Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The cost of EIA to competent authorities is much more difficult to measure and has until
now been based on interviews rather than on a more systematic methodology. An early
study (Lee & Brown 1992) found that about half the officers interviewed felt that the EIS
had not influenced how long it took to reach a decision; the rest were about evenly split
between those who felt that the EIA had speeded up or slowed down the process. In
subsequent interviews (DoE 1996), many planning officers felt that dealing with the EIS
and the planning application were one and the same and “just part of the job”. Estimates
for reviewing the EIS and associated consultation ranged from five hours to 6-8 months
of staff time. Planning officers handling EIS cases tend to be development control team
leaders and above, so staff costs would generally be higher than for standard planning
applications. Where LPAs had engaged consultants to help them appraise an EIS, the cost
of such review was between £1,000 and £10,000 for half the cases, the remaining being
broadly split evenly between more than £10,000 and less than £1,000 (Leu et al. 1993).
In 20 case studies, the time spent by consultees on EIA ranged from four hours to one-
and-a-half days for statutory consultees, and from one hour to two weeks for non-
statutory consultees. Although some consultees, like planning officers, argued that “this
is what we are here for”, others suggested that they needed to prioritize what
developments they got involved in because of time and resource constraints (DoE 1996).
8.6.2 Benefits of EIA
The benefits of EIA are mostly unquantifiable, so a direct comparison with the costs of
EIA is not possible. Perhaps the clearest way to gauge whether EIA helps to reduce a
project's environmental impacts is to determine whether a project was modified as a
result of EIA. Early studies on EIA effectiveness (e.g. Kobus & Lee 1993, Tarling 1991)
showed that modifications to the project as a result of the EIA process were required in
almost half the cases, with most modifications regarded as significant. Jones's (1995)
study of 40 EISs prepared before March 1993 showed that modifications before EIS
submission were made in one-third of cases, modification after EIS submission in about
one-sixth of cases, modifications before and after the EIS submission in one-fifth of
cases.
Environmental impact assessment can have other benefits in addition to project
modification. A survey of environmental consultants (Weston 1995) showed that about
three-quarters of them felt that EIA had brought about at least some improvements in
environmental protection, primarily through the incorporation of mitigation measures
early in project design and the higher regard given to environmental issues. However,
other consultants felt that the system is “often a sham with EISs full of platitudes”. Jones
et al. (1998) found that only one-fifth of developers and consultants felt that there had
been no benefits associated with EIA.
Competent authorities generally feel that projects and the environment benefit greatly
from EIA (Jones 1995, Lee et al. 1994). EIA is seen as a way to focus the mind, highlight
important issues, reduce uncertainty, consider environmental impacts in a systematic
manner, save time by removing the need for planning officers to collect the information
themselves and identify problems early and direct them to the right people (DoE 1996,
Jones 1995, Pritchard et al. 1995). One planning officer noted:
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