In court: SEPA to file report on enforcement of environmental laws

Petition seeks authorities to protect Keenjhar Lake from untreated industrial waste

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed the provincial environmental protection agency's director to file a report on the enforcement of penal provisions of the environmental protection laws by February 16.

The bench, headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar, was hearing a petition filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid's Sindh president Haleem Adil Shaikh, who had pleaded the court ask the respondents to set up a water quality testing laboratories at Keenjhar Lake.



In an earlier hearing on January 22, additional advocate general Abdul Jalil Zubedi submitted a report prepared by Kotri SITE. The report revealed that there are 99 industrial units currently operating in the Kotri industrial area that generate 1.5 million gallons of affluent per day that is disposed into the KB Feeder without any treatment.

The law binds all units to set up a treatment plant for primary treatment before final treatment and disposal but the industries are not complying, the SITE report claimed, adding that this is causing contamination of the KB Feeder.

The petitioner also claimed that the lake, which is situated at distance of about 122 km East from Karachi, is a main source of providing water to the entire population. The untreated industrial waste is being discharged into the lake from different areas including Kotri, Baghar (KB) Feeder at Kotri, Choal, Nooriabad and Keenjhar, the petition stated.

The judges recalled that they had, on October 22, 2014, directed the director of Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), Hyderabad, to appear with a compliance report regarding the steps taken to enforce the penal provisions of the environmental protection law.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2015.