CVEN4705

Environmental Sustainability – Methods, Tools, Management

Trimester 3 - 2020
Environmental Impacts Assessment
(and Statements)

Lecturer:
Ademir Prata
(ademir@unsw.edu.au) Acknowledgement: Lecture contains material from previous lectures by Ruth Fisher and Juan Pablo
Alvarez Gaitan.
Overview

Environmental impacts assessment need and overview

Process for EIA

Scoping
EIS Process
Public Exhibition & Response to Submissions
Assessment & Determination
Post Approval

Conclusions and Final Considerations

Environmental impacts assessment need
and overview
What is EIA?

• Environmental Impacts Assessment (EIA) is a required for:

– State significant projects, categorised as either State significant

development (SSD) or State significant infrastructure (SSI).
– These are projects over a certain size, located in a sensitive
environmental area or will exceed a specific capital investment
value.
– Examples: educational establishments, hospitals, mining and
extraction operations, energy generating facilities, rail and road
infrastructure, water storage and treatment plants, and certain
industrial developments.
What is EIA?

• EIA is a process that:

– Identifies the potential environmental effects of undertaking a

proposal.
– Presents these environmental effects alongside the other
advantages and disadvantages of the proposal, for the
information of the decision makers.
– Requires proponents involved with the proposal, as well as
decision makers, to consider environmental effects (and then
avoid negative effects) and enables the public to become aware
of the details of the proposal.

(Thomas and Murfitt, 2011)

What is EIA?

• EIA does not provide a veto over a project:

→ Still enables decisions which are unsatisfactory from an

environmental point of view to be made, but these decisions are
made with full knowledge of the environmental consequences.

EIA is a planning and decision making tool

(Thomas and Murfitt, 2011)

 Love Canal
• 1940’s - Hooker Chemical Company disposed of large amounts of
chemical waste into the Love Canal which became a landfill.
• 1952 - ceased being used as a landfill, and the next year it was sold to
the school board.
• 1970’s – noticeable leaching into soils and water table.
• Health impacts in the community were becoming apparent at this time:
• All pregnant women and children under 2 removed ASAP;
• Later 800 families were relocated….

How could this

situation have been
prevented?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjobz14i8kM
 Origins of EIA

• United States National Environmental Silent Spring

by Rachel Carson
Policy Act 1969 (NEPA).

o Growing concern about the impact of

development on the environment;
o Failure of economic techniques to take
into account long term environmental and
social consequences of big projects;
o Increasing scale of development
schemes;
o Growing numbers of environment groups.
Requirements of NEPA

United States National Environmental Policy Act

1969 (NEPA) required a detailed statement of:

1. The environmental impact of a proposed action

2. Any adverse environmental effects
3. Alternatives to the proposed action
4. Impacts on long-term environmental productivity
5. Any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources
involved
Would this have
prevented the Love
p.8 Harvey & Clarke (2012). Canal situation?
Development of environmental
legislation in NSW

• 1854 Sydney Commissioners Act to manage sewerage and

water pollution
• 1960 Prevention of Oil Pollution of Navigable Waters Act
• 1962 Clean Air Act
• 1970 Clean Waters Act, Waste Disposal Act, SPCC (State
Pollution Control Commission) Act
• 1972 The first ‘Environmental Impact Policy’
• 1974 The State Pollution Control Commission (SPCC )
Standard EI-4 accepted as the principles and procedures of
EIA in NSW
• 1979 Environmental Planning & Assessment Act
• 1980 Land and Environment Court established
Framework in NSW
• Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act)
o Establish the planning approval regime in NSW

• Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulations (EP&A

Regs), State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPP), Local
Environmental Plan (LEP)

• Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

(EPBC Act)
12

What are EIA and EIS?

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS)
EIA Process
EIA Process
15

General Overview of the EIA process…

Remember that this is not specific to NSW so uses slightly

different language… but gives a nice overview and
raises key points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWtT0EfhNsE
1. Project preparation
• What is proposed? When and where?
• Why the project is needed?
• History? Alternatives?
• How the project aligns with the planning
framework?
• Likely relevant matters and impacts.
• Likely community and stakeholders interest.
2. Scoping Meeting
• Assessment Pathway
• Discuss “key issues” and “other issues”
• Scoping worksheet is useful to understand
the level of assessment required.
(See the worksheet)
3-4. Scoping Engagement and Report
• You are not seeking support or opposition about
your proposal.
• Scoping worksheet can help (e.g. Social Impact
Assessment).
• Report structure? (Workshop activity)
5. Secretary’s Environmental Assessment
Requirements (SEARs)
• Secretary of the Department of Planning and Environment is required
to issue environmental assessment requirements (SEARs).

• Where relevant, the SEARs for CSSI projects will contain:

o General Standard SEARs (General process/requirements)
o Key Issue Standard SEARs (Requirements to address specific
potential issues)
o Additional project specific SEARs where additional assessment of
a particular issue is required.
Case Study – Bomen Solar Farm 120 MW
Secretary’s Environmental Assessment
Requirements (SEAR’s)
Secretary’s Environmental Assessment
Requirements (SEAR’s)
EIA Process
EIS structure
• Declaration
• Glossary and abbreviations
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
– Project overview
– Project objectives
– Project history
– Feasible alternatives
– SEARs
EIS structure
• Project description
• Strategic and statutory context
• Engagement
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Mitigation measures
• Evaluation and Conclusion
• List of appendices
 EIS
• Strategic and statutory context
– State Environmental Planning Policies
(e.g., SEPP 44)
EIS
• Engagement
 EIS
• Assessment → use the SEARs to
identify the level of assessment for
each matter
– Key issues → need a specialist report
– Other issues → routine management
measures

(See the SEAR’s details in Moodle)

EIS

• Assessment → how risky is an impact?

 EIS
• Specialist Reports
– Included as a whole in the Appendices
– In the body of the EIS the results from the
specialist report need to be summarized
and include:
• Methodology
• Existing Environment
• Assessment
• Mitigation measures
 What Tools
EIS can we use? Is anything
missing??
 EIS
• Impacts over whole project Leopold Matrix can be used to identify potential
life time: Construction, impacts
Operation, Demolition
• Aim for quantitative
(models?)
• Compare to context
(cumulative?)
• State unknowns and
assumptions
• Sensitivity analysis
• Assess impacts of
extremes not just averages

Details are shown in

report Appendices,
Summary in text
EIS
• Mitigation measures
36

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-25/chevron-gas-30000-
animals-salvaged-for-industry-construction/11325292
EIA process
Public Exhibition
• EIS publicly available on website for a minimum of 30 days.
• Relevant community members will be notified by letter or newspapers.
• Could include proponent led engagement or Department led briefing
sessions.
 Public Exhibition

• All submissions are sent to

proponent and made
publicly available.
• Proponents must respond
to each concern.
• May require design
changes, further
engagement.
• If more than 25 complaints,
final decision is allocated to
an Independent Planning
Commission, otherwise lies
with the Planning Minister.
Submissions from Government Agencies
Responses to Submissions
Responses to Submissions
Major Projects Assessments

http://www.majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/
EIA process
Assessment and Determination
Assessment and Determination
Assessment and Determination

Example - Eastern Creek Energy from

Waste Facility:
• Department issues SEARs in 2013
• EIS lodged with department in June,
Dec 2014
• Department engaged experts in 2014
• EIS revised then accepted in 2015
• Initially publically exhibited in 2015
• Amended version exhibited in 2016
• Further amended then lodged 2017
• Refused in 2018
EIA process
Post Approval
Conclusions and Final
Considerations
Conclusions
EIA is a technical tool/process that identifies, predicts, and analyses
impacts on the physical environment, as well as social, cultural, and
health impacts.
It should identify alternatives and mitigation measures to reduce the
environmental impact of a proposed project.

EIS is a document that describes the impacts on the environment as a

result of a proposed action. It also describes impacts of alternatives
as well as plans to mitigate the impacts.

EIS is a part of EIA

EIA and EIS
Legal Requirements
- the proponent
- advantages - forces consideration at early stage
- disadvantages - public perception of bias and lack of credibility
Alternatives
- Independent appointment of consultants:
- paid by proponent, administered by others.
- An Authority:
- paid by ?
- EIS as a part of EIA
- improve EIA without removing benefits of EIS being done by
proponent.
Community Participation
Legal Requirement
- Public exhibition, minimum period

Additional procedures (voluntary)

- Information provision during EIS preparation
- Consultation - seek concerns, priorities:
- survey
- public meetings
- Community Consultation Committee (CCC)
- Participation - involve in design process:
- site selection
- impact mitigation design
- CCC
Specific Guidelines
Help with the context
- Large Scale Solar
- Wind Farms
- Chemical Facilities
Criticisms of EIS documents in NSW

• Too much technical information

• Poor baseline scientific data
• Lack of appropriate scoping
• A narrow focus on engineering rather than broad environmental data
• Failure to justify the project and discuss alternatives
• Failure to address cumulative and indirect impacts

Harvey & Clarke 2012, p208.

Can we think broader?
Key issues are typically only local impacts
Options to expand key issues to broader sustainability questions
But
Can be addressed in Environmental Management Plans?