KARACHI, May 31 Proponents of an under-construction steel plant on a 220-acre plot leased from the Pakistan Steel Mills in the Bin Qasim industrial zone were criticised during a public hearing of the relevant environmental impact assessment report on Saturday for not observing the environmental laws of the land.

The steel plant was launched by a business concern from a Gulf kingdom and is aimed at producing about 1.28 million tonnes of direct reduced iron. According to the proponents' representatives, construction phase targets are being met smoothly and the plant will be fully operational in 2010.

Under Section 12 of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1997, no development project involving construction activities or any change in the physical environment can be initiated until an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or Initial Environment Examination (IEE) is conducted and a report is submitted to the federal or provincial environmental protection agency.

During the process of the public hearing, which was chaired by Director-General of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) Shakeel A. Hashmi, participants as well as the proponents and environment officials agreed that the EIA was “an important legal tool, as it estimates the environmental impact of projects during both construction and operation phases, in addition to mandating the proponent's compliance with government regulations.”

However, the proponents of the steel mills in question intentionally or inadvertently had failed to meet the government's requirements and continued attaining significant milestones of the project without meeting legal obligations and acquiring an NOC from Sepa, which should be a point of concern both for the government and the project developers, said a couple of participants.

They called on Sepa to strictly implement the laws of the country and to declare as a policy that in future it would not give any environmental clearance to any projects, proponents and consultants who failed to submit IEE or EIA reports to it or to get an NOC before any physical commencement of the project.

After a series of statements and counter-statements that involved government officials, proponents, other industrialists and stakeholders, the director of Sepa, Naeem A. Mughal, informed the proponents of the plant that they should first amend the EIA document for inclusion of some facts and on-the-ground developments related to the project that had taken place during the last three years or so. A good chunk of the details given in the EIA report were not in line with the statements of the proponents made during the public hearing, he remarked.

Mr Mughal said that the proponents should review Chapter 2 of the EIA, which gives a project description, and should also elaborate and update some of the mitigation measures and the environmental management plan.

Speakers also drew the attention of the authorities to the wildlife degradation due to activities already carried out at the plant site and the “pathetic condition of major roads” in the area used for industrial purposes. They said the use of any local iron ore for the plants in the distant future and the impact on the locality from where the ores would be drawn and transferred to the plant for production should also be documented.

Concerns surrounding the emission of gases and particulate matter, solid and water waste generation and disposal, the water control programme and health safety of workers of the plant were also expressed.

At one stage, even Sepa was criticised for “not playing a proactive role in the regulation of environmentally sensitive projects”.

The plant is likely to use 1.9 million tonnes of imported iron oxide and calibrated lump ore every year, will require 36,000m Btu of natural gas per day, in addition to 160,000MW of electricity per year and 1,920,000 cubic metres of water per year.

Speakers from the proponent's side said that the plant would “facilitate the transfer to Pakistan of the latest technology in quality steel-making and would produce 800-1,000 jobs for skilled and semi-skilled local people”. The proposed project “will save and generate lots of foreign exchange by exporting finished products to international and local markets”.