Dear Members
I want to know weather EIA is required for establishing a large (say 80 MGD capacity with land area of 9.3 ha ) water treatment plant or not.
If EIA is not required what are the other Environmental Regulations need to be consider starting the construction.
Kindly give the quick reply
Regards
Vidhu Tripathi
Replies
Dear Mr Tripathi,
1. Water treatment plant generates waste water. What happens to the suspended solids and bacteria attached to them? What is backwash water? Where does backwash water go?
2. Water found in nature is a natural resource. The ecological processes down stream are controlled by river flow. Any abstraction of major type would impact river ecology. This impact shall be mitigated. So is discharge of wash water laden with concentrated suspended solids and residual treatment chemicals usually running to tons per day. Consider the lowest flow period and predict the impact and suggest mitigation measures.
3. Water supplied from the treatment plant becomes waste water in the form of sewage and sullage. What are the management measures planned to cope with this waste water.
One thing is evident: any activity related to large water treatment plant needs EIA.
Sir,
Environmental Clearance is not required as long as no waste water is generated and it has no relevance wether it is run by government agency or government itself.
Vidhu Tripathi said:
The water treatment plant will be run by government agency for the purpose of water supply.
Any way has it got any relevance with Environmental Clearance.
Vidhu Tripathi
Yes, the project requires environmental clearance as the built-up area is above the 20,000sq.m limit and the state pollution control board is to be approached to start with. Otherwise also for funding agencies like World Bank, such projects require conducting environmental assessment to identify mitigation measures with responsibility and time frame.
2. Since the withdrawal is huge, permissions would be required from governing agencies like water utilisation committee under public works department.
3. Any other permission by virtue of the site ownership has to be dealt with.
4. EIA has to cover a lot of aspects like river quality, impact on nearby features, downstream users, discharge of wastes etc and site specific requirements if any.
Dear Mr Tripathi,
Your question is very relevant. In any case it requires an EIA clearance.
1. It involves resource abstraction from a source, processing, and rejection of process wastes. It comes under the definition of industry. The ground that EIA rules do not define water utility as an industry is not a justification for avoiding EIA clearance. The health of the source (say a river), ecological needs of the river, conflict of interests among users of the river, impact of waste discharge on land and river, etc must be predicated and mitigation measures must be planned. The selection of treatment technology itself must be scrutinized during EIA process.
DEAR SUDHIR
I AM DISCUSSING WTP FOR DRINKING WATER/POTABLE WATER OF BIG SIZE AS MENTIONED EARLIER.
VIDHU TRIPATHI
Vidhu Tripathi said:
Sir,
EIA is a must for this mega project since it concerns with discharge of treated effluents.
Huge volume of effluent will travel to far off places including rivers forests, treams and adjacent to agriclutural fileds. Therefore it is a must. Importantly EIA must be true to the findings.
Regards
Sudhir
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