The Department of Environ-mental Affairs and Tourism (Deat) confirmed last week that it was fast-tracking the environmental-impact assessment (EIA) studies of priority power-related projects, and that it was working on a guideline to identify and speed up the processes for strategically important developments.

Deat acting head of communication Mava Scott said that the department and power utility Eskom meet on a monthly basis, and that priority projects had been identified and were being fast-tracked in the legal framework.
“Standards and requirements are not being compromised but review periods and decision-making are, as far as possible, expedited,” Scott told Engineering News.

The department was also working with the Department of Public Enterprises in the development of a strategy and guidelines for EIA processes for strategically important developments. This guideline would stipulate the requirements to be met by the applicant to facilitate a fast-tracked process and the commitments of Deat in terms of timeframes should these requirements be met upfront.

Clearing the backlog
Elimination of the backlog of EIAs, which was blamed for delaying investment in South Africa, was making “significant progress”, said Deat.

“The EIA backlog has been totally eliminated in some provinces, while some unforeseen circumstances prevented total eradication in others. However, 60% of all pending applications were finalised by the end of November 2007, about 30% are still within due process, and about 10% of the remaining pending applications were considered backlog,” Scott said.

It was noted that under the National Environmental Manage-ment Act (Nema) EIA regulations, 95% of all national applications were processed within the stip- ulated timeframes – so no new backlog was being created.

Efforts by provinces and Deat to build capacity and to increase the skills base were regarded as coming to fruition, although Scott indicated that “alarm bells are sounding in terms of the rapid turnover of staff”.

“There is, accordingly, not a simple answer, but rather a combination of factors,” explained Scott.

The department stated that South Africa’s unprecedented growth increased numbers of EIA applications beyond what the administrative system could cope with. Capacity considerations in environmental departments, the poor quality of reports in many instances, and the application for authorisation late in the project planning process contributed to the problem.

The department, however, was still of the view that too many development processes were subjected to the EIA process, and it was working on the multipronged approach to rationalise the use of EIAs without compromising environmental quality. This included the amendment of the enabling legislation, the amendment of the 2006 EIA regulations, the development of a comprehensive environmental-impact management (EIM) and action plans, besides others.

Nema amendments
Two sets of amendments to Nema were in the Parliamentary process. The first set dealt with matters related to the Environmental Management Inspectorate (EMI), and the second with the EIM provisions of chapter 5 and related matters.

The EMI had already been voted on by the portfolio committee, and finalisation was expected by March 2008.

With regard to the EIM, public hearings were held in September 2007 and the amendment bill (B36 of 2007) was being debated in the relevant portfolio committee. These processes were outside the control of the department but it was hoped that it would be concluded towards April.

Mechanisms aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the EIM system focus on three areas, namely enabling provisions for the developments of other tools to either supplement or replace EIAs, provisions to enable the management of impacts or facilitate the exclusion of activities from the need to be subjected to EIAs based on environmentally informed spatial planning tools, and provisions to enable the management of impacts or facilitate the exclusion of activities from the need to be subjected to environmental management norms and standards drawn from, Scott stated.

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