February 27 on the basis of the FEZ "Brest" took place the round table "Forms and methods of public participation in environmental decision-making". The organizer of the meeting was organized by the public Association "eco house" moderator — Andrei Yahorau, member of the Board of the Ecological Association "Green network".
Representatives of local authorities, project organization, OOO "NPF "Ecology", the Belarusian social democratic party (Hramada) and OOO "IPower" during the meeting discussed the forms and ways of public participation in environmental decision-making, considered the issues of existing legislation on EIA and public environmental expertise, and also reviewed the implementation process on the example accumulator plant LLC "IPower".
Sergey Magonov, representative of the NGO "ekodom" noted that the activity of citizens in the discussion of the report on EIA is quite low in the whole country. In his opinion, should more effectively use all means of informing the public about its discussions and participating in them to ensure the consideration of public opinion when making decisions, and the public to actively participate in the discussions. As a positive experience Sergey Magonov gave an example of informing the public of LLC "IPower" about carrying out of public ecological examination in December 2019 and January 2020.
Dialogue LLC "IPower" with the public participants of the meeting were announced the following proposals:
• arrange post-project control and monitoring of the environmental situation with mandatory public participation;
• to recommend to conduct an independent environmental audit by a recognized international leader in this area by ERM (https://www. erm. com/);
• publish non-technical summary available to the public about the hardware devices on OOO "IPower"; planned emissions;
• to compare the design decisions and changes in emissions for the project submitted to state environmental review, before adjustments and after.
Andrei Yahorau, member of the Board of the Ecological Association "Green network" noted that the practice of holding roundtables to engage the public in discussions of environmentally significant decisions is positive and should continue. At the same time, he stressed that the opinion of active opponents of a battery factory is very important in shaping the dialogue. They did not take part in the round table. In his opinion, the active participation of opponents in the discussion will help to develop specific ways to exit from a conflict situation.
On March 12, 2020 4th round table on
"Monitoring the impact of the enterprise on the environment.
Forms and methods of public participation in monitoring"
We will remind that earlier the public Association "Ecodom" letters were sent to the address of the Brest city Executive Committee and LLC "IPower" recommendations on increase of efficiency of interaction with the public. Among the measures to promote dialogue was also requested to organize the collection of issues and opinions relevant to the proposed activity OOO "IPower" and conduct comprehensive consultation with the public.
On 7 February on the basis of the administration of FEZ "Brest" was held a coordinating round table organization of further dialogue with the public. In an organizational meeting attended by the parties, providing interaction with the public throughout the period of construction of a battery factory: representatives of state and public groups of environmental control of the administration of FEZ "Brest", Brest city, district and regional Executive committees, OOO "IPower", as well as a representative of the NGO "Ecodom".
Meeting participants identified a mechanism for collecting questions from the public about the planned economic activity of LLC "IPower" discussed the themes of the round tables and, in accordance with it, the profile experts, as well as ways of involving the wider public in discussion and informing about the results of the discussion.
20 February 2020 in the state institution "Administration of FEZ "Brest" was held a round table on the theme "analysis of the impact of battery production on the environment and man". Experts from Russia and Belarus discussed the evaluation report of the impact of a battery factory on the environment and humans. The results of the research project of the battery plant LLC "IPower" (with emissions of lead to 29 kg/year), has a five-fold margin of safety for public health.