The State government on Monday told the High Court of Karnataka that the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST) of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, has agreed to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and water quality-impact monitoring study for the KC Valley project by involving experts from agencies like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).
The project uses treated waste water for indirect recharge of 126 minor irrigation tanks in Kolar and Chickballapur.
The government produced a communication from the IISc. in this regard before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur during the hearing of a PIL petition questioning one R. Anjaneya Reddy of Chickballapur, complaining that the KC Valley project was implemented without scientific study.
The IISc., in its communication to the Minor Irrigation Department on November 20, said that though EIA is normally done prior to starting a project, in this case, as the project had already started, the EIA would be strengthened using real data from the field rather than on assumed scenarios. A review committee, comprising eminent scientists in the field of waste water treatment and reuse drawn from IITs and NEERI would be formed for appraising the outcome of the study.
Stating that it would take about 18 months to complete the study, the IISc. informed the government that the study “should bring out all short- and long-term positive and negative environmental impacts through a combination of field monitoring, collation of available data with various agencies, and interaction and assessment at the user-end.”
Terming the KC Valley project as a “yeomen and pioneer in India” and hence assumes national importance as the project was “emulated in different ways by many other States”, the IISc. said the study whould focus on current and future threats and understood, documented, monitored and related fears allayed paving way for a safe and secure reuse in the future and ensure sustainable waste water management.
Disposal of treated municipal sewage complying the Central Pollution Control Board norms is an accepted form of waste-water reuse and does not warrant an EIA prior to taking up this mode of waste water reuse, it was been pointed out in the IISc. communication.
