Lecture
Environmental review is the most important instrument of state policy in the field of environmental protection and management of natural resource use in the Russian Federation. Work on its conduct and on assessing the risk of economic activity is based on the Federal Law «On the Protection of the Environment» (2002) and the Federal Law «On Environmental Review» (1995).
According to the latter, «environmental review — is an assessment of the level of possible negative impacts of planned economic and other activity on the natural environment and natural resources».
The stated purpose of environmental review also defines its main function: the environmental justification of both planned and already adopted decisions (for their correction or even cancellation, if their implementation could entail negative impacts on public health and the quality of the living environment).
The objects of environmental review are defined as: 1) designs and feasibility studies (FS) for the construction and operation of economic facilities, as well as operating enterprises and complexes; 2) regulatory and technical documentation for the creation of new equipment, technologies, and materials, as well as operating equipment; 3) drafts of regulatory and administrative acts, as well as existing legislation.
Subjects of environmental review
State environmental review (SER) represents, on the one hand, an independent type of environmental control that the state (the subject of the review) reserves for itself, and on the other hand, to a certain extent it can be regarded as a specific constituent part of environmental forecasting, of assessing the impact of one or another type of economic activity on the environment.
The list of objects subject to SER is established by Article 11 of the Law of the Russian Federation «On Environmental Review». These include, in particular, drafts of comprehensive federal socio-economic, scientific-technical, and other programs, the implementation of which could have a serious impact on the environment; drafts of development schemes for sectors of the national economy of the Russian Federation, including industry,
Departmental environmental review is carried out in accordance with an order of the leadership of a ministry or department.
Scientific environmental review is conducted on the initiative of scientific institutions, universities, or on the initiative of individual groups of scientists.
Public environmental review is carried out on the initiative of public associations and is conducted by non-governmental structures.
Stages of the environmental review process
The environmental review process includes five main stages:
1) appointment of the review and selection of commission members;
2) collection, generalization, and assessment of information;
3) formation of a preliminary conclusion and informing the public about it;
4) submission of the conclusion (after addressing comments received) for approval to the management of the competent authority;
5) resolution of disputes that have arisen through judicial procedure.
Environmental review should begin with determining the quality of the natural environment that existed before the start of design. If the planned economic facility will be located within a city where Roshydromet conducts environmental monitoring, its quality is determined from the latter's data, as well as by the bioindication method.
The next stage — is the assessment of the impact on the environment of the planned type of economic activity, as well as the expected environmental and related social and economic consequences resulting from the implementation of the given project.
The preliminary conclusion of the expert commission, prepared and signed by the commission, is brought to the attention of the population and public associations interested in the project.
The conclusion of the expert commission is approved by the head of the competent authority of the Russian Federation or its constituent entity (krai, oblast, etc.). After approval, the findings of the environmental review acquire legal force. Subsequently, control over the fulfillment of the requirements of this conclusion is carried out by the state environmental control bodies.
If the expert commission issues a negative conclusion, the materials on the object of the review must be revised and submitted for a repeat review.
Organizations and individuals who disagree with the conclusion of the expert commission have the right to file a complaint with the body that ordered the review, a higher authority, the prosecutor's office, or a court of general jurisdiction or arbitration.
Types of environmental review by object of analysis
1. Design review — is the review of a facility design, of regulatory and technical documents for new equipment, technology, materials, as well as of drafts of administrative acts and laws. It is assumed here that the enterprise must not impact people's living environment beyond the established standards or hinder the operation of nearby enterprises by disrupting technological processes through the shared environment.
2. Environmental review of projects presupposes an assessment of the long-term impact of the enterprise on natural resources, natural conditions, factors of further economic development, and living conditions of people, i.e., throughout the life cycle of the enterprise, up to its closure.
3. The «Protection of the Natural Environment» review consists of three subsections:
protection of atmospheric air from pollution;
protection of water bodies from pollution by wastewater;
restoration (reclamation) of land plots, use of the fertile soil layer, protection of mineral resources and wildlife.
The main result of the design review is the expert conclusion, which reflects the following (A.M. Nikonorov, T.A. Khoruzhaya, 1999):
data characterizing the state of the environment prior to the start of project implementation, and technical features of the project;
a list of impacts of the planned facility on the environment, including primary, secondary, and long-term effects, irreversible and unavoidable consequences; the impacts are characterized here by quantitative and qualitative indicators;
data on the impact of various design variants of the planned facility on the baseline state of the environment;
compensatory measures, including technical and/or financial ones, aimed at reducing negative environmental impacts.
Post-project review — is a review of operating equipment, enterprises, and facilities, as well as of applicable legislation.
The main task of the post-project review is to assess the impact of a functioning facility on the environment and to determine the degree of risk to human health and to the quality of the environment. In other words, a check is carried out on whether the parameters and characteristics of the facility's operation comply with: a) the requirements of environmental legislation, b) environmental quality standards, and c) the provisions and conclusions of the design environmental review report.
The verification function performed by post-project environmental review is known in Western countries as environmental auditing.
When a facility is found to comply with the regulatory requirements for environmental safety, a license (permit) for its operation is issued.
Environmental licensing — is a permit for the use of natural resources, for emissions, discharges, and the disposal of harmful substances (including waste) with a mandatory indication of methods of protection and rational use of natural resources, as well as of ensuring the environmental safety of people and their natural environment.
A license, in accordance with the Federal Law «On Subsoil», is defined as an official document certifying the right of its holder to use a given natural resource (for example, subsoil) within certain boundaries in accordance with the stated purpose for an established period of time, provided the holder complies with the specified requirements and conditions (Art. 2).
Environmental licensing implies the issuance of permits (licenses) for «environmentally significant» activity (primarily for natural resource use) indicating the types, volumes, and limits of measures for the use of natural resources, other environmental requirements under which the licensed activity is permitted, as well as the consequences of failing to comply with these requirements.
From the standpoint of management — this is a system of measures aimed at regulating natural resource use, protecting nature, and protecting people through the development of environmental regulations and restrictions.
In effect, environmental licenses serve as:
a form of accounting for users of natural resources (including spatial resources — territory, water area, or a conditional volume of atmosphere used for emissions, discharges, etc.);
a form of control over the consumption of the resources in question or over environmental pollution;
a form of disposal of natural resources and of rights to pollute the environment.
There are two forms (types) of environmental licenses: comprehensive and special.
The comprehensive type is a license for comprehensive natural resource use, while the special type is for individual kinds of work (by resource type).
It should be emphasized that the issuance of an environmental license by a state body is carried out only after a state environmental review has been conducted.
The main powers over environmental licensing lie with the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia (MPR RF); they come down to licensing activities related mainly to the use of subsoil, water, and forest resources, and the use of wildlife objects, as well as, to a lesser extent, environmental protection.
Environmental control (EC) as a whole — is the verification of compliance by enterprises, organizations, i.e., by all economic entities and citizens, with environmental requirements for protecting the environment and ensuring the environmental safety of society.
The goal of EC consists in preventing and eliminating violations in the field of ecology and natural resource use.
At present, two forms of EC have developed — preventive and punitive.
The preventive form of EC includes the development and introduction of environmental quality standards and standards for the rational use of natural resources, the issuance of permits or licenses (and their revocation) for various types of natural resource use, the establishment of limits on discharges and emissions of pollutants, limits on the storage of solid waste, and so on. This also includes various types of warnings about the need to carry out mandatory or, in a given specific case, necessary environmental protection measures (for example, land reclamation after geological exploration work, military exercises, etc.).
The punitive form of EC is applied in cases where the consequences of a violation do not allow limiting oneself to a mere warning. It is expressed in the imposition of various types of legal liability (material, disciplinary, administrative, criminal, civil). As a punitive form of EC, the suppression of environmentally harmful actions may be applied, for example, the restriction, suspension, or termination of some production activity (a plant, a shop, etc.).
The objects of EC are: the state of the environment, its individual components, the degree of their change under the influence of economic development; the fulfillment of mandatory measures for protecting the environment and its individual components; compliance with environmental protection legislation.
On the whole, the EC system consists of the following subsystems: 1) the state service for monitoring the state of the environment; 2) state environmental control; 3) production-level environmental control; 4) public environmental control.
State environmental control (SEC). Unlike state environmental monitoring, which by its very nature is limited to merely collecting and transmitting environmental information, SEC solves a different task: to ensure that all economic entities and citizens meet the requirements of environmental legislation and environmental quality standards.
The legal basis for SEC is the Law of the Russian Federation «On the Protection of the Environment» and the corresponding documents, including the «Rules for the exercise of state environmental control by officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources and its territorial bodies»,
Production-level environmental control is carried out directly at enterprises; it is regulated by internal documents and performed by the enterprise's own personnel. Its main task consists in keeping the enterprise's negative impacts on the environment within the established standards and thereby avoiding claims (and the corresponding sanctions) from state control bodies.
Legislation also provides for public environmental control, carried out by public organizations, associations, and movements, trade unions, and labor collectives over compliance with regulatory environmental protection requirements.
The environmental passport of a natural-resource-using enterprise (GOST
17.0.0.06-2000) is a regulatory and technical document that includes data on the enterprise's use of natural resources (natural waters, soils, forest resources, oil, coal, peat, natural gas, etc.), of secondary resources (electricity, fuels and lubricants, fuel oil, etc.), and data determining the impact of the enterprise's economic activity on the natural environment.
Structure and content of the environmental passport
of an enterprise
The environmental passport includes the following blocks (sections):
name, address, departmental subordination; production structure, production indicators of individual subdivisions (shops, sites); an environmental map-diagram of the enterprise showing production buildings and agricultural land.
meteorological characteristics and characteristics of the state of the environment. The background concentration values of pollutants that are emitted into the atmosphere by the enterprise, and for which it needs to develop maximum permissible emission (MPE) projects, are determined;
characteristics of water supply sources and of wastewater receivers.
a) the total area of land occupied, including agricultural land, buildings and structures, roads, storage facilities, landfills, and the area under landscaping and lawns.
b) data on the state and use of soil resources:
data on soil erosion (total area, of which lightly, moderately, and severely eroded, occupied by ravines, taken out of use); the volume of anti-erosion measures applied;
data on the state of arable land,
name of the water supply sources (river, lake, canal, etc.). Volume of water withdrawn (thousand m3/year). Water used for: irrigation, water replenishment, water supply. Volume of collector-drainage and wastewater. Water losses during transportation;
characteristics of wastewater sources: volume of discharged wastewater, its physicochemical indicators (BOD, COD, suspended solids, pH, temperature); amount of pollutants discharged per unit of time (g/s, t/year); efficiency of treatment facilities.
Treatment facilities. The following are indicated: the number and name of the treatment facility and the treatment method (in accordance with the passport), its design and actual throughput capacity, the name of the regulated substances, as well as the design and actual concentration of the regulated substances at the inlet and outlet of the treatment facility.
Data are provided on organized and unorganized sources of pollution. It should be noted here that a source of atmospheric pollution is the object from which a pollutant enters the atmosphere; a source of release is the object in which pollutants are formed (a processing unit, a raw material or product warehouse, etc.); an organized source of atmospheric pollution is a device for the directed release of pollutants into the atmosphere (a smokestack, a ventilation shaft, an aeration lantern); an unorganized source of atmospheric pollution has no special devices for releasing pollutants into the atmosphere.
It is divided into industrial and household waste. The amount of industrial waste generated by the resource user during the reporting year is indicated, including the amount of waste of each hazard class. In addition, the amount of waste is indicated that was: used at the given enterprise, neutralized or transferred to other organizations, sent to waste disposal facilities (landfills), including that placed for the purpose of burial and placed for
Capital expenditures on environmental protection are given (separately for the protection of atmospheric air, water resources, and land). The fee for the use of natural resources and the fee for polluting the environment are indicated: for emissions into the atmosphere from stationary and mobile sources, for discharges of pollutants into water bodies, onto the terrain, or into the sewage system, and for the placement of industrial and household waste at landfills or authorized dumps.
A plan of measures is provided for achieving the maximum permissible emission (MPE) standards into the atmosphere and the maximum permissible discharge (MPD) standards into water bodies. These measures include: phasing out outdated technologies and production facilities (with deadlines indicated), introducing new, more environmentally friendly ones, reconstructing existing ones, and installing gas-and-dust treatment facilities and local treatment facilities (for wastewater treatment).
for the purpose of storage.
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