PANJIM: The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for environmental appraisal of non-coal mining projects constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), New Delhi, has made it clear that restarting mining (beginning in the Bicholim area) is not going to be as easy as turning on a switch or pressing button.
The EAC has rejected Vedanta’s stand that there is no forest land involved in the mine lease area where it wanted to start mining of iron ore in Bicholim Mineral Block with a proposed production capacity of 3 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA).
According to the minutes of 20th EAC meeting held on September 21-22, 2023, (In possession of O Heraldo), the EAC noted that the Vedanta had submitted that Mayem forest common boundary is shared with the mine lease area but it was of the view that involvement of forest land within the mine lease area is not clear as there are two contradictory information given by the Project Proponent.
The EAC also noted that in this regard, Vedanta had not submitted the letter from the Forest Dept.
“No National Park or Wildlife Sanctuary, ESZ/ESA etc is located within a 10-km radius of the study area. An application for Groundwater withdrawal was submitted to the Water Resource Department (WRD) on 19.06.2023. No Rehabilitation and resettlement is involved in this proposal,” the Vedanta had submitted.
It also informed the EAC that iron ore will be transported by 10.5-tonne trippers from the mine to Sarmanas Jetty through a dedicated road. The total distance from the mine to the Jetty is 5.48 km of which 0.94 km stretch is public road and the remaining 4.54 km is company-owned dedicated road. The width of the road is 7.0m. Twenty-four hours of continuous volume count was manually undertaken during May 2023.
However, the EAC noted that the width of the road is not adequate.
“About 1205 trips per day will be carried out. No of working days will be 365. When the rainfall is 3,500 mm/year, it will be difficult to carry out mining for 365 days,” the EAC said.
The EAC had also asked Vedanta to bypass the public road and explore the possibility of increasing the capacity of the truck so as to reduce the number of trips.
The EAC opined that Vedanta needs to revisit the traffic load by considering the cycle time and waiting time. It also asked the mining firm to strengthen the road and convert the road into a concrete road.
The EAC noted that as many as 4,708 written objections were submitted against the project during the public hearing held on August 11, 2023.
The EAC also noted that many complaints were received against the public hearing and asked Vedanta to submit a video recording of the public hearing.
The EAC, after detailed deliberations made by Vedanta and the Consultant, noted that the handling of waste of 25.162 MTPA will be more than the iron ore production capacity of 3.0 MTPA.
It was of the view that the pollution potential will be more in handling of waste. It was not convinced with the plan for backfilling and with the design of settling ponds as the annual rainfall is projected as 3500 mm/year.
The EAC observed that the instant mine is located in a dense vegetation area and the mine lease area is located close to the proximity of the habitations, school, forest (Mayem common boundary), river, temples, caves and fort.
“The project proponent has not properly worked out the traffic load. Many litigations were received against the public hearing/project. Mines have not been in operation in Goa from 2018 and this instant proposal is the first case for a grant of Environmental Clearance (EC) under auction after five years. Thus there is a need to ascertain the present scenario and ground reality with regards to handling of waste, settling ponds, location of waste dump with regard to habitation, schools and rivers, other surface features as forests (Mayem common boundary), temples, caves and fort, mineral transportation route and traffic congestion,” the EAC observed.
It was also of the view that a site visit needs to be conducted by a sub-committee comprising EAC Members and officers from MoEF&CC.
It opined that the MoEF&CC may constitute a sub-committee and submit its report to enable the committee to take a decision on the proposal.