Analysis of the Environmental Statement of St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure - Case Study Example

NEW REGS, NO IMPACT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Table of Contents New Regs, No Impact Executive Summary Environmental impact assessments are considered a crucial part of the environmental regulations, but normally they vary in terms of the covered projects, the aspects that must be included, the level of public participation, and so forth. Therefore, the process of EIA is a crucial aspect of the environmental legislation for all countries. Still, EIA is similar practices, regulations and laws that are written and implemented. Basically, the EIA process has a number of components: impact identification; the affected environment description; basics; impacts prediction and assessment; proposed action selection as well as documentation in line with existing guidelines. Moreover, EIA is pursed so as to define the alternatives of the project, the affected environment, the possible impacts, monitoring of the impact, mitigation alternatives as well as public interests. The report focuses on St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure steered by the St Helena Government. In this case, the Environmental Statement (ES) accompanied the application for development permission providing a summary of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) findings. This report analyses the Environmental Statement (ES) of St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure. Introduction Environmental assessment according to European Commission (2015) can be defined as a procedure, which makes certain that the environmental consequences of decisions are considered prior to decision making. The assessment may be carried out for certain projects like an airport, factory, motorway or dam in adherence to EIA Directive or for public programs or plans according to the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (Schmidt et al., 2006, p.26). Basically, both Directives seeks to make sure that projects, programs and plans that are inclined to have significant impact on the environment undergo environmental assessment before they are approved. Consulting with the public according to Stampe (2009, p.5) is a crucial aspect of the environmental assessment procedures. The Environmental Assessment Directives intends to offer a high environment protection level as well as in contributing to the environmental considerations integration to the projects preparation with the goal of reducing their environmental impact. Wright et al. (2013, p.72)assert that EIAs are utilized across the globe as tools of management in examining the extent as well as types of environmental impact that can be brought about by a certain human activity or action on the ecosystem, habitat or species. St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure Project According to the ES, the proposed airport was to be situated on Prosperous Bay Plain with a 1,950 metres runway and will have a cleared area as well as graded land. The ES states that earthworks will be needed so as make a land level area, which will be sufficiently long for the runway as well as RESA (runway end safety area) (Faber Maunsell, 2010, p.2). The material that will be removed from Prosperous Bay Plain will be almost eight million cubic metres, and in consequence, this will lessen the ridge height of the land, especially on the plain’s eastern edge. Imperatively, the Dry Gut’s large embankment structure will be created by these materials. Therefore, the project’s permanent impact on land use will be attributed to the loss of land for agricultural purposes and will also affect recreation. Therefore, construction of airport’s access road will result in the loss of the agricultural land at the Deadwood Plain. The project will result in loss of some pasture, and this will considerably impact the use of the farming land. In terms of recreation, the Rupert’s Beach will be temporarily closed at the time of the construction (Faber Maunsell, 2010, p.5). The wharf being near the beach will result in adverse effects that will consequently affect the area amenity value. Besides that, the construction is expected to have considerable impacts on the residential properties close to the project, especially during the construction of the access road and wharf. The remaining part of the construction project according to the ES is expected to have minimal environmental impacts because the construction activities will take place in areas that are very remote. Still, some of operations during the construction will generate significant vibration as well as noise; thus, leading to disturbance. However, this disturbance according to the ES will be addressed by numerous measures, which includes managing working hours as well as limiting the timing and frequency of the blasting operations. Assessment of the air quality took into account the effects of both vehicle emissions as well as dust (Faber Maunsell, 2010, p.7). Considering that the location is isolated and has no sources of domestic, transport or industrial pollution, then air quality in the island was considered exceedingly good. Still, some parts of the island have bare ground; therefore, dusts occur because of the windy and dry conditions. The project will lead to losses of the habitat considering that Prosperous Bay Plain has a substantial percentage of endemic species. Therefore, mitigation according to ES will involve the creation of improved or new habitat as well as restoring areas temporarily utilised during the construction. Nonetheless, the project will lead to a substantial adverse effect on the environment, mainly due to lack of certainty over successfully creating a habitat for replacement. Besides that, the project will potentially affect watercourses according to the ES (Faber Maunsell, 2010, p.12). Critique The St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure ES have failed to offer indications of how the restored habitat would successfully substitute the lost habitat. For instance, the ES has not indicated the measures that will be taken during the preparation of the site or the time needed to achieve the same. Treweek and Thompson (1997, p.41) argue that in a number of countries such as the UK, where the wildlife habitats that remains have become fragmented as well as degraded following because of industrial, urban and agricultural development, accessing the equivalent land has turned out to be a crucial issue. Even though creation or restoration of habitat is suggested as a mitigation measure, Windham et al. (2004) argue that it is not easy for suitable alternative sites to be located. This is similar to the species and habitats translocations, where the recipient sites are expected to match the donor sites’ landscape context as well as physical conditions. Even though the proposed mitigation measures shows the number of identified impacts, St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure ES has provided no evidence that objective criteria was utilised in determining the impacts that were to be mitigated so as to counterbalance damage or loss. Moreover, the ES has not specified the impacts comprehensively for evaluation of the mitigation proposals suitability. Notably, habitats have been defined incoherently and loosely, and the ES failed to analyse their significance to the related species. According to Treweek (2009, p.217), the mitigation measures proposed by most ES are always not directly associated with the identified ecological impacts; thus, bringing about a residual adverse effects. Imperatively, Eccleston (1999, p.277) observed that there are no recognised evaluation techniques for efficacy of the mitigation measures proposed by ES. In the ES, habitat loss has been identified as a major ecological impact, but loss of land referred by Treweek and Thompson (1997, p.41) as 'land-take' had a similar impact. Still, the ES focused on the broad categories. The European parliament on 12 March 2011 voted in support of the EIA Directive revisions, but the revised Directive did not amend either annex I or annex II; thus, unconventional hydrocarbon extraction or exploration has no direct reference (Faber Maunsell, 2010). In consequence, the legal uncertainty surrounding this area is significant and this ambiguity according to Fothergill (2014) does not serve anyone’s needs. For this reason, developers are expected to establish their individual method to EIA; whereas the public are concerned that no consideration will be directed towards their environmental concerns in the process of decision making.  Recommendations The way in which ES are written can be improved by associating the agency action goal with the statement of purpose, and not the desire for a particular proposal. Imperatively, the requirements such as the specifications of the conceptual design should not be included in the statement of purpose. Moreover, the ES should not talk about all the unique alternatives when the numbers involved are an unmanageably large. The ES should identify different practical alternatives, which satisfy the need and purpose of the agency. The included alternatives should act in response to the underlying need and purpose under different circumstances that reasonably foreseeable. The ES should broadly define the alternatives so as to allow minor changes in the manner in which the selected alternative are implemented, but should not be exceedingly broad to prevent important analysis (U.S. Department of Energy, 2004, p.10). While writing the ES, it is imperative to consider whether the economic or technical factors can change to the extent of becoming infeasible. Still, a sliding-scale approach should be used when writing an ES so as to establish the number of alternatives that should be identified and examined in the environmental assessment as well as the profundity of analysis so as to provide for all the alternatives. The alternatives should be added if their impacts are smaller as compared to the proposed action. Without doubt, the new EIA Regulations that came into force in 2016 have an effect on the development of the ES because the EIA procedures according to the directive have to be simplified and there must be timeframes at some stages such as screening decisions. The ES according to the directive have to be more understandable and there is need to avoid conflicts of interest (Walker, 2014). The decisions for application have to be transparent and clear while the projects having considerable environmental effects have to be monitored. Therefore, ES is expected to show how these environmental effects will be monitored. Conclusion In conclusion, the report has analysed the Environmental Statement (ES) of St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure. As argued in the report, environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are used to evaluate human activities’ environmental consequences, especially those that are reasonably foreseeable. The EIA process covers a range of private and public projects. In the case of St Helena Airport and Supporting Infrastructure, the ES has identified the environmental impacts at the time of construction as well as during the operation of the airport. Imperatively, the ES has identified measures to help offset, reduce or avoid impacts. Such measures had an impact in the methods of construction, scheme designs as well as how the airport could operate. The impacts significance, remaining following the mitigation was examined and the impacts (both negative and positive) were identified. As mentioned in the report, EIA requirements enforcement is a must, and there must be an independent body for approving the project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in order to reduce conflicts of interest which take place when the approval agency as well as the proponent are the same. References Eccleston, C.H., 1999. are no recognised evaluation techniques for efficacy of the mitigation measures proposed by ES. New York: John Wiley & Sons. European Commission, 2015. Environmental Assessment. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eia/home.htm" http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eia/home.htm [Accessed 27 January 2016]. Faber Maunsell, 2010. Non-technical Summary of the St Helena Airport & Supporting Infrastructure Environmental Statement. London: Faber Maunsell. Fothergill, J., 2014. Built to assess impacts. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.environmentalistonline.com/article/built-assess-impacts" http://www.environmentalistonline.com/article/built-assess-impacts [Accessed 26 January 2016]. Schmidt, M., Joao, E. & Albrecht, E., 2006. Implementing Strategic Environmental Assessment. New York: Springer Science & Business Media. Stampe, J.W., 2009. Lessons Learned from Environmental Impact Assessments: A Look at Two Widely Different Approaches – The USA and Thailand. The Journal of Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.1-7. Treweek, J., 2009. Ecological Impact Assessment. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Treweek, J. & Thompson, S., 1997. A review of ecological mitigation measures in UK environmental statements with respect to sustainable development. Int.J Sustain. Dev. War/dEcal,vol. 4, pp.40-50. U.S. Department of Energy, 2004. Recommendations for the Preparation of Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements. Washington DC: NEPA. Walker, A., 2014. New Environmental Impact Assessment Directive comes into force. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.bdb-law.co.uk/blogs/planning-act-2008/555-new-environmental-impact-assessment-directive-comes-into-force/" https://www.bdb-law.co.uk/blogs/planning-act-2008/555-new-environmental-impact-assessment-directive-comes-into-force/ [Accessed 27 January 2016]. Windham, L., Laska, M.S. & Wollenberg, J., 2004. Evaluating Urban Wetland Restorations: Case Studies for Assessing Connectivity and Function. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.urbanhabitats.org/v02n01/evaluating_full.html" http://www.urbanhabitats.org/v02n01/evaluating_full.html [Accessed 27 January 2016]. Wright, A.J. et al., 2013. Myth and Momentum: A Critique of Environmental Impact Assessments. Journal of Environmental Protection, vol. 4, pp.72-77. Read More