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Planning
for a Better Environment
Prevention
and Mitigation through Environmental Impact Assessment
Better Air Qualit
Quieter Environment
Better Water Quality
Environmentally Sound Waste
Management and Facilities
Prevention
and Mitigation through Environmental Impact Assessment
THE EPD
AIMS to prevent new environmental problems from being created
through the application of the Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA) Ordinance. In 2000 we processed 132 applications involving
projects worth a total of over $38 billion, with 18 EIA reports
processed and 39 environmental permits issued. The impact
avoidance measures adopted in these applications will eventually
benefit over 400,000 people living near railways, roads or
on new reclamation sites. We also managed 167 environmental
monitoring and audit programmes of approved projects to ensure
they comply with EIA recommendations. For example, a 100-year-old
park at Signal Hill was saved through an alignment change
as a result of the EIA process. The ordinance was reviewed
in 1999 and as a result improvements are being made in 2000
and 2001 to improve the flow and public access to information.
As public
participation is a major element of sustainable development,
we aim to make the EIA system as open as possible. All EIAs
and decisions are placed on our website and comments may be
submitted electronically, thus reducing paper consumption.
From January 2000 we required all environmental monitoring
and audit reports to be available on-line. Our website received
more than 36,000 hits in 2000. In 2001 we plan to introduce
a 24-hour online EIA Ordinance help bench and provide further
information to help guide project proponents, consultants
and the public through the EIA process. Since mid-2000, we
have also initiated four EIAO liaison groups designed to enhance
communication with project proponents and promote better understanding
of the EIAO requirements. These groups included consultants,
contractors, and both private sector and government proponents.
In the same year, we organised 14 EIAO seminars with more
than 2,100 participants.
The EIA
reports of several prominent projects were among those submitted
for approval in 2000, such as the Disneyland project on Lantau
Island, the Lantau North-South Link, and the Kowloon-Canton
Railway Corporation's Lok Ma Chau spurline. The Disney project
was approved because its EIA included measures to protect
residents and the local ecology from adverse impacts. The
alignment for a road to link the north and south of Lantau
was changed to preserve the Tai Ho Bay ecosystem. The Lok
Ma Chau spurline EIA was rejected because of unacceptable
environmental impacts and it is being appealed.
We helped
to organise the 20th annual meeting of the International Association
for Impact Assessment (IAIA 2000) in June 2000 which was opened
by the Chief Executive, the Hon. Tung Chee-hwa. More than
500 delegates came to Hong Kong from 80 countries and it was
an important partnership-building event. With the same goal
in mind, we helped to organise a local conference on the EIA
process later in the year which was attended by ourselves,
green groups, contractors, the Hong Kong Institute of EIAs
and others.
Figures
on the applications trend
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