Environmental impact assessment

1988/10/01 Iraeta, Xabier Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ingurumena

Thermal power plant of Santurtzi.

Here, however, there has been no such need to date, and we would surely remain the same if no other political event had occurred. And this fact is the integration of the Spanish State into the European Union. On 27 June 1985, the Council of the ACBC approved the provision set forth in the Official Journal in which it was considered obligatory to carry out the Environmental Impact Assessment in the States integrated into the following Projects:

Oil refineries. Thermal power plants. Collection or disposal of radioactive waste. First fusion of iron. Extraction or treatment of asbestos. Integrated chemical installations. Motorways. Commercial docks. Elimination of toxic waste.

In addition to these mandatory cases, an extensive list has been included in which the Evaluation is recommended: Agriculture, Mining, Energy Industry, Metallurgy, Glassware, Textiles, Leather Industry, Wood and Stationery, Rubber, Infrastructure Works and others. As a result of this provision, the Royal Decree of 28 June 1986, appeared in B.0.E. On June 30, 1986, collecting in some way the mandate of the E.E.

Therefore, the law was already placed. But the next problem was that in the Spanish state there was no technician capable of carrying out this type of Evaluations, and the first works on this subject have been outside, especially French.

The following stages are distinguished in the environmental impact study of a project:

Limit the extent of the problem. Collection of information. Interpretation of the information. Analyze alternatives looking for an adequate response. Evaluation of the impact of the projects.

The evaluation of environmental impacts is obtained by numerical measurement using specific techniques. These techniques, which have been developed especially in the US and Great Britain, have come to us through the Spanish state of the hand of Domingo Gomez-Orea, Teresa Vilariño, Domingo Jiménez Beltran, etc. As is customary, in this case, the whole new lexicon has also come in Spanish. Now it is necessary to translate into Basque, into our language, so that we can use it in the works we are going to do.

The Environmental Impact Assessment must be taken into account at all levels of environmental management: political definitions, plans, programs and projects, as well as control and monitoring of them.

The environment, a submerged human life, is formed by physical, aesthetic, cultural, social and economic elements. The management of the environment requires a succession of reality, the decision-making and the planning of them.

The Environmental Impact Assessment facilitates the analysis of the impact before the execution of the Project. In the I.V.A. There are three basic sections:

Environmental impact.

Environmental Impact Study.

Final Environmental Impact Report.

Management with the environment includes the following sections:

Planning process, laying the bases collected in the new projects. Implementation of the Plan. Monitoring and control program.

The concept of Environment Condition is encompassed in the three. The implementation of the Plan is carried out through Projects, Programs and Policies, and in addition the Plan directs and conditions private initiative.

The Projects of this initiative will be directed by the Plan. Not only conditioning the position, but its advances, utilitarian, etc. conditioning. The development of an Environmental Impact Assessment prior to decision-making is more adequate than the realization of projects once carried out. The evaluation information could more easily condition the choice of alternatives than after completing a project or another.

In any case, since the Environmental Impact Assessment has provided us with some numbers, we must take into account that these numbers will only tell us little and express their value compared to those of other alternatives.