Tackling Environmental Issues in Implementation of Infrastructure Projects

Environment is an inseparable whole constituted by interacting systems of physical, biological and cultural elements, which are interlinked individually as well as collectively in myriad ways. The economy and the environment are inextricably intertwined in innumerable ways. Virtually all economic activities affect the environment in some way or the other. At the same time, provision and maintenance of adequate infrastructure facilities at reasonable cost are absolutely necessary if rapid economic growth is to be achieved. Infrastructure sector covers a wide spectrum of services such as transportation, power generation, transportation and distribution, telecommunication, postal facilities, and urban infrastructure. Out of these, power generation projects, transportation projects and urban infrastructure development projects influence the environment in a greater deal. Hence the present paper reviews the environmental issues involved in these three groups of infrastructure projects.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES RELATED TO POWER PROJECTS

There is practically no activity in the world, which can take place without invoking the transfer or transportation of energy. In ecological terms, energy is the currency driving all the activities in the nature. About 90 per cent of energy that is generated throughout the world at present is derived from the burning of fossil fuels—coal, natural gas and petroleum products (Heise, 1994). There are numerous enviro0nmental problems associated with the extraction transportation and utilisation of fossil fuels. Combustion of fossil fuels generates various obnoxious and green house gases like sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. Reactions of these gases generate many secondary toxic gases. Thus combustion of fossil fuels is accompanied by adverse impact on environment and ultimately on the human health.

Electricity has become one of the key inputs for the overall socio-economic development at present with the increasing pace of economic development facilitated by economic reforms, the demand for power is likely to increase rapidly in the coming years. Hence the major tasks before us are to meet the anticipated demand of power in a reliable and cost effective manner without degrading the environment. If we look for the share of different categories of power generation, thermal power plants account for 74 per cent, hydro 24 per cent and nuclear 2 per cent.

New strategies are therefore needed to control the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by reinvigorating the natural carbon dioxide – oxygen cycle and by taking effective steps to arrest the discharge of acidic gases into the atmosphere through installation of appropriate scrubber. Since thermal power generation is a necessary imperative for development, the atmosphere pollutants discharged, in its wake into the environment from the stacks of power stations must either be neutralised or dispersed expeditiously so that concentration of harmful constituents in the immediate vicinity is sufficiently diluted with air and is less than the permissible limits and that the pollutants are not carried far away to bring about, imperceptibly but positively environmental degradation in the long run. The use of tall stacks, has until recently been considered as a viable engineering solution. Besides obnoxious gases, coal based thermal power stations are rated the first among the industries that discharge high amounts of smoke and fly ash. For instance, 500 megawatt coal based thermal power plant produces 2,000 tonnes of ash every day in addition to smoke. It has been observed that fly ash from a thermal power plant falls out up to large distance from the plant. Heavy amount of fly ash has been observed to be falling even up to distances as large as 3 to 6 km. The fall out rates are found to increase in dry windy seasons. Amongst fossil fuel based power plants coal based plants are most polluting followed by petroleum based plants while natural gas based plants is relatively cleaner technology option.

All electricity-generating plants (except hydro-electric plants) produce electricity by driving huge turbine generations with steam. The steam is condensed in a cooling system and is cycled back to the heating unit for reuse. This causes detrimental effects on the water bodies where heated water is discharged back. Such phenomenon is called thermal pollution.

Hydropower, although is a relatively environmentally cleaner method of power generation, also responsible for many environmental problems when such large projects are taken. When a large dam is constructed, there is every likelihood that hydrostatic pressure of enormous volume of water of the reservoir would destabilise the rocks and thus would cause severe earthquakes. Secondly hydel projects are in general possible in hilly areas which are usually inhabited by tribal population. Displacement of local residents having their typical mountain life style and age old cultural heritage is likely to invade. Hence an alternative scheme of a set of small dams instead of big dams would lessen the problem to a great extent.

Nuclear reactors, unlike the other sources of power, offer a lot of advantages. Nuclear reactors generate electricity without smoke and fumes. Hence it offers relatively a clear sources of power for the future. However, nuclear reactors have their own peculiar set of disadvantages, mainly associated with the production of radioactive materials. All radioactive substances emit harmful radiations, some of which can cause cancer in man and animals and damage the genetic material of the all, producing long term harmful effects in living environments.

All conventional fuels have varying degree of impact on environment when subjected to energy transformation and use. In our country, the general awareness about environmental impacts of power projects has increased significantly and the measures for controlling and minimising such impacts have been a subject of public debate. Follow measures in the process of power generation would be beneficial for minimising the adverse impacts on the environment: In case of thermal power projects the emphasis should be on restricting air and water pollution to the prescribed limits. Mega thermal power projects using high sulphur content fuels should set up fuel gas desulphurisation units to maintain the sulphur dioxide emissions within the prescribed limits. Measures such as a forestation, use of washed coal etc. should be adopted to minimise the emission of green house gases. All new thermal power plants should be advised to earmark land in the planning stage itself for fly ash based industries. While setting up new power stations, coal based plants should be discouraged and relatively environment friendly fuels like LPG based plants should be encouraged. Setting up of large hydel and thermal power stations often necessitates clearing of large tracts of land, affecting the lives of people, flora and fauna. Hence setting up of smaller plants should be encouraged. If large plants necessitated, proper resettlement of people should be carried out in advance. Generation of captive and cogeneration power in industries should be encouraged. There should be maximisation of benefits from the existing plants by improving their operational efficiency and reducing T&D losses. Energy conversation should be viewed as a source of energy and should be used to bridge the gap between demand and supply. Special emphasis should be given for utilisation of new and renewable sources of energy as these sources of energy are environment friendly and sustainable in the long run.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES RELATED TO TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS

If agriculture and industry are regarded as the body and bones of the economy, transport and communication constitute its nerves, which help the circulation of men and materials (Dutt and Sundharam, 1997). The nation’s transport system, which comprises of rail road’s, sea ports and air ports is facing capacity saturation, which means lost economic opportunities and deterioration of assets and services. Inadequacies and imbalances in transport system threaten to constrain economic growth of the nation. The railways and the roadways are the two main modes of transport carrying the bulk of freight and passenger traffic. The modal mix of transport has been continuously shifting against the railways with the result that bulk of the freight (over 60 per cent) and passenger traffic 9over 80 per cent) is carried by road (Economic Survey 1996-97), which is undesirable for a country of vast size like India. Secondly environmental friendly and socially cost effective means of transport like coastal shipping and inland water transport have remained undeveloped in India.

In urban areas, particularly in metropolitan areas have witnessed an explosion of personalised means of transport largely due to the failure of the Government in providing adequate mass transport. This has resulted in worsening gridlock of traffic, causing fatal accidents on an increasing scale and reverse air as well as noise pollution in cities.

Both the construction of transport infrastructure and the provision of transport services have an adverse impact on the environment. The different modes of transport cause environmental degradation of various degrees and in diverse manner. The rail track and the roads use up scarce land and their construction have an adverse effect on the natural features of the areas, including reduction in the vegetation cover. The road transport causes air and noise pollution, while the water transport poses the risk of marine pollution of the coastal waters.

The environmental impacts of road construction is more serious in hilly and mountains areas as it causes geological disturbances, loss of forest and vegetation cover, soil erosion and triggering the flash floods. Hence adequate attention should be paid in route alignment in hilly areas. Emphasis should be given in avoiding landslide and erosion prone areas for road/railway construction. Plants of equivalent number must replace any cutting of trees in such areas.

The existing road network is unable to meet the requirements of ever-growing vehicular population. As a result, frequent traffic jams congestion and road accidents have become very common phenomenon. Due to paucity of funds, the sufficient number of flyovers, under bridges and bypasses could not be constructed. The absence of mass transport system in metropolitan cities and rapid increase in the number of personal vehicles has resulted in fast deterioration of urban road system and worsening pollution scenario.

The main reasons for increasing level of pollution in the cities caused by road transport are poor maintenance of vehicles, large proportion of over-aged vehicles, more frequent traffic jams due to lack of traffic planning, extensive over-loading, poor upkeep of roads and prevalence of old technology in heavy motor vehicles. Although the pollution level caused by the road transport has been increasing in all the cities, the worsening situation in the mega cities deserves special attention. In these cities, the automobiles have the distinction of having the maximum share of total pollution. To avoid excessive pollutants built-up near busy traffic routes, long term strategies and scientific traffic management should be adopted in such cities.

Traffic congestion, old aged vehicles, law driving speed and poor engine maintenance contribute to exercise generation of pollutants which needs to be streamlined. Strict measures are needed to prevent the supply of adulterated fuel and engine. Alternative fuels like CNC, LPG etc. can also be viable option. Besides it in a dire need that mass rapid transport system should be introduced in mega cities at the earliest.

ENVIRIONMENTAL ISSUES RELATED TO URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

Urbanisation is a spatial concomitant phenomenon involving the process of population concentration, structural transformation and socio-psychological changes. A country’s state of economic development in judged by its cities—the quality of it and the quantity (number) of it. Rapid economic growth in developing nations is relatively a recent phenomenon. The forces of global economic order largely lead the economic growth. Most cities have an inadequate infrastructure, which impedes the overall economic prosperity. The unprecedented growth of cities in the developing nation poses a serious threat to the environment. As a focus for population growth, commercial and industrial activities, cities consume a major share of energy and national resources and thus generate a variety of wastes to an extent that exceeds the assimilative capacity of urban ecosystems. The situation is further exacerbated with rapid population growth leading to increased resource consumption and increased waste generation. The resulting environmental damages threaten the productivity of cities, and quality of life of its citizens (World Bank, 1994)

The new economic policies aimed at keeping up economic and competitiveness and integrating the Indian economy with global markets have already placed a heavy demand or all types of urban infrastructure services. Urban services viz. Water supply, sanitation public transport and roads etc. are already beyond their carrying capacities. Environmental degradation such as air and water pollution, excessive noise levels, qualification of landscape through careless planning is a serious worldwide phenomenon found in the cities. While something is being done about it in the developed countries, the developing countries lag far behind. Even the developed countries have not completely eradicated the problem but they have ameliorated them. The photo-chemical smog so characteristic of Los Angles and New York do exist even now.

The unmanageable urbanisation pattern also modifies the water budgets of the surface water as well as groundwater. Incoming urbanisation increases the frequency and dimension of floods of nearby stream because covering of grand surface by pucca structure reduces infiltration of rainwater and increases surface runoff. Excessive withdrawal of groundwater results in the formation of large cavities below the ground. The development of such cavities causes the collapse ground surface and this inflicts great damage to human health and wealth. The example of Brookly (Kings Country, New York, USA) is sufficient to demonstrate environmental impact of groundwater withdrawal.

The cases of land subsidence due to withdrawal of groundwater have occurred in several localities and cities all over the world. Examples of such subsidence are Houston (subsidence of land by 0.3m to 1.0 m), Mexico City (subsidence of ground surface from 4m to 7m between 1891 and 1951). Venice (Italy) etc. (Singh, 1991). Thus the magnitude of the water supply and sanitation problem in the background of depleting groundwater resources, poor water supply and sanitation, slums areas and non-availability of proximate sources of water supply. All this resulted in necessitating exorbitant increase in costs of water supply.

Urban centres also modify the local and regional radiation and heat balance through the creation of heat Island and pollution dame. Besides, our cities are becoming unsustainable as they consume resources from a vast hinterland and discharge untreated wastes into the hinterland causing ecological imbalances. Our cities are inherently non-sustainable as they consume resources from a vast hinterland and discharge untreated wastes into the hinterland, causing ecological imbalances. Our cities are inherently non-sustainable as they consume resources from a vast hinterland and discharge untreated wastes into the hinterland, causing ecological imbalance. In a top-heavy pattern of urbanisation like ours the problem is becoming much severe. Developed countries have solved their problems of water pollution to a large extent while this problem still exists in developing countries. However problems of air pollution and noise pollution is found in both developed as well as developing worlds.

While the provision of adequate housing it’s a major problem the unavailability of public services exacerbates the difficulty of upgrading living standards. The virtual flood of immigrants has created rapid arial expansion in many cities. The building of water-lines, sewerage, electrical hook-ups and roads for these new urbanites constantly lag behind existing need. Housing shortages and strategies of urban services finally lead to a situation when the settlement degenerates into slums, shortly towns and squatter settlements.

Indeed the problem are many, but they are not insurmountable, the picture is bleak but not without hope. The Indian policy perspectives have been dedicated to provide all the basic services to its citizens. The Indian Constitution seeks to promote “a social order in which justice, social, economy and political shall inform all the institutions of the national life” (Govt. of India 1951: Constitution India, Article 38, Part iv), Leitmann (1993) reports initial results of the environmental assessments conducted in a few cities. The major conclusion of such exercise was: Urban environmental degradation has a disproportionate negative impact on the poor. Economic structure and location of economic activities shape environmental problems The level of urban wealth is linked to certain environmental problems—basic sanitation is a problem of law-income cities, while hazardous wastes, ambient air pollution are problems of higher income cities.

Environmental management is complex as a large number of actions are involved over many jurisdiction and government. Institutions and policies dealing with urban environmental problems are not synchronised. The capacity of local government to address local environmental problems is critical to resultant environmental quality.

In these exercises, it was also realised that an adequate data base on urban environmental conditions is essential for the formulation of local strategies.

In the light of above discussions now it is essential to prepare an agenda for sustainability of city based on the concept of regional carrying capacity which is a multidimensional concept of inter-related capacities of various regional processes of resource extraction, production, consumption and waste/residue generation (Dutt, 1991). Majorities of urban environmental problems of developing world are due to top heavy pattern of urbanisation and poor rural urban linkages. Hence macro strategy for urban development based on the concept of regional urban development with explicit recognition of rural urban linkages should be evolved. Along with this, there is a great need of integration at various levels, spatial, technical, environmental, administrative and financial. It is also necessary to adopt multi-sectoral investment planning (MSIP) approach with proper public private partnerships or even privatisation of some services. However, the process of privatisation of infrastructure services also needs to be supplemented by the establishment of statutory regulatory authorities for ensuring fair competition among public and private operators and protecting consumer interests, public safety, internal and external security, needs of vulnerable and weaker sections and environmental sustainability.

Science and technology provide a vital opportunity for reducing environmental damage in the pursuit of development and economic growth. Remote sending and GIS techniques can provide a relatively cost effective method of natural resource management and environmental sustainability. Advances in vehicular design and fuel systems can reduce the menace of air pollution. Similarly scientific methods of solid wastes management can reduce the unmanageable wastes scenario. Although technology is important to manage our cities but its ecology and environment is indispensable for sustainability of the very city system. Henceforth, we should design with nature and plan with technology.

ENVIRONMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT: A NECESSITY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

The probable effects of human activities regarding the use of environmental resources on natural environment is called environmental impact and the assessment and evaluation of environmental effects of human activities are collectively called environmental impact assessment (EIA). According to Upadhyay (1991) EIA is in fact, s systematic examination of the environmental consequences of a project, policy and programme. The EIA procedure used at present is more or less standardised and contents of the basic steps of screening, initial environmental examination (IEE), impact statement preparation, review and final decision, monitoring and auditing. Per Wramner (1992) described the rules deciding when and how to carry out EIA which are as follows: Description of the proposed activity Description of the potentially affected environment, including specific information necessary for identifying and assessing the environmental effects of the proposed activity. Description of practical alternatives Assessment of the likely or potential environmental impacts of the proposed activity and alternatives including the direct, indirect, cumulative, short term and long term effects Identification and description of measures available to mitigate adverse environmental impacts of the proposed activity, alternative and an assessment of those measures; Indication of gaps in knowledge and uncertainties which may be encountered in compiling the required information Indication of whether the environment of any other state or area beyond national jurisdiction is likely to be affected by the proposed activity and alternatives.

Brief non-technical summary of the information provided under the above headings.

Current EIA methodologies and processes are seriously flawed and not surprisingly their application to developing countries leaves much to be desired. EIA, as it is practised at present, is an art and not a science. Despite numerous EIA handbooks, manuals and guidelines prepared by national organisation and academic institutions, the EIA reports are still too academic, bureaucratic, mechanistic and voluminous. EIA, as it is practised now, ends immediately after the environmental clearance of a project has been received. Compliance monitoring is seldom carried out, either by the project authorities or by the responsible government agencies.

Hence, EIA practice in India should be recognised as mandatory and routine practice in association with the infrastructure projects. EIA should not be restricted till project completion but throughout the life cycle of the projects. Besides, it is necessary to create national and sensible environmental awareness in all people concerned, environmentalists, engineers, planners, politicians and the general public. The awareness should be based on the consensus that the environment must be protected, and the development process must be carried on.

(Published in International Seminar Souvenir)