Indian firm shelves $500m soda ash project in Tanzania

THISDAY REPORTER & AGENCIES Dar es Salaam INDIA’S Tata Chemicals, which had planned to set up a controversial soda ash manufacturing plant, in joint venture with the Tanzanian government with an investment of around $500m, has decided to put the project on hold in the face of fierce opposition from environmentalists. ’’As far as we (Tata Chemicals) are concerned until they (Tanzania government) come back to us, we are not coming (to Tanzania),’’ Tata Chemicals Vice-Chairman R Gopalakrishnan is quoted as saying in latest media reports from India. Tata Chemicals had formed a joint venture ’Lake Natron Resources Ltd’ with the Tanzanian government for exploring the possibility of setting up a Soda-Ash manufacturing plant there which was opposed by environmentalists, who argued that the proposed plant may affect flamingos bird population there and affect the mineral balance of the Lake Natron. The Tanzanian government responded to it by shifting the location of the plant 35 kilometres away from the lake shore but the move was again opposed by the environmentalists as it comes under the Ramsar wetland area. ’’Tanzanian government invited us to come and prospect for soda ash in their Lake Norton Valley. So the joint venture was formed to investigate the possibility of doing so,’’ he said. Gopalakrishnan said Tata Chemicals would wait for the Tanzanian government to work on the opposition raised by environmentalists and get a clearance. ’’Otherwise we are not coming,’’ he added. The plant was put on hold last year and the government asked the Natron Resources to produce an environment management plan and consider other sites for soda ash extraction. The company has appointed Norconsult AS (Norway) to carry out a environmental and social impact study. According to Tata Chemicals Ltd together with officials of the state-run National Development Corporation (NDC), the initial environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) report for the project had been discarded to pave way for a new assessment of the designated site. Lake Natron Resources Limited, a company jointly owned by the government of Tanzania and Tata Chemicals Limited of India, had proposed to develop a facility at Lake Natron to extract and process soda ash. But according to the chief executive officer and coordinator of the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST), Lota Melamari, the project has the potential to damage and destroy the East African lesser Flamingo population through disrupting the birds� breeding at the lake. Located within the Longido and Ngorongoro Districts in Arusha Region and south of Kajiado District in Kenya, Lake Natron is the world’s most important breeding site for lesser Flamingos, accounting for 75 per cent of the global population. Globally there are between 2.2 to 3.3 million flamingos, with between 1.5 and 2.5 million located on East Africa�s Rift Valley lakes, said the WCST’s Melamari.