Environmental Impact Assessment – why not?
Kaieteur News – An uncomfortable and dangerous practice is happening right in front of Guyanese eyes and only a handful are aware and pushing back. With the exception of the directly affected and agitated, there seems to be silence and apathy in the largest Guyanese population. It’s about something that goes under the label ‘Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA),’ and how it is or is not used; when this is the last, there is potential for serious trouble.
AEC, in barebones description, is a study of the potential effects on a nearby community, should some facilities be installed in its vicinity, immediately or otherwise. That is, what could be if the facility – machinery, warehouse, industrial or chemical process, etc. – was located in the neighborhood. Analysis, using different assumptions and scenarios, examines the potential negatives on residents and the environment, including potential health exposures, economic impacts, and social costs, among other things. It might be best described as taking a preemptive stock and calculating the cost up front. This is so that there is a general awareness of what might happen, if some firm precautions are not in place. It is about what protects the residents, the quality of their current existence, and their future well-being. At the very least, EIA is helpful to have on hand, encouraging in its honest conclusions, and reassuring about the absence of material risks.
Yet, here we are in one position after another, involving different types of facilities, and Guyana’s EPA ranking is as consistent as it is unmanaged. As a candidate, the EPA’s position is evident in its seeming, if not occasional, irresponsible attitude (one size fits all) toward what may be dangerous to the welfare of ordinary Guyanese. It’s been a chemical factory here, a waste materials site there, and a storage facility elsewhere, and the EPA’s silent, silent site is that EIA is not needed, it would seem on the whole. Whether it be Friendship or Agricola, or elsewhere. Regardless of the business to participate in, or the type of facility to build, Guyana’s EPA position is that EIA is not required. The local EPA seems to have a special eraser that says: ‘No EIA required’ and used without fail.
To emphasize our focus, this is not about huge department stores, or a steel storage bond, or something like that. What is at issue has written dangerously throughout the day-to-day activities. And because of EPA’s nearly consistent position, we believe the EPA brand is justifiably justified up to criminal negligence. Also, it should not escape attention that the communities are always poorer, not professional or very sophisticated in the composition of their residents. Further, there is an in-depth method of media alert and a 30-day window for objections and appeals, which must be a bad joke.
Because of what we observe the EPA records that it has given the public notice and opportunity to raise concerns; and in doing so has fulfilled its mandate and responsibilities. The EPA seems to be hoping that those silent notices would slip away without residents seeing and acting on them. How much better would it be if the EPA gives early and clear warning that such a thing is being proposed and that there will be community gatherings to discuss what is happening, what it means, and with a meaningful question and answer segment thereafter. It would be helpful and reassuring to the community if company representatives were present to ask field questions.
But none of this has happened, and nothing else too. The more frequently growing facilities are not housed near very sophisticated neighborhoods, with prominent professionals and civil society citizens living there. We are certain that the EPA would not dare venture its further patent nonsense of ‘no EIA required’ for anything close to (not very close to) those residential areas. While we place a great deal of responsibility on the EPA for its bias in favor of business, it is reasonable to pursue the agency’s impotence higher up. It is highly likely that the fingerprints of political leadership are being plastered all over this business of ‘EIA not required.’ Here is the understanding of those heights of: clearing the way. Achieve it. And whatever happens to citizens, that’s the price of progress.