Uma Oya tragedy is all because of a bad EIA, activists charge

The controversial Uma Oya project was started on an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report that was carried out in a questionable manner with little geological input, an environmental justice group has charged.

Hemantha Withanage, Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Justice, claimed that the project was started in haste with the Iranian project company, FARAB, itself carrying out the environmental impact assessment.

However, it was only after continued protests from Sri Lankan environmentalists that a fresh EIA was carried out by a 19-member experts’ team which had only one geologist, he said. Six of the team members were zoologists and botanists.

The reason to include more zoologists and botanists in the team was, perhaps, to avoid protests from nature lovers and NGOs, but the need to include more geologists to study a tunnelling project of this magnitude was lost on the then authorities, the activist charged.

Mr. Withanage said that earlier geological surveys had identified seven weak points underneath the rocky terrain in the project area that is now being bored for the tunnel. “They have only touched two or three of these points and the rest are remaining within the five kilometres left of the tunnel,” he said.

The environmentalist also charged the legal framework on the EIA was observed in the breach. The law required that EIA reports should be done not only prior to a project and but also through the full length of the project.

Anti-corruption activist Ranjith Keerthi Tennakoon explained that the controversy over the Uma Oya project has become a political, technical, social and environment issue because of a bad EIA report.

He said vegetable yield in the Bandarawela area has dropped by 35 percent due to the shortage of water — a phenomenon experienced after the project was started.

“Springs shrink while houses crack and become unstable but all the issues could have been avoided if a proper environmental assessment had been conducted,” he said

He said neither the experts who conducted the EIA study nor the government officials who approved the EIA were available to answer questions.