Environmental Management: Principles and practice

The development of EIA
Nothing quite like EIA appeared before 1967, although the Report of the Volta
Preparatory Commission (HMSO, 1956a; 1956b) was a proactive development
assessment. Countries like the UK and France have made use of commissions of
inquiry to assess impacts and, to some extent, to keep the public informed since the
sixteenth century or earlier. However, these generally took a good deal of time to
deliver results, and were applied in an ad hoc manner only to some developments, in
response to ministerial or popular concern. Their involvement of the public is in a
very limited or controlled way, and they are not as systematic as EIA (an example of
a UK commission of inquiry which had public meetings is the early 1970s Roskill
Commission on the Third London Airport (HMSO, 1971). McHarg’s (1969) Design
with Nature stressed the value of anticipatory and systematic consideration of
environmental limits, development impacts and alternatives, and is seen as a forerunner
of EIA. White also came close to proposing EIA in the 1960s (White, 1968). The
first true EIA was probably in 1967, investigating copper mining in Puerto Rico
(Mayda, 1993; Gilpin, 1995:115). EIA evolved from land use planning, CBA, multiple
objective analysis, modelling and simulation, and was established by the 1969 USA
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (Flamm, 1973; Ditton and Goodale, 1974:
145–151) (Box 6.3). NEPA has not been the only EIA initiative in the USA (16
states, plus the District of Columbia, had passed similar laws by 1991) but it was the
most crucial (Canter, 1996:20).

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BOX 6.3 The 1969 US National Environmental Policy Act
President Theodore Roosevelt called for foresight in respect to pollution control
during his 1908 Conference on Conservation, but it was not until 1969 that
effective legislation was enacted. Preparations leading to the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) began in the early 1960s, when the need
was perceived for the USA to have a declaration of national environmental
policy and an action-forcing provision (Ditton and Goodale, 1974; Canter,
1996:1–35). Before NEPA the USA had little effective federal control over the
environment and lacked land use regulations which countries like the UK or
France had (Wood, 1995:16). NEPA became Law on 1 January 1970.
It was designed to reform federal policy making with the intent to
influence the private sector—the hope being to transform and reorientate values
(Heer and Hagerty, 1977; Caldwell, 1989). Originally it was intended that NEPA
would change the nature of federal decision making. However, over the years
it has become more of a procedural requirement (Wood, 1995:75).
NEPA required an EIA prior to approval of federally funded projects
that ‘significantly’ affected the environment—a message to federal officials to
‘look before they leap’ (Cheremisinoff and Morresi, 1977). NEPA Section
101 set regulations to protect the environment, Section 102(2) (c) ensured that
they were pursued, and Section 103 included provision for inadequate EIA
statements to be challenged in court (see chapter 3) (Wathern, 1988:24;
Hildebrand and Cannon, 1993). US federal agencies are required to prepare an
environmental impact statement (EIS) (bearing the costs against taxes and
sending copies to federal and state agencies and to the public) using EIA,
prior to taking action (for a list of the federal agencies involved see Corwin et
al., 1975:41). There was also some need to clarify what developments required
assessment and how it was to be conducted.
There were three main elements in NEPA:
1
NEPA announced a US national policy for the environment.
2
It outlined procedures for achieving the objectives of that policy.
3
Provision was made for initiating the establishment of a US Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) which was to advise the US President on
the environment, review the EIA process, review draft EISs and see that
NEPA was followed (i.e. recommendations and co-ordination). The CEQ
effectively administers EIA legislation in the USA and issues the
regulations that ensure effective EISs are produced.
Also in 1970 the US Government created the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), its role to co-ordinate the attack on environmental pollution
and to be responsible for the EIA process (the EPA is in effect ‘overseer’ of
impact assessment in the USA).

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NEPA created a more systematic, product-driven process of
environmentally-informed decision making. This was the first time US Law
had really allowed for development to be delayed or abandoned for the long-
term good of the environment. Efforts were also made to co-ordinate public,
state, federal and local activities. Overall, it was a revolution in values in a
country where state intrusion was anathema—for this reason many see it as a
sort of Magna Carta, although it stopped short of making a healthy environment
a constitutional right, and some have been seeking to change that (Yost, 1990).
NEPA is statutory law, i.e., it was written after deliberation and did not
evolve from custom, practice or tradition. Consequently, like a charter, it was
not perfect.
By the late 1980s some of the initial weaknesses had been overcome and
at least 30 other countries had adopted similar procedures (Manheim, 1994).
Bodies like the Canadian Environmental Assessment Research Council and
the International Association for Impact Analysis deserve credit for spreading
and developing impact assessment. The results have been mixed: in some
countries satisfactory, in others the NEPA approach is socioeconomically and
culturally inappropriate and needs further adaptation.
What was new about EIA when it spread after 1970 was its systematic assessment
and presentation of predicted impacts, available alternatives and mitigation possibilities.
EIA evolved in an era dominated by a technocratic perspective on problem solving
and with an emphasis on biophysical impacts. This may help explain why SIA has
received less support, although activities similar to SIA pre-date EIA. NEPA was
improved in 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, and in 1978 the Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ) was established to give NEPA regulations more force. Although it had issued
EIA guidelines in 1974, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) failed
to apply them strongly enough. In 1975 a US public-interest group sued to force it to
prepare EISs on its grants and loans. Consequently, by 1976 USAID and other bodies,
notably lending banks and the USA State Department, were applying EIA to overseas
investments and aid. In 1979 the Foreign Assistance Act effectively extended NEPA to
the USA’s foreign activities. By the 1980s there were calls for further reform, including
better incorporation of social impacts into EIA procedures, and for NEPA to be more
strongly written into the US Constitution (something yet to happen) (Renwick, 1988).
Attempts to amend NEPA in 1990 to increase its overseas application to global change,
biodiversity loss and transboundary pollution has had limited effect.
By 1995, about half the world’s governments required EIA in some form (Robinson,
1992). Adoption has usually involved modification of techniques and procedures, because
US experience may not be sufficiently relevant, and approaches and techniques are
constantly evolving. The quality of impact assessment varies greatly (Coenen, 1993;
McCormick, 1993). So far, the greatest progress has probably been made in Australia,
Canada, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and the USA (Prasad, 1993).

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There are a number of ways EIA can be adopted:
♦
Adapt existing planning procedures to incorporate it (as in Germany, Sweden,
Denmark, UK).
♦
Create impact assessment legislation, like the USA, Australia and Canada.
♦
Develop global impact assessment regulations and supportive institutions.