Rule of law has been selectively applied -Mubarack
“It was in 2015 that the Government thought of starting this project after the garbage matter seemed to have no solution,” said Saheed Mohomed Mubarack, an environmental activist in the area.“then they wanted to deposit garbage in Ekala, but there were many objections and finally decided on the Aruwakkalu area where limestone have been quarried by the former Cement Corporation and subsequently by Holcim. Then they bulldozed the entire area and dug it up once again. Then they have put a layer of sand and on top of that is a 1.5mm thick polythene. According to the EIA, they want to go on loading garbage on top of this polythene for 10 years. But now the Minister says that they are going to dump for 80 years. Even if the polythene is able to bear the load, around 1.5km away there’s continuous blasting for limestone. Due to the blasting the houses situated around 500m-1km away have cracked walls,” said Mubarack.
Apart from that the Daily Mirror also came across a study done on the leachate aspect of it and the researcher was taken out of the Committee for pointing out possible threats to the environment.
Mubarack further said that the EIA drafted by the Ministry has many shortcomings.“when drafting an EIA they need to speak to people in the area but for this EIA they have only spoken to two people, that too a farmer and a Buddhist priest. We have been fighting against the project since 2016. Garbage is brought from Colombo, Dehiwela-mount Lavinia, Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte and Kolonnawa. According to the EIA they have to transport garbage in sealed containers by train and there are no provisions in the EIA to transport garbage by road. Additionally they must get the Environmental Protection Licence (EPL) in order to dump garbage. When the CMC toppers arrived they didn’t have the EPL. Although the rule of law is there in the country, it is selectively applied.”
“Nobody had site-specific knowledge. Then they say that it will be done in a very scientific manner. Another concern is that there’s no mention about sorting out garbage before sending it here. They will compact the garbage at Kelaniya and then send it via train to Aruwakkalu. According to the Railway Department, the cost of transporting garbage per day is Rs. 925 per km and 26 wagons will be arriving per day. This calculates to about Rs. 4 million per day just for transportation.”