St Jean flooded : the metro’s full-fledged EIA again and again !!!

After facing the rising waters near the St Jean cemetery during the recent heavy rains, the local habitants and our ecologists have been querying whether the metro construction works have not contributed to these abnormally high level of water accumulations.

In today’s l’express : …..’Le chantier du Metro Express à quelques mètres y est-il pour quelque chose ? Une source avance qu'avant la construction du Metro Express, ce problème n'existait pas. « je me souviens qu’il y avait des accumulations d'eau à cet endroit mais pas d'inondation comme c’est le cas actuellement » lance un habitant de Quatre-Bornes. Il est rejoint par Adi Teelock, écologiste. «Il n'y avait jamais eu d'inondation à cet endroit. Il y a au des accumulations d'eau lors des cyclones mais pas avant la construction des voies du métro » Elle s’interroge. «Est-ce que ces inondations sont liés aux travaux du Metro Express ? » Selon elle, il y a eu de gros travaux d’infrastructures « piling » faits dans cette région. «Comme il n'y a pas eu d'ElA, comme on ne sait pas quels genres d'études géotechniques ont été faits et quels sont les résultats, comme il n’y a pas eu d'études sur le Storm Water Management, on a le droit de se poser des questions»

You will recall that, in reply to a PNQ on 9 November 2018, Nando Bodha refused to submit a copy of an EIA report (..."more of a sort of monitoring plan") from the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise consultant. He simply made it clear that the report’s recommendations are being followed by Larsen and Toubro and that the government has no legal obligation to make the report public.

Some of our evironmentalists were amongst the first to sound the alarm when the Minister of Public Infrastructure, Nando Bodha, announced that the project would be exempt from a general EIA. “The government has made a big mistake by allowing this crucial step to be overtaken because it wants to rush the works. An EIA would have helped to prepare an environmental and social management plan. Now they will have to bear the consequences.”

In their zest to get the project started without adequate planning, the authorities have now to deal with a whole can of worms. Really disturbing !!!

We are coming to regret the absence of a full-fledged EIA and now we are having to bear the costs! The worse is yet to come with the ease with which cronies, the private sector and some foreign investors, via EDB , are securing the EIA certificates.

10Prakash Neerohoo, Paul Lismore and 8 others

7 comments

2 shares

Like

Comment

Share