Activists in Karnataka slam exemption to landfills from eco clearance

Bengaluru: The Union government’s move to amend the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification to exempt Common Municipal Solid Waste Management Facilities (CMSWMF), including landfills, besides leading to a back-door exemption to waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, has raised the hackles of activists. 

The draft gazette notification dated October 3 proposes to remove section 7(i) of the EIA Notification, which mandates several conditions for CMSWMF.

The conditions include prior environmental clearance (EC) given only after strict assessment of the impact of such a facility on the surrounding environment - a basic precautionary principle.

CMSWMF plants include landfills, municipal bio-methanation plants as well as residual-derived fuel (RDF) plants. Landfills are highly polluting entities due to the leachate leaking into the surface and groundwater, besides dangerous methane emissions. 

If the draft notification is finalised, landfills and other waste management plants will be permitted at all places, without an environmental impact assessment study being undertaken. Waste processing plants and landfills in Benglauru have a record of leading to local air and water pollution, despite strict laws. The exemption will make it easy to brush such violations under the carpet. Moreover, the exemption also precludes the need for public consultation. 

In the notification, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has cited the strictures notified under two laws preventing air and water pollution and a recommendation by an expert advisory committee. The committee had, in fact, recommended that only CMSWMF without landfills be exempted. However, the ministry cited the vital role provided by the Essential Environment Service (EES) industries to provide a blanket exemption.

Backdoor exemption

While the WTE plants below 15 MW capacity were exempted through an office memorandum in 2017, the draft notification refers to the expert committee exempting ‘blue category’ industries from these conditions, including the requirement to obtain EC. The ‘blue’ category, introduced by the Central Pollution Control Board, includes WTE industries of all capacities.

Conservationists noted that the expert committee’s recommendation leaves space for further dilution of the rules. WTE plants above 15 MW are categorised under section 1(d) of the EIA notification. “Instead of lawfully amending Item 1(d) — the only statutory pathway to exempt WTE plants above 15 MW — the draft notification craftily manufactures a backdoor EC exemption by invoking the Blue Category of EES. This backdoor exemption is a deliberate attempt to sidestep statutory framework, and is bad in law, both in intent and effect,” conservationist Nirmala Gowda noted.

She cited a study showing that a WTE plant in Delhi’s Okhla neighbourhood exposed over 10 lakh people to deadly pollutants like dioxins and heavy metals like cadmium, arsenic, lead and cobalt. “Because of this (pollution), nobody wants such facilities in their backyard. Now, with the EC exemption, communities will remain in the dark about such facilities coming up in their localities till bulldozers arrive,” she said.