By Adnan Rafique
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) will hold a public hearing of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of the Naval Anchorage Islamabad (Extension) project at the Administration Office of the Anchorage on Monday at 11 am.
The EIA Report provides a detailed account of information on the existing environmental conditions, a description of the project, an analysis of the impacts and suggested mitigation measures to be implemented during the execution of the project.
The Anchorage was a Pakistan Navy project intended to cater for the needs of the masses from diverse geographical backgrounds in the federal capital as it was the centre of employment and educational institutions tempting people from all corners of the country.
According to the EIA Report available at the Pak-EPA library and accessible to the general public for their comments, the Pakistan Navy developed the society on Japan Road Zone V which was initiated in 1993 and completed in 1998 with the major goal of providing affordable and quality shelter to families of serving and martyred staff of the Navy.
The Anchorage’s approval was obtained in 2022 and was complying with the regulations of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 (PEPA 1997) being enforced by the Pak-EPA in the federal capital and submitting the monitoring reports of different national environmental quality standards to the Agency regularly.
The Project proponent has acquired land for phase II of the Anchorage whereas the total project sprawled over an area of 5,170 kanals which was fully developed and comprised of 3,683 residential units out of which 864 units were already constructed and the Society administration sought a no objection certificate (NOC) from the EPA for further development and construction in the society.
The society in its vicinity has infrastructure like Express Highway, Lohiber National Park, gym, club, golf club, schools, transport, telephone and others enabling both accessibility and connectivity to other parts of the metropolis.
However, the society had no proper waste disposal facility other than temporary waste dumping at dumpsters for each housing unit for collection of household waste that would be transported and disposed of by a waste collection company (not mentioned in the EIA Report) after segregation at designated waste disposal sites.
The project impacts and mitigation measures highlighted in the report pertaining to solid waste, mentioned earlier, noise, air quality and waste water mentioned that the Society would ensure proper covering of standby generators to reduce noise pollution, and tree plantation at the boundaries of the project to minimize noise through buffering. Moreover, HVAC equipment would be installed to cleanse air from ambient pollutants causing air pollution, whereas septic tanks would be built with each housing unit for the collection and treatment of wastewater.
The housing society has allocated a sum of Rs22.2 million for environmental management and monitoring cost that involves monitoring and reporting of different potential environmental impacts and their mitigation measures.a
