Key hearings on the planned new bridge over the Demerara River and an ExxonMobil oil exploration programme have been put on hold to allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more time to provide answers, a move that will be seen as a win for civil society activists.
The hearing on the bridge was set for yesterday and the one in the name of ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) was scheduled for tomorrow. On Monday, the Environ-mental Assessment Board (EAB) put on hold until further notice, the public hearings into appeals against the EPA’s decision not to require Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) of the two projects. These decisions by the EPA had triggered consternation and many questions from civil society activists. The EAB adjudicates appeals of EPA decisions.
“The Appellants submitted questions prior to the hearing and these were forwarded to us by the EAB very late; I think it was only yesterday. The EPA asked for time, given the short notice…” the EPA’s Executive Director Kemraj Parsram told Stabroek News when contacted yesterday. He did not give a timeframe for the completion of their preparation. It is unclear why the questions were only recently submitted by the EAB.
No notice of the decision of the postponement was provided by the EAB in the daily newspapers or on the EPA’s website but a notice was posted on Mon-day on the EPA’s Facebook page. It is unclear how the EAB expected the general public to be aware of its decision to postpone.
“The General Public and formal appellants are hereby notified that the public hearings into appeals submitted against the Work Services Group – Ministry of Public Works – Replacement of the existing Demerara Harbour Bridge, to be located at Nandy Park…and EEPGL Well Exploration Well Exploration and Drilling Program…have been postponed until further notice”, the Facebook notice stated.
In late August, environmentalist Simone Mangal-Joly wrote the EAB objecting to the EPA’s decision not to require an EIA for the new bridge over the Demerara River and pointing out that it was a reversal of an earlier position that one was needed.
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 based 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.
Then on Friday, Mangal-Joly wrote in response to an invitation by EAB Chairman Omkar Lochan to attend the meetings on the waivers for the drilling and bridge projects, telling the EAB that the EPA was still to fulfil its legal obligation to provide the technical reasons for the decisions and both the agency and the EAB should meet the legal thresholds prior to holding the hearings.
“A credible EAB hearing to adjudicate can only occur after all the prerequisites are met,” she asserted.
According to the project description, the bridge will span the Demerara River from Nandy Park to La Grange, upstream and in proximity to the existing harbour bridge. The structure will be a fixed four-lane bridge with a vertical clearance over the channel of approximately 50 metres above the maximum tide level. The proposed design allows for the bridge to be connected to the main road network through road approaches connecting it to the West Bank Public Road and the imminent Mandela to Eccles road, respectively.
Publishes
In her letter, seen by this newspaper, Mangal-Joly points out that Section 11(2) (a) of the Environmental Protection Act requires that the EPA provides the technical reasons for its decisions at the time that it publishes a decision on whether an EIA is required, and that it provides 30 days from that time for the public to properly assess the reasons and appeal the process if necessary. In addition, Section 11(1) (iv) also provides that the EPA publishes a non-technical summary. However, she notes that neither of these requirements have been met.
As a result, Mangal-Joly said she hoped that yesterday’s planned meeting would not be just to inform the EAB’s decision on whether an EIA should be required. “A public hearing for adjudication of technical matters cannot reasonably or legally serve as a process of discovery of the relevant project information and the EPA’s reasons, affording the public only limited real time responses at the event,” she emphasised, while pointing out that the law clearly gives the public 30 days to consider the facts of the project as well as the EPA’s rationale for its decision. “A credible EAB hearing to adjudicate can only occur after all the prerequisites are met”, she argued.
Up to the time of her correspondence on Friday, she had pointed out that the public was still unaware of the EPA’s reasoning as well as proposed activities, including the project size and investment, the length of the construction time, the specific geographic footprint of the project, activities that comprise the construction phase as opposed to the operation phase, specific types of wastes that would be generated, the extent of forests that would be removed or otherwise impacted and whether they include protected species such as mangroves, hydrological studies of potential changes in the river during both construction and operation phases, the impacts on communities or stakeholders on either side of the river or downstream, and the impacts on downstream livelihoods, such as fishing and berthing access for petroleum supply boats.
In light of this, Mangal-Joly asked Lochan to indicate the timeline by which the EPA intends to meet the statutory requirements to trigger the 30-day deliberation period. “I shall be pleased to engage in an EAB public hearing on the technical rationale for the EPA’s decision after both the EPA and EAB have met the prerequisite logical and legal thresholds,” she said.
Similarly, in relation to the hearing on the waiver granted for the drilling campaign in the Canje Block, Mangal-Joly reminded that the EPA did not provide any reasons for its decision to forgo an EIA for the project. “How exactly does the EAB propose that I address whether EPA’s reasons justify its decision to not require an EIA when the EPA still has not disclosed those reasons?” she questioned in her letter.
Having indicated that she would be happy to participate once the EAB and the EPA meet the necessary thresholds, she asked when the public can expect the reasons for waiving the aforementioned EIAs would be published and what the EAB expects to achieve with the proposed hearing.
Other activists have also raised a variety of concerns about the EPA’s and the EAB’s processes. In the last Sunday Stabroek, Janette Bulkan detailed a number of these in her piece entitled “Takeaways from Environmental Assessment Board’s ‘public hearing’ on Vista Trading impact study waiver”.
