Distillieries - Environmental Clearance

Operational Aspects of an EIA4.4.2 Baseline quality of the environmentEIA Notification 2006 specifies that an EIA Report should contain a description of theexisting environment that would be or might be affected directly or indirectly by theproposed project. Environmental Baseline Monitoring (EBM) is a very important stageof EIA. On one hand EBM plays a very vital role in EIA and on the other hand itprovides feedback about the actual environmental impacts of a project. EBM during theoperational phase helps in judging the success of mitigation measures in protecting theenvironment. Mitigation measures, in turn are used to ensure compliance withenvironmental standards, and to facilitate any needed project design or operationalchanges.Description of the existing environment should include natural, cultural, socio-economicsystems and their interrelationships. The intention is not to describe all baselineconditions, but to focus the collection and description of baseline data on those VECs thatare important and are affected by the proposed distillery project activity.4.4.2.1 Objective of EBM in the EIA contextThe term ‘baseline’ refers to conditions existing before development against whichsubsequent changes can be referenced. EBM studies are carried out to:Identify environmental conditions which might influence project design decisions(e.g., site layout, structural or operational characteristics)Identify sensitive issues or areas requiring mitigation or compensationProvide input data to analytical models used for predicting effectsProvide baseline data against which the results of future monitoring programs can becomparedAt this stage of EIA process, EBM is primarily discussed in the context of first purposewherein feedback from EBM programs may be used to:determine available assimilative capacity of different environmental componentswithin the designated impact zone and whether more or less stringent mitigationmeasures are needed; andimprove predictive capability of EIAs.There are many institutional, scientific, quality control, and fiscal issues that must beaddressed in implementation of an environmental monitoring program. Carefulconsideration of these issues in the design and planning stages will avoid many of thepitfalls associated with environmental monitoring programs.4.4.2.2 Environmental monitoring network designMonitoring refers to the collection of data through a series of repetitive measurements ofenvironmental parameters (or, more generally, to a process of systematic observation).Design of the environmental quality monitoring programme depends up on themonitoring objectives specified for the selected area of interest. Types of monitoring andnetwork design considerations are discussed in Annexure VII.TGM for Distillery Industry August 20104-22