Environmental impact assessment

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the likely human environmental health impact, risk to ecological health, and changes to nature's services that a project may have. The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision-makers consider environmental impacts before deciding whether to proceed with new projects.

Overview

The US Environmental Protection Agency pioneered the use of pathway analysis to determine the likely human health impact of environmental factors. The technology for performing such analysis is properly labelled environmental science. The principal phenomena or pathways of impact are: soil contamination impacts, air pollution impacts, noise health effects, ecology impacts including endangered species assessment, geological hazards assessment and water pollution impacts. Pathway analysis and The Natural Step definitions later became the basis of the global ISO 14000 series of environmental management standards and the more recent ISO 19011 accounting standard; however,these ISO standards are not in common use in the U.S. and most other countries.

After an EIA analysis, the Precautionary Principle and Polluter Pays may be applied to prevent, limit, or require strict liability or insurance coverages to a project, based on its likely harms.

Environmental impact analysis is sometimes controversial and contested. Related analysis of social impacts is achieved by Social impact assessment. Analysis of business impacts is achieved by Context analysis. Design impacts are assessed in relation to Context theory.

EIA around the world

EU

The EIA Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment of the effects of projects on the environment was introduced in 1985 and was amended in 1997. The directive was amended again in 2003 following the 1998 signature by the EU of the Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental matters. The issue was enlarged to the assessment of plans and programmes by the so called SEA-Directive in 2001 which is now in force.

New Zealand

In New Zealand EIA is usually referred to as Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE). The first use of EIA's dates back to a Cabinet minute passed in 1974 called Environmental Protection and Enhancement Procedures. This had no legal force and only related to the activities of government departments. When the Resource Management Act was passed in 1991 an EIA was required as part of a resource consent application. Section 88 of the Act spells this out.

United States

Under United States environmental law an EIA is referred to as the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and originated in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enacted in the United States in 1969. Certain actions of federal agencies must be preceded by an EIS. Contrary to a widespread misconception, NEPA does not prohibit the federal government or its licensees/permittees from harming the environment, nor does it specify any penalty if the EIS turns out to be inaccurate, intentionally or otherwise. NEPA merely requires that plausible statements as to the prospective impacts be disclosed in advance; it is only a procedural requirement. The same general pattern has since been followed by several U.S. state governments that have adopted "little NEPA's," i.e., state laws imposing EIS requirements for particular state actions. Many other countries have also enacted laws requiring environmental impact assessment. For example, the European Community has established a mix of mandatory and discretionary procedures for assessing environmental impacts. ^*

Usually, an agency will release a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for comment. Interested parties and the general public have the opportunity to comment on the draft, after which the agency will approve the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). Occasionally, the agency will later release a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

The adequacy of an EIS can be challenged in court. Major proposed projects have been blocked because of an agency's failure to prepare an acceptable EIS. One prominent example was the Westway landfill and highway development in and along the Hudson River in New York City -- see the court decision in Sierra Club v. United States Army Corps of Engineers. Another prominent case involved the Sierra Club suing the Nevada Department of Transportation over its denial of Sierra Club's request to issue a supplemental EIS addressing air emissions of particulate matter and hazardous air pollutants in the case of widening US Highway 95 through Las Vegas.^* The case reached the 9th Circuit Court of the United States, which led to construction on the highway being halted until the court's final decision. The case was settled prior to the court's final decision.

Various states have separate requirements for an Environmental Impact Report or environmental assessment. These reports are yielding voluminous data not just upon impacts of individual projects, but also to elucidate scientific areas that have been researched little. For example in a seemingly routine Environmental Impact Report for the city of Monterey, California, information came to light that led to the official federal endangered species listing of Hickman's potentilla, a rare coastal wildflower.

External links

References

Petts, J. (ed), Handbook of Environmental Impact Assessment Vol 1 & 2, Blackwell, Oxford ISBN 0632047720
Environmental Impact Assessment Review (1980 - ), Elsevier
Glasson, J; Therivel, R; Chadwick A, Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment, (2005) Routledge, London
David Sive & Mark Chertok, “Little NEPAs” and their Environmental Impact Assessment Procedures

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