{"id":80742,"date":"2018-09-06T20:01:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T02:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=80742"},"modified":"2018-09-06T12:57:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T19:57:40","slug":"instead-of-developing-the-kandyan-areas-we-are-destroying-existing-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/09\/06\/instead-of-developing-the-kandyan-areas-we-are-destroying-existing-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Instead of developing the Kandyan Areas we are destroying existing development."},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Garvin Karunaratne<\/span><\/u><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Kotmale Valley was a thriving\u00a0 area full of production when I worked in Nuwara Eliya in the Sixties. This valley, its luxurious vegetation and\u00a0 a vibrant community that lived in plenty was sacrificed to get\u00a0 200 MW of power.\u00a0 \u00a0 The Kotmale dam does not provide any water for irrigation. Fifty Wind Turbines could have achieved that target of power, and Kotmale, its people and luxurious economy would have been spared extintion.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I write, action in being taken to destroy miles of verdant jungle, luxurious home gardens\u00a0\u00a0and a\u00a0\u00a0developed tourist attraction- the rapids of the Maskeliya Oya at Kitulgala.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a mini Hydro Project-the Broadlands Dam, sited\u00a0\u00a0700 meters below the Kitulgala Rest House. The water will be taken down in a 3 kilometer tunnel and enter a Power House that will\u00a0\u00a0produce 35 MW of power. There will be two small weirs(tanks) of water.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tunneling of the river water will change the eco system for at least 3 kilometers. Already the tunneling has caused damage to many homes and land.<\/span><\/p>\n

Further the Maskeliya Oya at Kitulgala has 18 rapids and already it is a highly treasured tourist attraction, world wide, attracting some 100,000 tourists a year. The tunneling of water will make 13 rapids defunct. In short the tourists will not come. White water rafting is a developed , highly sought for sport and the only site for this is Kitulgala in Sri Lanka.<\/span><\/p>\n

Compensation has been offered but the fact remains that the verdant Kitulgala Valley will be ruined- its eco sysytem will be damaged and the untold damage\u00a0 in an unexpected manner like at Uma Oya in Welimada Bandarawela cannot be ruled out..<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I know the Kitulgala area well having worked\u00a0\u00a0as the Additional Government Agent at Kegalla and earlier in Agrarian Services. I have walked through the area and can imagine the damage..\u00a0\u00a0I can state that the Kitulgala Valley is having verdant forest and home gardens that will be sacrificed. White water rafting was not developed as a tourist attraction when I worked there in\u00a0\u00a0the Sixties. The people have developed tourism and it is a shame to sacrifice the tourism\u00a0\u00a0that has already been built up. I am certain that we attract youngsters world wide- even from the USA to Kitulgala for Water rafting..<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0As far as the production of electricity is concerned i can state without any reservation that\u00a0\u00a0that the proposed 35 MW of power can easily be produced by constructing 10 wind turbines. The wind turbines can be sited in Kitulgala itself and constructing 10 wind turbines can be done at a fraction of the cost of\u00a0\u00a0$ 85 million.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is perhaps a travesty of our fate that our Power Ministry does not believe in wind power that can easily be harnessed . Costs of wind power are only 5 US cents a kilowatt in the USA. At most our cost will be Rs 10 a kw\u00a0\u00a0which is a third of today’s cost.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is said to be a loan from China. No foreign funds are required for wind turbines. It is only\u00a0\u00a0the turbine mechanism that has\u00a0\u00a0to be imported. The rest is built locally. The turbine mechanism\u00a0\u00a0is not that costly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps it is our fate that makes us destroy what development\u00a0\u00a0we do have, specially in the Kandyan Areas. Then it was Kotmale. Now it is Kitulgala.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let Kitulgala be spared the devastation that happened to Kotmale<\/span><\/p>\n

Garvin Karunaratme<\/span><\/p>\n

2\/9\/2018<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Garvin Karunaratne The Kotmale Valley was a thriving\u00a0 area full of production when I worked in Nuwara Eliya in the Sixties. This valley, its luxurious vegetation and\u00a0 a vibrant community that lived in plenty was sacrificed to get\u00a0 200 MW of power.\u00a0 \u00a0 The Kotmale dam does not provide any water for irrigation. Fifty Wind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}