Congested coasts: The story of Chennai

Tamil Nadu is no stranger to brazen environment rule-flouting and its coast has remained a mute spectator to this. A huge array of public infrastructure dots the state’s coastline, from massive thermal power complexes in Chennai to the controversial Koodankulam nuclear power plant near its southernmost tip. For regulating development along the coast, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) came out with the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification in 1991 classifying coastal lands into four categories and laying out specific norms for each of them. While most of Tamil Nadu’s coastal infrastructure was secured even before the CRZ notification was conceived, the presence of a legal restriction expressly banning development along ecologically sensitive areas has done little to stop new facilities from coming up.

Take, for instance, the Kamarajar port to the north of Chennai. Conceived as a satellite to decongest the existing facility in Chennai, the port has steadily inched towards becoming a full-fledged one in its own right. Though the growth story may seem exemplary, it is not without its fair share of environmental costs. The Ennore creek, part of the larger Pulicat lagoon, neatly fits the definition of an ecologically sensitive CRZ-IV water body where no new construction or expansion activities are permitted. Along with the Ennore and the North Chennai Thermal Power Plants, the Kamarajar Port Limited (KPL) has been instrumental in systematically damaging the Ennore creek and the Kosasthalaiyar River. While the power plant complex has been consistently discharging coolant water and fly ash slurry into the creek, KPL has been filling up the creek’s associated wetlands to accommodate its ambitious expansion plans.

Environmental activists like Nityanand Jayaraman allege that the port transforms water into land within the “blink of an eye” by simply dumping dredged sand into the creek and the Kosasthalaiyar, murdering critical ecosystems and stifling livelihoods. Pooja Kumar of the Coastal Resource Centre in Chennai says that the KPL has no proper dredge disposal plan in place, nor has it obtained any sort of clearance for reclaiming the creek. There is a lot of confusion regarding the zonation in and around the creek. Ennore being a developed area, environmental clearances are being awarded considering it as a CRZ-II category space. Pooja Kumar rued that the industrial expansion has devoured some of North Chennai’s more ecologically sensitive and highly productive coastal common lands.

The coast also serves as the backbone of several artisanal communities including small-scale fishermen. Coastal marshlands and sandy beaches have, over time, come to be viewed as inconsequential, prompting officials to authorise infrastructure expansion in environmentally vital spaces. So, when the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) decided to augment water supply, it viewed coastal common lands a few kilometres away from the city through a similar lens. Chennai has two functional desalination plants, one in Minjur and another in Nemmeli, each capable of supplying 100 million litres of desalinated water every day. The administration’s preference for desalination in a rain-rich Chennai has come under severe criticism owing to the prodigious economic and environmental costs involved. The Nemmeli plant has been accused of letting out backwash and brine reject from reverse osmosis filters right onto the beach, compromising livelihood spaces of artisanal fishermen on the coast as well as at sea.

The MOEFCC’s expert appraisal committee has questioned the need to establish two additional plants in the same locality and brought up the issue of sea erosion and shoreline changes in its latest meeting, deferring permission for the two proposed plants in Nemmeli. Though the CRZ notification mandated the formulation of coastal zone management plans (CZMP) by all coastal states, many including Tamil Nadu continue to rely on outdated maps. And, this continues to remain one of the most important reasons for transgressions. Pooja Kumar pointed out that failure to map land use accurately along with traditional fishing grounds allowed the desalination plant to come up. The importance of updated maps, therefore, cannot be over-emphasised.

Official lethargy can no longer be tolerated. Unless the state takes up the mapping exercise seriously, violations such as these are bound to recur, intensifying existing conflicts and creating new ones all along Tamil Nadu’s sprawling coast.  

Seetha Gopalakrishnan writes on environment and water-related issues for www.indiawaterportal.org