• Scientist, Linnean Medal winner, conservationist and public policy advocate Rohan Pethiyagoda on the impacts of the Adani Wind Power Project in Mannar

It has been a hot topic going into this year (2024) with the newswires on a roll: Adani Green Energy Limited is taking on the construction of wind turbines in the Island of Mannar. The numbers are now in: each turbine has the capacity to generate 5.2 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and the project is set to generate about 1,000 gigawatts of energy every year. But, is everything as it seems? The environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the project was completed in January 2024, and this is where some of the cracks in the plan are beginning to show: The dangers to the environment and the impact this will have on us, the people.

On ‘Kaleidoscope’ this week is the scientist, Linnean Medal winner, conservationist and public policy advocate Rohan Pethiyagoda on why he feels all is not right.

Following are excerpts of the interview:

What is this project all about?

This project looks at generating 6% of Sri Lanka’s electricity demand through wind farming on the Island of Mannar. The Government intends to give the contract for this project to the Adani Group in India to construct 52 wind turbines in Mannar, which will generate about 250 MW of electrical power. While it sounds excellent, it truly isn’t. That’s why I’ve decided to speak up about it. 

What red flags are up about this project after the EIA for the project was released?

The EIA points to two huge problems. First, I don’t believe that this EIA complies with what an EIA is meant to do according to the National Environment Act, No. 47 of 1980. Section 33 of the Act clearly states what an EIA is meant to do and this one fails on multiple counts. Secondly, the EIA, which is after all commissioned and presented by the Adani Group, claims that electricity will be sold to the Government at United States Dollars ($) 4.6 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). However, the Minister of Power and Energy (Kanchana Wijesekera) is on record saying that the Adani Group is asking for $ 9.6 cents and that he has managed to talk them down to $ 8.7 cents. In other words, he’s talking about paying twice as much as the Adani Group is claiming it is asking the Government for in the first place. So, there is a complete lack of transparency. This EIA has so many holes in it that it basically needs to be rejected and redone. The price for this electricity must be worked out through a transparent mechanism, rather than having a Minister negotiate things. We’ve been there before and that’s how we ended up with the Mattala International Airport, the Colombo Lotus Tower, the Hambantota Port, and other kinds of silly, extravagant wastage and it’s the people who end up paying the price for this. That’s why I think that this system is full of holes and I want to contest it. 

What threats towards the environment do you see this project posing?

I’m going to be cautious here, because I don’t see individual threats to the environment as being within our competence to determine. This is a highly specialised area. My point is that the EIA must be done according to the law and this one hasn’t been. Whether 10 or 100 birds get killed by this is not the point. So long as legal and financial due process has been followed, that’s as far as I’m willing to judge the project by.  People tell me about the number of birds going to face problems with these wind turbines.  My belief is that even if it’s a million birds, this has to follow the process that the law of Sri Lanka has set out. That is why we need to be careful. Also, these turbines are massive. They involve tens of thousands of masses of concrete and the concrete tower of each mill is about as tall as the World Trade Centre. Combined with the rest of the structure, a windmill is about as tall as the Altair Tower in Colombo. What happens when, 30 years later, these concrete towers need to be dismantled? In 30 years, Mannar will have developed into a different City with much more infrastructure. Where are we going to dump these windmills? How are they going to be removed practically? Also, these structures are coated with an epoxy resin, which has a chemical in it that has androgenising properties in that it mimics the oestrogen hormone. Men who are exposed to this resin will feminise, there’s a real fear of this. We don’t want these windmills to be where there’s high erosion, a high volume of birds, and lots of people. These are concerns that aren’t impossible to overcome, but they have to be addressed in the EIA.

So, the community is being impacted either in the short term, mid, or long term? 

That’s for the EIA to demonstrate. All I’m saying is, follow the process and show us that the community is not being impacted.

There are some who say ‘the birds will learn to fly around the turbines’ and that ‘we matter more than the birds’. What do you think will happen to the flight paths of the migratory birds passing through Mannar?

We don’t know because the data doesn’t exist. The EIA only counted birds moving around from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but most migratory birds move around at other times, so the data doesn’t tell us anything about the nocturnal movements of the birds. That’s the weakness of the procedure and I’m just pointing it out. If the EIA is done right, we will accept the results, but this EIA is so fundamentally flawed that it has become a meaningless document that’ll be written off. It concerns a project that might really harm our economy and our environment. As the four Rajapaksa era (the tenure of then President Mahinda Rajapaksa) projects point out (which were a waste, everyone agrees on that point as they cost $ 1.8 billion), the Adanis are trying to take $ 2.3 billion out of Sri Lanka from this project. If you compare the excess profit they’d be taking out of this project alone, it’s equivalent to having a bond scam. We will all remember that, every month, for the next 25 years. 

Sri Lanka is looking at alternative energy. What would an investor’s expectations be and are we constantly protesting whenever the big guns come in?

Definitely not. I’m all in favour of foreign investment, wind energy, and renewable energy. We need to get up to 70% renewable energy sources by 2030, which is the Government’s target. I’m all up for that. I’m just saying that we need to do it right. Don’t try to dodge the system. If you do it in the right way, following the right processes, then I’m all for it. You have to follow the due process, that’s important. 

If we were looking at placing these wind farms in other areas, where would these be?

There are plenty more, but, again, the data isn’t there. Mannar might be the best place for wind turbines, but you have to demonstrate that by evaluating alternative locations. The EIA hasn’t looked at any alternatives. Sri Lanka’s wind energy resource is very good, in Mannar, the Kalpitiya Belt, and around Jaffna, to name a few locations. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t develop any of this, but, any site should be developed in accordance with the national law. 

If we look at wind farms in general, what would be the ideal situation?

The ideal situation is where risks are assessed and the assessment shows that the projects are acceptable socially and environmentally.

What unfair benefits do you think the Adani Group is getting out of this deal?

From everything we’ve seen, there are two things to consider. For one, wind power is a natural resource of Sri Lanka and there’s no reason for Sri Lanka to be paying $ for it. This project is not so big that this country’s eight largest blue chip companies cannot handle it. It needs to be advertised locally, a call for bids must be placed, bids must then be assessed, and it must be decided whether there are local companies that can take on the project. At the level of profit that the Adanis are talking about, I’d sell my house and invest if that was the case. Why should this huge profit be flowing out of the country and whose pocket is it going into? We need to ask these questions. There’s huge amounts of foreign exchange flowing out of the country for a resource that the country has within. It is similar to Adani telling us the time by taking a look at our watch and then we have to pay him for looking at our watch and telling us the time. He’s taking our wind and selling it back to us in $. Why can’t we do this locally? Let’s at least find out if we can, by having a transparent call for proposals from Sri Lankan companies.

Is this the establishment’s way of dangling a carrot to other large investors to invest, by getting this Indian giant to invest?

I don’t think so. You can sell the country at whatever cost, but this is completely ridiculous. If you look at the Mahaweli projects which we developed in the 1980s and 1990s and if we think about where we would be if we had to pay for all of that electricity in $ today, we would have been bankrupt a long time ago. This is another way of bankrupting a country: signing up for a large outflow of foreign exchange for no good reason.

What do these projects, where a foreign company gets to do what they want on our soil, say about Sri Lanka’s integrity as a sovereign nation?

Well, it means that we’ve become a false sovereignty, doesn’t it? A sovereign nation should be doing what’s in the interest of its own citizens, and not of Indian citizens, but that’s exactly what our country is doing. However, I must say that I’m not against these kinds of projects at all. It’s just that they need to be done by our own companies.

When faced with a project like this, what can citizens do to stop it or go against it and make sure that things are done right?

Citizens should be asking for things to be done right. I don’t think that the project needs to stop, I don’t think stopping is a good thing, but it must be done in the right way. Citizens could join up and mitigate the issue. They could protest. What citizens must do is convince the Government, through a free and honest conversation, to abide by the law. Just because Adani is a big-time investor and just because the politicians in the Parliament are powerful, it doesn’t mean that we can ignore the law. Go by the law, go by the financial regulations. You can’t subvert the system and then expect the people to suck it up.

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)