HYDERABAD: Petitioner villagers belon­­ging to the areas affected by a controversial mine water reservoir in Tharparkar on Tuesday prayed to the Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad circuit bench to stay the disposal of effluent into the reservoir by the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) considering the fact that the inquiry committee appointed by court failed to examine the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), bypassed its terms of reference (ToRs) and framed its own issues to deliberate upon.

The petitioners’ counsel, advocate Zubair Abro and advocate Ayatullah Khowaja, completed their arguments on the committee’s report.

The bench comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Fahim Ahmed Siddiqui adjourned the case to Sept 21, when it would hear counsel for the SECMC and Sindh wildlife department.

Aggrieved villagers represented in the case by Mr Lakho and 10 others have challenged effluent disposal in the reservoir built within their village, Gorano, and affecting several other villages. The petitioners believe that the process will cause great harm to public and animal health, ecology and agricultural lands in a vast area around the reservoir thus leading to displacement of population on a large scale.

‘An illegal govt move’

Advocate Abro submitted in court that the Jan 18, 2017 notification of the Sindh government regarding formation of the committee was illegal given the fact that it was not in line with the Dec 6, 2016 order, whereby formation of committee was agreed upon by petitioners and respondents. He said the notification read it was issued pursuant upon court’s interim order ... to ensure that government interest was properly safeguarded and defended.

Justice Panhwar quipped: “it [notification] appears to be illegal as it was not court’s order”. Advocate Abro said the notification in fact negated basic spirit of the court order, which had set a wider scope for the inquiry committee.

He said that every ToR had multiple parts which were to be complied with. But, the inquiry committee didn’t examine the EIA and relied on the data provided by SECMC. He said that committee itself admitted in its “conclusion” that challenging these reports (EIA and other research documents) would require a lot of time, resources and a third-party assessment which was not possible within the given time and resources. Hence, committee had to rely on data and results generated by RWE — a German mining company.

“What committee should have done was to approach court in the first instance to seek directives. But they delayed report and didn’t get back to court,” stated the counsel.

Inquiry report termed flawed

Advocate Abro submitted in court that the committee did not examine record as there was no comment in the report regarding environmental impact of the disposal of saline water as mandated by the order.

“They [committee members] didn’t see EIA. Entire report is in fact prepared by copying content provided by Engro Corporation and Sindh Coal Authority (both respondents) and pasting in report,” he stated.

Justice Panhwar asked advocate Khowaja to read the concluding part of the report. The counsel pointed out that the wildlife department issued its no-objection certificate (NOC) only for the laying of pipeline and not for disposing of effluent. He said that there was a wildlife sanctuary [within the reservoir site] and this was admitted by the department as well.

Advocate Abro stated that the EIA approval was hit by SHC’s Bahria flyover judgement. He said that the SECMC project was approved during the initial environmental examination (IEE) while the EIA was done later on. He said that effluent could not be disposed of in a sanctuary adding that even this NoC was issued by the wildlife department after relying on an amendment to the relevant wildlife law of 1972 in 2011. He stated that the NoC was not meant for building reservoir and disposing of saline water.

‘Strange observation’

Strangely enough, the advocate argued, in one of the observations the inquiry committee put it that at this stage when a 37-km-long pipeline worth billions of rupees had already been laid, it became rather futile to even consider any other option. “Such observation is clearly not in line with the Dec 6, 2016 order. Actually, the whole report is an utter failure,” he said. He claimed that the committee had bypassed court’s ToRs and went on to frame its own issues.

‘Misquoted, incorrect and irrelevant references’

Advocate Abro questioned credibility of water technologist Dr Ahsan Siddiqui’s references, pleading that he supported fish farming in the reservoir water having high ‘total dissolved solids’ (TDS) and fluoride. In fact, the counsel said, references or reports relied on by him were either misquoted, incorrect or had no relevance with the subject. He argued that even water samples collected for analysis were not tested in line with the Sindh Environmental Protection Act, 2014. He said it remained unclear as to which aquifer such samples were collected from.

At this juncture, Justice Fahim Siddiqui looked concerned when he said whether it was a Ramsar site or a sanctuary where effluent was released, and asked the counsel if it was possible that water of three aquifers could be segregated through different pipelines.

Advocate Abro nodded, and said that this was what the petitioners were saying; that the company in fact did not explore other options for some alternative sites for the saline water disposal.

Advocate Khowaja submitted in court that the committee relied on reports of deputy commissioner and mukhtiarkar concerned to determine the size of the population supposed to be affected.

‘Biased’ committee member

Advocate Abro also referred to the nomination of Shamsul Haq Memon to the committee, saying that his name was suggested by respondents. “As far as Mr Memon’s name is concerned, a conflict of interest is clearly there. He had worked with the consulting firm that was engaged by the Engro Corporation. So, propriety demands that he should have declined to become part of this committee,” he said.

He prayed to court to reject the inquiry committee’s report and order a halt to the disposal of effluent into the Gorano reservoir.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2017