Ministry of environment approves construction of Oni HPP

By Natalia Kochiashvili

Wednesday, April 8

Green Alternative and GYLA call on the Georgian government to reverse its decision to cancel public hearings on the environmental impact assessment process and to suspend the decision-making process on projects during the state of emergency.

According to the 10-year forecast document, 4 HPPs out of 25 facilities should have been put into operation, but only the Mashavera power plant was put into operation, and the rest of the projects are being worked on.

The project of Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) in Oni, which has been reprimanded several times for the construction company by the Ministry of Environment, has been approved - on March 17, 2020, when the country was completely engaged in the fight against Coronavirus, an environmental permit was issued.

According to the order of the Minister of Environment and Agriculture, Levan Davitashvili # 2-256, the decision has been made on construction and exploitation of the ‘Oni HPP Cascade’ (Oni 1 HPP 122.4 MWh, Oni 2 HPP 83.7 MW) of 206.1 MW capacity by JSC “Oni Cascade” on the Rioni River in Oni.

The city of Oni and the villages Sori, Komandeli, Khuruti, Lagvanta, Nakieti and Glola are in the project zone and under the influence of the project area.

Oni 1 HPP will be located in the lower reaches of the confluence of the river Chanchakhi, from which the nearest settlement, the village of Glola, is 3.3 km away. And the arrangement of a power node is planned in the upper reaches of the Rioni River and the Sakaura River. Water will be supplied to the HPP through a 12.5 km long tunnel. The construction period of Oni 1 HPP includes 4 years. And the project life cycle is 50 years.

The building of Oni 2 HPP, the height of which will be 9 meters, will be arranged at the mark of 762m of the river Rioni river, 1.14 km from Oni in the lower stream, where the nearest settlement is the village Komandeli (0.64 km). The construction of a water tunnel (9.3 km) is planned for the river on the right bank of the Rioni, which will supply water to a project power node near the village of Sori.

Now it is only a matter of time before the construction of the HPP in Racha will start. There are about 20 conditions in the order, which JSC Oni Cascade must fulfill before, during and after the construction.

The project documentation for the HPP cascade has been prepared by the German company Lahmeyer International, and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report has been prepared by Gamma Consulting Ltd.

JSC Oni Cascade submitted the EIA to the Ministry of Environment on December 27, 2017 for the first time. The process took a long time, as the Ministry requested additional research, clarification, and according to the information reported by RFE/RL, the project was returned to the company twice.

This refusal gave hope to the people who opposed the HPP in Racha, who had organized several protests in Oni, addressed a number of letters to both the state and environmental organizations, seismologists, and the media.

The notes, for example, stated that the 231,244 sq.m. Area - Forest Fund, where 4212 trees were planned to be cut down. And the environmental impact assessment document did not indicate the negative impact on the environment and protected species caused by tree felling. It was also written that the risk of activation of dangerous geodynamic processes was high, especially since it is planned to lay tunnels in the project area "by drilling-blasting method".

Now, the state says the company has taken notes, submitted a number of studies that gave the Department of the Environment a reason to issue the permit. The existence of an environmental decision already means that now the administrative body must issue a construction permit for the company to start construction.

Maia Beradze, the head of the environmental assessment department was asked whether this permission means that, in the opinion of the Ministry, the construction of this HPP is not dangerous for Racha, given its seismic and geological features and many other factors. She answered that in general, any type of activity has a certain impact on the environment, and when "the construction of such a large HPP is planned, its construction will have some negative impact", however, in her words:

“When the Ministry discussed the submitted documents, including with the experts in the field, it came to the conclusion that the activities there do not cause irreversible impact on the environment. Therefore, a positive environmental decision has been made.” According to her, the company has presented "A lot of material with various additions to research" and those who are skeptical have not provided any alternative justification to the ministry.

Tea Godoladze, director of the Institute of Earth Sciences and the National Center for Seismic Monitoring, was asked by an initiative group to oppose the Oni cascade, and there is an official response stating that the EIA does not actually assess the seismic hazard of the construction site and the study of seismic loads attached to the EIA has quite a few flaws: The catalog on which this study is based is not good and correct. And they don't have an exact map of active faults, or data on where earthquakes occur.

Here you have to remember the general position of the government policy regarding the construction of hydroelectric power stations and recall of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of 24 April 2019 on the application, which states that the main directions of the country's energy security and independence is raise it gradually to reduce dependency on imported energy.

And that, according to the Ministry of Economy, economic growth in the future will lead to an increase in electricity demand and in the long run it will be equal to 4.5%. According to the same statement of the Ministry of Economy, there are a number of studies that confirm that by 2030 Georgia's electricity demand will reach 21-22 billion kwh, which is about 8 billion kwh more than the country's current generation.

But the state has many opponents in environmental organizations, geologists and seismologists, and among Racha residents who talk about irreversible processes if the HPP is built in Racha and the Rioni River flows into a tunnel several kilometers away.

Green Alternative is one of the organizations that is going to appeal against the permit and has been protesting against the construction of large HPPs for years, citing examples of damage to the environment by building a number of large ones in Georgia.

Regarding the Oni Cascade, the organization's position remains unchanged - Dato Chipashvili called the construction of the Oni HPPs in an interview with RFE / RL "a reincarnation of the idea that emerged during the communist era" and said that there may be a small stream of water left from Rioni.

Chipashvili considers the possible impact of the construction of this hydropower plant on the Racha ecosystem to be alarming: “No one knows exactly in a seismic zone such as Racha, when and at what magnitude the earthquake will occur (an example of this already exists in the form of the 1991 earthquake) and whether the tunnel that will pass over the villages will withstand the earthquake.”

A civil petition was also filed against the construction of hydropower plants in Oni. It was signed by 5,000 people. The movement ‘No to Oni Cascade’ has been created, the members of which are categorically protesting against the construction of a powerful HPP in Racha. Part of the population of Oni district is against the construction of hydropower plants. Part of it is silent - as volunteers say, the reason for this is that people are employed in the local municipality and are reluctant to go against the local government.

For reference, the version of the 10 year plan for the development of the transmission network for 2020-2030 was approved by the economy ministry on March 20, 2020.

According to the document, Georgia's energy sector expects to receive a total of 162 megawatts of installed capacity next year, which will generate 682 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. In total, 24 hydroelectric power plants should be put into operation in the country this year.