EnvironmentalImpactAssessment TV pdf ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT Practical Solutions to Recurrent Problems DAVID P LAWRENCE Lawrence Environmental A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC , PUBLICATION ENVIRONMEN[.]
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT Practical Solutions to Recurrent Problems DAVID P LAWRENCE Lawrence Environmental A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT Practical Solutions to Recurrent Problems DAVID P LAWRENCE Lawrence Environmental A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION Copyright # 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc All rights reserved Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 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consequential, or other damages For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S at 317-572-3993 or fax 317-572-4002 Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats Some content that appears in print, however, may not be available in electronic format Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Lawrence, David P (David Phillip), 1947– Environmental impact assessment : practical solutions to recurrent problems / David P Lawrence p cm ISBN 0-471-45722-1 (cloth) Environmental impact analysis I Title TD194.6.L39 2003 333.70 14–dc21 2003003582 Printed in the United States of America 10 To Barbara CONTENTS PREFACE xi 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Highlights / A Not-So-Hypothetical Scenario / First Principles / The Basics / The Baseline / A Structure / 13 A Strategy / 18 A Road Map / 19 Summing Up / 21 CONVENTIONAL EIA PROCESSES 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 23 Highlights / 23 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 24 Conventional Regulatory EIA Approaches / 26 Conventional Applied Processes / 51 Summing Up / 71 vii viii CONTENTS HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE RIGOROUS 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Highlights / 89 Insights from Practice / 90 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 93 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 94 Instituting a Scientific EIA Process / 108 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 116 Summing Up / 121 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE RATIONAL 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 159 Highlights / 159 Insights from Practice / 160 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 162 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 166 Instituting a Substantive EIA Process / 186 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 198 Summing Up / 200 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE PRACTICAL 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 127 Highlights / 127 Insights from Practice / 128 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 130 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 132 Instituting a Rational EIA Process / 143 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 150 Summing Up / 152 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE SUBSTANTIVE 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 89 Highlights / 209 Insights from Practice / 210 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 215 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 219 Instituting a Practical EIA Process / 248 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 257 Summing Up / 259 209 CONTENTS 10 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE DEMOCRATIC 7.1 Highlights / 266 7.2 Insights from Practice / 267 7.3 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 272 7.4 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 277 7.5 Instituting a Democratic EIA Process / 293 7.6 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 306 7.7 Summing Up / 308 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE COLLABORATIVE 8.1 Highlights / 316 8.2 Insights from Practice / 317 8.3 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 321 8.4 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 326 8.5 Instituting a Collaborative EIA Process / 369 8.6 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 379 8.7 Summing Up / 381 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE ETHICAL 9.1 Highlights / 389 9.2 Insights from Practice / 390 9.3 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 393 9.4 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 395 9.5 Instituting an Ethical EIA Process / 406 9.6 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 412 9.7 Summing Up / 414 HOW TO MAKE EIAs MORE ADAPTIVE 10.1 Highlights / 419 10.2 Insights from Practice / 420 10.3 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 423 10.4 Selecting the Most Appropriate Route / 427 ix 266 316 389 419 x 11 CONTENTS 10.5 Instituting an Adaptive EIA Process / 469 10.6 Assessing Process Effectiveness / 477 10.7 Summing Up / 480 HOW TO CONNECT AND COMBINE EIA PROCESSES 11.1 Highlights / 488 11.2 Insights from Practice / 489 11.3 Defining the Problem and Deciding on a Direction / 493 11.4 Composite Regulatory Frameworks / 493 11.5 Matching Process and Context / 495 11.6 Process Interconnections / 499 11.7 Composite EIA Processes / 504 11.8 Challenges and Priorities / 510 11.9 Scenario Postscript / 512 488 11.10 Summing Up / 512 REFERENCES 517 INDEX 549 PREFACE This book was born from a nagging concern about how the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process is commonly depicted in EIA literature and applied in practice It also stems from a perception that EIA practitioners need more help to cope with the many competing demands and recurrent problems encountered in their day-to-day work More effective EIA process design and management can, I believe, help practitioners in their efforts to balance competing demands and to ameliorate recurrent problems My uneasiness about the EIA process has arisen over the past three decades Over that period I have become increasingly convinced that there are far more process design and management choices available in practice than are customarily conveyed in EIA literature It also seemed to me that EIA regulatory analyses usually began from and sought to refine current requirements rather than exploring, at a more fundamental level, the full range of potential regulatory choices This uneasiness was reinforced through my ongoing interest in EIA and planning processes I have maintained a joint interest in planning and EIA for many years I have practiced and taught in both fields and have addressed the interrelationships between the two fields through graduate and undergraduate papers, a doctoral dissertation, a series of journal articles, and considerable EIA process management experience A central feature of planning theory is the plurality of overlapping and competing prescriptive planning theories A central feature of EIA is the largely unitary approach to process design Planning theory literature can be extremely frustrating! It is plagued by hyperbole, jargon, and, until very recently, a huge gulf between theory and practice Still the claims, counterclaims, debates, and critiques alert the reader to the dangers of hidden assumptions and to the value of multiple perspectives Such debates exist in EIA literature, but they are more muted They xi xii PREFACE also seem to take more for granted regarding shared assumptions and perspectives Depictions of the EIA process, in particular, are, from my perspective, less diverse than they should be My concern about the multiple demands and recurrent problems faced by EIA practitioners is a product of both direct experience and interchanges with other practitioners EIA practitioners must counterbalance multiple, often conflicting internal and external demands Frequently, it is expected that EIA requirements, procedures, and documents should be rigorous, rational, practical, substantive, democratic, collaborative, ethical, and adaptable simultaneously These demands commonly reflect fundamentally different perspectives on the environment and on the appropriate role of EIA in decision making Almost invariably, perspective differences are translated into varying interpretations of critical issues, the nature and significance of potential effects, and most centrally (in terms of the purpose of this book), how best to proceed from proposal inception to final proposal decision making and implementation Difficulties encountered in dealing with multiple demands and perspectives often coalesce as recurrent problems that hamper effective EIA process design and management EIA practitioners need additional assistance in navigating through this minefield This book is intended to help EIA participants (regulators, managers, EIA specialists, other study team specialists, nongovernment organizations) and observers (commentators, instructors, students) to contribute jointly to more effective EIA processes Effective processes can help refine and achieve EIA regulatory objectives and further the goals of EIA as a form of environmental management The book challenges the prevailing assumption that EIA should be structured around a unitary EIA process It begins by identifying, through a scenario, eight recurrent problems encountered in EIA practice The characteristics of multiple variations of conventional EIA processes, at both the regulatory and applied levels, are then presented These analyses open up consideration of available regulatory and applied EIA process design and management choices But they address the recurrent problems only partially The residual problems that remain provide the springboard for a description and analysis of eight EIA processes for coming to grips with recurrent problems The description of each of these EIA processes provides examples from practice, defines the problem, and identifies a direction for improvement For each we then detail major relevant conceptual distinctions, describe how a process to reduce the problem would operate at the regulatory level (based on an overview of EIA requirements in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia), and explain how a process to reduce the problem would operate at the applied level We next assess how well each process satisfies ideal EIA process characteristics Each analysis ends with a summary overview and the identification of links between the conceptual analysis and the practice examples In the final chapter we address how to link and combine EIA processes to operate in situations characterized by multiple, overlapping problems EIA literature and literature from such related fields as planning, environmental and resource management, risk assessment and management, site selection and evaluation, and public participation are drawn upon to characterize and assess each EIA process PREFACE xiii The analyses and solutions offered in this book are far from definitive Hopefully, they are practical I believe that sufficient knowledge and experience now exist regarding the recurrent problems such that major pitfalls can be identified and possible improvements suggested I am not sufficiently naive to suggest that we are on the brink of delineating that elusive core body of common knowledge that is supposed to characterize ‘‘mature’’ fields I have serious doubts as whether such a quest is even desirable I also appreciate that there are immense impediments to significant improvements to EIA practice, many of which lie beyond the control or influence of EIA practitioners But I still believe that sufficient operating room remains within which EIA practice enhancements are possible I also maintain that the EIA process is at the core of many such improvements Hopefully, this book will contribute to such efforts I wish to thank the following people for contributing their thoughtful and insightful stories for inclusion in this book: Dave Abbott, Ralf Aschemann, Jo Anne Beckwith, Alan Bond, Roger Creasey, Alan Diduck, Patricia Fitzpatrick, Bob Gibson, Dave Hardy, Nick Harvey, Annie Holden, Peter Homenuck, Leslie Matthews, Bruce Mitchell, Robin Saunders, Darryl Shoemaker, and John Sinclair I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the staff of John Wiley & Sons (most notably Bob Esposito and Jonathan Rose) for their constructive suggestions and guidance A great many colleagues have provided encouraging comments and/or have influenced my thinking and writing regarding EIA process management over the past several years A very partial list includes Rabel Burdge, Dave Cressman, Peter Croal, Bob Dorney, George Francis, Bob Gibson, Peter Homenuck, Eric Hunter, Larry Martin, Jim Micak, Greg Michelenco, John Page, Donna Pawlowski, Barry Sadler, Paul Scott, John Sinclair, Graham Smith, Margaret Smith, Roger Suffling, Richard Szudy, and Tom Wlodarczyk My thanks to the following for permission to reproduce, without charge, the following copyrighted material (full details are provided in the reference list at the back of the book): " Beech Tree Publishing (Figure 6.5) " Elsevier Science, Inc (Figure 3.1) " Imperial College Press (Figures 2.3 to 2.6, 2.10, Tables 2.4, 2.6, and 2.7, and selective text from Lawrence, 2001) " National Association of Environmental Professionals (Figures 2.7 to 2.9, 2.11 to 2.18) " Springer-Verlag New York, Inc (Figures 5.2 and 5.3) Finally and most important, I am especially grateful to my wife, Barbara, for her patience, encouragement, and support throughout this lengthy process Lawrence Environmental DAVID P LAWRENCE dlawren@telus.net