Three parts bitter…

Pelwatte Sugar Co's waste problems get stickier with bad weather

By Tharuka Dissanaike

The severe drought of the last few months intensified problems for the Pelwatte Sugar Company and the villages around it. With the onset of the next monsoon, these very problems threaten to spill over, flooding the two rivers that cradle the huge cane sugar producing factory.

Problems at Pelwatte are nothing new. From the time it was conceived the project enjoyed none of the sweet success it had so rosily promised. Of course, the economy of the very rural Buttala area was changed forever by the farmers' willingness to grow sugar cane and by the ready market available for it.

The issue of the displaced Handapanagala elephants, which induced media frenzy for months made the Pelwatte Sugar company infamous. Even the Rs. 80 million thrown towards relocating the herd at Yala in 1996 came to naught when the elephants returned, quite determined to break across flimsy man-made barriers to get to the juicy sugar cane and the Handapanagala tank.

But Pelwatte is in deeper trouble than merely from elephant threats to its vast cultivation. Its sugar factory and the more recent distillery are producing the vast quantities of waste- often unceremoniously dumped in dug-out earth pits in the estate, only to flood out with the rain. The sugar company's effluents have polluted streams and ground water sources around many villages.

Even at present the company is supplying a daily water bowser to Kukurampola, a neighbouring village whose water source, the Kuda Oya was polluted by sugar factory effluents a few months ago.

Although the factory recently established a treatment plant for the waste water from sugar manufacturing, the actual by-product of cane sugar, the molasses, is largely waste. The whole idea in establishing the Pelwatte distillery two years ago was to use this molasses to produce cane alcohol. But the distillery, for the lack of a market, does not run to capacity and certainly does not use up the entire output of molasses.

What's worse,the distillery even running below capacity is producing a highly acidic toxic liquid waste called vinasse.

At the stage of approving the distillery, the Pelwatte management put forward a proposal that the vinasse would be treated and converted into compost fertiliser and used over again in their own sugar cane fields. Even after two years, they have not been able to get the compost plant in satisfactory working order. The vinasse, as in the case of the molasses, is dumped into pits and floods into the rivers during the monsoon.

Thankfully, the monsoon rains turn the normally placid rivers into torrents and the toxins are washed into the sea before they cause very serious damage. But during the long months of drought the vinasse often seeps down mixing with the ground water and fresh water tanks in the estate itself. Once an entire batch of cane seedlings was destroyed by the highly acidic vinasse polluting the water source used for the nursery.

During the drought months, Pelwatte finds it difficult to meet its water requirements and is often guilty of pumping water from the impoverished Menik Ganga to keep its plantation and nurseries afloat. This tapping of the Menik Ganga, along with farmers damming it upstream for cultivation, results in a bone dry river down in Yala and Kataragama, as was the case a month ago.

The Central Environmental Authority who granted Pelwatte Sugar Industries the Environmental Protection Licence (EPL) to begin the distillery operation said that according to their information the composting plant is now in working order. "We knew that the composting operation was not fully operational until recently. But our officers who had visited the distillery recently were satisfied with the treatment plant now," said G.D. Bandaratilleke, Deputy Director General of the CEA.

But sources inside the complex confirm that the composting plant is still at a primitive stage and that the entire vinasse output is not being converted into fertiliser.

A large volume of molasses and vinasse is still being dumped in the estate in 30-40 feet deep earth ponds. Much of the vinasse evaporates in dry weather, but the molasses, which is a thick greasy substance, will retain its consistency for years. Much of the run-off into the streams and rivers contains a high sugar and acid content, often killing fish and polluting ground water.

Pelwatte sells its sugar production in the open market- at a loss. With high overheads and low production, locally manufactured sugar never could compete with the international market prices. While the cost of producing a kilo of sugar is in the region of Rs. 25, it is sold at Rs. 19-20 to match imported sugar prices. When the government stopped buying Pelwatte's sugar at the guaranteed price of US $500 per metric tonne a few years ago, they agreed with the company to pay the difference in the cost and selling price, so that the factory could continue operations. Today the government owes Pelwatte Sugar Company several hundred millions of rupees, and the company management has turned to the courts to persuade the Treasury to cough up the money.

While producing sugar is a losing game, manufacturing alcohol is certainly a profitable venture. Many sugar factories keep their balance sheets on level by turning the waste molasses into cane spirit. The Rs. 500 million state-of-the-art distillery at Pelwatte began operations in September 1997.

It has a capacity of 30,000 litres of alcohol per day. But the company is unable to sell this entire capacity due to faulty planning and marketing. Only a few small-time bottlers use their cane spirit. This prompted Pelwatte to manufacture their own brand of arrack from the high quality alcohol- but the distillery still does not produce more than half its capacity.

All these half-successes still at large, the company is launching head-on into another possible environmental disaster- an 18-hole golf course in the midst of 30,000 acres of sugar cane. Two years ago when President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga teed off in a symbolic inauguration environmentalists were up in arms at the blatant disregard for the environmental impact assessment laws of the country, which deems such a large project- (the course and hotel project is on 200 hectares)- unqualified until passed and approved by the necessary agencies. Only recently did the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Pelwatte Golf Course come up for public comment and perusal. The decision is still pending.

In its favour Pelwatte has had a great impact the rural economies of Buttala and Wellawaya. When Pelwatte sugar cleared the vast forest and settled some 1000 cultivators in its new cane fields, the countryside and the economy of the area changed as never before. Many gave up traditional chenas for the lucrative cane cultivation. Roads, transportation, health care and businesses developed very quickly. To erase the looming presence of Pelwatte from the landscape is now unthinkable. There is also speculation that the government is looking at selling off its 47 percent holding in the Pelwatte Sugar Company. The rest of the company's shares are in diverse foreign companies. But a cleaner bill is necessary for the country's most important agri-industrialist venture. For the long term survival of any project one must not abuse the land you have to work on.

'We are addressing it'

"We are addressing the problems," Mahinda Senanayake, Chairman of Pelwatte Sugar Company told The Sunday Times. "Pollution problems did exist," he said, "but they are all being addressed now."

He admitted that there was time when the factory effluents used to run down the rivers and pollute village water supplies. He said that a fisherman of the area once took the company to courts because effluents had deprived him of his livelihood from the river. But Senanayake was confident that the problems have now been arrested.

Senanayake said that they had just completed a treatment plant for the run-off from the sugar factory. The Molasses- all 17000 metric tonnes of it- are being pumped into the distillery. The distillery waste is turned into compost. "We hope to issue this compost at concessionary rates to the cane outgrowers," he said.

He said there had been start-up problems with the compost manufacturing process but very soon the plant would be fully functional, churning out 25000 metric tonnes of compost a year.

Senanayake said the company was mainly responsible for the infamous elephant drive that tried to divert the Handapanagala herd into Yala three years ago.

The company spends some Rs. 10 million every year trying to battle the elephants that still roam the plantation.

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