The environment organisations have come out strongly against the new move of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) to revive the Pathrakadavu hydroelectric project. The project was proposed as an alternative to the Silent Valley project, being taken up now at the Silent Valley buffer zone in Mannarkkad taluk of the District. They said since the area was declared as the ‘buffer zone’ of the unique Silent Valley National Park it would be extremely difficult for the State government to recommend the project to the Centre, as they had to go through a plethora of statutory provisions and formalities. The buffer zone was declared two years ago, to protect the unique rain forests of Silent Valley. So taking up a hydel project in the zone would destroy the ecological balance of this ecologically fragile forest area, they said. Secretary of Kerala Natural History Society L. Namasivayam said since the hydel project was proposed in the buffer zone of Silent Valley National Park, it required sanction from both the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment and the empowered Committee of the Supreme Court. “There should also be an Environment Impact Assessment study on the area and its bio-diversity. A public hearing has to be held before preparing the Environment Impact Assessment report for taking up any such project. Thus there is a plethora of formalities that will be very difficult to complete for the State government to recommend the project to the Central government, as the project is a big threat to efforts to conserve the unique rain forests of Silent Valley,” Mr. Namasivayam, also a legal expert on forest cases, said. “The project is being taken up as an alternative to the Silent Valley hydroelectric project that was dropped in the late seventies in the face to stiff resistance from environmentalists and a worldwide campaign to protect the forests as natural heritage,” Director of ‘One Earth One Life’ Tony Thomas said. He said the main left bank wall of the Pathrakadavu project dam formed the Nilikkal boundary of Silent Valley Park, contrary to the claim of the KSEB that it would be constructed at Pathrakadavu, far downstream of the park boundary. “A trek across the four-km rock cliff terrain from the powerhouse site at Thathengalam to the dam site on the Nilikkal boundary reveals that the Pathrakadavu waterfall, where the proposed dam is to come up, is just 700 metres downstream of the Nilikkal waterfall through the water body. Between the main Pathrakadavu waterfall and the one at Nilikkal, there is another waterfall, known among the local people as Pathrakadavu waterfall,” Mr. Tony, also a resident of the area, said. But the KSEB, by generalising the entire stretch as Pathrakadavu, was hiding the fact that the dam site (marked by it on May 2, 2003, to have the Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 480 metres above the MSL) was at the boundary of Silent Valley, he said. Environmental groups — Thuthpuzha Protection Committee, Bharathapuzha Samrakshana Samithy, Janajagratha, Wildlife Protection Council of India — have come out against the move of the KSEB to get the project recommended by the State Government to the Centre. They said when a public hearing was organised to prepare the Environment Impact Assessment report of the project on May 21, 2004, at Mannarkkad, there were stiff opposition to it from various organisations and some political parties also. The greens said they had already petitioned the Union Environment and Forest Ministry and the Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court against the Pathrakadavu project.