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The EMA retained the DGE
team after Alcoa applied for a
Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) to build an aluminum smelter and
associated facilities. The proposed smelter would be located on the Cedros
Peninsula in southwestern Trinidad and would have an annual capacity of 341,000
metric tons. In July 2006, the EMA
accepted Alcoa’s CEC application and determined that an Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) is required. The CEC
Rules require EIAs to be conducted in compliance with a Terms of Reference
(TOR) document prepared by the EMA.
Headed by the Trinidad-based
firm DaCosta Gwendoline, Ltd., the Team was retained in early September 2006
to assist the EMA in the design of the social impact assessment, public
involvement and socioeconomic baseline elements of the TOR. Central to our
approach was a situation assessment, built upon over 20 interviews with a broad
cross section of key stakeholders including senior officials of Alcoa, senior
government officials, journalists, academicians, local residents in the
affected communities, and representatives of the agriculture and fishing groups.
The Team used the assessment to identify and clarify the diversity and
complexity of stakeholder interests, the range of issues to be engaged, and
areas of convergence and divergence among key stakeholders.
The assessment recommended
that the TOR call for the EIA process to incorporate steps that address the
complexity and high degree of public controversy and elevate the exchange of
information. Our team drew on the
situation assessment to propose specific language to be included in the final
TOR. The EMA consulted with the
Applicant, Alcoa and received comments from a broad cross-section of
stakeholders and considered our team’s advice for the final TOR issued on
October 4, 2006. The EMA has
adopted the Team’s recommendations and will proceed with the environmental
review. Specifically, the TOR calls for the use of independent scientific
review and neutral facilitation of public workshops in which Alcoa
representatives will engage key issues about the smelter with local residents
and other interested parities.
Often, public agencies such as the EMA and private parties face a potential dispute and need to size up the situation. A situation assessment can be defined as "an objective evalution of the situation conducted by neutral experts based on confidential interviews with stakeholders to provide strategic information and define feasible options for moving the given process forward." In natural resource management projects, situation assessments can also serve to inform the structure and content of draft resource management plans. We find that such an assessment step lays the foundation for better-informed and better-focused collaborative discussion whether among technical experts or stakeholders.
In this case, the assessment
was focused on:
- identifying and
interviewing a representative sample of the most key stakeholders to
interview in a very limited timeframe before the issuance of a final TOR,
- identifying issues
and concerns to be addressed in the social impact assessment and civic
engagement processes for the Alcoa CEC application and specifically the
EIA;
- providing greater
stakeholder input on the design of the TOR and accompanying public
consultation process, in order to generate constructive participation; and
- beginning to re-build
trust among the EMA’s staff and other stakeholders.
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