management seriously. It's time to stop commercial interests from depriving people from safe and affordable drinking water. It's time to stop consuming millions of little plastic bottles of water (which wind up littering drains). It's time to stop being elitist and overlooking this problem.
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