UNIT 4

Ghana’s Environmental Protection Bureau

&
Environmental Impact Assessment
Course Outline

• Ghana’s Environmental Protection Bureau

• EIA

• Some Principles of Environmental laws.

• Sustainable Development Goals

 Ghana’s Environmental Protection Bureau, EIA and Some
Principles of Environmental laws
• With the massive pollution problems mankind is facing, each country in addition to
the provision of the concerted efforts globally, is supposed to address its own local
environmental challenges.

• It is in line with these directives that Ghana has established its own Environmental
Protection Bureau (EPA) which supervises the implementation of policies and
regulations to protect the local Environment.

• One of such key regulation is the requirement for all developmental projects to
undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment before project implementation.
Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency
• In order to implement all these environmental regulations an Agency has to be
established to develop the laws and regulations to manage that aspect.

• The Environmental Protection Agency, is an agency of Ministry of Environment,

Science,Technology and Innovation, established by EPA Act 490 in 1994.

• Prior to that it was just an advisory council called Environmental Protection

Council established in 1974 after a world conference on Environment in
Stockholm 1972.
 Functions of the EPA
• The agency is dedicated to improving, conserving and promoting the country’s

environment and striving for environmentally sustainable development with sound,

efficient resource management, taking into account social and equity issues.

• It oversees the implementation of the National Environmental Policy.

• EPA Ghana's mission is to manage, protect and enhance the country’s environment and

seek common solutions to global environmental problems.

 Functions of the EPA
• Its mission is to be achieved through an integrated environmental planning and

management system with broad public participation, efficient implementation of

appropriate programmes and technical services, advice on environmental problems and

effective, consistent enforcement of environmental laws and regulations.

• EPA Ghana is a regulatory body and a catalyst for change to sound environmental

stewardship.
Some key environmental laws, policies and regulations in Ghana
• Ghana is still in the process of developing laws to protect the environment in addition to
several environment laws dating back as far as1892 on the Towns Ordinance which
ensures proper planning of towns
• LI 1999 for the mandatory requirement for Environmental Impact Assessment for
Development projects
• Public Nuisance Decree Act 29 of 1960 Prevent indiscriminate disposal of waste and
noise disturbance.
• Ghana Investment code of 1988 which mandated all investors to examine the impact of
their activities on the environment
• There are guidelines for the various levels of sound / noise for different places
• Guidelines for effluent discharges from industries
• Guidelines for ambient air quality
• Environmental sanitation policy of 2010.This needs to be revised.
• Water policy of 2007 also needs to be revised
 Principles of Environmental Laws
• Several principles guides the development of these laws.
• Precautionary:This is done when the impact is not known but suspected
• Prevention: Impacts are known and the laws are made to prevent them. Most
environmental laws are based on this principle
• Polluter pays: Ensures that industries pay for impact of the harmful effects of their
products through life cycle of the product
• Integration: Integrates environmental concerns in all decisions of corporate bodies and
activities
• Public participation: Incorporates the views of the public as well.
• Sustainable development: This is an approach to economic planning to foster
development whiles preserving the environmental quality for present and future
generations. This has been difficult to do because of the multipurpose nature of
resources in question. Key sustainable laws are in ecotourism
 Levels of Environmental Laws
• It exists at three main levels
• International declarations, conventions and treaties

• National laws are generated by agencies charged by Governments with the

protection of the environment

• Local laws such as the sanitation bye laws are developed by Assemblies

Incentives are also provided by some of these national laws to encourage the
compliance of the laws. Such as pollution taxes for the use of clean
technologies. Eg. Carbon tax
Types of Environmental laws

• Command and control

• Identification of harmful effects
• Imposition of specific conditions of standards for the control
• Imposed conditions for failing to apply
• Environmental assessments mandates
• Identification of a level of threshold potential impact which will require an EIA
report
• Establishment of specific goals for the assessment
• Setting of requirements to decide whether to proceed with the action or not
Environmental Assessment
• There are several procedures for assessing environmental quality

• These are:

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

• Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

• Environmental Risk Assessment

• Environmental audit etc

• We shall focus on EIA which now has social impact assessment as a key
component
 Environmental Impact Assessment
• EIA is a process of assessing environmental impact of a development project to
improve decision making on its implementation

Brief History (Before the concept of EIA)

- Project evaluation – formerly prior to the execution of a major project there used to
be project evaluation. This was based on technical studies valued in monetary terms
(cost-benefit analysis).

- Rough evaluation – full of shortcomings and failures

- Efforts to develop new evaluation approach led to EIA. In this, Technical, Financial,
Economic and Environmental aspects were given their proper weight in the decision
making process.
 Environmental Impact Assessment

• 1960 in the USA to create environmental awareness

• 1962 - First evidence of local application of insecticides had far reaching

ecological impacts

• Environmental aspects of projects became a requirement for decision

making

• National Environmental Policy Act / Law (NEPA) published in 1970.

Environmental Impact Statements ( EIS ) should be published for major
actions significantly affecting quality of human environment.
 Purpose of EIA
• It enables financier/ client to take environmental issues into account

• It seeks to compare the various alternatives which are available for any project. Each
alternative will have economic cost and benefit as well as environmental impact.
Adverse impacts may be reduced at higher project cost whilst environmental
benefits may be enhanced at environmental cost.

• It attempts to weigh the environmental effects on a common basis with economic

cost and benefit in the overall project evaluation

• It identifies and forecasts the possible positive and negative impacts to the
environment resulting from a proposed project.

• It helps to avoid costs and delays in implementation.

 Some common targets
EIA seeks to identify probable alternatives for project with little or no adverse impacts on
the community or environment.
EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) is the assessment report produced after the
assessment exercise; it details both the beneficial and adverse impacts anticipated upon
completion of a project and the probable impacts that would be experienced during the
operational phase of the project.
To perform an EIA some major parties involved are :
• The Proponent or the Initiator e.g. Gov’t agency, private personnel, company etc.
• Decision makers – Central or Local gov’t agency, provincial official (EPA – Gh)
• Review Commission – EPA, EIA committee – management committee
It provides a formal mechanism for direct agency co-ordination to deal with concerns.
It measures the level of plan implementation and the degree of effectiveness of the above
environmental protection provision.
The EIA Process

Includes
• Project description and the legal and administrative framework
• The description of the environment for the project
• Screening: process of deciding on whether an EIA is necessary or not
• Scoping: identify key environmental issues pertaining to a particular project.
• Analysis of alternatives
• Impacts associated with the project with a check list of all things the project can
have impact
• Mitigative measures in place
Environmental Assessment procedures

• A preliminary form is collected from the Ghana Environmental Protection

Agency to determine the nature of the project whether an EIA is required.

• If it is needed the proponent seeks consultants to help in the development of the

report which is assessed and approved by the EPA after public hearing.
DALY Disability adjusted life years
• DALY is a health gap measure that extends the concept of potential years of
health life lost due to premature death (PYLL) to include equivalent years of
healthy life lost as a result of a disability.
• The DALY combines one measure of the time lived with a disability and the time
lost due to premature mortality
• In the application of DALY to environmental studies, we only look at DALY as time
lost in years to a disability as a result of an environmental hazard or disease due
to environmental neglect like incidence of malaria, time lost due to air pollution
etc in a community in years.
• Eg How many years are lost as result of people been hospitalized due to air
pollution problems in a community. Suppose the community has a population of
1000 and 200 people were hospitalized for three days. Example of The DALY in
this case is 200X 5 =1000 days /365 days which is equal to 2.7 years lost in that
community in just one month
Example of Environmental Quality Measurement

• Determine the Environmental quality index of a hair dressing salon at Ayeduase in

a day if the number of people who come to the salon daily is 120.
• Each person uses 30 litres of water for her hair washing and styling.
• The pollution load in the water which is the impact is 40mg of Dissolved Organic
matter per litre
• Q=IFP
• Q is the level of pollution of Environmental Quality index
• I is the impact per unit resource used ie organic matter dissolved per litre
• P is the size of the population, F is the amount of resource used per person
• Thus Q= 40mg/l x 30L x 120=144,000 in milligrams
 Environment Impacts Associated With Various
Engineering Disciplines
The impacts of the old engineering practices are known because they have been in
existence for long:

• Civil engineering -changing of landscape, land degradation

• Agricultural engineering –land degradation, water pollution with pesticides,
depletion of ground water resources
• Mechanical, Materials, Metallurgical, Chemical, Petroleum engineering cause
Noise pollution, fossil fuels depletion and air pollution
• Computer engineering: computers contains pollutants like lead which pollutes
soils and groundwater bodies, electromagnetic radiations.
• Impact of new disciplines/products will be better understood with time and also
if a life cycle analysis is carried on the products developed.
 Environmental Sustainability
• The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 in
Rio de Janerio, Brazil
• Set out a roadmap for sustainable development.
• There was a follow up conference in South Africa in 2002
• Why is there a lack of international progress in reducing poverty and
protecting the environment? Discuss this.

• Environmental Protection – Natural resource

management, environmental management, pollution
prevention
• Economic Viability – profit, cost savings, economic
growth, research and development, employment
• Social Equity- standard of living, education, equal
opportunity, community development, laws and
The 3 Pillars of Sustainability
ethics
 Sustainable Development Goals
• In September 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) with 17 goals to replace the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)
• The SDGs are to address the following dimensions of sustainable development:
o Environment
o Economic
o Social
The time horizon is 2015-2030
The Sustainable Development Goals
• 1. No Poverty
• 2. Zero Hunger
• 3. Good Health And Well Being
• 4. Quality Education
• 5. Gender Equality
• 6. Clean Water And Sanitation
• 7. Affordable and Clean Energy
• 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
• 9. Industry, Innovation And Infrastructure
• 10. Reduced Inequality
• 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
The Sustainable Development Goals

• 12. Responsible Consumption And Production

• 13. Climate Action
• 14. Life Below Water
• 15. Life On Land
• 16. Peace And Justice Strong Institutions
• 17. Partnership To Achieve The Goals
Incorporation of SDGs in National Development Agenda

• The National Development Planning Commission is the lead

government Institution on Development Planning policy and strategy.
• The SDGs must be triggered down in all our communities including
all programs in our Universities to enhance the achievement of the
goals
 Facts for Water and sanitation
• 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources since 1990, but 663
million people are still without

• At least 1.8 billion people globally use a source of drinking water that is faecally contaminated

• Between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the global population using an improved drinking
water source has increased from 76 per cent to 91 per cent

• But water scarcity affects more than 40 percent of the global population and is projected to
rise. Over 1.7 billion people are currently living in river basins where water use exceeds
recharge

• Floods and other water-related disasters account for 70 per cent of all deaths related to
natural disasters
Facts continued
• 2.4 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, such as toilets or
latrines

• More than 80 percent of wastewater resulting from human activities is

discharged into rivers or sea without any pollution removal

• Each day, nearly 1,000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation-
related diarrhoeal diseases

• Hydropower is the most important and widely-used renewable source of

energy and as of 2011, represented 16 percent of total electricity production
worldwide

• Approximately 70 percent of all water abstracted from rivers, lakes and

aquifers is used for irrigation
Goal 6 of the SDG
• By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking
water for all.
• By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all
and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls
and those in vulnerable situations.
• This goal affects the success of almost all the goals and hence the special
attention to it.
 8 Targets for SDG 6
• By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water
for all
• Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open
defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in
vulnerable situations
• Improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing
release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated
wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally
• Substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable
withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially
reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity
• Implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including
transboundary cooperation as appropriate
• Protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands,
rivers, aquifers and lakes
SDG 6 Targets

• Expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing

countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programmes, including
water harvesting, desalination, water-use efficiency, wastewater treatment,
recycling and reuse technologies

• Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water

and sanitation management
Assignment 1

80 welding shops produce 39 ug of Hg/m3 from their foundry activities.

Each shop is confined to a space of 500m3.

What impact will this have on the health of the artisans after a long
exposure?
Assignment 2

• Why are people not bothered about matters of the environment?

Reading Materials

• Visit Wikipedia for topics which are not too clear. Wiki has very good
reference materials

• Living in the environment by George by Tyler Miller 2005

• Introduction to environment and society by J. P. Evans 2012

• WHO Guidelines for Drinking water (current version)

The Epilogue
• The environment is a complex system requiring a proper
understanding of how things are connected and how they impact each
other. The environment in which we live have natural ecosystems that
are self sustaining and self regulating. We can learn from nature on
how it recycles matter in the ecosystem, manages its problems on
water, air, and soil pollution and general interactions with other
organisms in the environment.
• This concept of biomimicry which is the study of nature's most
successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for
human use will go a long way to make our planet livable and healthy.