Environmentalist stresses need for fair hearing of appeals against EPA decisions

Environmentalist Simone Mangal-Joly has written the head of the body adjudicating appeals against Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decisions stressing the need for fair and prejudice-free hearings of matters pertaining to the new proposed bridge over the Demerara River and an ExxonMobil oil exploration programme.

The Environmental Assessment Board (EAB), which presides over the appeals, has come under severe pressure from civil society activists over perceived bias in the conduct of its hearings and flaws in the process.

Last week, after mounting public pressure, which included correspondence from Mangal-Joly, the EAB suddenly announced that hearings of the appeals of the EPA decisions not to require Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for the bridge project and a 12-well exploration and drilling in the offshore Canje Block by Exxon’s subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) had been put on hold until further notice. The EAB said that this was done for the EPA to provide more answers.

Following receipt of correspondence from the EAB’s Head, Omkar Lochan on October 11 notifying of the postponement of the hearing of the two appeals, Mangal-Joly wrote again to the EAB on October 16 expressing concern that the appeals board not allow the bootstrapping of the EPA’s case as it should have been available at the point that it had announced that the EIAs were not required.

Mangal-Joly pointed out that Section 11 of the EPA Act required the EPA to have already published its reasons why the EIA was not necessary and which information would then enable appellants to make their case before the EAB.

The environmentalist said that the “open-ended” extension of time to the EPA should not be taken as an opening for the EPA to “bootstrap” its case as according to law that case should have already been composed and presented to the public.

The appeals against the EPA decisions by environmentalists and other stakeholders have been seen as a key test of the functioning of the EAB and the postponement of the process has raised the stakes.

On October 11, Lochan sent two pieces of correspondence to Mangal-Joly. The first said that it was the view of the EAB that the alleged regulatory breaches by the EPA on the matter of the EIA for the Demerara River bridge could not be appealed to the EAB but via judicial review proceedings in court. Lochan also said that the hearing was intended for the appellant to present specifically how they would be affected the project and to give justifications for requiring an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment. In the second letter on the same day to Mangal-Joly, Lochan advised that the hearings in relation to the Bridge and the EEPGL programme had been put off until further notice after the EPA requested a postponement. Lochan said that the EAB deliberated on the request and “unanimously agreed to accede to the EPA’s request for postponement due to the