ISSUES RELATED TO TRANSPORT SECTOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESMENTS (EIA)-EXPERIENCE IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

The objective of an EIA report is to ensure that the development options under consideration areenvironmentally sound and sustainable and environmental consequences are recognized andtaken in to account early in the project design.

A number of EIA reports related to transport sector projects have been prepared during the last10 years in Sri Lanka. They cover new expressway Ihighway projects and railway extensions.However, only highway related reports have been opened for public comments and have soughtthe approval of the project-approving agency. A careful evaluation of these reports clearlyindicate that they have not fulfilled the objectives of an EIA even though they appear to satisfythe terms of reference (TOR) given by the project approving agency.

There are number of reasons for not achieving the objectives of the EIA exercise. The mainreason is the consideration of the EIA report as the document on which the decision to go aheadwith the project is determined. Therefore, these EIA reports are heavily biased towards thepreferred alternative and report prepareres have tried to justify the project rather than criticallyevaluate the impacts due to the project. This is clearly evident from the selection of alternatives.In many situations the comparison is restricted among the alternatives considered for thefeasibility study and not even the no-option alternative has been considered.

Failure to identify the magnitudes and significance of the impacts in a logical manner hasresulted in neglecting the mitigatory measures for some of the important aspects. Lack ofcoordination among the ErA team members and lack of communication between the EIA teamand the project proponent have contributed heavily towards submitting poorly compiled reportswith contradicting statements and irrelevant information, Detailed discussions on insignificantaspects and insufficient material related to significant impacts are very frequent in these reports,Transport related impacts are often neglected due the absence of a transport expert in most of theEIA teams,

Not using an appropriate methodology to evaluate and compare the alternatives is anothershortcoming that can be observed. In many situations this has been exploited to justify thepreferred alternative qualitatively.

It is very important to emphasis the intended role of an EIA report to the project proponent andto the ElA team so that they are encouraged to properly identify and propose mitigatorymeasures for the anticipated impacts. Additional burden of re-justifying the project should not beentrusted upon the EIA team once the project is selected based on a proper feasibility study.Emphasis should be given to identify and propose suitable mitigatory measures and monitoringmechanism so that the designers and operators are aware of the problems