Cyber help bench for environmental impact assessment launched

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The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) today (January 24) launched a Cyber Help Bench (CHB) for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to form a comprehensive one-stop source of information on the EIA process and the EIA Ordinance (EIAO), and to provide very user-friendly cyber help at a few clicks away.

"It contains more than a dozen sets of guidance notes and assessment guidelines on EIA, links to more than 100 project profiles and 47 approved EIA reports, examples of good EIA practices and environmental monitoring and audit (EM&A) data," a spokesman for the EPD said.

The CHB fulfills a major commitment laid down in the Continuous Improvement Strategy during the Review of the Operation of the EIAO in 1999, and can be accessible at http://www.info.gov.hk/epd/eia/hb.

The eight sets of guidance notes are about basic EIA principles, mitigation measures, Environmental Study Management Group, independent environmental checker, implementation schedule, ecological assessment, ecological baseline survey, and landscape and visual assessment.

"The guidance notes are jointly developed with EIAO User Groups with representatives coming from government departments, bureaux, consultants, contractors and utility companies.

"The Advisory Council on the Environment has been consulted on these guidance notes. It supports their publication to promote user-friendliness and give help to project proponents and consultants," the spokesman noted.

In addition, assessment guidelines are available at the CHB to provide professional in-depth help for conducting EM&A and EIA studies on areas such as the design of noise barriers, air quality assessment, sites of cultural heritage, and contaminated land assessment and remediation.

The CHB also contains examples of good EIA practices to demonstrate and share environmental mitigation measures carried out as a result of recommendations made in past EIAs in Hong Kong.

"To further enhance the transparency and users-friendliness of the EIA process, the most recent EM&A data of major projects are accessible in the cyber EIA established under the CHB.

"It will enable the public to have better access to information on environmental performance while project proponents can use it as a tool to demonstrate their efforts to mitigate environmental pollution," the spokesman added.

End/Thursday, January 24, 2002