Review of EIA report of Baseline extension phase 3.

A proposal has been prepared by the Road Development Authority (RDA) to extend the Baseline road from Kirillapone, High Level Road junction to the Galle Road. This is the third & final phase of the Baseline Road Project. The feasibility study for this extension has selected three alternative traces. Option one is Extends towards South from its starting point at High level Road & falls to the Galle road at Williams junction. Option two is, starts from Baseline –High level road junction & joins the Galle road at Mt. Lavinia. The option three is, follows the same alignment as option 2 up to the Attidiya Development Zone & continues south from this point onwards & crosses Attidiya Mirihana road. Then follows up to Galle road. The trace/s has been designed to a speed of 70 km/hr with dual 3 lanes. Option 3 has been identified & selected as the preferred alternative for further studies & was studies in detail for its environmental impacts.
The cost of this was estimated at Sri Lanka Rupees 4771 million. The feasibility study has revealed that the proposed project would affect 448 buildings with the complete demolition of 337 properties & partial demolition of 111. The scope of this study covers the present status of the environment in the project area & the likely effects of the project on the physical, biological & socio economic environment. Mitigatory measures to minimize or eradicate the adverse environmental consequences are also detailed in the report along with a monitoring plan to ensure that the mitigatory measures proposed will be carried out on long term basis.
When consider the project area, it belongs to three local government authorities; Dehiwala/Mount Lavinia MC, Colombo MC & Ratmalana DS Division. Majority of the affected population live in Dehiwala MC area. In the proposed road reservation about 80% of the land is used for residential purposes. Social infrastructure facilities in the area fairly developed & expect in low income communities majority of the population enjoy good standard of living with regard to schooling, health care, transportation etc. due to urbanization the ecological resources in the project area are limited to home gardens, water bodies, streams & two patches of degraded marshes in Attidiya, Kawdana & Badowita. The area has uniform climatological condition prevail over the full extent with little local variation. Drainage pattern is thus primarily a result of topographical variations.
When we consider the environmental impacts they divided the environment in to three parts. They are Physical, Biological & Socio economics environments. And they divided each one in to several parameters & identified several impacts that relevant to the project. Eg; Impact on noise/land use/ air etc.
When consider the mitigatory measures, the report included the measures in more details. Most of them are very adoptable to Sri Lanka.
When consider whole EIA report the project will be a very important & useful project