Re: https://sandrp.in/2018/08/07/role-of-doyang-dam-in-bringing-unprecedented-floods-in-golaghat/
It is clear that the society of specialists worldwide has failed and will fail in any new situation. See they boast they are mighty. But what is the ground reality? They are unable to cope with fires,floods,nuke occurrences,they have to live with nuclear wastes,air pollution,the unacceptable worldwide dam Dynamics,ocean omnicide,cancer epidemics,wars. It is a perennial set of insoluble problems,and leading to extinction. The specialists are unable to bother about the consequences of false knowledge driving them to doom taking all life with them.
Taking the average normal southwest India monsoon is 899 mm and a dry biomass density of 65 tons/ha we shall illustrate the average scenario. The plant transpires its own dry biomass of water in a day. At 65 t/ha it is 65 m3 per 10000 m2/day. In a year, the transpiration will be 65x365 m3/ha= 23725 m3/ha. The normal southwest monsoon rainfall is about 10000 m3/ha. Thus by judicious ecological reforestation we can recharge groundwaters while keeping lakes which are natural full of water and life. River murders can be phased out by phasing out dams on a war footing.Bonus is fish and dolphins and birds and all life will lead a life full of karma causing the genesis and support of beings.
References
1.Dams cause nuclear reactors to melt
https://livingnormally.blogspot.com/2017/12/dams-caused-fukushima-daichi-to-melt.html?m=1
2. Dams cause airplanes to crash and how the Mystery of the MH 370 disappearance was solved
https://livingnormally.blogspot.com/2018/12/mystery-of-malaysian-mh-370-airliner.html
Perfect designs are those which allow you to design around the Unknowable. Nuclear programmes, dams and in fact modern civilisation transgress rudely this principle driven by greed. We reap what others sow: The Three Mile Islands, the Chernobyls, the Fukushimas and others on the drawing board. Dams cumulatively by direct heating up of the earth cause earthquakes and tsunamies and climate change. Live contented with what you can do without perfect mass murders by realising you are part of nature.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Monday, July 9, 2018
Fallacious designs of the Hong Kong Convention on Ships
9 July 2018 0727 hrsz
Waterwatch Yahoogroup forwarded this letter from toxic watch and my comments are embedded.
Waterwatch Yahoogroup forwarded this letter from toxic watch and my comments are embedded.
To
Shri
Derek O Brien,
Chairman,
Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture
Subject-
Why India should not accede to Hong Kong
Convention and refrain from giving effect to its provisions through Safe and
Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018
Sir
With
reference to the draft Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018 and the meeting of the
stakeholders to discuss held on 14.06.2018 in 'Sagar Manthan', Room No: 5419,
Fourth Floor, Transport Bhawan, Parliament Street, New Delhi-110001, to discuss
the draft Bill, we wish to submit the following as to why India should not
accede to International Maritime Organisation (IMO)’s Hong Kong International
Convention for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships and
refrain from giving effect to its provisions through Safe and Environmentally
Sound Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018:
1. We
submit that a nexus of transnational ship owners’ lobbies and cash buyers have
succeeded in Bangladesh in getting a bill titled, 'Bangladesh Ship Recycling
Bill, 2018,' passed from Bangladesh Parliament in January 2018. The Bill was
introduced by Mr Amir Hossain Amu, Industries Minister of Bangladesh and it was
passed by voice vote.
2. Having
engaged with the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Shipbreaking, Ministry of Steel
in the past, we submit that these very transnational ship owners’ lobbies and
cash buyers have been instrumental in getting the supervision of ship-breaking
industry which was under the Steel Ministry from 1983 till July 2014 shifted
under the supervision of the Ministry of Shipping. We still feel that
logically, the ship-breaking industry should be with the Steel Ministry given
the fact that once the ship beaches there is no role for the Shipping Ministry.
Comment on 2: Agreed.
3. We
submit that the same transnational ship owners’ lobbies and cash buyers are
behind the incorporation of provisions of Hong Kong International Convention
for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships in India’s Draft Safe
and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018
4. We
submit that the stakeholders (rights holders) include India’s ship breaking
/recycling industry, migrant workers, village communities, fishing community,
environmental groups, labour groups, secondary steel re-rolling mills,
manufacturers of secondary steel products.
All these rights holders have not been consulted. Comment on 4: This is
undemocratic and renders this bill null and void under the constitution of
India.
5. We
have been a petitioner in the Hon'ble Supreme Court and have appeared before
Hon'ble Court constituted Committees in this regard.
6. We
submit that some foreign global shipping lobbies are at work to ensure that
India ratifies IMO's "Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and
Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 (the Hong Kong Convention)"
which has not come into force because shipbreakers, environmental and labour
groups of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are opposed to it as it is
anti-environment, anti-workers and contrary to supreme national interest. These lobbies are working to do indirectly
what they have not been able to do directly through the incorporation of
provisions of this Convention in the Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018. Comment on
6: This is atrocious and against the right to life.
7. We
submit that the death toll in the ship breaking/recycling plots of Gujarat’s
Alang beach continues to rise. The recent death of two migrant workers of
Madhya Pradesh in Gujarat's Alang ship breaking yards at plot no. 32 in
Bhavnagar is a case in point, we wish to inform you that in the morning of 14
March, 2018, Shri Balram Dhulia (40) and Shri Ramnayan Rajbhar (42), natives of
Madhya Pradesh were asphyxiated to death due to gas leakage. It has been
reported that “The incident occurred at plot number 32 where the duo had gone
into an empty tank of the ship that was anchored for breaking”. Fire brigade
officials took the duo’s bodies out and took them to Talaja Civil Hospital,
where they were declared brought dead, as per The Times of India, Rajkot
edition. The information received from Bhavnagar reveal that between April 2018
and May 2018 there has been 4 more deaths. Comment on 7:This is against all
decent ergonomics and must be condemned with the utmost fortitude.
8. We
also submit that earlier Shri Ashok Yadav, who was migrant worker from Bihar
employed in the ship breaking activity at plot no. 14Alang, Bhavnagar, Gujarat
too had died. As per Hindustan
newspaper’s Bhagalpur edition, the dead body of the worker reached Chidaiyawad
village under Bariyaarpur police station of Munger, Bihar on the evening of 18
September, 2017 after 72 hours of his death. So far some 500 workers have died
in the ship breaking activity since 1983 as per official records. Prior to
these recent deaths, in the year 2017 two workers died on 4th March and 16th
March. Even as per official data on an average some 10 workers have died
annually in the past decade at Alang. As a result of accidents during
ship-breaking at least two workers died in 2016 and eight workers died in 2015.
In 2014, 18 workers died in accidents in Alang shipyards. We wish to know
whether Ship Breaking Scrap Committee is doing anything to ensure that such
deaths do not occur in future even as there are reports about Japan
International Cooperation Agency getting involved to upgrade the existing
infrastructure at Alang and to modernise the Darukhana ship-breaking facility
in Mumbai.Comment on 8: This is against all norms of safety and must be taken
up now and the guilty given capital punishgment after due lightning process.
9. We
submit that unlike Ministry of Steel which regularly uploaded the minutes of
the meetings of the inter-ministerial committee on ship breaking, the
inter-ministerial Ship Breaking Scrap Committee under Ministry of Steel has not
done so since July 22, 2014. The minutes are crucial to know whether shipping companies and ship
breaking industry and relevant public institutions are in compliance with the
Shipbreaking Code, 2013, Basel Convention, the only international/UN law on
ship breaking as of today. These minutes could reveal whether Ferrous Scrap
Development Fund is being used for welfare of workers in the shipbreaking
industry. Comment on 9: This again totally unacceptable and the concerned must
be given due punishment by dismissal and public shaming.
10. We
submit that global shipping companies, especially from Europe are the most
influential players besides Japan. They get such laws made which cater to their
interests ignoring environmental and occupational health costs. In the past 10
years the situation has worsened with regard to worker's health and
environmental health in the ship breaking industry in Gujarat. Comment on 10:
Govt must now bring this to the wide notice of the public by stopping personal
ads of people like the PM or others within vested interests and using the money
saved to publicise these atrocities on the part of the international players.
11. We
submit that environmental groups have been demanding that the ship breaking
activity should shift from the beach, which is a fragile coastal environment,
which is cherished in developed countries. Comment on 11: The govt must do it
now like they did overnight on demonitisation.
12. We
submit that there is no regulatory pressure on shipyards to comply with all of
the current conventions in employees’ safety, better working conditions and
environmental consciousness. The ship breaking industry is operating as if
there is law holiday. They violate every rule in the rule book. Violation of
laws is the norm. Compliance with laws does not happen even in exceptional
cases. Comment on 12: Haul them up now Mr Modi and Gadkari. You are complicit.
13. We
submit that the Hong Kong Convention of International Maritime Organisation
(IMO) has been drafted to safeguard the interests of ship owning companies at
the 2nd Annual Conference on Ship Recycling. It is regressive, anti-environment
and anti-labour. IMO’s Convention conflicts with the UN’s Basel Convention on
the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and the
Basel Ban Amendment, which is the only international law in force to regulate
ship-breaking. IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) must ensure
decontamination of the beaches and suggest a phase out period for the industry
to move away from a fragile coastal environment like beaches in order to
protect the health of the local community and their ecosystem. Hong Kong Convention promotes status quo with
regard to ongoing poisoning of the beach. Comment on 13: Atrocious. Reparations
to the people must be handed out reliably proving that this has been done, NOW.
14. We
submit that toxic waste generated in the process of ship breaking/recycling has
not been dealt properly in South Asian beaches/shipyards so far. The use of
asbestos in new construction projects has been banned for health and safety
reasons in some 60 countries including developed countries or regions,
including the European Union, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand. WHO
and ILO have called for its elimination. But in Alang some 60-65 % of the
workers are exposed to asbestos without any remedy and compensation in sight.
Village communities and agricultural fields in the vicinity have become dumping
ground of hazardous wastes including asbestos wastes. Comment on 14: This
idiotic you govt. What is governance? Is this “development” as defined by the “developed”?
for the “ developed”?
15. We
submit that the wrongful act of locating polluting ship breaking activity in
Alang, Bhavnagar, India, Chittagong, Bangladesh and Gadani, Pakistan when there
was no environmental sensitivity must be undone. MEPC’s failure to address this
problem and allow status quo will defeat the very purpose for which the
committee has been constituted. Protection of the marine environment of these
beaches is the fundamental reason for MEPC’s existence. Comment on 15: The MEPC
must be publicly exposed giving daily photos in TV media and others like they
are doing with other fugitives and by due process of law punished severely
treating them as criminals.
16. We
submit that on these South Asian beaches like those in Gujarat’s Alang, vulnerable
migrant workers break end-of-life ships amidst exposure from hazardous
materials like asbestos, persistent
organic pollutants and heavy metals without any environmental and
occupational health security. The International Labour Organization has
classified shipbreaking on beaches to be the dirtiest, most degrading and
dangerous job.Comment on 16: Do the pollutants include uranium? Have any
measuremants been officially made verified by independent authorities? In Thoothukudi,Tamilnadu
they have not done if we go by any publicly available data base, so people are
warned of such criminal negligence. See ECRR 2010 available online.
17. We submit that the role
of IMO must be restricted till the ship remains a ship or a floating structure.
Once it is no more a floating structure, the role of IMO should cease.
Working at the yard should be addressed by ILO while handling of hazardous
waste should be based on Basel Convention norms. It is critical of the treaty
because it does not assign definite role to ship owners, builders,
classification societies or suppliers. The only role prescribed for ship owners
is to submit the inventory of hazardous materials. It does not prescribe remedy or precautions to be taken against
environment damage resulting from ship recycling operations particularly of oil
seepage. Comment on 17: This is against
UN Human Rights Code(See ECRR 2010).
18. We
submit that if one compares the IMO treaty with the pre-existing regulations it
is clear that the former is quite regressive and not forward looking. These
regulations do not permit ships meant dismantling without gas-free for hot
work. They do not exclude war ships and government vessels. The relaxation on
these two issues in IMO regulations will act as a loophole to divert ships for
recycling from regulated countries to non-regulated countries. Comment on 18: Like
the despicable carbon credits.
19. We
submit that IMO’s callous towards the plight of the workers and is simply
pandering to the whims and fancies of the ship owners from developed countries.
It does not provide for prior decontamination of hazardous materials and wastes
in the country of export. Notably, the Convention does not include directions
that are mandatory for the protection of environmental and occupational health.
Biodiversity of the marine environment and adverse impact on its ecological
status has not been factored in the ongoing ship-breaking activity. Comments on
19: When the idiots have committed Fukushima, which is omnicidal and will wipe
out infants will they be any different? They belong to the ISIS: Incorrigible
Specialists Infinitely Stupid.
20. We
submit that IMO’s treaty is essentially very status quoist is the manner in
which beaches of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan is allowed to be contaminated
just because the shipbreaking activity commenced in an era when environmental
protection was not a priority. The shipbreaking activity to be truly
sustainable must be taken off the beach and these beaches must be remediated
and restored for posterity as is done in the developed world. The current
practice of beaching method seems economically viable due to cost
externalization of pollution and adverse health impact. Comment on 20: You call
them developed? Given enough time modern civilization will destroy itself, said
Mahatma Gandhi in 1909. You must throw overboard almost the whole of modern
civilization if India and the world is to survive. You must do it without ever
creating pollution.
21. We
submit that IMO is pretending ignorance about manifold increase in the
pollution level on these beaches and disappearance of local biodiversity.
Comment on 21: It must be tried for crimes against humanity in the ICJ/People’s
Courts and be time bound by it.
22. We
submit that Hongkong Convention fails to address the four fatal flaws of the
beaching method for ship breaking that is practiced in India, Bangladesh and
Pakistan: cranes cannot be placed alongside ship, lack of access by emergency
vehicles and equipment, no possibility for containment and coastal zone,
intertidal zone is environmentally sensitive and managing hazardous wastes in
the intertidal zone can never be environmentally sound. Comment on 22: How
stupid of the so called developed. Modi please wake up NOW.
23. We
submit that all end-of-life ships broken in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India is
on tidal beaches whose soft sands cannot support crucial safety measures such
as heavy lifting or emergency response equipment and which allow pollution to
seep directly into the delicate coastal zone environment. No country in the
developed world allows ships to be broken on their beaches. Comment on 23:The
so called developed are schizophrenic and must be reformed so that the foreign
exchange rates reflect the idiocy.
24. We
submit that most ship owners choose to sell their ships for significantly
greater profit to substandard yards operating in countries without adequate
resources to provide safeguards and infrastructure to manage the dangerous
business. Ship breaking/Recycling cannot be done in a safe and clean way on a
beach without proper technologies and infrastructure, and enforced regulations.
Comment on 24: Agreed.
25. We
submit that IMO has failed to communicate categorically to the Marine
Environment Protection Committee of IMO that Hongkong Ship Recycling Convention
does not meet the bar of equivalent level of control and this backward step is
unacceptable. Environmental health, Labour and human groups have been demanding
remediation of these beaches of its toxic contamination because of
ship-breaking activity to retrieve and protect the fragile coastal
environmental and public health of communities and their livelihoods. Comment
on 25: Reform or be extinguished.
26. We
submit that transnational ship owners’ lobbies and cash buyers have been able
to neutralize the opposition from shipbreaking industry in Bangaldesh. They are
in the process of doing so in India as well. Till recently they were opposed to
this Convention shipbreaking/ship recycling because the IMO treaty has been
prepared under the influence of the ship owners and ship owning countries
designed to transfer the obligation of observing the entire regulations on ship
recycling countries. Comment on 26: They must suffer capital punishment NOW.
27. We
ask: how dumping of hazardous end-of-life ships can become beneficial in the
long run. Why should preparation of Inventory of Hazardous Material (IHM) await
ratification of regressive Hongkong Convention? Comment on 27: Agreed.
28. We
submit that dry docking facility in Gujarat’s Alang alone can safeguard coastal
environment for the current generation and posterity. Environmental groups
demand dry dock method in place of polluting beaching method for
breaking/recycling the ships. The burden of creating dry docking facilities can
be jointly shouldered by the beneficiaries like ship owners, shipbreakers, IMO
and the governments concerned. Environmentally Safe Ship breaking/recycling
cannot be carried out through the beaching method. Comment on 28: Admirable
clause.
29. We
submit that there is a need to impose ban on international trade in hazardous
wastes and disapproves of Hongkong Convention that attempts to undermine hard
earned Basel Convention under the influence of seemingly ungovernable shipping
industries. Comment on 29: Make your
laws in the image of God’s, else all the world’s artillery will not be able to
put down mutiny(like Carlyle said in another time and place)..
30. We
submit that European version of Hongkong Convention adopted by the European
Council on June 27, 2013 was under the influence of European shipping industry.
European Parliament’s stature has been eroded by its approval of new EU
Regulation on ship recycling. It has deprived itself of the opportunity to
solve the environmental and occupational health crisis facing Alang, Bhavnagar,
India, Chittagong, Bangladesh and Gadani, Pakistan. It has succumbed to those
undemocratic institutions which remain addicted to externalizing environmental
and human health costs to the shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan. These business enterprises have manipulated the legal and political
system in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan to ensure that most European owned
vessels broken on these beaches of South Asia by registering under non-EU flags
such as Panama, Liberia and the Bahamas. Comment on 30: Robert Clive still
remains supreme or Anderson of Bhopal massacre.
31. We
submit that ship owners have been hoodwinking legal regimes in place by not
declaring their intent to dispose the vessel whilst at a European port to avoid
extra costs of using safe and environmentally sound ship recycling facilities. The
new EU Regulation’s pretensions of banning breaking of EU flagged ships on
tidal beaches stands exposed as it does not provide for prevention of ship
owners from jumping register to a non-EU flag prior to sending their ships for
breaking in order to avoid falling under the requirements of the new EU law.
Beaching sites will not be approved for EU listing, which prevents EU flagged
ships from being beached. But by merely choosing to register their ships under
non- EU flags. Comment on 31: And those thugs have the impunity to kill unarmed
fishermen and escape to Italy under their laws!
32. We
submit that there is nothing new in European Council’s acceptance of the
European Parliament’s proposal to bind all ships calling at EU ports to have an
inventory of hazardous materials (IHM) that are contained within the vessels’
structure, a prerequisite for clean and safe ship recycling. It could have
easily have been done under the pre-existing laws. Comment on 32: European
confirmation was freshly required! Merkel: Its good to phase out nukes but not unacceptable
ship breaking?
33. We
submit that efforts of the large shipping nations such as Greece, Malta, Cyprus
who blocked measures for ensuring traceability of hazardous wastes dumped in
developing countries and clearly linking liability for these wastes to the
polluter along with ship owners constitutes an inhuman exercise. Comment on 33:
Indeed.
34. We
submit that European Council’s exemption to end-of-life ships from the European
Waste Shipment Regulation is meant for protecting developing countries from the
dumping of hazardous wastes and incorporating the UN’s Basel Convention and its
Basel Ban Amendment is indeed a breach of the European Union’s legal
obligations to uphold the Basel Convention and its Basel Ban Amendment
compelling 27 European Member States that are Parties to the Basel Convention
to accept the fait accompli of committing
illegality and of acting in non-compliance with their obligations under
international law. Comment on 34: Schizophrenic indeed and they must be hauled
up and severely punished.
35. We
submit that EU has ratified and implemented the UN laws into the national
legislation of all EU Member States via the European Waste Shipment Regulation.
The latter forbids the export of hazardous wastes from the EU to non-OECD
countries. Article 29 of the law on ship recycling adopted yesterday removes
hazardous waste ships from the scope of application of the European Waste
Shipment Regulation. Pre-existing EU legal instruments were contrary to IMO’s
Convention but the new one attempts to be in line with it despite manifest
legal inconsistency. In such a scenario
when EU is complicit in undermining Basel Convention proposed market-based
solutions cannot make the shipping industry accountable. It has not worked in
the past. It is bound fail. EU’s long held righteous stance for environmental
and human rights which were cited to make developing countries emulate stands
exposed. Comment on 35: Despicable and must be fought tooth and nail: Gadkari:
Bring about the change. And don’t destroy wetlands and forests.
In
view of the above mentioned facts, we seek your immediate intervention to ensure
that India does not accede to Hong Kong Convention and our government refrains
from giving effect to its provisions through Safe and Environmentally Sound
Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018.
Thanking
you
warm
regards
Dr
Gopal Krishna
Editor,
ToxicsWatch
Mb:
08227816731, 09818089660
E-mail:
1715krishna@gmail.com
Web:
www.toxicswatch.org, www.asbestosfreeindia.org
Cc
Chairman,
Ship Breaking Scrap Committee
Member
Secretary, Ship Breaking Scrap Committee
Member,
Ship Breaking Scrap Committee
Secretary,
Ministry of Steel
Secretary,
Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
Chairman,
Central Pollution Control Board
Focal
Point, Basel Convention, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
Shri
S.D. Kaushik, Consultant, Ministry of Shipping
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