By Michael Kaung
KOTA KINABALU: The latest official environmental impact report on the controversial coal-fired power plant proposed for east Sabah may have been laced with fraud, incompetence or plain negligence.
The Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) panel meeting on Tuesday for Sabah's first electricity generation plant using coal was shocked to find that discrepancies and non-existent issues were incorporated into the report.
At one point the meeting was reduced to a laughing matter for some DEIA consultants and project proponent officials when their attention was drawn to the numerous inaccuracies and flaws in the report.
They were heard laughing when the state government officials posed questions about various inaccuracies in the report, according to one NGO official who attended the closed-door meeting.
Those attending the meeting identified numerous inconsistencies in the so-called detailed report including one that classified indigenous Sabah natives such as the Orang Sungai and Tidong who live in the area as being of Indonesian origin.
“These are misrepresentations because they are referring to the Orang Sungai and Tidong as being Indonesian, This just shows how faulty this so-called Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) is,” said Lanash Thanda of WWF-Malaysia.
Important issues deflected
According to Thanda, who attended the closed door DEIA panel meeting, this was just one of many mistakes in the DEIA for the proposed over the billion ringgit coal-fired plant.
“To add insult to injury, the DEIA consultants and project proponent were clearly heard laughing when the state government asked intelligent and valid questions,” stated Lanash who is a policy analyst.
The state government was represented by senior officials who placed community and environmental interest at the forefront of their questions due to mounting public concerns over the proposal.
“The consultants disrespected our state officials by deflecting important questions replying that it was out of the scope of their studies," said an exasperated Lanash.
"How can questions regarding green technology and local fisheries as well as aquaculture security be outside the scope of their study?” she asked.
The panellists also noted that the DEIA erroneously classified the seabed as a habitat largely devoid of sea life when in fact the area comprised a wide range of marine eco-system.
“The baseline data collections were not technically appropriate for the seabed types found at this site; the report compares sand and mud flats with coral reefs,” said environment analyst Will Unsworth.
Non-existent monkey
Wildlife conservationist Marc Ancrenaz who along with Unsworth were also present at the DEIA panel meeting was shocked to find that the consultants had also identified species not present in Borneo in their report.
“The dusky langur monkey (Semnopithecus obscurus) is found in Peninsular Malaysia and mainland Asia and not in Borneo,” said Ancrenaz.
This is a scientifically inadequate representation of the area, and on this basis alone the DEIA should be rejected by the Department of Environment, said Lanash.
The government has identified Felda Sahabat in Tungku near Lahad Datu as the location for the 300-megawatt plant coasting over a billion ringgit pending approval of the DEIA.
Also read:
EIA report on controversial coal plant flawed
