The Sindh High Court has ruled that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) had violated the law by not undertaking a proper environmental impact assessment of the two large Chinese designed and built nuclear reactors that are now under construction just outside Karachi.
According to a report by PILER, the court ordered the PAEC to submit a fresh environmental impact assessment of the reactor project and obliged SEPA to hold a public hearing on the environmental impact assessment as required by law.
It is expected that the new environmental impact assessment will be submitted in the next few weeks, and a public hearing will be held soon afterwards. The public hearing of the environmental impact assessment will be an opportunity for concerned citizens of Karachi to say whether they accept the environmental impact assessment as offering a realistic, accurate and complete description of the risks that these reactors will pose to their lives and property and whether SEPA should give the go-ahead to this project.
The risks are long-term and are potentially catastrophic. The reactors are expected to have an operational life of 60 years and their radioactive nuclear waste will be stored at the site until other arrangements are made. Two additional reactors (K-4 and K-5) are planned which means there may eventually be four reactors next to each other at the site.
The grave consequences of nuclear accidents are well known after the disasters at Fukushimain 2011 and at Chernobyl in 1986. Concerns about the Karachi nuclear reactors project include – the reactors will be close to Karachi city, a reactor accident could imperil millions of people living and working in Karachi and force the entire city including its port, industrial areas, business centres, and fisheries to be shut down for months and perhaps longer.
The environmental effects of normal operations of the reactors are that the reactors will release radioactive gases and liquids into the environment as part of normal operation and they will dump excess heat as hot water into the sea and could damage coastal marine life and undermine the livelihood of local fishing communities.
This workshop will provide concerned citizens the information they need to be able to understand and evaluate the environmental impact assessment and to participate in the public hearing. Topics to be discussed will include – how does the environmental impact assessment and review process work, what are the international guidelines for what should be in a nuclear power plant environmental impact assessment; and what are some of the specific risks and consequences that should be in the assessment for the Karachi reactors project.