Concerning Sri Lanka Environment

[Hemantha Withanage]

Dear all,

We as Sri Lankans have many doubts about the Koodankulam nuke plant. See some of them here.

Warmly,

Hemantha Withanage, Executive Director

Centre for Environmental Justice/Friends of the Earth Sri Lanka, 

20 A, Kurruppu Road, Colombo 08, Sri Lanka

website: www.ejustice.lk 

Beware of Nuclear Power!

From: Elaine Hunter <uncomm...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:54:30 -0400
To: <sroa...@sltnet.lk>, <ceas...@sltnet.lk>, <d...@cea.lk>, Hemantha Withanage <hema...@ejustice.lk>, <iuc...@iucn.org>
Subject: Concerning Sri Lanka Environment

http://www.dianuke.org/koodankulam-desalination-looming-calamity-for-gulf-of-mannar/


Kindly read my article at the above link.  Below are introductory paragraphs for the article.  Though the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plants
are in Tamil Nadu, they are very close to Sri Lanka

Koodankulam Desalination: Looming Calamity for Gulf of Mannar

At the not yet commissioned Koodankulam nuclear power plants (KKNPP) there looms a serious threat from a chain reaction in the Gulf of Mannar that would happen even if a nuclear catastrophe never happened. That threat is a biological chain reaction, a biodiversity collapse.

For each nuclear power unit, four desalination (desal) units are required to supply the water. These behemoth wet-vacs suck in enormous quantities of seawater. However that is not all that is vacuumed into their voracious maws (maw = the opening into something felt to be insatiable). The essential base, the heart of the developmental stages of marine life and food chain, microscopic to tiny sea flora and fauna, including phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish eggs and larvae of myriad sea creatures, will be impinged, entrained and killed in large quantities in the desalination units.

Impingement occurs when organisms are pulled into an intake pipe and trapped against a fish screencovering the intake, causing injury or death. Entrainment occurs when small organisms pass through the fish screen and are actually taken into the intake pipes.  ...Continued

I've been to Sri Lanka 5 times for a total of 10 months and am very concerned and feel distressed about this situation..

All the best,  Dr. Prof. Elaine Hunter