[Sunday Observer PLUS]

Responsibility devolves on CEA:

Mitigating hazards to protect environment

By Manjula FERNANDO

Crash flooding in Colombo is a major concern for city dwellers and authorities alike. The city goes under water with the shortest heavy rainfall rendering people homeless and making them instant IDPs while authorities run helter skelter to find minute solutions.

The Sunday Observer spoke to Central Environment Authority (CEA) Chairman Charitha Herath on the role of the CEA on mitigating this burden and the area of hazardous clinical waste management for which Sri Lanka is still struggling to find a safe solution.

Herath said “Unlike in the past wetland protection will be a development project in the future. There will be incentives in different forms for individuals who own wetlands and agree to protect and preserve them for the sake of human well-being.”

The responsibility of mitigating crash flooding is mainly on the Disaster Management Centre and the UDA. The CEA is involved in as a stake holder in the wetlands management program. Filling of wetlands is a major cause for crash flooding in the city.

We plan to maintain a wetland account in the future. If there is a party protecting a wetland, such individuals will be rewarded. This is one important component of the new wetland policy of the government.

There are several types of wetlands, which include water resources, paddy fields and marshy lands.

Haphazard filling of wetlands under development projects has caused a lot of harm to the environment. The development completed can be reversed in one split second by flooding and other natural disasters. The buildings that were constructed on filled in wetlands collapse with floods and cause disaster.

Today we feel the need to protect our wetlands as a natural resource more than ever before.

We plan to carry out census of all wetlands in the country shortly.

The information will be used to create a wetlands database. That way we could identify the areas most critical to our survival and bring in legislature to protect these areas under the law.

The National Environment Act has empowered the CEA to declare any given environmentally important place or water resource as an environmentally protected area. Currently we have nine such places islandwide which include the Knuckles range, Hantana, Bolgoda Lake.

Once we finish our wetland database, we could identify new sites that need to be declared protected areas, so that any development activity can to be sanctioned and approved by the CEA.

For the UDA, Defence Ministry, CEA, Disaster Management Ministry and the Disaster Management Centre managing wetlands is a common responsibility.

The UDA and the Defence Ministry have launched a joint program to restructure wetlands in Colombo and its suburbs as a solution to the crash flooding in the city

We are looking at the protection of wetlands in a broader perspective.

For us this is not a mere attempt to mitigate crash flooding in the city or a disaster management mechanism. We consider the wetlands to be a vital natural resource and a bio diversity unit for the country.

The CEA has declared Bolgoda Lake, Thalangama Lake and the Muthurajawela marshy lands as protected areas to prevent unlawful land filling and development activites taking place. These areas are very vital to drain in excess rain water and mitigate crash flooding within Colombo and its suburbs.

We plan to declare the Benthara River, a few kilometers from sea towards land and Gin Oya in the Wayamba Province as new environmentally protected areas.

Unlike in the past wetland protection will be a development project in the future. There will be incentives in different forms for individuals who own wetlands and agree to protect and preserve them for the sake of human well-being.

Guidelines

The CEA was established in the 1980s under the National Environmental Act of 1981 to protect and manage the environment. It has five main units.

The environment Management and Assessment Division where all Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), for development projects inclusive of dams and hydro power are done. This unit also covers initial environment examinations.

The second division is Pollution Control” - where we give environmental protection licences. A major BOI company as well as a village level grinding mill has to confirm to certain guidelines and they need to get an environmental protection licence (EPL).These new enterprises must give an assurance to the CEA that the waste they will be emmiting - the air, water and sounds - will be released to the environment only after being purified, in a proper manner without polluting the environment.

The First requirement is Environmental Clearance (EC). Once a project proposal is submitted to the CEA we have to determine if the project can proceed with an ordinary EC, or initial environmental examination or if the project needs an advanced Environmental Impact assessment. Then before the business venture commences activities, they need to obtain an EPL.

The Third unit of the CEA is Natural Resource Management. The management of wetlands and environmentally protected areas comes under this unit.

The fourth is the Environmental Education and Awareness Division. This unit works with students in almost all schools in the country, developing eco clubs, giving them environment awareness programs.

The fifth one is the Waste Management Arm. Scientifically, there are different types of waste; solid waste and hazardous waste. Hazardous waste includes e-waste, clinical waste and chemical waste.

Pilisaru

The CEA is in charge of a national waste management project titled Pilisaru Solid Waste Management. This was in operation for the past three years and has been extended for another three years from 2011.

Under this project we are working with local authorities to implement solid waste recycling activities. We do composting and bio gas plants. A post consumer plastic and polythene recycling project is another program currently implemented by the CEA.

Electronic waste

A very successful e-waste management project was launched in the latter part of last year. Fourteen main private companies are working with the CEA to collect and dispose the electronic waste.

We are also going to launch a clinical waste management project with the Ministry of Health.

The CEA has got enough funding for other waste management projects but for the clinical waste management the CEA is contemplating private- public partnerships to generate funding. Some private companies are willing to invest in incinerator plants.

Clinical waste cannot be recycled. It has to be disposed of. These can be body parts, used syringes, saline bottles, surgical equipment, the material carries hazardous substances.

Monopoly

At the moment a private company owns a monopoly in disposing clinical waste. With the growing population and number of hospitals we have felt that this area needs to be expanded and regulated. The State is going to take over the clinical waste disposing activity with private partnerships

The CEA has suggested six clusters of clinical waste disposing agencies to cover the entire country.

We have already had basic discussions with both the Health and Environment ministers and they have agreed to indepth discussions this month to carry the process forward. CEA will be facilitating and initiating the project.

New mechanism

We do not have a government program for this purpose. Therefore, we have had instances where some hospitals dispose hazardous waste along with the municipal waste. This is extremely dangerous. There can be a lot of disease contacting material and contaminated equipment in the clinical waste coming out of hospitals. Some private hospitals have the facility to dispose clinical waste but some government hospitals don’t have that facility.

Even in Kandy there was a common arrangement but still that does not work.

There are many connected issues. It is not a failure of any State agency but we as the CEA should follow up and find a viable solution.

A number of private parties are willing to help the CEA in this task.

They will be allowed to levy fees from the hospitals. State hospitals will also have to pay for the services.

At the moment the financial allocations to get these services done, are there. But the problem is the lack of a regulated and safe mechanism for smooth disposal of clinical waste.

The lands to locate these incinerators will be provided by the CEA.

This is one of the proposals under discussion. Anyhow, the private partners will have to bear the costs for incinerator plants which is colossal.

As a gate keeper, we have a bigger role in the State’s development and tourism promotion drive to ensure minimum harm to the environment during the development process.

There are a number of new tourism promotion zones declared by the Economic Dvelopment Ministry. We coloborate with investors in the zones to help expedite environment clearance licences on a priority basis. Environment Impact assessments will also be looked into.

The Ministry of Economic Development has mooted a ‘one stop shop’ concept to facilitate investors to obtain common approval from several different State agencies.

We are playing a major part in this to ensure the environment side is well looked after while doing away with unnecessary delays.

We think, that after the war the country needs positive involvement of all the State agencies, and an agency like ours has a very important role to play: a positive, proactive, role which we are playing at the moment.Some investors are against the environment regulations of the country. Take the Bolgoda Lake for instance.

The lake was declared a protected area by the CEA. This is a very unique location close to Colombo. Many investors want to exploit the area for the hospitality industry.

Development should go through some process, which sometimes offends investors. But we don’t have an option. We have to preserve our environment and heritage. It can never be over looked in the haste to develop the country.