Block 8: Environmental Issues and Public Health - Air Pollution Chapter 10: Overview Of Air Pollution Legal And Regulatory Framework

The ECA (Environment Conservation Act of 1989):

Sections 21, 22 and 26 of the Environment Conservation Act sets out procedures for conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA).

The relevant sections are:

• Section 21(1) Identification of activities.
• Section 21(2) Type of activity.
• Section 21(3) Consultation with other Ministers and MECs.
• Section 22(1) Prohibition of activities identified in section 21(1).
• Section 22(2) Submission of environmental reports.
• Section 22(3) Authority to grant or refuse authorisation for the proposed activity.
• Section 22(4) Withdrawal of authorisation if conditions of authorisation are not complied with.
• Section 26 Regulations regarding impact reports.
• Section 26(a) Scope and content.
• Section 26(b) Drafting and evaluation of impact reports.
• Section 26(c) Procedure to be followed at commencement, during and after completion of the activity.
• Section 28 General regulatory powers to assign functions to provincial or local authorities.
• Section 28A Provision for exempting persons, local authorities and government institutions from applying required provisions.
• Section 29(4) Offences and penalties.
• Section 33 Delegation of powers to officials.
• Section 35(3) Appeal
• Section 36(2) Application of Supreme Court.

The EIA regulations cover a wide range of activities. Amendments to these regulations are currently under consideration.

The Air Quality Bill:

After a very lengthy gestation period, the Air Quality Bill was published for comment on 1st April 2003. In spite of a series of public workshops and substantial critical comment, the Bill was submitted to parliament, with minor amendments to the 1 April version, prior to the April 2004 elections. The main criticism of this draft of the Bill was that it did not explicitly have the objective of protection public health (probably the most important objection), that the provisions for source emission standards were inadequate and that there was insufficient obligation on the government to speedily put in place an air quality management system that could begin to address the serious air pollution situation in a number of air pollution ‘hotspots’. As a result of sustained critical comment the Bill was withdrawn and held over for revision and resubmission until after the elections. A significantly revised version (incorporating most of the proposed revisions) is currently going through the parliamentary approval process.

The Air Quality Bill (when enacted and effective) will initiate a major change in the regulatory environment, and should, in principle, result in a systematic process of reducing emissions from large stationary sources such as oil refineries, steel plants and power stations.