In the past, fishermen of Ennore could spread 15 fishing nets across the rippling backwaters of the Kosasthalaiyar to catch shrimp. Now, after the Ennore port (Kamarajar Port Ltd.) has slowly expanded its activities — building roads, bridges and coal-conveyor facilities — there is no space to spread even a fishing net.
Pointing to the narrow, meandering strip of water flowing underneath a private road constructed by the port authorities on the river, fisherman P. Mahendiran, a resident of Kaatukuppam, Ennore, said that shrimp catch had dwindled in this once-prime fishing zone.
On Friday, when The Hindu visited Ennore, earthmovers could be seen carrying out levelling work on the Kosasthalaiyar riverbed in Puzhuthivakkam, next to a private road laid down by the port authorities, raising questions about violations of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules that prohibit development work on coastal land within 500 m of the High Tide Line. White sand for the work has been sourced from the seaside, fishermen said. However, port officials said that they had suspended all construction and related activities on the Kosasthalaiyar since the port expansion work hadn’t received environmental clearance as yet.
Flood risk
At Ennore, the Kosasthalaiyar joins the Ennore creek and drains into the Bay of Bengal, thus forming an important course for floodwaters to drain during the monsoon. However, encroachments by the port authorities and thermal power plant complexes elsewhere in the area have blocked passageways for flood waters to drain here, say environmentalists.
The Coastal Resource Centre, led by environmental activist Nityanand Jayaraman, has highlighted the matter in a letter addressing the Commissioner, Revenue Administration, the State Disaster Management Authority, Thiruvallur Collector, Commissioner, Greater Corporation of Chennai, the State Coastal Zone Management Authority and the Chairman, Expert Appraisal Committee (CRZ Ports). The centre has submitted photographic evidence of the encroachment, and written “about the illegal recommendation for clearance by the State Coastal Zone Management Authority for diversion of Kosasthalaiyar river for construction of coal yards, warehouse zones and car parks.”
“That clearance was aided by using a fraudulent map that denies the existence of Kosasthalaiyar north of the estuary,” the centre said in the letter.
The letter also points out that the ongoing activity has been projected as part of Phase III Masterplan expansion and the application for CRZ clearance is pending with the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Union Environment Ministry.
Citing a 2012 report titled ‘Coastal Zones of India’ by the Space Application Centre (ISRO), the letter points to the vulnerability of the Ennore region, identifying it as a zone of submergence due to Predicted Sea Level Rise and degradation due to advance of Predicted High Tide Level. The activists have demanded that the Kamarajar Port authorities should stop their civil work at Puzhuthivakkam Survey No. 143 and Athipattu Survey No. 354 where levelling work is currently under way.
In response, Commissioner of Disaster Management Rajendra Ratnoo told The Hindu that senior officials at the Department of Revenue Administration and Disaster Management have “taken a serious view of these violations.”
