5 months ago
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A cross-section of fishermen from Kovalam kuppam and neighbouring coastal villages has urged the Tamil Nadu Department of Environment and Climate Change to retreat the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance issued for the projected Kovalam Reservoir Project.
In a petition submitted by colony administrators, the members said the drinking h2o reservoir, approved by the Tamil Nadu State Coastal Zone Management Authority (TNSCZMA) recently, threatened to permanently harm the estuarine strategy that sustained thousands of fishermen families.
A gathering was convened by astir a twelve sportfishing villages connected Monday (December 8, 2025) to sermon the perils of the project. They reason that converting tidal backwaters into a freshwater reservoir volition destruct the earthy salt-freshwater equilibrium indispensable for prawn, crab, and food breeding, putting their accepted livelihoods astatine terrible risk.
According to authoritative documents, the projected reservoir spans 4,375 acres betwixt East Coast Road and Old Mahabalipuram Road. It is designed to store 1.655 TMC of freshwater, fed by monsoon run-off from a 41,408-hectare catchment linked to 69 upstream tanks.
The program includes a 30-kilometre earthen bund, peripheral drains to transmission surplus floodwaters, and a acceptable of inlet, outlet, and offtake regulators. The task aims to proviso drinking h2o to astir 50,000 residents successful 12 villages portion besides improving groundwater recharge and reducing seawater intrusion.
The TNSCZMA granted the CRZ clearance aft reviewing inputs from the District Coastal Zone Authority, a Technical Expert Committee, and IIT-Madras. The authorization said the task did not autumn nether immoderate prohibited class successful the CRZ Notification, 2011, and, therefore, approved it. However, fishermen item the unusually stringent conditions attached to the clearance arsenic grounds of the project’s biology risks.
Among the 36 mandatory requirements are maintaining a minimum 60% ecological travel to support downstream estuarine ecosystems, prohibiting sewage inflow, restricting dredging to topsoil removal, and conducting a bid of hydrological, geomorphological, and biodiversity studies.
The TNSCZMA has besides required real-time salinity monitoring, autarkic quarterly biology audits, and certification from the Fisheries Department confirming that accepted sportfishing enactment would not beryllium harmed. A cardinal information explicitly states that the task proponent indispensable guarantee that the Kovalam estuary is not adversely affected.
Fisherfolk, however, accidental this request is intolerable to conscionable if the earthy backwaters are converted into a freshwater lake. Soundarapandian, a fisherman from Kovalam, said blocking the estuary rima would hitch retired breeding grounds, summation monsoon-season flooding, and trap polluted canal water, turning it into a stagnant sewage pond.
