BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

2. ITEMS AND OBJECTIVES FOR NEGOTIATIONS
2.1 Establishment of new plant or production change
Already at the preliminary stage of planning a new establish-
ment the necessary permits and environmental aspects are
to be surveyed. The enterprise is expected to comprehend
that the environmental criteria may affect localization
as well as other economic and technical decisions. Even in
case of changing the production, raw materials or technical
devices at an existing plant the authorities should be
informed as soon as the principal decision has been made and
negotiations should be initiated to survey the possible
need for renewing the permits.
The information to be given to the environmental authorities
on a new project is quite comprehensive and should cover
production processes, use of raw materials and chemicals,
pollution control measures, lay out of sewerage and land-
fills, estimates of effluents and emissions and their impact
on the environment, description of the recipient, timetable
of the project etc. At the first meeting the authority
will probably ask for more information, e.g. on technical
alternatives and details, emergency plans, waste handling,
effluent and emission quality, toxicity data, state of the
art on the environmental quality etc. Essential information
called for to assess the need for wastewater pollution
control measures is drawn up in figure 1.
The enterprise, for its part, might wish to know about
application procedures, environmental criteria and standards
and likely permit conditions. The authorities can, however,
in generalnotbe expected to give detailed permit conditions
at this stage.
To sum up, the aim of the first negotiations is to exchange
information and to find out which permits are needed and
what plans and reports and other information are to be
included in the application documents. Special studies and
research programs to be carried out by the enterprise and-
more rarely - by the authorities, should also be looked into.
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