Category : Biodiversity | Location : Kerala | Posted on 2022-09-29 23:28:59
Kumar Sahayaraju
Indigenous
Marine Researcher
Friends
of Marine Life (FML), Trivandrum, Kerala
The truth is that we who
have been talking about the Vizhinjam International Sea Port project
construction in Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala for the past several
years, about the blessings that it will bring to Kerala, do not seriously think
about the terrible environmental damage caused by the project and the resulting
problems for the biodiversity of the sea and the land. The total land
requirement for the port is 142.46 hectares (352.026 acres). Of this, 53
hectares (130.966 acres) will be reclaimed by dredging from the sea. The
construction of the port started on November 25, 2015. Cyclone Ockhi in
November 2017 halted dredging for a few months. Both dredgers were damaged.
Later, offshore drilling resumed in November 2018. The wharf or jetty of the
port is 800 meters long. So far, 36 hectares (88 acres) of the sea have been
filled in a three-quarter kilometer stretch from the coast to the sea. The
degradation of water quality, turbidity, degradation of marine ecosystems and
displacement of mussel and fish workers due to sea reclamation and dredging in
the Vizhinjam-Mullur region are also counted in the "fortunes" brought
by the port project.
