Episode 7:
"Sand and stone"

Date of broadcast: 7:30 AM (Kathmandu time), Friday, 3 December 2004 on FM radio 102.4 MHz
Footprint of the broadcast: Kathmandu valley and surrounding districts, Nepal

1. ISSUE AND CONTEXT

Urban Nepal is witnessing increasing demand for housing materials and physical infrastructure maintenance. This means brisk business for providers of construction materials from hillsides and river banks of Nepal, especially sand and stone. Trishuli river along the Prithvi Highway, Dolalghat in Kavre District, and Lele valley in Lalitpur are among the most affected areas. To feed the  construction boom, developers and local contractors along with local elites have gotten into this lucrative resource-extraction business: quarrying sand and stone with scant regard for the environment. 

On the other side of the coin, thousands of families, with no better prospects, are doing backbreaking work in this sector for a pittance with the most basic of tools: shovel, hammer, sieve, bare hands, wicker basket, and occasionally stone crushers. They have set up makeshift thatched shacks or polythene tents along the riverbanks or along  the highway. Working in this job is a compulsion born of poverty. They are among the most marginalized workers in Nepal. Had the adult workers had property, they probably would have by now taken out loans to travel to the Gulf countries or Malaysia to work as laborers. 

Certainly, development in the form of income generation for the people who need it the most, even if haphazard, has come about at the cost of environmental degradation. Not surprisingly, the affected local communities that have had to live with noise pollution, narrowing and deepening river systems, increasing vehicular traffic carrying sand and gravel to urban centers, road damage, and rising dust pollution, have much to complain about.

While the environment loses out on account of both lack of proper environmental impact assessment and implementation of sound extraction practice, the workers (mostly migrants) make less than a minimum wage  at great risk to their health. Certainly the tradeoff between environmental degradation and livelihood raises a host of questions:  Whither goes the money paid out to the local government for the licensing right to extract these natural resources from public land? Are the natural resources priced appropriately, taking into account social and environmental costs? Are the local government and business at all serious about  implementing sound extraction practice, mitigating environmental degradation, providing greater health and economic security to the workers as well as compensating the affected local communities? Shouldn't the benefits accruing from extraction of natural resources from public land be distributed equitably? Most importantly, where does one strike a balance between development and environmental degradation? The answer to the last question is not easy, since politics and money color the decision, and  this is where the migrant workers who have 'no voice' and the local communities, who are often not well-organized, lose out. 

The upshot: haphazard growth of such quarries continues across Nepal, out of sight and out of mind of the  poverty alleviation agencies and environmentalists who are comfortably situated in the capital.

2. PEOPLE'S VOICES

a) Workers' Blues

Person 1: "When I'm breaking stone, I often hurt my fingers and nails. But what can I do? I am poor and have to face hardship. I make meager earnings, Rs 20 per day (USD 1 = Rs 75). I work hard all day long." 

Sani Tamang: "Breaking stone is a very difficult job. It causes a lot of health problems, my hands hurt from constant pounding of the stone, my feet hurt from sitting on hard ground for long hours and my back hurts from crouching over the stone. We have to work from 7 AM in the morning till the evening. My husband makes Rs 50 per day and I make around Rs 20 a day. During winters my fingers become stiff, but what else can I do? I have to work to eat; I need to raise my children. I came here with my family thinking I can earn some money. We have to bear all medical expenditures from our meager earnings." 

Keshab Thapa: "I get blisters in my hand. Often the palms of my hands are in pain. In a day I can make anywhere from Rs 50 to 100."

Laxmi Rai: "My whole body aches from the work I do. Breaking stone and retrieving sand from the riverbed is hard work."

Moti Tamang: "Stone and sand quarrying is difficult work! We have to work 11 hours daily."

Kanchi Lama: "If you have money for medical needs then you can seek treatment; if not, then you have to do without treatment."

Shambu Tamang: "I have no nails left on my fingers. I have to gather stone with my hands, sieve the dust with my hands all day long and the wage is hardly enough. If you get injured on the job, the medical expense has to come out of your own pocket."

Ramesh Parajuli: "Workers throw their debris (mainly stone) wherever they please. This way waste is strewn around."

Sita Parajuli: "Earlier the river was much wider, but it gets narrower every year. The more materials you remove from the river and its shores, the deeper the river gets. Excess dust carried by wind has caused major health problems to the people living in the area. Then there is the fear of flash floods."

Ram Nepal: "The sound of the quarrying machines (stone crushers) is very disturbing. It distracts me from my studies. These days we cannot go swimming in the river, since it's too deep. There have been incidents where people bathing by the river have been swept away."

Ram Sharan Chettri: "Our school lies right above the river bank. The quarrying activities are causing the river untold damage. There are great chances of the school succumbing to landslides if this continues. The dust pollution can give rise to respiratory illnesses. Agricultural lands on lower grounds are swamped with dust, and is causing problems."

Kamala KC: "Trucks make their way in and out of the river banks carrying sand and stone from the rivers, and this makes the river water dirty and muddy." 

Sharmila Tamang: "Quarrying will adversely impact the bridge. Dolalghat town is growing, eventually the impact will spread to the town also, if it already hasn't."

Sharda Bogati: "The drainage systems are always clogged with debris from the quarries. The dust from the crusher machines will have adverse health effects on us too." 

Hari Lama: "The stone crusher is creating noise pollution."

Pawan Basnet: "Quarrying is impacting our health. The water is hazy and full of sand, especially impacting the  people who rely on river water for cooking, drinking and washing clothes. This way the town has been affected. The river course is changing, the crusher machine is very bad for our health  from all the dust particles it spews."

Durga Shrestha: "Dust particles carried by wind settle on plants and grass grown for fodder. Goats and cattle then refuse to eat these. The crops are also affected. Dust pollution adversely impacts the overall agro-pastoral system."

Kumar Tamang: "The damage done to human health by dust and noise is probably more serious than that done by cigarette tobacco."

Suresh Kuma Shrestha, Ex-Member of District Development Committee: "Neither the district nor the communities living here are gaining from quarrying of stone and sand. A lot of these quarries have mushroomed in Dolalghat, which used to be a popular tourist attraction: popular with picnickers coming all the way from the capital. On weekends, families and groups  from companies and offices used to come here  to picnic amidst the picturesque vistas. Now, with sand piled up next to big pit holes on the riverbank, the number of picnickers has dwindled.

"The District Development Committee should allocate some of the money received from contractors and entrepreneurs back into the district, but as of now this has not been done. We have conducted signature campaigns against exploitative resource extraction, we have time and again requested the government to halt quarrying via petitions as well as voiced our concerns but to no avail."

Chandra Narayan Vaidya, Entrepreneur & Contractor: "We quarry sand and stone in places that will not hamper the bridge and the market. We try our best not to damage the environment. Besides these, what else can we do? We have to pay the District Development Committee 10-12 lakh rupees for the license. If we start worrying about the environment only, then we have to give up our tenders and halt our business. If the government tells us not to quarry, then we will not. We only work as long as the permission is granted." 

Megh Ale, Chairperson of Department of River Conservation: "The areas along the riverside that have been most affected by quarrying are areas where the workers have built low makeshift bridges connecting the two shores of the river for easy transport of quarried materials. Quarrying has spoiled the aesthetic beauty of the natural surroundings. If you look left and right, you will see dry barren ground. Landslides have destroyed trees and shrubs that were there earlier. This is one instance of how the river environment has been adversely impacted. However, quarrying has not had any impact on rafting and kayaking adventure sports on these rivers. 

"Building of houses or shacks should not be permitted within 25 meters of the river. On either side of the river, trees, shrubs and foliage should be planted to mitigate landslides and flash floods.

"In Nepal, people have a very narrow vision of river development. All they can think of is hydro power plants! They think the bigger a power plant or dam on a particular river, the greater the scale of work, and hence the bigger the commissions. This is the concept here. People should focus on conserving and managing the rich water resources. For that to happen, a change in attitude is needed."

4. WRAP-UP

Dronaraj Ghimere, Environmental Engineer: "Nepal stands on very unstable and uneven tectonic plates, adding to the fragility of its environment. Quarrying has an adverse impact on the stability of the ground and slopes. Landslides are a recurrent phenomenon, and if these happen near river banks, the water in the river will be polluted, affecting local households and families who depend on the river water for cooking, drinking and washing clothes. 

"There are many agricultural fields along the river bank. Removal of sand and stone from the river hampers the stability of the agricultural fields, makes it difficult to irrigate the fields, affects the fertility of soil and eventually impacts the farming communities.

"True, Nepal is rich in water resources: rapids and white waters. Nepal attracts adventure tourists who are into adventure water sports such as kayaking and rafting. If the river systems are adversely impacted by excessive quarrying, this is bad for adventure tourism. There is also the possibility of water accidents happening, since quarrying makes the rivers more accident-prone.  Also if the river bed is dotted with pit holes and piles of stone and gravel, the aesthetic look of the surroundings is marred. This usually puts off tourists/visitors. These are just some of the negative impacts that one can observe in passing. 

"Sand and stone quarrying is a major source of income for builders and contractors. However, this is not reason enough for entrepreneurs to over extract and misuse resources. We have to put resources to optimum use, but not at the cost of the environment. 

"On one of my visits to Biratnagar and Bangladesh, I observed that there was shortage of construction material such as sand and stone. They told me that Nepal has a lot of those resources. If we would process them and import them to Bangladesh, it would save them from importing it all the way from India. Even after utilization of these resources for house building, roads and other projects, we would still be in a position to export the surplus.

"Though considered a major source of income, over extraction and mismanagement of resources could have very adverse effects on the environment and us. That is why we should conduct a thorough study on this issue. Sand is transported by water current and deposited along the river bed. The amount deposited yearly should be estimated, this then should be used as the basis for determining the amount and depth of extraction to be allowed on a yearly basis. This will to a certain extent allow for sustainable use of resources and also minimize the occurrence of landslides. Local people should not have to bear loss or damage to themselves or their property as a result of over-quarrying. The water quality should not be compromised. The need for such scientific study is necessary for best quarrying practices. 

"The involvement of the local communities is important because the people who reap the benefits from this business should not only be the rich who invest in it but also the local communities who live in the areas from where these resources are  extracted. After all, who bears the brunt of over extraction of these resources?

"How can we get the communities living in the areas affected by quarrying to participate? If we want to look at long-term goals, we cannot look at this issue with a  tunnel vision. The participation of the local communities is essential. Hence, we need to empower them by giving them necessary skills. It would be best if we could impart education and implement awareness programs." 

5. RELATED LINK(S)

a. Radio script for episode 7 (Nepali pdf version)
b. 'Gouging Out a Living in Lele' by Karma Thatang, (Nepali Times, Issue 137)