Atomic energy
bodies have put 70,000 villagers around the Koodankulam nuclear power
plant at risk, write Praful Bidwai and MV Ramana
 |
| GRAND
PROMISES, |
LOW
RETURNS |
|
| |
|
|
| ESTIMATED
GENERATION |
ACTUAL
GENERATION |
YEAR |
| 8,000
MW |
600 MW |
1980 |
| 20,000-25,000
MW |
1000
MW |
1987 |
| 43,500
MW |
2,700
MW |
2000 |
|
The people of southern
coastal Tamil Nadu had been looking forward to the thrice-postponed
public hearing on the environmental impact of the Koodankulam nuclear
reactors being built near India’s southern tip, barely 20 kilometres
from Kanyakumari. They were concerned about this ever since 1988, when
USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signed
an agreement on building two large (1,000 mw each) VVER-1000 nuclear
power generators.
For five years,
they had watched the power station rising slowly but menacingly on cordoned-off
land at Koodankulam, the closure of its fishing beach, construction
of a special jetty to land heavy equipment, and the growing movement
of contractors and equipment.
Over the years,
they became more aware of the nature of these plants, being built by
the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), and developed
apprehensions about radiation releases, about catastrophic accidents,
about how hot water from its coolant circuit pumped into the sea might
affect the fish catch, about hazards from storage and movement of radioactive
material, and about freshwater being diverted from the Pechipparai dam,
vital to meeting the region’s drinking water and irrigation needs.
Another concern grew when plans for adding four more units to the station
were announced: their own displacement.
Rules say there should
be no habitation around nuclear plants. But 70,000 people live
within 16km of Koodankulam |
On June 2, they
finally had their first chance to voice their concerns. The people of
Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari districts had prepared for the
public hearing with petitions and arguments. They came in trucks and
buses to Tirunelveli’s Government Engineering College hoping that
the hearing would be free and fair, and held in a friendly atmosphere
— only to find intimidating bandobast with 1,200 policemen, nasty
riot gear and armoured personnel carriers. Yet, none of this prevented
them from expressing their views.
The hearing, at
which we were present, began with District Collector G. Prakash inviting
Project Director SK Agrawal to present an overview of the reactors and
their safety systems. SP Udayakumar, a peace studies scholar based in
Kanyakumari district, objected to this. He said the hearing was to ascertain
the people’s views on the project’s Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA), not to have NPCIL expound on its safety. The collector
paid no heed and said NPCIL was there to answer any doubts the people
may have. Many protested that the collector had not made the EIA Executive
Summary for the proposed Reactors 3 to 6 available in Tamil, thus denying
them an opportunity to understand the details. The collector lamely
said he had put the EIA summary on the official website and also in
certain government offices. But he could not produce a copy. Not one
member of the public had seen it.
At any rate, about
10 activists and people spoke, expressing misgivings about the project’s
risks and hazards. Agrawal also spoke. Some speakers were angry. But
there was no violence or rowdiness.
NORMS
FLOUTED |
|
| Under
the EIA, the purpose of a public hearing is to ascertain the
concerns of local communities, ngos and environmentalists
on a project’s environmental impact. The EIA notification
of 1994, amended last year, mandates that: |
»
the public be given 30 days’ notice in English
and vernacular newspapers;
» information regarding the availability
of the EIA and its Executive Summary in designated offices
be publicised;
» the EIA Executive Summary be made
available in Tamil, the most widely spoken language in the
area;violated |
| The
June 2 hearing violated each one of these conditions. The
collector, say MoEF rules, must conduct the hearing in “ensuring
widest possible public participation district-wise…
Every person present … shall be granted the opportunity
to seek information or clarifications… The summary...
reflecting all the views and concerns… should be read
over to the audience… explaining the contents in the
vernacular language.” These norms were also violated |
| Finally,
MoEF norms mandate an EIA and a public hearing for any project
worth Rs 100 crore or more. This has not been done for the
desalination plants |
|
Suddenly, less than
two hours later, the collector announced that the hearing had ended.
He did not bother to sum up in Tamil the full range of views expressed,
nor secure the assembly’s approval, required under the rules (See
Box: Norms Flouted). Thus ended the only public hearing on India’s
largest proposed nuclear power station (6,000 mw).
Its farcical nature,
the collusion evident between NPCIL and the district administration,
and the flagrant breach of stipulated procedures have further polarised
opinion here. The people overwhelmingly oppose the project. The authorities
seem hell-bent on building it, even if it involves violating norms set
by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), the Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board, and the Tamil Nadu government. Siting norms say that a 1.6-km
radius zone around a nuclear power station must have no habitation.
The next 5-km radius area must be a “sterilised zone”, where
“the density of population should be small so that rehabilitation
will be easier.” Finally, in the outlying 16-km radius, “the
population should not exceed 10,000”. A TN government order of
May 1988 clearing the project lays down the same conditions.
Koodankulam
lies at the edge of the Gulf of Mannar, one of the world’s richest
biodiversity areas |
However, at least
three large settlements lie within the 5-km zone: Koodankulam (population
20,000), Idinthakarai (population 12,000), and a new tsunami (rehabilitation)
colony (population 2,000-plus). Now, Koodankulam and Idinthakarai are
just two to four km from the plant as the crow flies. And parts of the
tsunami colony are less than a km from the reactors. The population
in the 16-km radius is at least 70,000!
So either NPCIL
will flagrantly violate its own norms, or thousands of families will
be uprooted — and separated from their livelihood as fisherfolk.
This is only one
of the many problems Koodankulam poses. The rest fall into three categories:
location-specific, technology- and cost-related, and problems generic
to nuclear reactors, irrespective of their design or technology. The
reactors’ need for freshwater is a major issue in this water-scarce
region. The EIA says this would be drawn from the Pechipparai dam, 65
km away. When this led to opposition, NPCIL decided to try desalinating
seawater. In 2004, it awarded a Rs 116-crore contract to Tata Projects
to construct a desalination plant to supply about 7.6 million litres
a day. Six reactors would, however, require four times as much. There
is no word on how the need will be met.
The second requirement
is seawater to cool down the reactors. According to the Ministry of
Environment and Forests (moef), the temperature of the discharged water
should not be higher than 7°c above that of the sea. But temperature
increases at India’s coastal nuclear reactors exceed this norm:
7.7°c (Tarapur 1&2), 8.4°c (maps 1&2 at Kalpakkam),
and 9.5°c (for Tarapur 3&4).
If all six 1,000
mw reactors are built at Koodankulam, they will release over 13 times
the heat discharged by the two maps reactors (220 mw each). Either the
increase in the temperature of the water will be higher than at Kalpakkam.
Or, the amount of seawater circulated will be minimally 13 times greater.
In either case, the impact on marine life will be significantly higher.
Further, Koodankulam lies at the edge of the Gulf of Mannar, one of
the world’s richest marine biodiversity areas, with 3,600 species
of flora and fauna, 377 of them endemic. Thermal discharges from the
plant are liable to affect this precious biological reserve. No less
important is the plant’s likely impact on the region’s marine
fisheries. The three districts account for 70 percent of the state’s
fish catch, and generate over Rs 2,000 crore in annual exports.
SAFETY? DAE DOESN’T
CARE |
| |
Practically
all facilities operated by the Department of Atomic Energy
(DAE) have had accidents of varying severity. A 1993 fire
at the Narora power plant; valve failure leading to massive
radiation doses to workers at Kalpakkam in 2003; and collapse
of a containment dome at Kaiga in 1994. All these partly
resulted from avoidable reasons: poor cabling design and
non-replacement of turbine blades (even after the manufacturer's
warning) in Narora, faulty practices in Kaiga, and non-installation
of monitors in Kalpakkam. Hundreds of workers have been
subjected to radiation above the permissible limit.
Further,
the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which is to
oversee the safe operation of all civilian nuclear facilities,
is not independent of the dae. It reports to the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC), which is chaired by the dae head.
The NPCIL chairman is also an AEC member. Thus, both dae
and NPCIL exercise administrative power over the AERB.
(Its lack of independence directly contravenes the International
Convention on Nuclear Safety, which India signed in 1994.)
Former AERB chairman A. Gopalakrishnan offers an example
of the AEC's interference: "When, as chairman, I
appointed an independent expert committee to investigate
the collapse at Kaiga, the AEC chairman wanted its withdrawal
and matters left to the committee formed by the [NPCIL
MD]. dae also complained to the [PMO] who tried to force
me to back off".
|
|
More vitally, livelihoods
of thousands of fisherfolk, who possess remarkable skills in marine
fishing, but rarely practice agriculture, are liable to be destroyed.
Koodankulam will thus create a displacement crisis as well.
The next set of
problems pertain to technology and costs. Nuclear reactors, including
the Koodankulam plant, are a high-risk technology. Among all electricity
generating technologies, nuclear power alone is vulnerable to catastrophic
accidents — witness the Chernobyl meltdown of April 1986 (See
Page 12). While the VVER-1000 reactor is different in design from the
rbmk reactor at Chernobyl, it only means that the potential sequence
of events leading to a major accident would be different. All existing
reactor types are capable of undergoing a loss-of-coolant or reactivity-surge
accident, which could cause a core meltdown and enormous releases of
radioactive poisons, affecting the air, water, plant and animal life
over thousands of square km.
Besides, VVER-1000
reactors pose specific safety concerns. Their operating experience raises
questions about the reliability of their control-rod mechanism, which
is crucial to preventing a runaway fission chain reaction. In the last
couple of years, at Temelin in the Czech Republic and at Kozloduy in
Bulgaria, numerous control rods, which are supposed to arrest power
excursion or reactor misbehaviour, did not move as designed.
On March 1, 2006,
when Kozloduy’s Unit 5 was operating at full power, one of the
four main circulation pumps tripped due to electrical failure. As reactor
power was reduced to 67 percent of nominal capacity, three control-rod
assemblies remained in the wrong position. Of the remaining 61 assemblies,
22 did not move with driving mechanisms. The number of control-rod assemblies
unable to scram (to drop due to gravity only) remains unknown. Control-rod
insertion failures are considered serious and lead to a severely degraded
state of safety if an accident-initiating event occurs.
