A few weeks ago the NGO Environment People Law (EPL) appealed with an open statement that governments of Ukraine and the US had been withholding information regarding shale gas development plans in Ukraine and possible damage to environment that would result from such an undeliberate exploitation of resources without a previous ecological expertise. Professor John Bonine, president of EPL, directed Ukrainians’ attention to the fact that “an environmental assessment of development plans had been conducted for more than a year. The US Agency for International Development paid consultants to study potential environmental problems with shale gas fracking in the Carpathian and Dnipro-Donets basins. An Executive Summary was released in May, but the details have remained under wraps since then.”
“Is there something in it that they don’t want the public to know about?” Mr. Bonine wonders, since in the US it is illegal to keep environmental assessments secret. It is unclear why there should be different standards for such procedures in Ukraine, especially for the US expertise.
“The lack of transparency regarding shale gas fracking will have huge impacts on both the Carpathian region and the Dnipro-Donets basin, and we have no laws to prevent those impacts,” said EPL executive director Olena Kravchenko in the open statement.
The environmentalists’ questions still remain unanswered. Which toxic chemicals will be used in the process? How can they be guaranteed not to pollute agricultural lands and damage health of Ukrainian citizens? How much water will be taken from rivers or underground springs? What will the international companies do with polluted water? How badly will the clean air of the Carpathian region be degraded by volatile organic compounds and other air pollutants? How much worse will the already polluted areas in eastern Ukraine become? How many heavy trucks will pass through towns and villages each hour, transporting fracking materials? How much pollution will the trucks cause? Will national parks, nature reserve areas, and wildlife all be at risk of harm?
Unfortunately, shale gas development has led to deplorable consequences before. According to Mr. Bonine, “if waste water is re-injected underground, it might cause earthquakes, just the way it has happened in the United Kingdom and the United States. And these earthquakes might lead to contamination of drinking water aquifers.”
According to head of Pechenihy Environmental Group Serhii SHAPARENKO, “wells for unconventional gas occurrence must be located outside the territories of existing and potential natural areas, elements of the ecosystem, rare species habitats, steppe areas, and at least three kilometers away from the nature conservation territories. Since the available data for a lot of these territories are not sufficient to clearly define their boundaries, specialists and community should be involved for the evaluation of influence on the preservation of biological diversity in these areas.”
Ecologists and lawyers have not yet received answers to their questions from Ukrainian government. This situation is complicated by the fact that shale gas is one of Ukraine’s opportunities to become less energy dependent on Russia.
The Day asked EPL executive director Olena KRAVCHENKO about environmentalists’ and lawyers’ opinion on the quality of Ukrainian environmental legislation.
What is the reason for Ukraine’s troubles with environmental legislation? It seems, Ukraine strives to follow European standards of environmental legislation. The signing of the Aarhus Convention and the Carpathian Convention, and our delegation’s participation in the Rio Conference should be good examples of that. But Ukraine’s legal safety in environmental issues still remains unsatisfactory.
“Unfortunately, many think that the conference in Rio failed to meet the expectations, and the final document of the meeting turned out to be not as progressive as it was desired. In Ukraine we face the problems discussed in Rio de Janeiro practically every day. At the present time we have to fight for the implementation of the legal initiatives adopted in Rio and Aarhus.
“There are a lot of examples of the Aarhus Convention and the ESPO Convention violation in our country, especially when it comes to public decisions. But it is impossible to move forward in a modern society without communities’ participation and understanding of the basic principles of sustainable development on the government level. Economy ecologization, as well as ecologization in other spheres, is an important compound of any sustainable development concept. It is no wonder that in many European countries these principles enjoy priority in governmental policy.
“One of the tasks of our organization is to examine the matters of compliance with the main principles of the Aarhus Convention. Since 2004 these principles were not adhered to in a proper way. The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee made similar statements multiple times – in 2005, 2008, and 2011 in particular. The ESPO Convention Compliance Committee acknowledged that Ukraine did not meet its engagements, has an internal system of environmental impact assessment (EIA), and does not comply with the regulations on EIA development. One of the main legal problems in Ukraine is non-compliance with the Convention on Access to Environmental Information and Public Participation in Decision-Making. The reason of that is the existing Law of Ukraine ‘On Access to Public Information.’
“At that moment Ukraine had the following EIA system: the investor would develop a package of EIA documents for the construction project and submitted it to a relevant environmental protection authority for approval (the procedure was called ‘ecological expertise’). The project could not be implemented without approval. Ordinary citizens could join the development of documents, based on this assessment, and the results of such cooperation were to be reflected in the decision of the relevant authority.
“The problems aggravated after the passing of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Regulating Urban Development’ in February 2011. This legislation effectively canceled ecological expertise, in particular, environmental impact assessment as its component. In 2011, the Committee on the ESPO Convention implementation confirmed its ruling on Ukraine’s non-compliance with its obligations under the ESPO Convention, and expressed its concern regarding our development and construction legislation.”
Could you give examples of implementation of projects harmful for environment, when lives and health of hundreds of people were put at risk, and yet no assessment of the negative impact on environment was made?
“We are coming back to the Law ‘On Regulation of Urban Construction.’ Only now large infrastructural projects, potentially jeopardizing more than 10,000 lives, are subjected to independent ecological expertise by a public or private company. However, other projects (such as, for example, afforestation or development of water or mineral resources) are not subjected to EIA. Thus, assessment of environmental impact is necessary, but it is defined through potential damage to people, whereas the damage to environment is neglected. Since June 2011, public environmental authorities have been excluded from licensing new construction projects.
“Now we are faced with a situation when environmental-related decisions are ignored. For instance, the decision to continue the exploitation of Block 1 and Block 2 of the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant was passed without consulting the community. The same is true for the decisions concerning the construction of hundreds of mini-hydroelectric power stations in western Ukraine. Again, the decisions to survey shale gas deposits in western and eastern Ukraine were also taken without consulting the public.
“The EU Strategy for the Danube Region was approved in late 2008. Alongside with the Strategy was also passed a plan of its implementation for the EU states. Since we are not a member of the EU, we were to have developed our own implementation plan for the Danube Strategy, but this never happened. The public, our organization in particular, have analyzed the implementation plan. There are several key areas: the development of transport, overcoming economic problems (anti-flood measures), and nature reserve areas protection.
“We were working with this Strategy in 2010-11, sending all our results to central administration authorities – in particular, to the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction, which coordinated the whole project. Sadly, last year the prime minister announced that out of the four key areas of the Danube Strategy Ukraine is only interested in the development of transport and infrastructure. But leaving out environmental problems and assessment of the damage from transport development strategy, it is impossible to discuss the implementation of the entire document, since this third key area, environmental protection, permeates the others.
“As far as other projects are concerned, I must admit the lamentable fact that whatever public hearings are held, they often are conducted with gross violations to the procedure. Consequently, the local communities are excluded from participation in them. By the way, some amendments to the legislation in this sphere aim at expulsion of local communities and local governments from decision-making processes.”
Which legislative plans do you believe necessary for successful promotion of environmental and legal initiatives?
“We have a lack of detailed, consistent administrative procedures, which would guarantee free access to public information and compliance with the Aarhus Convention, and bridge the gap between law and practice; we need resources to bring Ukraine to conformity with Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, ensure the participation of the public in decision-making, according to the Aarhus Convention, and involve the relevant legal framework for Ukrainian citizens to be able to participate in the assessment of environmental impact.
“Coming back to shale gas mining in Ukraine: in November, 2011, amendments were made to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Agreements on Product Distribution,’ by which local governments were eliminated from the process of approving areas earmarked for shale gas mining.
“It turns out that neither local communities nor local governments have a say in such a controversial matter as shale gas mining. It is especially shocking in the light of the US government’s recent report, linking local earthquakes with improper geological surveillance in the areas where hydraulic fracturing had been applied to mine shale gas.”
