By the end of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hopes to bring 40% of large manufacturing companies, fuel depots and other categories in regions 4, 3 and 6 into the environmental authorisation process.
This plan was contained in the EPA’s annual report for 2014 which was recently tabled in the National Assembly. Funeral homes and infrastructure projects are also being targeted in this plan.
Among its other plans for this year were to improve preparedness and response to effectively address 90% of environmental emergencies related to oil spill/effluent discharge.
The annual report cited a number of challenges to the EPA’s work in 2014. These included that the position of the Director for the Biodiversity Management Division remained vacant during the year as though advertised a suitable candidate was not found.
Further, it said that training opportunities have not been available in specific areas to allow the full implementation of the programmes of the four technical divisions.
The EPA was also unable to source funds to support conservation research and species surveys linked to the bushmeat trade.
It added that the small budget allocated to the Education, Information and Training Programme restricted activities to promote education and awareness and to build capacity of various target groups. It also lamented that the litigation process for defaulters was lengthy and that the staff complement was “below what is needed to cope with the high volume of applications and complaints being managed by the agency”.
The EPA is heavily reliant on subventions from the government to function. Out of its total income in 2014 of $304m, 206.2m came from the subvention and it ended the year with a small loss of $2.3m. In 2013, the government subvention was $196.7m. Revenue from its operations in 2014 totalled $43.5m. Permit fees of $37.1m accounted for most of this. Employment costs in 2014 rose substantially to $185.5m from $144m in 2013.
Financing for the EPA has also come from the German institution, KfW, the Global Environment Fund and the World Wildlife Fund.
The report said that the EPA received 278 applications for environmental authorisations in 2014. This was a 21% increase over 2013. The EPA granted 102 authorisations, a 24% increase over 2013.
Among the authorisations, the report said, were several large-scale projects including DTL’s logging and sawmilling operation, Barama’s Integrated Wood Industries Complex, Variety Woods Sawmilling and Wood Processing Facility and the West Coast Demerara Road Improvement Project.
Last year, the report said that 159 environmental complaints were received and 235 investigations were done, made up of 96 new complaints, 82 follow-up inspections and 57 pertaining to prohibition notices. It said that overall, 11 cases were resolved of the projected 25. Seventeen prohibition notices were issued and eight injunctions granted. Fourteen cases were taken to court for the year.
Thirty-four reports of littering and dumping were probed and citations issued. Eleven cases were pursued in court.
One was dismissed as the witness did not show up, one case is to be reissued and the others are pending. The report said that since the EPA began its Litter Enforcement Programme a total of 269 citations were issued composed of 167 clean-up orders, 93 removal orders and nine fines.
Seventy compliance monitoring inspections were conducted for permitted projects during the year.
Of these, 27 pertained to forestry-related projects, 14 to gas stations and nine to mining projects.
