WHAT IS EIA ?
Environmental impact assessment is widely accepted procedure in environment management and many countries have adopted this process with different degree of enthusiasm. Basically, environmental impact analysis (EIA) is a methodology to assess environmental implications of a decision to commence certain development project, to execute some policies or to perform legislation . EIA analyses the possible harmful effects of a proposed project in advance and avoids or mitigates them in planning stage . EIA is a recently unfolded branch of Environmental engineering and it has taken a major role in short time . EIA is a tool for planning and management, a prevention strategy for costly mistakes and identification of risks at earlier stage. Sometimes, EIA requirements are expensive and time-consuming and these lengthy delays urge extra cost on developers. This essay will illustrate that EIA is not just a bureaucratic tick-box exercise and it strikes credible balance between environment and development, using some case studies and examples.
WHY DO EIA ?
Authorizing the lead consultant to collect details on environmental impacts due to proposed development is a dominant function of EIA. ‘Environmental statement’ is an output of EIA studies, which consists information of the project, project site and its environs, assessments of environmental effects, measures to be taken to mitigate the effect and risks of accidents and hazardous effect . Sometimes, these studies are done with an innovative approach. Portsmouth incinerator in Hampshire, UK involved public participation for discussions about environmental implications due to incineration project. Thus, this process involves public and stakeholders in EIA study and development process . EIA has not only for regional or local development issues, In 1995, New Zealand Government along with Australian Government filed a case against French government to the World court to propose EIA study for its nuclear testing programme in South Pacific . Morgan believes EIA has been a prime gadget since this incident for environmental protection. Public participation in EIA studies has three crucial functions:
- A validation function, people is informed about project proposal and its impacts on environment to assure that proper and sufficient impact assessment is carried out.
- An internalization function, to know about public values and preferences in scoping and evaluation process.
- A project environment definition function, to keep people aware of their own environment.
CASE STUDY-1
A case study of national highway 1 in Finland by Jantunen (2005) reveals overview of EIA procedures and defines hurdles faced during EIA studies along with its advantages. A part of highway 1 between salo and lohja was winding, unsafe and running short of capacity and needed to expand to a motorway standard. EIA evaluates two alternatives for this 63 km long highway, either by constructing a new road or just upgrading the existing road, working out pros and cons of each alternative. According to EIA, upgrading the existing will not fulfill the traffic needs and will continue to bother people living next to the road while new road will have positive impact on economy and it will gear up development process in some villages. Jantunen argues that involvement of environmental issues in planning and decision making procedures was the biggest benefit of EIA’s work because it led to some alterations to the project and made it environment friendly.
CASE STUDY-2
Another case study of proposed bodhghat hydroelectric project by Rajvanshi (Wildlife Institute of India) discloses this project has been one of the abandoned projects because environmental appraisal failed to justify its recommendation. This project involved construction of a major dam on Indravati River on bastar district and in Madhya Pradesh state and this dam was considered environmental damaging structure because its functional effectiveness was directly linked to project proposed downstream such as Indravati tiger reserve and buffalo sanctuary. Moreover, project needed forced displacement of around 10000 tribal people and inundation of 20000 hectares large forest area which was resource for tribal people. EIA studies done by Wildlife Institute of India concluded that economic benefits of particular project were far lesser than its economic and social impacts. According to Rajvanshi, a better understanding of relationship between development and environment is necessary while planning a project to ensure environmental safety and security.
CASE STUDY-3
Sometimes, many important projects are also rejected by EIA. It is impossible to blame a single cause for their rejections. An article on EIA (The Times of India, 2012) revealed two crucial projects were rejected due to not getting permission by EIA. These two projects were a cricket stadium and a sewage treatment plant in Kochi, India. Secretary of Environmental protection forum, Aluva Mr.Seetharaman said that one of the major reasons for the rejection by EIA is badly done assessment. As these projects were to build near water bodies they have fewer chances to be cleared, he added. Another project which is rejected due to EIA was vidarbha irrigation project, maharastra, India. Voilation of EIA notification (2006) and Environment protection act (1986) were the reasons for rejection of the project . According to Expert appraisal committee, the project was commenced without environmental acceptance and private lands were going to be affected due to submergence so the project received stop notice by Union ministry of environment & forest.
DRAWBACKS
On the flip side, Department for Communities and Local Government (2015) argues that EIA is just a trivial process adding cost and time of preparing documents and getting permission for particular projects which are not intend to harm environment significantly. According to them, EIA raises workload of developer, local authority and consultation agencies. Kakonge (2013) reveals in his article about ‘Improving EIA effectiveness’ that the effectiveness of EIA process has not met our expectations and the major reasons behind EIA’s ineffectiveness are mismanagement of EIA process, civil and corporate corruption, low quality and inconsistency of EIA reports, lack of follow-up mechanism and insufficient means of communications. He concludes that there is no doubt about costliness of EIA process in terms of money and time but, if it is taken seriously without being compromised, it can be proved worth doing. Developing countries of Asia are not considered as a best example of EIA and its implementation and lack of public participation has been seen. Accordingly, Thailand and Philippines are among those few countries which applied EIA from 1977 but none of their projects out of thousands being rejected from clearance.
SUMMARY
In a nutshell, EIA procedures should be quick, affordable and reasonably applicable for developers and environmental authorities and it should involve effective public participation for better performance . Involvement of EIA in development projects leads to sustainable development and it provides anticipatory and preventive mechanism for environmental management and protection . None of the evaluation process is perfect and flawless but it can be improved with time. From this essay, it can be found that EIA undoubtedly maintains valid balance between environment and development. The benefits of EIA clearly overweigh its flaws and the performance of this assessment can be improved by better management and communication. In this essay, enough evidences and case studies are provided to prove that many projects have been rejected due to EIA processes. Thus, it is clear that EIA is not treated as a bureaucratic tick-box exercise and it is taken seriously in most of the cases.
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