Although the Ministry of Public Works had proposed that an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) on the New Demerara Harbour Bridge project be done, it was surprisingly advised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it was not necessary and the ministry has acted on that advice.
In the meanwhile, the EPA remains mum on its decision and its own about-face on an EIA while environmentalists are warning that it has potential environmental consequences.
“I had applied to do one [ESIA]. The EPA has advised that as a replacement structure not an ESIA but an Environ-mental Management Plan or Environmental and Social Management Plan was needed,” Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill told the Sunday Stabroek in an interview last week.
“There is a separation of the function here at Public Works and what EPA does. We embarked on a project to build a piece of infrastructure and we know that the law mandates that there are certain types of projects that require an application to the EPA in advance, to get authorisation to build it. We would have made an application to the EPA, they went through a project screening and determined if an ESIA was needed or not,” he added.
After saying last year November that an ESIA would be done, the EPA prompted shock in some circles when on August 18 it said that an application for an environmental permit for the new bridge had been received and in its judgement it will not require an ESIA.
The public was then given 30 days to consider the EPA decision and whether an appeal should be lodged with the Environmental Assessment Board (EAB).
The new notice saw environmentalist Simone Mangal-Joly writing the EAB – the body which determines appeals of decisions by the EPA – objecting to the EPA’s decision while pointing out that it was a reversal of an earlier position that acknowledged the need for one.
The decision against an ESIA has been seen by some as intended to enable the speedy construction of the bridge.
‘No choice’
Edghill told this newspaper that his agency can only work on the recommendations of the EPA and if that agency, responsible for the protection of the environment, says that no ESIA was needed, his ministry has to comply.
“All that backroom work that goes into that screening, I am not privy to it. But if they say at the end of that process that we are required to do an ESIA, we have no choice [but to do it]. If they say you don’t have to do [it] but you must do a management plan, essentially what that does is demonstrate to them the environmental risk this project would bring about and how it will be managed during operation and construction. This is what they have asked for us to do,” he emphasised.
The Public Works Minister was quick to say that the public should not take the fact that there will be no ESIA to mean that the ministry was absolved from environmental commitments.
“It is not that we are absolved of any environmental scrutiny for this project, it is just that the detailed work for the ESIA, the EPA is saying it will not be required for this new Demerara Harbour Bridge,” he opined.
“That is what we do; just following the EPA advice,” he added.
He explained that while the argument that pile driving in the river would disrupt marine life and see severe silting that would require dredging, the current bridge is more prone to silt as after the piles are driven for structural maintenance, silting is significantly decreased.
“A floating bridge sits in the river and it does cause the marks of the pontoons; it causes more scouring and there is need for more dredging. The pontoons there are tied to the bed of the sea. There is less surface area [friction] of the pylons than you would have with a pontoon bridge and there will be less scouring,” he pointed out.
“But pile driving is going on in Region Three and everywhere. Pile driving is not a new art. In a marine environment, it [migration and other effects] may happen but [that] the development should be curtailed? An environmentalist can make a decision there. I don’t know. Pile driving in bridge building is a normal every day activity,” he added.
Reasons
Mangal-Joly contended that the EPA has also not provided the reasons why it determined that this activity would not have a significant impact and is therefore exempt from an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
“This further undermines the public engagement intention of Section 11(2) (a) of the EPA Act, which specifies that the Agency must publish the reasons why it arrived at the decision that the project will not significantly impact the environment at the time that it publishes its decision and gives the public 30 days to review and appeal the decision,” she argued.
For such a substantial change as overturning the requirement for an EIA, she noted that one would have expected the agency to be even more diligent in providing reasons.
“For the EPA to bypass the requirement of an EIA, with no justification but an altered project description that misrepresents the activity, is jeopardizing the regulatory process designed to protect our citizens, environment, and investments. This begs the question whether the Government of Guyana, as represented by the EPA, is committed to good governance,” Mangal-Joly added.
She also pointed out that the EPA was now describing the bridge as a replacement and not a new one, as it had previously done, even though entirely different construction and engineering methodologies were involved.
Mangal-Joly lodged her appeal on three grounds: (1) the decision contradicted an earlier EPA decision for exactly the same project; (2) the information provided in the Project Summary was grossly deficient and does not enable the public to exercise its right to rationally consider the proposed activity; and (3) the reasons for the EPA’s decision that the impacts would be insignificant and not require an EIA were not provided.
She also pointed out that the EPA’s notice of December 13, 2020 for the same project had stated that the effects would be significant and thus an EIA would be required. “The EPA has since, with no explanation or material changes to the project, published an altered Project Summary and removed the EIA requirement.”
Mangal-Joly contended that there are only two differences between the November 2020 Project Summary and the one in August. The first is that all references to a “new” bridge were transformed to “replacement” bridge, and the reference to the conduct of an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) on page 4 of the November 2020 project summary was expunged. She noted that the Ministry of Public Works had accepted the need for an EIA and stated in the November version that it would hire a consultancy firm to execute one. In fact, she noted that the Government’s Department of Public Information twice issued public notices on the new bridge and the ESIA process (on December 10, 2020, and March 31, 2021).
“There is no justification in treating this project any differently from the one of November 2020 based simply on the exchange of the term ‘new’ with ‘replacement’. Further, The Demerara Harbour Bridge currently in existence is a floating bridge based on entirely different technology than the technology for the proposed new bridge. The activity for which an environmental permit is requested is not a mere swapping out of parts, or all parts, of the floating bridge. The activity is the construction of a new and different bridge based on different technology, and at a different location. The activity was authentically described in the November 2020 project summary. The only effect of the August 2021 project summary alterations is a misrepresentation of the project that serves to mislead the public,” Mangal-Joly stated in the letter.
She said that when the EPA first received the developer’s Permit Application, it took the view that the construction of the bridge would significantly affect the environment, and pursuant to the EPA Act, an EIA was necessary.
“It is a breach of public trust for the EPA to contradict its earlier position by discretely removing all references to the EIA and publishing an altered description of the project that downplays the reality of the proposed activity”, the environmentalist asserted.
