SSCPsedimentationnauticalissues

Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project… where’s it headed?

By Commander John Jacob Puthur, Indian Navy (Retired),

Introduction

Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project… where’s it headed? At the outset, let me inform you, the answer isn’t going to bepleasant. It may even come as a rude shock to some. Just likecitizens of great democratic nations, often we too are kept out of theinformation loop on intricacies of major projects. But that’s ok Isuppose. That leaves us safely cocooned in our own daily grind,unmindful of where things are headed. But my concern is, do thosein authority themselves know where things are headed, at least, theSethusamudram Ship Canal Projectthat is of such an immensenational and environmental significance, and often touted as theSuez or Panama Canal of India? Let me begin with…

A Brief About My Background

By that you may be convinced, at least, to some extent that Iknow what I am writing. I am a hydrographer by qualification andexperience. For those who don’t know, hydrographer’s main task isto map the seas to produce ‘navigational charts’ – the marineequivalent of the road maps you all know, except that there are onlysparsely distributed numbers that tell depths, instead of the usualfeatures you see on road maps. The navigational chart is anindispensable tool for marine navigation. In fact, a ship cannot belegally put to sea without a valid set of navigational charts, whetherpaper or digital.In addition, I did some work on a little known subject –

coastal sediment dynamics

. Basically, it deals with the sedimentbehaviour in a coastal zone. I forayed into this field only to decipherthe reasons behind massive

siltation

experienced at several portson our coasts. In this connection, I studied all major coastal projectsof Indian Navy along the West Coast that can be aptly termed asfailures, at least from the siltation point of view.

Siltation and Dredging

Siltation is deposition of sediments in a water body, whichleads to reduction in depths. Most of our ports experience serioussiltation every year. The depths are then restored throughdredging.Dredging is underwater excavation of sediments and thereafterdumping the excavated sediments at a predetermined safe location,usually far out at sea. Periodic dredging to restore depths at thesilted areas is known asmaintenance dredging, while the initial

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dredging to create a port or an offshore facility like theSethusamudram Ship Canal is termed ascapital dredging.Dredging is a highly specialised operation involvingspecialised vessels known as dredgers that are manned by specialistcrew. There are various types of dredgers to suit underwater seabedconditions.Dredging is a hugely expensive operation. The biggest chunkof maintenance expenditure incurred by most ports is onmaintenance dredging. In addition, dredging is also

eco-unfriendly

. Dredging not only messes up ecologically the placebeing dredged but also the place where the dredged spoils, that is,excavated sediments, are dumped, and even enroute to thedumping grounds.Of course, there are some ways to prevent a port from siltingup.

In fact, most ports in India can be transformed intonearly non-silting ones with some pertinent modifications

.Preventing siltation in a port has a double advantage. It will save onport’s maintenance cost. And also, it will enhance the operationalefficiency of the port with sustained availability of operating depths.But then, that would put the dredging industry in difficulty.

How I Got Interested in Sethusamudram

The first time I heard about Sethusamudram was back around’97 during the Indian National Cartographic Association’sConference, when Professor Arunachalam, the famous Geographerfrom Bombay University, presented a paper on Sethusamudram. Irecall little about the paper, but I think it dealt mostly on thehistorical antecedents of such a canal. Thereafter, quite recently, Ilearnt about the project from newspapers, magazines and televisionnews. The Journal of Geological Society of India has had alsopublished some material under ‘CORRESPONDENCE’ on the subject,mostly from geologist’s perspective. I get this journal being a Fellowof the society. On the whole, I must admit, to begin with, I knew verylittle about the project to make any informed comments.In October 2005, I was at Mumbai to present a paper at theDredging Symposium 2005, being held along with the InternationalMaritime Expo. My paper was titled

‘Managing Siltation – is therean alternative to Maintenance Dredging?’

While at Mumbai,Commander GVK Unnithan, Indian Navy (Retired), an importantassociate of the Bombay Natural History Society tracked me downwith considerable ingenuity. We had served together, and he wasprobably aware of my expertise in analysing coastal projects. Hewanted my views on Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project. I told himthat I knew little about it. He then gave me copies of theRapid

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Environmental Impact Assessment Report(September 2002),RapidEIAin short, prepared by the National Environmental EngineeringInstitute(NEERI), Nagpur, and aProject Reportby L&T Rambol(LTR), Chennai, and asked me to study them, and then give my comments. That was fair enough.However, the reports did not have the accompanying data. Yetthey revealed a serious deficiency in data. Most inferences weremade based on

secondary data

, that is,

data collected for entirelydifferent reasons, often long ago, and at times even elsewhere. Thereports did not even indicate a detailed large-scale hydrographicsurvey, a minimum prerequisite for conceiving such a project. But itappeared that the initial go ahead for the project and also for thefinalisation of the canal’s design and orientation was entirely basedtheRapid EIA.Even though the canal was situated nearly midway betweenIndia and Srilanka, the reports referred to only data pertaining to theIndian side, and nothing from the Srilankan side. This was a seriousflaw that was not corrected even later, that is, before the projectactually took off in July last.Having perused the reports, I gave Commander Unnithan mycomments, in writing. I could not then make any particular judgement about the fate of the project or the environmentalconsequences mainly due to the inadequacy of data. I also returnedthe reports to him. Thereafter, during a recent meeting of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Society of Indian Ocean Studies (SIOS), BangaloreChapter, the case of Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project came up.We decided to host a public lecture on the subject by someone wellversed on the project. The lecture was tentatively scheduled onSaturday, 21 January 2006. I too agreed to share the stage to givemy views on the project. So I got down to prepare the talk, but didnot have enough material, so I browsed the Internet. There was enough material on the net. But most of them wereamateurish and technically unsound or just news items from ‘online’editions of newspapers. However, the official website of Sethusamudram Corporation Limited,

www.sethusamudram.gov.in,

had all the material I needed,which included Full Version of Environmental Impact Assessment(FVEIA) of August 2004, a 427 page document prepared by NEERI,the Final Detailed Project Report (FDPR) of February 2005, a 412page document prepared by LTR, and a host of other details andreports. I must complement the authorities for all that informationput up on their official website.

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