007-i. Advisory review: EIA for Kerawalapitiya land reclamation - Sri Lanka

The NCEA issued an advisory review of the EIA for a land reclamation project in Sri Lanka. It concluded that essential information was missing, which made it impossible to assess the proposed mitigation measures or to suggest additional ones. Additional research was recommended to obtain the missing information.

Advisory reports and other documents

Significant details

The Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation wanted to reclaim land in the Muthurajawela swamp. This would be done through the 'Kerawalapitiya land reclamation project', by extracting sea bed sand and transporting it through a pipeline to the intended wetland site. This land would partly be used for wetlands conservation and partly for fisheries and other exploitative activities.

The Dutch government asked the NCEA to review the EIA report which had been prepared for this project. A decision on the project had however already been taken before this review, and contracts with an engineering company were signed. The review therefore specifically focused on assessment of the mitigation measures included in the EIA report, and on recommending additional measures.

The NCEA used international EIA standards as a reference for reviewing this EIA report. In its advisory review, it concluded a.o.:

• Public participation procedures had been used well during the preparation of the EIA report;
• The proposal was not placed in a broader planning context, and consequently the possible impacts on adjacent areas were not examined;
• The EIA report contained insufficient quantitative information on environmental impacts of the proposal, which made evaluation of the mitigation measures impossible.

For the latter reason, the NCEA was unable to make any recommendations on additional mitigating measures. The NCEA advised that if this missing information is not available, research should be undertaken to obtain it.

Parties involved

Members of the working group

Chair: Jan-Willem Kroon
Technical secretary: Reinoud Post

Proponent and Component Authority

Further details

Country: Sri Lanka

Last modified: 10 May 2019