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Press
Release
Cyber
help bench for environmental impact assessment launched
The Environmental
Protection Department (EPD) today (January 24) launched a
Cyber Help Bench (CHB) for Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA) to form a comprehensive one-stop source of information
on the EIA process and the EIA Ordinance (EIAO), and to provide
very user-friendly cyber help at a few clicks away.
"It contains more than a dozen sets of guidance notes
and assessment guidelines on EIA, links to more than 100 project
profiles and 47 approved EIA reports, examples of good EIA
practices and environmental monitoring and audit (EM&A)
data," a spokesman for the EPD said.
The CHB
fulfills a major commitment laid down in the Continuous Improvement
Strategy during the Review of the Operation of the EIAO in
1999, and can be accessible at http://www.info.gov.hk/epd/eia/hb.
The eight
sets of guidance notes are about basic EIA principles, mitigation
measures, Environmental Study Management Group, independent
environmental checker, implementation schedule, ecological
assessment, ecological baseline survey, and landscape and
visual assessment.
"The
guidance notes are jointly developed with EIAO User Groups
with representatives coming from government departments, bureaux,
consultants, contractors and utility companies.
"The
Advisory Council on the Environment has been consulted on
these guidance notes. It supports their publication to promote
user-friendliness and give help to project proponents and
consultants," the spokesman noted.
In addition,
assessment guidelines are available at the CHB to provide
professional in-depth help for conducting EM&A and EIA
studies on areas such as the design of noise barriers, air
quality assessment, sites of cultural heritage, and contaminated
land assessment and remediation.
The CHB
also contains examples of good EIA practices to demonstrate
and share environmental mitigation measures carried out as
a result of recommendations made in past EIAs in Hong Kong.
"To
further enhance the transparency and users-friendliness of
the EIA process, the most recent EM&A data of major projects
are accessible in the cyber EIA established under the CHB.
"It
will enable the public to have better access to information
on environmental performance while project proponents can
use it as a tool to demonstrate their efforts to mitigate
environmental pollution," the spokesman added.
End/Thursday,
January 24, 2002
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