The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has withdrawn its recently revised Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) guidelines to facilitate consultations with the general public.
A public notice by the EPA informed that the revised EIA for Mining, Forestry, Hydropower, Thermal Power, Electricity Transmission, and Offshore Petroleum Exploration and Production has been withdrawn to facilitate broader consultations on those documents.
Acting Director of the Agency Sharifah Razack told Stabroek News that following the release of the new guidelines, persons reached out to the agency and voiced their concerns that the public needs to be consulted before such changes are made. As a result, she said, they have withdrawn the guidelines and are hoping that by next month consultation will be underway.
“We want to make sure that every sector and every stakeholder has a look at it and make an input. People feel that they need to make an input in some aspects and there may need to consider it from the sector point of view as well, so we want to give them that opportunity to make their views know,” she said.
Meanwhile, the notice also said, “The Agency further advises that in the interim, the Environmental Protection Agency’s EIA Guidelines (2000) Volumes 1-5 (Generic; Forestry; Mining; and Electricity Generation) would be in effect until further notice. The EIA Guidelines (2000) can be downloaded from the EPA’s website www.epaguyana.org.”
