Environmental Impact Assessment - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 80

TABLE 2.2
Raff's Ten Principles of Quality in EIA

1. An assessment cannot be restricted to site-specifi c environmental effects.

2. The assessment must contain a statement of alternative courses of action and their environmental signifi cance even if it is beyond the power of the
proponent to implement them.

3. Greater plans must be assessed in addition to single phases in their execution.

4. The project must not be segmented.

5. Time frames must be viable: the range of alternatives that must be discussed in an EIA is limited to realistic alternatives that are reasonably available
within the time the decision-maker intends to act.

6. Alternative courses of action must include the option of doing nothing.

7. The assessment must engage in a real inquiry and not merely dispose of alternatives in favour of a decision which has already been arrived at.

8. Environmental effects are not to be disregarded merely because they are diffi cult to identify or quantify.

9. The EIA must take a 'hard look' at the environmental consequences of the project. While the EIA is not required to be perfect, it must not be
superfi cial, subjective or non-informative; it should be comprehensive in its treatment of subject matter and objective in its approach.

10. The fi ndings of the EIA must be presented in clear language and the methods used to arrive at them must be explained.

Source: Raff 1997 The EIA must not solely assess individual aspects of the overall mining project which on their

own will yield negligible impacts; the sum or total effect of the project on the environment
must be identifi ed and evaluated.

Although trans-boundary environmental effects such as greenhouse gas emissions
may need consideration, environmental assessment is i rst of all site-based. The obvious
study area is the project area itself, which comprises all areas expected to undergo physical
changes due to project activities. In the case of mining, these areas include the ore deposit,
mine infrastructure, and waste rock and tailings disposal areas. Since impacts extend
beyond the areas of physical changes, the geographic boundary of an environmental assess-
ment study is almost always larger than the actual project area. It can be based, among
other possibilities, on the natural landscape, such as a watershed area or specii c types of
ecosystem, downwind 'air-shed' area, or on social and political boundaries.
Figure 2.2 illustrates the various study boundaries in increasing spatial dimension that
typically apply to an environmental assessment. The project boundary includes all areas
of direct physical changes - the 'footprint' of the project. The ecological boundary encom-
passes all areas in which environmental impacts, including indirect impacts, may occur.
The socio-economic boundary includes all communities potentially affected by the project.
The project area and the area of potential environmental physical and biological impacts
always fall within the socioeconomic boundary. The administrative boundary includes the
various jurisdictions with inl uence on the mining project.
For an environmental impact assessment to be fully effective, the study area should
include the source of the impacts as well as the area of potential environmental and social
concern. At a minimum, the study boundary has to coincide with the socio-economic
boundary. The drawing of the study boundary is not always a straightforward exercise.
Large mines have regional and national economic impacts. Even the extent of physical and
environmental impacts is not always clearly dei ned, such as in the case of mining activities
that employ riverine or marine tailings disposal (see also Chapter Eighteen).

Although trans-boundary
environmental effects such
as greenhouse gas emissions
may need consideration,
environmental assessment is fi rst
of all site-based.

For an environmental impact
assessment to be fully effective,
the study area should include
the source of the impacts as
well as the area of potential
environmental and social
concern.