The only basis for the environmental evaluation of projects that are subject to
selection and elimination is the Project Presentation File, which should be prepared
in accordance with Annex IV of the EIA By-Law. When an “EIA is Required”
decision is made in response to a project proposal, the EIA process will begin with
the scoping and format determination. So the lack of scoping will be supplemented
in the subsequent phase through the EIA process. But in “No EIA is Required”
decisions, lack of scoping is a major deficiency, as this decision constitutes environmental clearance for the project, allowing the project owner to proceed with the
project.
There is not a guarantee of the ‘No EIA is Required’ decisions to be taken on the
basis of objective environmental criteria where the cumulative impacts are considered and with the involvement of the the Public. So that, the quality of ‘No EIA
is Required’ decisions are questionable. Post project monitoring and control exercised over these projects is an important opportunity but do not guarantee the
employment of environmental standards sufficiently. It becomes much more difficult to conduct monitoring and control appropriately over these projects which
extends variety of different sectors and amounts to very high in number. Out of
61,699 applications made to the Ministry, 60,694 Project Proposals were finalised
with a decision ‘No EIA is Required’ in between 1993 and 2018 (Statistics on EIA,
2019). This concern translates into a major weakness for the EIA systematic for ‘No
EIA is Required’ decisions due to lack of any further scoping process which can be
applied for these projects. Considering the large number of projects which were
given environmental clearance, it turns out to be an urgent necessity to take severe
measures to bring much more convincing and satisfactory environmental criteria for
the Projects listed in Annex II.
5.3.2 Scoping Phase
The content of the EIA Report will be determined during the scoping phase.
Scoping is very critical since it is the stage where the terms of the EIA and the
environmental standards to be fulfilled by the EIA report are identified. The quality
of this process will be directly reflected in the overall quality of the final EIA
Report. In the 1993 version of the Turkish EIA By-Law, the scoping stage was not
identified and this situation was severely criticized in environmentalist circles. As a
result, ‘scoping’ as a distinct phase was incorporated into Turkish EIA legislation.
The scoping process is conducted by the Commission, which is constituted by
the MoEU. Article 8/4 provides that “The Ministry [shall] establish a Commission
which consists of officials of the Ministry, the project owner, Agencies/Institutions
Qualified by the Ministry and representatives of relevant public institutions and
organizations. The Commission assigned for the scoping phase functions for the
examination and evaluation of the EIA Report as well (2014 EIA By-Law, Article
4/1(s)).
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Ş. Güneş
selection and elimination is the Project Presentation File, which should be prepared
in accordance with Annex IV of the EIA By-Law. When an “EIA is Required”
decision is made in response to a project proposal, the EIA process will begin with
the scoping and format determination. So the lack of scoping will be supplemented
in the subsequent phase through the EIA process. But in “No EIA is Required”
decisions, lack of scoping is a major deficiency, as this decision constitutes environmental clearance for the project, allowing the project owner to proceed with the
project.
There is not a guarantee of the ‘No EIA is Required’ decisions to be taken on the
basis of objective environmental criteria where the cumulative impacts are considered and with the involvement of the the Public. So that, the quality of ‘No EIA
is Required’ decisions are questionable. Post project monitoring and control exercised over these projects is an important opportunity but do not guarantee the
employment of environmental standards sufficiently. It becomes much more difficult to conduct monitoring and control appropriately over these projects which
extends variety of different sectors and amounts to very high in number. Out of
61,699 applications made to the Ministry, 60,694 Project Proposals were finalised
with a decision ‘No EIA is Required’ in between 1993 and 2018 (Statistics on EIA,
2019). This concern translates into a major weakness for the EIA systematic for ‘No
EIA is Required’ decisions due to lack of any further scoping process which can be
applied for these projects. Considering the large number of projects which were
given environmental clearance, it turns out to be an urgent necessity to take severe
measures to bring much more convincing and satisfactory environmental criteria for
the Projects listed in Annex II.
5.3.2 Scoping Phase
The content of the EIA Report will be determined during the scoping phase.
Scoping is very critical since it is the stage where the terms of the EIA and the
environmental standards to be fulfilled by the EIA report are identified. The quality
of this process will be directly reflected in the overall quality of the final EIA
Report. In the 1993 version of the Turkish EIA By-Law, the scoping stage was not
identified and this situation was severely criticized in environmentalist circles. As a
result, ‘scoping’ as a distinct phase was incorporated into Turkish EIA legislation.
The scoping process is conducted by the Commission, which is constituted by
the MoEU. Article 8/4 provides that “The Ministry [shall] establish a Commission
which consists of officials of the Ministry, the project owner, Agencies/Institutions
Qualified by the Ministry and representatives of relevant public institutions and
organizations. The Commission assigned for the scoping phase functions for the
examination and evaluation of the EIA Report as well (2014 EIA By-Law, Article
4/1(s)).
90
Ş. Güneş