This EIA Study has focused on the assessment and mitigation
of the potential impacts associated with the construction and operation of the
Project at the
14.1.1
Implementation of EIA Findings and
Recommendations
Sections 6 to 12
have, where appropriate, identified and recommended the implementation of
mitigation measures to reduce the potential construction and operational
impacts of the Project. These
findings and recommendations form the primary deliverable from the whole EIA
process and will form an agreement between HK Electric and the Government as to
the measures and standards that are to be achieved. It is therefore essential that
mechanisms are put in place to ensure that the mitigation measures prescribed
in the Implementation Schedule are fully and effectively implemented during
construction and operation.
The required format for the Implementation Schedule (Annex
14A and B) is
specified in the EIA Study Brief.
The format requires the specification of implementation agent(s),
timing, duration and location for each of the recommended mitigation measures.
14.1.2
Statutory Requirements
As the Project constitutes a Designated Project under
the EIAO, an Environmental Permit
must be obtained before construction or operation of the proposed wind farm and
associated facilities.
Upon approval of the EIA Report, HK Electric can
apply for an Environmental Permit.
If the application is successful, the Environmental Permit may, have
conditions attached to it, which must be complied with. In addition, HK Electric and its
appointed Contractor(s) must also comply with other controlling environmental
legislation and guidelines, which are discussed within the specific technical
chapters of this report.
14.2
Environmental
Management Plan
HK Electric’s construction Contractors will be
contractually bound to produce and implement an Environmental Management Plan
(EMP). EMPs
provide details of the means by which the Contractor (and all subcontractors
working for the Contractor) will implement the recommended mitigation measures
and achieve the environmental performance standards defined both in
To evaluate a contractor’s commitment, each contract
bidder shall be required to produce a preliminary EMP as part of the tendering
process. The skeletal EMP will
indicate the determination and commitment of the contractor and indicate how
the contractor intends to meet the environmental performance requirements laid
out in the EIA. Upon Contract
Award, the successful bidder(s) will be required to submit a draft and final
version of the EMP for approval by HK Electric prior to the commencement of the
work.
The EM&A Manual defines the mechanisms for
implementing the EM&A requirements specific to each phase of the work. The EM&A Manual provides a
description of the organisational arrangements and resources required for the
EM&A programme based on the conclusions and recommendations of this
EIA. It stipulates details of the
construction monitoring required and actions that shall be taken in the event
of exceedances of the environmental criteria. In effect, the EM&A Manual forms a
handbook for the on-going environmental management during construction.
The EM&A Manual comprises descriptions of the key
elements of the EM&A programme including:
·
Appropriate
background information on the construction of the Project with reference to
relevant technical reports;
·
Organisational
arrangements, hierarchy and responsibilities with regard to the management of
environmental performance during the construction phase. The EM&A team, the Contractor(s)
team and the HK Electric’s representatives are included;
·
A broad
construction programme indicating those activities for which specific
mitigation is required and providing a schedule for their timely
implementation;
·
Descriptions
of the parameters to be monitored and criteria through which performance will
be assessed including: monitoring frequency and methodology, monitoring
locations (typically, the location of sensitive receivers as listed in the
EIA), monitoring equipment lists, event contingency plans for exceedances of established criteria and schedule of mitigation
and best practice methods for reduced adverse environmental impacts;
·
Procedures
for undertaking on-site environmental performance audits as a means of ensuring
compliance with environmental criteria; and
·
Reporting
procedures.
The EM&A Manual will be a dynamic document which
will undergo a series of revisions, as needed, to accommodate the progression
of the construction programme.
14.3.1
Objectives of EM&A
The objectives of carrying out EM&A for the
Project include:
·
Providing
baseline information against which any short or long term environmental impacts
of the projects can be determined;
·
Providing
an early indication should any of the environmental control measures or
practices fail to achieve the acceptable standards;
·
Monitoring
the performance of the Project and the effectiveness of mitigation measures;
·
Verifying
the environmental impacts identified in the EIA;
·
Determining
Project compliance with regulatory requirements, standards and government
policies;
·
Taking
remedial action if unexpected results or unacceptable impacts arise; and
·
Providing
data to enable an environmental audit to be undertaken at regular intervals.
The following sections summarise the recommended
EM&A requirements and further details are provided in the EM&A Manual.
14.4.1
Construction Phase
The EIA indicated that water quality
monitoring will be required during the construction phase for the following
activities:
·
Dredging
works in the nearshore cable landing area; and,
·
Jetting
for the cable installation.
Water quality monitoring results will be
compared to Action and Limit levels to determine whether impacts associated
with the works are acceptable. An
Event and Action Plan provides procedures to be undertaken when monitoring results
exceed Action or Limit levels. The
procedures are designed to ensure that if any significant exceedances
occur (either accidentally or through inadequate implementation of mitigation
measures on the part of the Contractor(s)), the cause is quickly identified and
remedied, and that the risk of a similar event re-occurring is reduced.
Action and Limit levels will be used to
determine whether modifications to the operations are required. Action and Limit levels are
environmental quality standards chosen such that their exceedance
indicates potential deterioration of the environment. Exceedance of
Action levels can result in an increase in the frequency of environmental
monitoring, modification of operations and implementation of the proposed
mitigation measures. Exceedance of Limit Levels indicates a greater potential
deterioration in environmental conditions and may require the cessation of
works unless appropriate remedial actions, including a critical review of
plant, working methods and mitigation measures, are undertaken. Before construction work commences four
consecutive weeks of baseline monitoring will be undertaken at stations
identified as detailed in the EM&A Manual.
In order to minimise the water quality
impacts to the isolated coral colonies at the cable landing site, a silt
curtain will be provided around the grab dredging works.
The full details of the EM&A programme
for water quality is presented in the EM&A Manual for this Project.
14.4.2
Operation
Phase
As no unacceptable
impacts have been predicted to occur during the operation of the proposed wind
farm, monitoring of impacts to marine water quality during the operational
phase is not considered necessary.
In order to ensure that the construction
Contractor(s) has implemented the recommendations of the EIA Report, regular
site audits will be conducted of the waste streams, to determine if wastes are
being managed in accordance with the approved procedures and the site Waste
Management Plan. The audits will
look at all aspects of waste management including waste generation, storage,
recycling, transport and disposal.
An appropriate audit programme will be undertaken with the first audit
conducted at the commencement of the construction works.
The implementation of the ecological mitigation
measures stated in Section 8.11.2 should
be checked as part of the environmental monitoring and audit procedures during
the construction and operation period.
Although no adverse residual impacts are envisaged based on
the results of impact assessment, monitoring for bird abundance and
distribution for one year of pre-construction phase, one year of the
construction phase ([1])
and the first year of
operation phase is recommended.
The
purpose of the construction and operation monitoring is to investigate the
temporal variation in species occurrence, abundance and distribution of birds
before and after the commencement of the wind farm. Particular focus will be made on species
of conservation interest (especially the Birds of Prey including White-bellied
Sea Eagle and Black Kite) and migratory birds (eg
White-winged Tern, Heuglin’s Gull),
Traditional vessel-based survey will be applied for
pre-construction, construction and operation monitoring, which
will be undertaken at once per week during migratory season (March to May) and
at once/twice per month for the rest of the year. Line transects survey method will be
used at designated sampling locations within the Project Site. Locations of sampling transects will be finalised during the detailed design stage (after
confirmation of the types and siting of the
turbines).
The results will be
reviewed and analysed after the operation monitoring
period. Should bird abundance be
significantly different (taking into account naturally occurring alterations to
distribution patterns such as due to seasonal change) to the pre-construction
activity (following the operation monitoring), recommendations for a further
operation monitoring survey will be made.
Data should then be re-assessed and the need for any further monitoring
established. Significance levels
will be quantitatively determined following the operation monitoring which will
review up-to-date publicly available information on bird distribution to allow
for typical variance levels.
If, after the first-year
operation monitoring period, insignificant variation in bird abundance have
been reported then the monitoring will be ceased, as it will have been
confirmed that the wind turbine is not having an adverse impact on bird
species.
The EM&A Manual provides details of the
operational bird monitoring programme.
The following presents a summary of the Environmental
Monitoring and Audit (EM&A) measures focussed on ecology during the
construction and operation phases of the offshore wind farm. Full details are presented in the
separate EM&A Manual.
During the construction phase, the following EM&A
measures will be undertaken to verify the predictions in the EIA and ensure the
environmental acceptability of the construction works:
·
Water
quality impacts will be monitored and checked through the implementation of a
Water Quality EM&A programme (refer Section
6 for details). The monitoring
and control of water quality impacts will also serve to avoid unacceptable
impacts to marine ecological resources.
·
Marine
piling works will be undertaken using hydraulic hammers, which typically have
lower sound output than traditional diesel hammers;
·
Marine
piling works will take place in daylight hours, sunrise to sunset;
·
Marine
piling works for the wind turbines will avoid peak seasons of marine mammals
(December to May);
·
Marine
piling works will employ ‘soft-starts’ using ramp-up piling procedures;
·
Pre-,
during and post-installation monitoring of marine mammal abundance, behaviour
and distribution will be undertaken.
Prior to the commencement of
monitoring, methods may include the following to be agreed with the AFCD:
·
Vessel
based surveys
·
Passive
acoustic monitoring
·
Land-based
theodolite tracking A marine mammal/sea turtle
exclusion zone will also be implemented and monitored by qualified
observers ([2])
for the presence of marine
mammals/sea turtles in waters surrounding any marine percussive piling works
and dredging works during construction of the wind farm structures and cable
route; and,
·
As a
total of four octocoral species and one black coral
species were recorded during the baseline surveys on the dumped material in the
vicinity of the cable route, prior to the commencement of jetting works for the
cable route, a pre-construction survey will be undertaken at these sites to
confirm the coral existence. Should
these corals be present, mitigation will be applied to be agreed with the AFCD
at that time. Potential mitigation
may include relocation of these corals to a location away from the proposed
area of works.
Details of the marine mammal/sea turtle exclusion
zone monitoring components are presented in full in the EM&A Manual.
The assessment presented above as indicated that
operational phase impacts are not expected to occur to marine ecological
resources. No other marine ecology
specific operational phase monitoring is considered necessary.
As no unacceptable impacts have been
predicted to occur during the construction and operation of the wind farm,
monitoring of fisheries resources during the construction phase is not
considered necessary. The Fisheries Impact Assessment of the EIA recommended a
series of mitigation measures for the construction and operation phase of the
project. Details of all the
recommended mitigation measures are included within the Implementation Schedule
provided in Annex 14A
and B.
The water quality monitoring programme
will provide management actions and supplemental mitigation measures to be
employed should impacts arise, thereby ensuring the environmental acceptability
of the Project.
There will be a need to ensure that the
seabed affected by the cable installation works has restored to its original
configuration to prevent impacts from occurring to fishing operations. Consequently, a geophysical survey will
be conducted following completion of cable installation works.
A Fisheries Review and Consultation
Programme will also be implemented prior to the operation of the wind
farm. The general intention of the
FRCP will be to outline, in consultation with the fishery sector, whether there
is scope for fishing operations to be conducted within the development
area. If deemed acceptable, a
Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) will be developed for the wind farm area.
The Landscape and Visual Assessment
of the EIA recommended a series of mitigation measures for the construction
phase, including site selection, array layout, colour selection and blade
rotation direction, to ameliorate the landscape and visual impacts of the
project. Details of all the
recommended mitigation measures are included within the Implementation Schedule
provided in Annex 14A and B.
Implementation of the mitigation measures for
landscape and visual resources recommended by the EIA will be monitored through
the site audit programme.
During the operational phase, adverse impacts are not
expected to occur. Therefore, no
landscape and visual monitoring will be required for the operational phase.
No impact
to terrestrial and marine archaeology is predicted.
The avoidance of direct impacts to the shipwreck identified during the
geophysical survey will be verified by the Environmental Team and the
Independent Environmental Checker through review of the final design prior to
the installation of turbines and submarine cable. Designs and subsequent construction
works will be checked to ensure that no works will occur within 50 m of the
shipwreck.