Vasco gears up for its second battle

Residents of Vasco are gearing up for another public hearing on a port related development project, exactly 12 months after a protracted hearing they had last year. For them this won’t, however, be just a meeting where to put forth their views on the Vasco Bay Development, but this will be another battle to defend and protect the environment of their town and fight against possible pollution, a fight similar to the one they fought in April-May last year when they opposed the port’s coal expansion plans. 

The Vasco Bay Development plan, for which a public hearing has been announced, includes a 520-metre long finger quay perpendicular to the bay (Khariwado beach) with a petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) berth on the western side and a fishing harbour on the eastern side, separated by a security wall. The project primarily envisions development of a berth for liquid bulk products including LPG, and a fishing jetty with the estimated cost of the project amounting to Rs 116.38 crore. There is already one major environmental question mark to the project, and that is the need of 65,000 sq metres of marine reclamation and 1.62 million cubic metres of capital dredging. With a doubt, and as has already been said, Vasco will oppose the POL berth citing safety of the people and the town.

Residents of the entire taluka of Mormugao, and not just those of Vasco, have in the past complained of the town being a ‘time bomb’ due to the hazardous installation and chemical and oil tanks it houses, some in the middle of the town and close to residential areas. They are now not likely to accept a bulk liquid cargo berth in the same town, and opposition to this has already been building up. The ammonia tanker that overturned in Vasco causing a leakage of the consignment it was carrying, and that led to much panic among residents in January this year is still fresh in people’s minds, and it brought back memories of the naphtha fire that had occurred some years ago, memories that would be best forgotten. 

The ammonia accident had renewed fears that the town is a ticking ‘time bomb’ that needs just a little spark to explode. Against this backdrop, there predictably isn’t going to be much support for the POL berth, not even with all assurances of safety from the port authorities – that the tanks will be 500 metres away from the existing oil tanks and in the water – are likely to change the stand of the Vasco residents.

Aside from this opposition, there is also the question of whether the people of Vasco, especially the fisher folk community, are ready to accept the benefits of the fishing harbor which the feasibility report lists as ‘making fishing operations easy and efficient and giving boost to economical welfare of fishermen’? From the early reports coming in from the town they are not. The residents of the port town have no issue with a modern fishing harbour for the Khariwado fishermen at the present location, but say that shifting the fishing jetty in the middle of Vasco Bay and further by dividing the bay into two, the Khariwado beach will be lost forever.

While Vasco, at irregular intervals, keeps up the demand to shift the oil and ammonia tanks away from the town, the new plan for the POL berth is not going to be willingly accepted, not when their demands of the past to shift the oil tanks have not been heeded. It would be imperative to first shift the existing oil and ammonia tanks away from the town, even put them below the ground before bringing in the proposal for the POL berth. Safety of human lives cannot be put in danger, no matter what the precautions taken. There have been accidents in the past, so the risk cannot be ruled out.