IDENTIFYING AND ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

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IDENTIFYING AND ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• beginning the environmental assessment

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ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK
                                                 
                   
  Proposal
  Scoping
Identification and assessment of effects
Project and environmental components
Analysis of effects
Identification of mitigation
ANALYSIS OF EFFECTS
Evaluation of significance
Post decision activity
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IDENTIFICATION AND ASSESSMENT PROCESS

• Describe the project
• Describe the environment
• Identify environmental effects
• Assess environmental effects

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1. DESCRIBE PROJECT

• Depending on the nature, size and location of the
  project the description could include
• need, purpose, niche, rationale
• size, scope and phasing of activities
• location map showing project site and area
• site plan showing project infrastructure
• schematic drawings, process diagrams, etc.
• Kinds of materials, products, etc. produced
• estimates of solid, liquid and gaseous wastes
• employees, sub-contractors, equipment, etc.
• funding (sources and amounts)
• proposed schedule

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SOURCES OF INFORMATION

• Proposal (main source)
• Planning documents
• Preliminary studies
• Proponent
• Project manager
• Project location
• Other similar projects
• Other similar assessments

Note CEAA definition of a project and MEA
definition of a development
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PROJECT NEED AND PURPOSE

• Project need and purpose should be established
  from the perspective of the proponent
• Need
• Need is defined as the problem or opportunity the
  project is to solve or satisfy
• establishes the fundamental rationale for the
  project
• Purpose
• purpose is defined as what is to be achieved by
  carrying out the project in relation to the need

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PROJECT ALTERNATIVES

• Depending on the project need and purpose,
  alternatives may include
• alternatives to the project including no project
• alternative means of carrying out the project
• site location alternatives
• project size alternatives
• design alternatives
• construction, operation and
  decommissioning alternatives
• phasing alternatives
• timing alternatives

Note CEAA can require consideration of
alternatives to the project and alternative means
of carrying out the project. MEA may require
consideration of alternatives
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PROJECT COMPONENTS

• Main parts of the project
• 1. Schedule components
• planning, design, construction, operation, etc.
• effects may be additive
• 2. Phasing components
• phase 1, 2, 3, etc.
• incremental components
• 3. Physical components
• road, bridge, factory, waste storage, etc.
• one component may be dependent on another
• one component may lead to another

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PROJECT ACTIVITIES

• Actions that are carried out as part of a project
  component
• Cause effects or changes in the environment
• Activities usually end in ing
• Examples
• surveying
• constructing
• excavating
• dredging
• restoring, etc.
• Used in checklists, matrices, etc.

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION QUANTIFICATION

• Area covered or footprint km2
• Size of buildings m2
• Materials used numbers, volumes, weights
• Natural resources used tonnes, board-feet
• Goods manufactured number/type/day
• Products produced number/year
• Wastes produced (solid, liquid) kg, L
• Workforce employed no. people
• Capital expenditures

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2. DESCRIBE ENVIRONMENT

• Description of the environment should identify
  biophysical, social and economic characteristics
  of the environment including
• relevant physical features and characteristics
• biological, ecological characteristics
• social conditions
• economic conditions
• aesthetic and cultural values
• present land uses
• resource uses
• patters of human disturbance
• First Nations interests

Note CEAA and MEA definitions of the environment
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SOURCES OF INFORMATION

• Regional data bases
• Local studies
• Aerial photos, satellite imagery, maps
• Other environmental assessments
• Contacts (government, private, etc.)
• Experts (universities, museums, etc.)
• Proponent
• Libraries
• Internet
• Literature reviews
• Site visits
• Data collection

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BASELINE INFORMATION

• Baseline information characterizes conditions at
  the time the project is proposed
• Starting point for prediction and quantification
  of environmental effects resulting from the
  proposed project
• Seasonal and year-to-year fluctuations in
  environmental conditions to be considered over
  the longer term
• Change in the environment measured by comparing
  the expected future state of environmental
  components if the project were not to go ahead
• quantification important

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ENVIRONMENTAL COMPONENTS

• Main components or parts of the environment
• Biophysical air, water, land, animals, etc.
• Social people, culture, recreation, etc.
• Economic employment, business opportunities
• Biophysical components are often broken down and
  described on a thematic basis
• Air quality, microclimate,
• Surface water flows, quality
• Groundwater regime, quality
• Vegetation groundcover, shrub, forest
• Wildlife mammals, birds, amphibians
• Fish species accounts
• Used in checklists, matrices, etc.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ELEMENTS

• Sub-components of environmental components
• Examples elements for the wildlife component may
  include
• Caribou
• Moose
• Deer
• Beaver
• Martin
• Checklists, professional judgment are often used
  to identify environmental elements

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ENVIRONMENTAL ATTRIBUTES

• Main features or characteristics of environmental
  components or elements
• Example attributes for birds include
• migrating
• nesting
• rearing
• fledging
• molting
• Checklists, professional judgment and expert
  knowledge are often used to identify
  environmental attributes
• Attributes should be measurable

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VALUED ECOSYSTEM SOCIAL COMPONENTS

• Components, elements or attributes of the
  biophysical and social- economic environment that
  are considered to be important or valuable and
  merit detailed consideration in the environmental
  assessment
• Determined by practitioners, experts and/or
  professional judgment with public input
• Criteria can be used to determine importance or
  value
• Can be used as indicators of environmental change

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VALUED ECOSYSTEM SOCIAL COMPONENTS

• Example VSCs
• economy, jobs, etc.
• social services
• standard of living
• quality of life
• commercial activities (fishing, farming, etc.)
• traditional activities (hunting, trapping, etc.)
• subsistence activities
• parks, preserves, heritage sites

• Example VECs
• indicator species
• rare, threatened and endangered species
• important food species
• important, critical habitat
• traditional harvest species
• commercially important species
• representative species, habitats
• research sites

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ENVIRONMENT DESCRIPTION QUANTIFICATION

• Example quantitative environmental descriptions
• Particulates in air 35 mg/m3
• Total Suspended Sediments 33 mg/L
• Depth to groundwater 12 m
• 450 ha of old growth forest
• 23 aspen
• 2 moose/km2
• Average income of 35,000
• 5 unemployment rate

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3. IDENTIFY ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• Environmental effects are identified
• by relating project components and activities to
  environmental components and elements
• using an accepted method such as a checklist,
  matrix, map overlay, network
• as indicators of potential changes in the
  environment
• as changes in the environment relative to
  baseline conditions
• pending verification by follow-up monitoring

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ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

• Negative effects on health of biota - plants,
  animals, fish,
• Threat to rare or endangered species
• Restrictions in species diversity
• Loss of or damage to habitats
• Discharges or releases of substances
• Population declines
• Removal of resource materials, etc.

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ADVERSE EFFECTS ON PEOPLE

• Negative effects on human health, well-being,
  quality of life,
• Increase in unemployment
• Reduction of the recreation opportunities
• Detrimental change in land use
• Negative effects on cultural resources
• Decreased aesthetic values
• Loss of commercial species, etc.

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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

• Natural environment (e.g. ecosystem) is
  constantly changing and evolving
• Change may be random or predictable
• Random events, mutations, etc.
• Predictable seasons, trends, etc.
• Baseline information is a starting point without
  development
• Monitoring detects natural change relative to
  baseline
• Environmental assessment predicts change in
  environment relative to baseline over time
  considering natural change

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CHANGE vs. EFFECT

• Change in an environmental attribute provides an
  indication of an effect in/on the environment
• Environmental attributes or indicators provide a
  means to predict environmental effects
• Steps in determining environmental effects
• identification of changes in attributes
• measurement of changes in attributes
• aggregation of changes in attributes to reflect
  an effect or impact on the environment

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EFFECT vs. IMPACT

• Effect
• Individual changes in environmental attributes
  due to a project activities
• May be many different individual changes from
  various project activities
• e.g. effect of disturbing sediment on turbidity
• Impact
• Overall change in the environment caused by all
  project activities (sum of effects)
• Impact of project on environmental component
• Impact of project on ecosystem (e.g. aquatic)

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MEASUREMENT OF EFFECTS

• Selecting measurable variables
• Use scoping to ensure the assessment is focused
  on valued ecosystem components or VECs
• Choose indicators that best reflect the potential
  effects on selected VECs
• Identify the measurable parameters to be used for
  quantifying environmental effects for the
  indicator/VEC in question

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Example Indicators and Parameters

• Examples of VECs, Indicators and Measurable
  Parameters
• Air Quality
• Outdoor Air Acid Gas Concentrations SOx (mg/m3)
• Vegetation and Wildlife
• Forest Availability of Cover Types Ha of
  cover type
• Deer Winter Habitat Availability Size of Deer
  Yards
• Grizzly Bear Summer Foraging Habitat No.
  Habitat Units
• Groundwater
• Water Quality Drinking Water Quality WQ
  Parameters

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Example Indicators and Parameters

• Examples of VECs, Indicators and Measurable
  Parameters
• Surface Water
• Water Quality Turbidity TSS
• Aquatic Biology
• Lake Whitefish Population Size No. of fish
• Spawning Habitat ha of habitat
• Human Health
• Public/Worker health Dose to individual
  rads/rems
• Dose to populations

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SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS

• Information that can reflect the status of larger
  systems of which human society is a part
• Examples
• Manitoba Water Quality Index
• Fish species diversity and population
• Change in land use
• Food meeting quality standards
• Labour force index

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CATEGORIES OF EFFECTS

• Generic effects that are associated with
  particular projects
• Site-specific effects that depend upon the
  project location and conditions that prevail in
  the project area
• Social value judgements based on ethics,
  morality, fairness and equity
• Effect linkages relationships between
  biophysical effects are difficult to assess

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POSITIVE NEGATIVE EFFECTS

• Positive
• Beneficial effects of a project such as
  employment, economic benefits, ...
• Negative
• Adverse effects of a project such as loss of
  aesthetic or cultural values

Note cannot simply use positive effects to
counter negative effects or determine overall
impact of project on the environment
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DIRECT INDIRECT EFFECTS

• Direct
• Immediate effect of a project such as the effect
  of an employment centre on aesthetics, traffic,
  removal of vegetation, modification of waterways
• Indirect
• Effects of a project that are removed in time and
  space such as additional housing or new
  businesses resulting from the employment centre

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PRIMARY, SECONDAY TERTIARY EFFECTS

• Primary (direct)
• increase in turbidity of a stream due to erosion
  of shoreline from disturbance
• Secondary (indirect)
• reduction in egg survival on spawning grounds
• Tertiary (indirect)
• decrease in fish population

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CUMULATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• Effects of a project in combination with the
  effects of other projects in the same region over
  the same time period
• Requires knowledge of other projects,
  environmental effects
• Effects assessed are usually additive
• Cumulative effects can also be
• incremental additive or repeated
• synergistic or complex
• evident when threshold is passed
• triggered by a feed-back process
• manifested in other ways

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DESCRIBING ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• Example Cutting aspen in the boreal forest
• Poor
• Loss of aspen
• Decrease in the presence of aspen
• Reduction in the number of aspen
• Good
• Removal of 100 ha of aspen over 5-year period
• Loss of 20 aspen/ha over 100 ha
• Cutting 4500 aspen over 100 ha

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4. ASSESS ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• Identify potential environmental effects
• Determine whether effects are adverse
• Distinguish among effects that are
• Insignificant no mitigation required
• Unknown require further assessment
• Potentially significant mitigation required
• Focus assessment on important adverse effects

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ASSESSMENT FACTORS

• Direction (positive/negative)
• Magnitude (relative size)
• Geographic area / extent (local, regional, )
• Ecological context
• Duration
• Frequency
• Reversibility
• Risk
• Precedence
• Others ...

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ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

• High / Medium / Low
• 1 - 100
• Good / bad
• Positive / negative
• Weighted values
• Objectives
• Thresholds
• Standards
• Regulatory limits
• Protected areas, species, habitats

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EXAMPLE RANKING (ORDINAL)

• 0 no effect
• 1 negligible effect
• 2 minor effect (slight or short term)
• 3 moderate effect (mitigation likely required)
• 4 major (reversible or long term)
• 5 severe (permanent)

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EXAMPLE DESCRIPTIVE RANKING

• Negligible effect not observable, detectible,
  measurable
• Low not likely important, small area, short
  duration - mitigation may not be required
• Medium likely important, wider area, medium
  duration - mitigation may be required
• High important, large area, large area -
  mitigation required

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ASSESSMENT TABLE
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Next class

• Read about mitigating adverse environmental
  effects in text book
• Know what mitigation means
• Know what residual environmental effects are
• Read about evaluating significance
• Know what significance means
• Come to class prepared to discuss mitigation and
  significance