Streamlining the EIS: Too good to be true
Published on Sunday, May 24th 1998 on The San Juan StarIn my previous column we were mentioning how the environmental review process was becoming the noose around Puerto Rico’s neck, and how legislation being proposed by Edison Misla Aldarondo..., perhaps..., with luck..., if all goes well..., if we all pray real hard..., and if the silent majority makes a little noise, might take some of the bumps out of the procedural purgatory of, among other things, preparing Environmental Impact Statements (EIS’s) and getting projects moving.
Environmental Impact Statements are becoming monstrous documents which consume so much paper –and kill so many trees– that one of these days preparing an EIS will require an EIS. In that document, you are supposed to fully describe the site upon which you intend to develop your project. Like, you are supposed to tell the Planning Board what the zoning is at the site. As if the Planning Board didn’t know! Nobody has found out yet that it is precisely the Planning Board who zones in Puerto Rico, but you tell them anyway. You are supposed to tell the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) about the air and water quality at your site. Even if it is the EQB who is supposed to monitor air and water quality, you have to tell them anyway.
You must also describe the geology of the site, even if it hasn’t changed since Late Pleistocene –over 100,000 years ago– to the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER). If the DNER doesn’t already know the geology of Puerto Rico, somebody fell asleep at the wheel up there. In an EIS you are also supposed to describe the flora of your site. There are only 3,039 species of plants, shrubs and trees in all of Puerto Rico, and only less than 8% of those are native species. They have all been listed by Alain Liogier and Luis F. Martorell, but you better list them too. The trees of Puerto Rico, included among those 3,039 species, have been listed and described by Dr. Frank Wadsworth and others in at least four books, but you have to copy and regurgitate them even if the DNER knows them already. It’s like an expensive quiz: how much do you know of what we already know?
You must also describe and list the amphibians –coquíes– and reptiles, although they have already been described and listed in the book written by Dr. Juan A. Rivero, copies of which are all over the DNER. The same goes for the birds and Dr. Virgilio Biaggi’s book, but you gotta tell ‘em again. Oh, yes. You have to describe the soils on your site, even if Puerto Rico is the better studied soils jurisdiction on the Planet and soil surveys for the whole island have already been published. Tell ‘em again.
You retain consultants, you spend money, you spend time, you use up a lot of paper which kills a lot of trees. You go to public hearings which become media events. And, of course, you must prepare the EIS in Spanish. If you have anything before the EPA, you have to do it in English. And when they sue you in Federal Court, you have to have an English version also.
You know, Puerto Rico isn’t all that big! If we already know the geology, soils, plants, animals, rainfall patterns, zoning, public forests, mangroves, wetlands, reefs, phosphorescent bays, caves and sinkholes, streams, rivers and cocktail lounges, why don’t we put all of this into ONE environmental data base, write the ONE EIS for all of Puerto Rico, and then just quote or refer to it –incorporate by reference– for the required EIS process for any other project? A dream
No. Miracles do happen. No more reinventing the wheel or the geology or the biota. The data will all be there, available to all. Lo and behold, Rep. Victor García San Inocencio has authored House Bill 1554, a Bill intended to create the National (sic) System of Environmental Information. García San Inocencio’s Bill will inevitably result in Puerto Rico’s first Environmental Master Plan.
If you have an island-wide –"national"– environmental data base, properly layered (I must assume it will be in some Geographic Information System or GIS) and taking into account all legitimate environmental concerns, then you will know where you can build the hotels. The sites being pre-permitted, you do not wait for projects. You invite developers to build, own and operate (BOO), build and operate (BO), or just build –turnkey– hotels! The same for power plants, landfills, treatment plants and aqueducts! Bring on the projects! WOW! Can you imagine pre-permits? Of course! That is what Master Planning is all about.
The Bill not only recognizes that there are too many EIS’s, that they are getting too voluminous, and that the valuable data in one is not being used in the other. It also recognizes what they are really useful for. They are becoming polilla food: they are being recycled by bugs. The Bill recognizes that it is a wasteful process and a horrendous duplication of effort. Thank God.
Politically, the Bill is exquisitely beautiful. Can you imagine Victor García San Inocencio and Edison Misla in caucus concocting an ecumenical Bill that will put to rest the burdensome EIS review process? In the same photograph in the same front page and both smiling? Edison could pose the argument that the environmental data base is already in the NPP platform. García could wield his clout in that most of the environmental constituents live in his political camp. If he and Misla streamline the environmental review process, bring down the costs of EIS’s, and expedite the permit process, who knows? Maybe even the Populares will join the fray. Only environmental consultants will frown a little, until they see the light and the opportunities available to them in setting up the layers of the data base, giving it quality control and update over the years, and tweaking it into different sets of software to program –for example– site selection criteria or reducing the footprint of urban areas without reducing the number of dwelling units. No joke! These things can be done!
If Misla and García can get together on this, Puerto Rico will be setting an environmental review policy precedent that will be a model for the rest of the world and that can be exported to other jurisdictions with the proper intellectual property caveats. This is Nobel Peace Prize winning legislation. It is in compliance with existing environmental policy and will assure further compliance. The expertise gained in the process will put value added upon our consultants. We will be setting up an environmental planning process based upon concerns a priori rather than a posteriori. This is environmental diligence that will unite us rather than divide us.
An environmental due process that will work both for Homo sapiens and Trichechus manatus? Too good to be true!