The Madras high court on Tuesday pulled up the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) for not applying its mind while passing a consent order prescribing the tolerance limit of trade effluent of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) to be 45 degree celsius.
“It cannot be the maximum. It cannot be more than 7 degrees above the ambient temperature. It is a nuclear power plant. This shows that the TNPCB has not applied its mind at all.
As a board, it must apply its mind,” said a division bench of Justices P. Jyothimani and P. Devadoss, referring to the counter affidavit by TNPCB on prescribing the tolerance limit of trade effluent of KKNPP as 45 degree celsius.
Advocate general A. Navaneethakrishnan said TNPCB will modify its order.
HC recorded the undertaking of Krishna Srinivasan, counsel for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCL), that the tolerance limit of trade effluent will not go beyond 7 plus 31 degree celsius and posted to August 23 further hearing of the case.
TNPCB had filed a counter affidavit stating that the plant has to adhere to the standards prescribed in each category of liquid discharge according to the conditions mentioned in the consent to operate letter.
The petitioner has referred to the standard prescribed for cooling water and trade effluent and not distinguished between streams of liquid discharge.
The standards include a tolerance limit for temperature of 45 degree Celsius at the point of discharge. The volume of trade effluent discharge was 0.07 per cent of the total discharge into the sea.
Hence all the discharge into the sea, including the cooling water and treated trade effluent, were mixed to achieve the parameter of temperature not to exceed 7 degree Celsius and above the ambient temperature at the point of confluence with the sea, said the TNPCB.
This consent was subject to the HC order to be passed on various petitions and the unit shall abide by the final verdict, the TNPCB said.