‘Wetland reclamation will cause flooding at Uran’

Reclamation activities take place at the Dastan Phata wetland in 2018. Pics/NatConnect Foundation

Navi Mumbai-based environmentalists have claimed that due to the massive reclamation activities at Dastan Phata and Savarkhar wetlands, several villages in Uran are in danger of getting flooded.

Nandakumar Pawar, director of Sagarshakti, the marine division of NGO Vanashakti, alleged that reclamation by Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) at Dastan Phata-Jasai, which began five years ago despite environmentalist groups' protests, has blocked intertidal water flow, pushing low-lying areas lower."A 3.6-km stretch of the creek from Dastan Phata-Jasai to Karale has not only been buried, but the height of the landfill has gone up at least three to four feet above the adjoining Uran-Panvel stretch of NH348," Pawar said.

The CIDCO and JNPA claim the water body is not a wetland

NatConnect Foundation Director B N Kumar said the debris dumping was stopped for a while in 2019 - after the environmentalists complained to the high court-appointed wetlands committee. "Moreover, the contractors did not have the required royalty permits for bringing truckloads of earth dug from nearby hills, which was amply proved during the site inspections carried out at our instance," Kumar said.

Pawar and Kumar wrote to the chief minister over the issue on Sunday night, stating, "The sad part of the reclamation is that neither the environment department nor the wetland committee questioned the claims by CIDCO and JNPA that the intertidal water body spread across over 400 hectares (at Dastan Phata) is not a wetland."

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The reclamation is being done to allot plots to the JNPA project-affected people under the government's 12.5 per cent scheme, a signboard at the site read. "While compensation is a must, JNPA and CIDCO should have picked up already-developed land for this purpose," said Dilip Koli of Paaramparik Machhimar Kruti Samiti.

"Now, the villages such as Jasai, Dastan, Belpada, Karal, Jaskar, Sonari and Savarkhar may get flooded as the tidal flow has been completely blocked," he stated. The Uran-Panvel road that connects the JNPA container port and the JNPA SEZ will also get inundated if the tides are high, Kumar said, pointing out that the Arabian Sea is just a stone's throw from the reclamation site. A double whammy for the villages is that the Savarkhar wetland has also been totally dried up thanks to relentless reclamation, green groups have claimed. In this case, too, the revenue officials stopped the reclamation in December 2021 for some time but they too relented after JNPA argued that the 22-hectare water body is not a wetland.

"Savarkhar wetland figures in the list prepared by the Uran tehsildar himself and the officials have failed to protect them," Pawar said. He pointed out that the local sarpanches had earlier complained to the tehsildar about unseasonal flooding due to the Savarkhar reclamation but the officials chose to neglect the issue. On a complaint filed by NatConnect in March 2022, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Control (MOEFCC) asked the state wetland authority to look into the issue and its report is still awaited. Another key issue is that the checklist for Environmental Clearance filed by the JNPA SEZ clearly stated that there would be no landfill, Kumar said.

He asked why the district collector and the environment departments had "ignored the alarm bells sounded by the activists".

2019
Year debris dumping was stopped briefly