*****"Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel - Part I - 17. Mining in Goa : 17.2 Footprints of mining : Local air quality, Agriculture; - 17.3 Governance Issues : i. The EIA, Environmental Clearance Process, and EC violations :- CONTINUED ..

Opinion
     10/10/2018
               1456.

**"Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel - Part I - 17. Mining in Goa :-

17.2 Footprints of mining - continued

Box 12: PILs in mining in Goa :-

1. Water :-
"Advalpal village in north Goa has filed PILs against two mining companies citing diversion of streams by the mining companies as the main reason for the repeated flooding of the village every monsoon and for the blockage of their water source for irrigating their fields"

2. Agriculture : -

"at least half a dozen PILs from villagers in south Goa alone praying for stoppage of mining activities as the mining silt from the dumps has entered into the streams or simply flows down the hillside and ends up as unwanted deposits in their fields resulting in huge tracts of fields left fallow, year after year"

3. Air/noise/accidents :-

*Truck transportation (2010)

i. The court approved the government’s decision to restrict movement of mining trucks to fixed hours during daytime only
ii. to fix speed limits when traversing through populated areas.
iii. imposed restrictions on the quantum of ore that may be loaded in the trucks.

4. Forests (Apex Court) :-

* Challenging de-notification of large areas of two notified Wildlife Sanctuaries (Madei and Netravali):
*Challenging exclusion of 55 mining leases from Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary:
* Grant of post-facto clearances issued to industrial projects and mining leases (2004)
*Supreme Court in 2006 ordered all mining projects within 10 km of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks to get an NOC from the Standing Committee of the National Board of Wildlife

*Source: Norma Alvares, 2010. Paper for the WGEEP

It seems to us that mining in Goa has crossed the social and environmental carrying capacity of this small state. Table 8 below reports household responses to mining in four mining village clusters in Goa in 1996 when mining in Goa was about 17 mn tonnes.11 Out of the households surveyed, 50% had responded that mining had not benefited villages. Another survey based study shows that the populace in mining regions reported lower satisfaction levels in all facets as compared to that in non-mining regions12. Were this survey carried out today, with higher levels of mining activity estimated to be at 50 million tonnes of exported ore, we believe the nays would be much higher.

{11 Cluster I is the Bicholim cluster; Cluster II is the Surla Pale cluster of mines; cluster III is the Codli cluster of mines and Cluster IV refers to the Tudou –Bati cluster of mines which are now part of the Netarvalli sanctuary. }
[12 TERI (2002). Also see Noronha and Nairy (2005)]

Table 8 Survey Responses to mining activity :-

Clusters  ----  Villagers’ views

About new mining activity    ------------------     About fate of existing mines

Yes - No  - Don’t know  -  Expand Freeze   -  Capacity  -  Close   -  Don’t know

Cluster I 33 41 26 40 42 13 8
Cluster II 33 34 33 45 24 11 16
Cluster III 36 28 36 47 40 3 10
Cluster IV 5 35 60 7 88 5 0

Source: Household survey (TERI 1997) (Mineral production at 17 million tonnes)

17.4 Recommendations :-

Recommendation 1: Exclusion of mining from ecologically sensitive areas/zones :

* No mining should be allowed in the Western Ghats in Goa in : -
o Current protected areas, i.e., national parks and wild life sanctuaries as per current Supreme Court orders and wildlife Act 1972 provisions
o In regions of high sensitivity, ESZ1, as being demarcated by the WGEEP.
o All Environmental Clearances for mines in these areas should have an additional conditionality requiring (i) 25% reduction in mining every year till 2016, when mining has to be stopped in ESZ1 (ii) environmental rehabilitation of the mined area post closure.

*In EZ2, current mining may be allowed but no new mining licenses should be granted until the conditions in the mining region improve.

Recommendation 2: Mineral Extraction Control :-

* Close all mines that have been extracting ore beyond limits allowed by environmental clearance given as evident from data available with WGEEP
* Introduce an iron ore content cut off for iron ore extraction that reflects environmental and social concerns.
* Cancel all working leases by 2016 and non-working leases immediately in ESZ1s.
* Mining leases in WL Sanctuaries to be permanently cancelled. While mines may be closed, the leases in Goa are still showing them as existing mines. Hence they must be terminated under section 4 of the MMDR Act. Any orders passed by the Collector and Revenue Officer excluding any of these mines from the Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary to be cancelled. This is also the recommendation of the Central Empowered Committee.
* Mining leases in the catchment area of dams used for drinking water to be terminated.

* Rules for Sand mining (Padmalal, 2011) :-

o Sand mining to be audited; introduce sand mining holidays on stretches of rivers
o Aggregate management should be considered separately from river management.
o Separate legislations are required for the purpose
o Examine and encourage alternatives to river sand for construction purposes
o Necessary steps are to be taken to promote regeneration of natural riparian vegetation in areas hit by anthropogenic interferences along the river and tributary banks.
o The developmental and infrastructural activities in the riparian areas should be carried out only after proper Environmental Impact Assessments by a competent authority.

* For mining in Goa, cumulative EIAs must be made mandatory rather than entertaining EIAs for individual leases in the same areas. :-

Other recommendations regarding regulation of conjunctive productions of minerals and ground water, regeneration of agriculture, better practices in mining, etc are discussed in Part II of the WGEEP Report.

To be continued ..

JAIHIND
VANDEMATHARAM