K/News unearths deleted EPA 2020 Guidelines

Jul 24, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – On June 22, 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had issued a notice alerting the public that the 2020 guidelines for reviewing and conducting Environmental Impact Assessments were repealed and that in the interim, its EIA Guidelines that date back to 2000 would apply.

The EPA 2020 Guidelines

After this publication carried an article which highlighted the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency had withdrawn its revised 2020 EIA guidelines a mere six days before it had mandated ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, to conduct an EIA for its proposed US$900M gas-to-energy project, the EPA responded with a media release stating, “The new set of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) guidelines were retracted pending more extensive consultation to adequately reflect the contributions from diverse stakeholders through wider public participation. This action is not related to any project seeking environmental authorisation from the Agency.” In the same press release the agency also stated that “The Environmental Protection Act and terms and scope developed for each project seeking environmental authorisation are what’s important to guide the conduct of an EIA and not only any available Guidelines.”This was said despite the regulator previously communicating that the purpose of the EIA guidelines are “to provide to the EPA, EAB, sector agencies, private sector, NGOs, members of the public and consultants a set of approved guidelines for the conduct and review of Environmental Impact Assessments in Guyana.” Additionally, it had stated prior that the “guidelines are meant to be applied consistently to projects requiring EIAs and allows for transparent decision-making.”
In a July 19 article in this newspaper, Guyanese Environmentalist, Simone Mangal, had questioned the logic behind the EPA’s decision to withdraw a set of guidelines that included new oil industry specific guidelines that were championed by the EPA as being all encompassing, revised and updated mere days before requiring EEPGL to conduct an EIA. She also questioned the EPA’s justification for opting to utilise an outdated set of guidelines from over 20 years ago that fail to speak to a multitude of issues that would have been addressed in the new guidelines. She noted that “the Agency also removed sight of the 2020 guidelines from its website rather than leaving them up in accordance with transparency best practice.”
It is in this regard that Kaieteur News undertook the challenge of finding the deleted guidelines. These guidelines will be available for the public eye from today on the Kaieteur News website.

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