VietNamNet Bridge – The subjects to carry out the assessments over the projects’ possible impacts on the environment must have the practicing certificates to be provided by state management agencies.

Too many reports “have problems”

Deputy General Director of the Environment General Directorate -- Le Ke Son, said that at least 10 percent of the reports on the possible impacts on the environment to be caused by hydropower plant projects are “problematic.”

The investors, for example, when calculating the land area to be needed for the project, only report the area for the water reservoirs, while they don’t count on the area to be needed to build the roads to the hydropower plants, and other supporting works. As a result, the management agencies cannot imagine the extent of the damages to the forests.

In principle, when taking land for hydropower plant sites, investors have to compensate for this, but the local authorities cannot arrange the land fund.

In many cases, the assessments of the hydropower plant projects on the upper reaches were carried out with no consideration for the possible impacts to the lower reaches, which has caused the problem in the water discharge regulation.

Under the current laws, local authorities are authorized to approve the small and medium scaled hydropower plant projects. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment only consider the big projects with the capacity of over 60 MW, which may encroach on the special use forests, national parks.

Meanwhile, due to the limited capability of the local authorities, a lot of unreasonable projects were still licensed, because the local officials did not anticipate all the possible negative impacts.

Post-licensing management to be tightened

Son, in the interview given to the local press, said that examining the reports on the possible environmental impacts is a hard job which can be done well only by the experts who have experiences and have qualification certificates in the field.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment has opened the draft of the amended environment law for public opinion. The draft law comprises of a provision that the institutions to carry out the assessments over the projects’ possible impacts on the environment must have the practicing certificates to be provided by state management agencies.

To date, the officials to improve the assessments on the environmental impacts are appointed based on their academic titles and experiences. However, Son believes that the regulation is impractical and mechanical. The officials have to have the practice certificates to be eligible to get involved in the process.

In many cases, two reports on the possible environmental impacts would be required, including the initial report and the detailed report. The requirement, explained by Son, would help avoid the money waste to the investors and the society. If the initial report is rejected by the competent agencies, the investors would not help to spend more money on the detailed reports.

The attempt by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment to tighten the verification on environment impact reports and the two-step reporting mechanism have not been applauded by the investors.

Some of them have argued that if the suggested regulation turns realistic, the environment impact reports, which are by the nature, a scientific instrument, would turn out to cause inconvenience to investors.

SGTT