Cauvery Delta - Methane Project - The truths - Part 1

I usually hate digging up something new, while attending to another task already.

While working on the controversies related to Isha Foundation, some of my friends also asked me to look at the Kaveri Delta Methane digging issue. This is my first post on that and I will post some more soon.


What is the Methane project in Tamilnadu?

A controversial topic that has been going on for a while now, this Kaveri delta methane problem has seen its fair share of controversies already.

The project is undertaken by Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd (GEECL), a private company based in Gurgaon, Haryana. The company received a CBM-IV (Coal Bed Methane) license to explore and extract methane gas from Nagapattinam, Thanjavur and Thiruvarur districts which are known to be major rice cultivating areas of Tamil Nadu.

Here is a twist in the information out on public domain - the wikipedia link says "The company has a plan to drill 50 core production wells of 150-450 metre deep in the ground" but GEECL's own website says "It will start with 30 pilot production wells and 50 core holes at the 667 sq km Mannargudi block"!

Oh, by the way, the area of city of Chennai is 426 Square kilometers. So, we are talking about something bigger than a whole metropolitan city. It is not clear whether the whole area will be owned by the company or that the company will just be drilling within that big an area. Hope it is the latter ...


Politics of the project

The project was signed off and license issued to GEECL by the then DMK Government of the state. There were a few protests right from that time by popular agricultural and social activists. In September 2012, the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests (uMOEF) issued environmental clearance to the project, under Congress Government.

The subsequent ADMK Government put a hold on the license and no doubt, at least some of it is as part of reversing the earlier Government's decisions. It is definitely not all just because of the protests since there is no solid material out there in public domain that has been used as scientific evidence by the protesters (there are opinions published though).

I will try to get a scientific angle to this as well. Who knows - some protesters or supporters of the project may find my post useful for their arguments? :)


Know GEECL better, The Company under Fire

- The company's website says it is under the umbrella of "YKM Holdings Group Company".
- Country of Incorporation is marked as India from 1991. Promoter group has 61.78% of shares. So, obviously they can make or veto out major decisions.
- Prudential PLC holds the next major chunk of shares, about 15%. BTW for those who do not know of it, Prudential is a UK based company. Since August 2010, Prudential has held a major stake in many mining & mineral companies across the world.
- There is something suspicious about the YKM Holdings company itself. The Bloomberg site (in reference) does not show any key executives recorded. GEECL's website though shows key personnel.


Know the science, just a little bit

- The process being planned for extracting Methane is termed 'Fracking', defined as "the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, etc. so as to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas"
- Fracking is generally considered bad by many but question is if it is truly that bad, then why the governments across the world are issuing licenses to companies to use the technique for Oil & Natural Gas exploration?
- Some information available points linking to expansion of underground fissures and mild earthquakes being caused by fracking. But this is not very conclusive as yet.
- Question to GEECL: do we really need 30 pilot wells out of 50 production wells to evaluate fracking's impact in that area? If you really want to gain public support and prove that it is not an environmental problem, try 2 or 3 holes to show it works fine.


Does fracking have any benefits at all?

- Apparently so! There are lot of difficult-to-reach sources of Oil & Gas which can be reached only through Fracking so far.
- In the USA, it has significantly boosted domestic oil production and driven down gas prices.


What next?

- The next steps would be to investigate the truth behind the problems with fracking as a science.
- Identify the personal networks of the key people and see who is behind this organization really.


References you can enjoy:

I am deliberately not using the existing YouTube videos of supporters and detractors - don't want to be biased in my research early.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_delta_coal-bed_methane_project

(2) https://www.quora.com/How-bad-is-the-proposed-methane-project-in-Thanjavur-Delta-region

(3) http://moneytometal.org/index.php/Prudential_PLC

(4) http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/default.aspx?TabId=836&CompanyId=19296&CategoryId=363

(5) http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14432401

(6) https://www.quora.com/Is-the-ongoing-methane-gas-project-by-GEECL-at-the-Kaveri-Delta-coal-bed-justified-It-is-alledged-that-the-project-spoils-environment-and-takes-away-the-livelihood-of-farmers-living-there-How-far-is-this-true

(7) http://frack-off.org.uk/resource/20-impacts-of-coal-bed-methane-cbm/

(8) http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=39099532

(9) http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=11636739&privcapId=25069886

Wait for my subsequent posts on this issue ..

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Mahashivratri 2017 and Isha Controversies

Phew .. I like digging into controversies and finding out the truths. But I am beginning to get bored with the threads that I started with, especially on Isha Foundation. Mid way through, I am having to conclude in some cases that there is no truth whatsoever in some allegations. Even for common sense logic, they don't seem to hold a candle! Of course, Common sense is a rare commodity these days :)

Blazing Sun

Was interested in witnessing the Mahashivratri celebrations myself, just to check what all these controversies were about. Went to the venue around 1 PM and goodness, what a crowd even at that time! The sun was blazing but did not deter those who had come to the venue. It took a lot of time to have the security checks done and luckily get into the venue despite the push-and-pull madness :) We don't see that kind of rush even for first-day first-show movies.

In retrospection, now I know first hand how strict the police & security personnel are when guarding a few Chief Ministers and the Prime Minister himself. By the time the event was its peak, there would have been at least a couple of lakh people. The venue was full and many were watching from the grounds nearby where free food was being served. The food was delicious even for a devilishly hungry stomach like mine.

Angry (Calm) people!

Normally an introvert, I walked around for a while on my own, finding a place to settle down. Then I spoke to a few strangers who had come to the venue. Some blasted the foundation outright that they were called but were not being let in. The police had already locked down the entry points to the venue before the PM's arrival. The same lady apparently stayed back till the PM left and had a good time in the venue later. Another gentleman, clearly a Shiva Bhakt wearing rudraksh & having vibhuti fully on forehead, came in agitated and angry, roamed around like that for a while and then sat down unmoving, still with his eyes closed for the meditation sessions. Something strikes people here I think!

Police personnel

It was interesting to get the perspectives of some of the Police personnel on watch. Saw a gentleman asking why the common notion is different when the Isha volunteers in a stall were giving out ringtones for free! Overheard a Police officer saying Isha should conduct more yoga sessions for all Police people. Some of them were surprised that despite having so many people in one place, there was no unruliness in the crowd.

Controversy, Controversy, Controversy

Oh, coming to the crux of the controversy itself, the whole damn land was all agricultural land! I do not know if it was leased or purchased, it certainly does not have any semblance of "tons of trees being cut" and all that nonsense.

It is close to the forest area alright - across the road, one could see the dug up fences erected by forest department. But this venue was at least a good half a mile from the forest border. Found some remnants of sugarcane plants in the area.

Did I tell you that there were a few gentlemen who just came probing, like me? Was chatting up with one of them and he opened up saying he wanted to see what the truth was. I asked him if he was convinced ... he just smiled. I guess, common sense prevails after all, even if in minute quantities.

The Google Earth images in this video clearly prove that the land is a properly acquired land and not forest land!

The Aftermath ..

I stayed till 4:30 AM and then started back to crash on my bed at 6:45 AM. Spent the whole day sleeping, waking, eating and checking my emails. A late rise up to a glorious Sunday morning brought back the memories and I thought of penning them down :)

There are couple of things that I would still like to pursue and find out though. One thing that everybody claims is they are a rich organization. Will try to dig out more on that and come up in subsequent posts.

Edit 1:

As recently as July 2017, it has been categorically proven in the Chennai High Court that there is no encroachment of forest land by Isha Foundation. But I doubt if the lies spread by vested interests are to stop here - I see too much ignorance from common public and too much money being spent in spreading this lie online!

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Noyyal river - its origins, problems and One-child policy!

What has one-child policy got to do with Noyyal river? 

A lot, especially if you are from the Kongu belt (Coimbatore, Erode and Salem districts) of Tamilnadu. The facts in this regards are as below:

* Noyyal river is one of the popular ones in Tamilnadu, mainly known for its water with medicinal properties.

* Some people are arguing that because of some institutions (including the Isha Yoga Center) having their buildings in the Noyyal catchment area, the river has been depleting. Look at the below map carefully. You can see that the whole of Coimbatore, Avinashi and Tiruppur is within the catchment area! So, going by this argument, all these cities & towns have to be vacated!

* What many people do not know is that the natural flow of Noyyal is seasonal. It occurs only during the north-east monsoon months.

* Noyyal has been having lot of problems in the last 4 to 5 years because of irregular water supply. When rain water supply has been fine, the river water flow has been fine too. But when that rain water supply is not enough, it is going dry.

* Isha Foundation's buildings are a few Kilometres far from the river bed. There is a single small stream which flows through the lands and is left unobstructed.

* Even High school science students know that hundreds of acres of forest & tree cover is required to create a single water stream. Several such water streams usually combine to form a tributary, many of which further combine to form a river.

* Truth of matter is that less than 1% of Noyyal river basin is in forest area. Refer page 10 of this document:

https://www.atree.org/sites/default/files/discussion_papers/Wm_Noyyal_SA.pdf

* Majority of water supply to the Noyyal river is because of the rainfall. Page 9 of the research document (linked above) clearly indicates this:

"The natural flow of the Noyyal is seasonal and occurs only during the north-east monsoon months. However, urban domestic and industrial sewage from Coimbatore and return flows from the Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) all drain into the Noyyal; so it experiences perennial flow in some stretches. Occasionally, flash floods occur after heavy rain events.

Rainfall in the basin is highly variable due to the orographic effect of the Western Ghats. The mountains form a ‘rain shadow area’ (with respect to the south-west monsoon) over the plain, which consequently has a dry climate. The extreme western and upper reaches usually receive more than 3000 mm annually during the southwest monsoon, whereas the major eastern part of the basin receives an annual rainfall of 600 mm, which mostly occurs during the north-east monsoon."

* <1% of Noyyal river basin goes through and is near a forest area and in that <0.0001% is flowing through lands near the Isha Yoga Center.

* The argument that many institutions near Velliangiri hills are causing problems for Noyyal river water does not make sense.

* I sought all this information out after watching a guy passionately putting lie after lie in a TV interview about the Isha Foundation!

* However, the woes about Noyyal do not end there. Pollution to Noyyal is causing severe health hazards to people consuming the water down the line.

* The illegal (and unregistered) units operating on Noyyal river basin have been dumping pollutants into the river waters. This has been a serious problem for a while.

https://ejatlas.org/conflict/noyyal-river-basin-a-pollution-cocktail

* When cattle and people consume these polluted waters, it is causing unspeakable health hazards to humans!

* The infertility rate in young adults has had a 20-30% rise in the last 5 years. Some of it is attributed to lifestyle reasons like stress, too much of travel, etc. and also water / air pollution.

* Why are so many fertility clinics coming up in the Coimbatore and Erode districts of TamilNadu in the last 5 years? Is this an organized attempt to grow the medical business in the Kongu area?

* It is time for people to think what is causing all this and make attempts to fix it. Otherwise, there is a serious risk of the following in the Kongu belt:
- More people being affected by Cancer
- More infertile and childless couples
- More cattle dying due to health problems caused by river water
- More farmers suffering due to the polluted water

Refer these studies to know more about it:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/pollution-of-noyyal-continues-unabated/article5674550.ece

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/polluted-noyyal-river-tamil-nadu-turning-land-and-people-barren/1/209822.html

http://www.dailyo.in/lifestyle/infertility-on-the-rise-in-women-men-lifestyle-stds-sexual-health-sperm-count-vd-menstrual-cycles/story/1/8839.html

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