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Champoor power plant, an ominous threat to public health

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 September 2011, 11:20 GMT]
The signing of the agreement in Colombo Tuesday to build a 500MW coal power plant in the pristine surroundings of Koddiyaar Bay in Trincomalee District, by India and Sri Lanka marks the development of an environmentally destructive project in the east, civil society sources in the east said. A coal power plant of the magnitude planned for Champoor could produce 3,700,0000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, which is a main cause of global warming, will present great danger to the future generations of the Eezham Tamils of the Koddiyaarpuram region, civil sources in the east said.

Further Sulphur di oxide (SO2) emitted causes acid rain. According to medical sources coal dust causes black lungs diseases or pneumoconiosis and also emphysema.

When coal is burned to generate electricity, the mercury (Hg) component of coal is vaporized into the atmosphere, from where it returns to the ground in the form of acid rain.

The mercury then flows into the waterways and rivers where planktons then ingest the mercury and attach a chemical methyl group to it to create methyl mercury. This mercury is fat soluble, and so it very easily enters into the cells and is said to enter into the cells and poison the proteins of DNA.

Small fishes eat the planktons, which are in turn consumed by the larger fishes which bio accumulates the mercury.

Many rivers and streams have been closed due to mercury contamination in several parts of the world.

Mercury is extremely toxic to nerve cells and when pregnant mothers eat these fishes with soluble mercury it is especially dangerous to developing nervous systems of children, and this no doubt helps the agenda of the genocidal governments to exterminate the young Tamils as well.

The joint venture project was planned in December 2005 when Mahinda Rajapakse visited New Delhi.

A striking similarity of building dangerous nuclear power plants by the Indian government with outdated Russian technology mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, in spite of Japanese disaster,.

According to an article by a Senior Economist from the Colombo University, the proposed joint venture coal power plant in Champoor will devastate the economy of this region.

The economist says that no concern has been shown to the operating cost in the long run, and no social and environmental assessment have been carried out.

The inhabitants of the area who are one hundred percent Tamil speaking have not been consulted. For the mere additional capacity of 500 MW of electricity produce from 10,000 acres of land and the livelihood of around 10,000 farmers and fishermen who are the traditional inhabitants of the area has been sacrificed, civil sources say.

Once this power plant starts to operate the smoke from it would damage enormously the paddy cultivation and farm products and the sea water which is going to be used to cool the power plant when returned into the sea as boiling water will destroy the Bio-diversity of the sea including the fish.

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