China - PCB Management and Disposal Demonstration Project

Page 1 INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS DATASHEET APPRAISAL STAGE I. Basic Information Date prepared/updated: 03/30/2005 Report No.: AC1402 1. Project Statistics Country: China Project ID: P082993 Project Name: PCB Management and Disposal Demonstration Project Task Team Leader: Helen Chan GEF Focal Area: Persistent Organic Pollutants Global Supplemental ID: Estimated Appraisal Date: February 17, 2005 Estimated Board Date: June 28, 2005 Managing Unit: EASEN Lending Instrument: Specific Investment Loan Sector: Other industry (100%) Theme: Pollution management and environmental health (P) IBRD Amount (US$m.): 0.00 IDA Amount (US$m.): 0.00 GEF Amount (US$m.): 18.34 PCF Amount (US$m.): 0.00 Other financing amounts by source: BORROWER/RECIPIENT 11.73 BILATERAL AGENCIES (UNIDENTIFIED) 2.02 13.75 Environmental Category: A - Full Assessment Simplified Processing Simple [X] Repeater [] Is this project processed under OP 8.50 (Emergency Recovery) Yes [ ] No [X] 2. Project Objectives The development objective of the project is to identify and demonstrate environmentally- sound and cost-effective policies, procedures and techniques for safely managing and disposing of China?s unique temporarily stored PCBs and associated PCB-contaminated wastes (e.g., PCB-contaminated soils and water). The project will also serve as a demonstration of how this objective can most cost-effectively be achieved throughout China and in other countries that face the same challenge. The criteria for selecting Zhejiang as the demonstration province include its comparatively: (1) longer history of PCB transport, storage, disposal, remediation at different levels of government -- provincial, county, and district; (2) higher level of PCB risks posed to both human health and the environment; (3) better and existing PCB management system at different levels of government for the project to be built on; (4) deeper economic development at different levels; and (5) stronger local government support. The Project will implement various cleanup measures in Zhejiang Province to mitigate the impact of PCB threats to human health and the environment, including the global environment. In parallel, the project will strengthen Zhejiang Province?s PCB Page 2 institutional and regulatory system, management practices, and public awareness to prevent a recurrence of PCB pollution in the future. PCB cleanup activities are not expected to adversely affect human health and the environment in the province. The principal outcomes of the project will be that Zhejiang Province has successfully and cost-effectively disposed of its PCBs and PCB wastes in PCB storage sites, and that China has established a cost effective PCB cleanup framework, which can also be applied to the rest of the world. Project activities include: a. Establishment of an institutional and legal framework for PCB management and disposal in the Zhejiang Province, b. Cleanup/removal of PCBs from about 56 PCB storage sites in Zhejiang, c. Disposal of an estimated amount of 2,000 tons of PCB oil, PCB equipment, and high-PCB contaminated soils (PCB>=500ppm) in Shenyang. d. Cleanup of an estimated amount of 20,000 tons of PCB-contaminated soils (PCB <500ppm) in Zhejiang, e. If the PCB-contaminated transformers are identified under the Sino-Italian Project, then 10 in-use large transformers in Zhejiang will be decontaminated; and f. A draft national replication program of PCB management and disposal will be developed to the rest of China. The project will contribute to both national and global objectives. On the national level, it will support implementation of the China?s recently prepared National Hazardous Waste and Medical Waste Management Plan, and will contribute to China?s ongoing efforts to reduce the risks to human health and the environment from industrial pollution. On the global level, the project will help China meet its obligations under the Stockholm Convention and contribute to global efforts to control toxic chemicals in general and to eliminate PCBs in particular. It will also indirectly contribute to the objectives of two other international environmental agreements ? the Basel Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedures for Certain Hazardous Chemicals. 3. Project Description The project has six components: (a) institutional strengthening; (b) development of a policy framework for PCB management and disposal; (c) PCB management in the Zhejiang Province; (d) disposal of highly-contaminated PCB wastes in the Liaoning Province; (e) project monitoring and evaluation; and (f) design of a national replication program. The major project activities will include characterization of PCB sites, remediation of PCB sites, and decontamination of low concentration PCB soil, storage of PCB wastes, transportation of PCB wastes, and disposal of PCB wastes. Decontamination technologies for transformers will be evaluated and applied in some PCB transformers installed prior to 1980. a. Characterization of PCB sites will be conducted to identify the exact location of the buried PCB coffins using Georadar, then to determine the extent of soil contamination, if any, through soil sampling and analysis. The main pollutant of concern Page 3 is PCBs. Soil characterization will be conducted through specific procedures to be specified under this project. Through the characterization effort, the contours and quantities of contaminated soil ?distinguished as low (below 500 ppm) and high (over 500 ppm) PCB concentration soils? if any, will be determined. b. Remediation at buried PCB sites will be conducted according to the remediation plan to be prepared for each contaminated site and by people fully trained in remediation and industrial hygiene techniques. The plan involves site preparation (including construction of access roads, if necessary; assuring site security; equipment mobilization; prevention of soil collapse; water pumping; construction structures for site entry/exit); excavation of soil; removal of PCB capacitors, concrete coffins, and contaminated soil; containerization of PCB wastes that will be shipped; evaluation and restoration of the remediated site. Containerization will involve filling of contaminated PCB wastes in non- chlorinated plastic bags, placing these bags in drums, closing and sealing the lids of the drums, and cleaning the surfaces and labeling of the drums. c. Decontamination of low concentration PCB soil (less than 500 ppm) will be conducted by thermal desorption. Large lumps in the contaminated soil and clayey soils will be ground to a top size of 5 mm before the feed is introduced in a horizontal rotary thermal dryer. Feed will be dried, if necessary. To avoid formation of dioxins/furans, an indirectly-fired thermal desorber will be used (such as heat through metal walls or with a medium such as heated gas), where the heat will be conducted to the PCB-contaminated soil to evaporate the PCBs along with water vapor. The gases will be either condensed (with the condensed PCBs adsorbed onto an activated carbon) or combusted in an afterburner (with the combusted gases rapidly cooled, and cleaned from chlorinated gases through scrubbing followed by activated carbon adsorption and baghouse filtration. The scrubber water will be cleaned through neutralization/metals precipitation and recycled). To ensure that dioxins/furans are not emitted to the environment, dioxin/furan sampling in these discharge streams will be conducted. The spent carbon ?as a highly-contaminated PCB waste? will be containerized and sent to the Shenyang incineration facility after storage at the temporary storage facility. d. Highly contaminated soil will be stored at a storage facility in Zhejiang before being shipped to the Shenyang incineration facility. In addition, some low-concentration PCB wastes will be temporarily stored before thermal desorption.The design and operation of the temporary storage facility will be according to the requirements of Chinese regulation GB 18597-2001 for hazardous wastes and international standards. e. Highly contaminated PCB wastes will be incinerated at the Shenyang Hazardous Waste Incineration Center. The design and operation of the PCB incineration facility will be according to the Chinese regulation GB18484-2001 (Pollution Control Standard for Hazardous Waste Incineration) and GB13015-1991 (PCB Wastes Control Standard). Under the project, additional equipment will be procured and installed to ensure that environmental discharges from this incineration facility meet the Stockholm Convention requirements. The PCB incineration facility will include the following operations: PCB storage, shredding, and rotary kiln incineration with an afterburner; heat recovery; flue gas cleanup (using quenching, alkali absorption, carbon adsorption, and baghouse filtration); and environmental discharge of clean flue gases through a stack. The PCB incineration facility will also have a wastewater treatment plant that will recycle all treated wastewaters and the treatment sludge to the incineration facility (so, there will be Page 4 no wastewater discharge to the environment). The Shenyang Hazardous Waste Incineration Center will also house a medical incineration facility with its dedicated gas cleanup and wastewater treatment systems. In addition, a plasma destruction facility is planned at another building of the Center in the future. The EA for the Shenyang Hazardous Waste Incineration Center covers all operations at the Center. f. Public consultation for contaminated sites (in each city/town/village where PCB wastes have been identified) will be conducted after site characterization and prior to site remediation. 4. Project Location and salient physical characteristics relevant to the safeguard analysis Geographical areas involved in this project are the Zhejiang province and Xinming county near Shenyang city. a. Zhejiang Province is located in eastern coast of China with a population of 46 million and covers an area of 100,180 km2. There are 11 cities (90 counties and districts) under the provincial administration. In May 2004, Zhejiang was selected as a demonstration province for PCBs inventory survey and management. Currently, there are 43 storage sites identified from the survey, and it is expected that about 18 more sites would be potentially found as the inventory survey goes on. These sites are scattered throughout the province. Buried PCB sites have been found in such locations as wastelands, backyards of previous power stations (now under the roads and buildings). There are also some PCB wastes placed in caves at mountainous areas. Because of personnel changes resulting from power sector reform and poor recordkeeping practices, the specific numbers of capacitors at most storage sites are unknown. The exact locations for some sites are not certain, and have to be identified/detected during the following clean-up. b. The Shenyang PCB Waste Disposal Facility is located in Xinmin County, which is about 70 km west of Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning Province, northeast of China. The plant site, which was established in 2002, occupies an area of 3 ha within a 52,000 ha state-owned forest farm. The area has relatively flat landscape and is part of alluvial sandy plain. There are no environmentally or culturally sensitive sites around the project area. The nearest residential village is 2 km away, and the nearest surface water is Liuhe River, which is about 3 km away to the east (which is a seasonal tributary of Liaohe River). The ground water is about 3.4-4.7 m. deep. Shenyang Municipality has conducted a review of the land acquisition process and submitted to the Bank. Selection of this site followed a consultative process with various stakeholders, including local governments, related institutions and local communities. The facility information was shared with local communities.Public acceptance of the site was assessed through a survey and a final agreement was signed. The site required about three hectares of forest land. The acquisition process and all payment were completed in early 2002. 5. Environment & Social Specialist's Team Mr Bekir A. Onursal (EASEN) Mr Chaohua Zhang (EASSD) Mr Peishen Wang (EASEN) Page 5 6. Safeguard Policies Triggered Yes No Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01) X Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) X Forests (OP/BP 4.36) X Pest Management (OP 4.09) X Cultural Property (OPN 11.03) X Indigenous Peoples (OD 4.20) X Involuntary Resettlement (OP/BP 4.12) X Safety of Dams (OP/BP 4.37) X Projects on International Waterways (OP/BP 7.50) X Projects in Disputed Areas (OP/BP 7.60) X II. Key Safeguard Policy Issues and Their Management A. Summary of Key Safeguard Issues 1. Describe any safeguard issues and impacts associated with the proposed project. Identify and describe any potential large scale, significant and/or irreversible impacts: Environmental impacts associated with the project may result from possible PCB discharges (e.g. spills) resulting in contamination at storage/burial sites and during PCB waste excavation, clean-up, containerization, treatment by thermal desorption, temporary storage, transportation, and destruction by incineration. No large-scale, significant and/or irreversible impacts are anticipated as mitigation measures will be taken to prevent, control and countermeasure environmental discharges of PCBs/dioxins/furans. The main social safeguards issues associated with the project include possible acquisition of land and structures for the treatment of the PCB burial sites. 2. Describe any potential indirect and/or long term impacts due to anticipated future activities in the project area: This environment project aims at safe destruction of PCB wastes found in the Zhejiang Province. Therefore, the project is environmentally beneficial. However, because of the nature of hazardous wastes involved in this project, any adverse short-term impact through an inadvertent discharge of PCBs or dioxins/furans to the environment coupled with potential mismanagement of such discharges would likely have long-term adverse environmental impacts. For this reason, the project will incorporate the necessary preventive measures to control discharges (e.g. spills) of PCBs or dioxins/furans to the environment through appropriate design, construction, and operating practices. In addition, necessary measures will be taken under this project for containment and countermeasure of these environmental discharges. 3. Describe any project alternatives (if relevant) considered to help avoid or minimize adverse impacts. Alternatives were evaluated for selecting: (i) the location of the temporary storage facility, (ii) the technology of soil decontamination in Zhejiang, (iii) the location of the PCBs incineration facility in Shenyang, and (iv) the technology used for PCB Page 6 incineration. Final selection was chosen considering environmental, social, technical and financial factors. a. Two sites at Qiaosi and Chongxian were considered for temporary storage of PCB wastes in the Zhejiang Provinces. The Chongxian site was selected due to its remote location from residential areas and surface waters, proper geological conditions, and proximity to transportation routes. b. The alternative technologies considered for treatment of low concentration PCB contaminated soil in Zhejiang included: land filling, incineration, plasma, in situ vitrification, base-catalyzed dechlorination, solvated electron technology, gasification, thermal desorption and biological remediation. The thermal desorption technology was selected given the large amount of PCBs contaminated soil, technology effectiveness, and low costs. c. For the Shenyang incineration facility, three locations were compared. The current location was decided based on its distance from local villages (more than 2 km), no requirements for resettlement, no requirements for farmland acquisition, convenient access by road transportation, and availability of power and water resources. d. Rotary kiln incineration was selected for PCBs disposal in Shenyang through comparison of various options, including plasma and non-incineration technologies. The selection was made based on the following factors: treatment efficiency to meet the national and international discharge requirements (after flue gas cleanup), the extent of waste reduction, and maturity of technology worldwide and successful experience with this technology in China since 1995 (in pilot operations). e. If PCB transformers are identified during testing, then a study will be conducted to compare the transformer decontamination technologies (metallic sodium technology and continuous dehalogenation process (CDP) such as KPEG). Based on the selected technology, a small EA will be prepared prior to the decontamination of selected transformers. This EA will be cleared by the Chinese authorities and the Bank. 4. Describe measures taken by the borrower to address safeguard policy issues. Provide an assessment of borrower capacity to plan and implement the measures described. Zhejiang Provincial Environmental Science Institute, which was retained by SEPA, prepared the EA for the proposed PCB management activities in Zhejiang. The EA report for the PCB disposal facility in Shenyang was prepared by China Coal Mining Industry Corp. International Engineering Group (Shenyang Design & Research Institute) and Shenyang Academy of Environmental Science in 2002 and approved by Provincial EPB. Given the additional funding for equipment in Shenyang, the EA was revised/updated to meet the Bank?s requirement. The EA Report (covering the activities in the Zhejiang Province) describes the currently identified 43 PCBs sites in Zhejiang (from the Sino- Italian Inventory Project) in terms of baseline information, and assesses potential impact/risks on environment and human health. The project will develop a set of remediation procedures covering the whole cleanup process based on previous experience in the Zhejiang Province on PCBs site cleanup and relevant national regulation/standards and international practice. These mitigation procedures, which will be implemented/improved as demonstration for nationwide replication, include procedures for inventory survey, PCBs site identification, Page 7 data collection and characterization, preparation prior to excavation (design, training, etc), protection of site security, site cleanup, PCB waste packaging, on-site soil decontamination, transportation, temporary storage, record keeping, interagency coordination, public consultation and information disclosure. For the currently identified 43 PCBs storage sites, prioritization was conducted based on limited data gathered from site visits with consideration of both environmental and social concerns (e.g. way of sealing, distance to local community, possibility of surface/groundwater contamination, pollution status if known, land development status etc) using weighting factors. Based on the results of prioritization, the top 10 sites is planned to be cleaned-up starting from the second year of the project, with the first year focusing on infrastructure construction necessary for the following cleanup (i.e. PCBs waste storage and disposal facility). The detailed site characterization will be conducted during the implementation stage following the procedures developed in the EA. The EA Report addresses the potential environmental impacts and risks associated with the design/construction and operation of the temporary storage facility, and proposes mitigation measures. The location of storage has been carefully selected through evaluation of alternatives, and the design and operation of the storage facility will strictly follow the relevant national standards for hazardous waste storage. Prior to construction of this storage facility, an EA will be prepared for approval by Chinese authorities and clearance by the Bank. Thermal desorption is a mature technology commercially used in developed countries for decontaminating soil from hazardous wastes, including PCBs. The thermal desorption facility to be constructed under this project will include the appropriate design and operating conditions to ensure compliance with standards. The thermal desorption facility will be equipped with the treatment systems for the treatment of the flue gas and wastewaters resulting from condensed gases. In the first year of project implementation, a feasibility study will be carried out to determine which technology is best utilized in Zhejiang. The study will include evaluation on a fixed or mobile thermal desorption facility or other technology that are available for soil decontamination. Prior to construction of the thermal desorption facility, an EA will be prepared for approval by Chinese authorities and clearance by the Bank. For the PCBs disposal in Shenyang, the EA report addresses the potential environmental impact of the overall Shenyang Hazardous Waste Disposal Center, including PCBs waste incinerator, medical waste incinerator and plasma incinerator. Air dispersion modeling was used to assess the potential impact from PCBs, HCl, SO2 and dust. The EA concluded that with the proper technology selected for emission control and mitigation measures, the environmental impacts of gas emission, water discharge, noise and solid waste will be controlled to bring the discharge and ambient pollutant concentrations under compliance with relevant national regulations and standards. The long-distance transportation of PCB wastes from Zhejiang to Shenyang would impose a potential risk to the environment. A set of management procedures and emergency response procedures have been developed in the EA to avoid/minimize the Page 8 risk (e.g. training of drivers, use of signs on trucks, manifest system, and emergency equipment and procedures). The project will be implemented directly by POPs Convention Implementation Office of SEPA with support from its expert group, local PIU in Zhejiang and Shenyang Hazardous Waste Incineration Center. As a national environmental administration agency, SEPA has the strong capacity and authority to fully implement the project. This will be further strengthened by extensive institutional capacity building and training activities planned as part of the project. a. Zhejiang Resettlement Policy Framework. The general locations of the PCB burial sites have been identified and the exact locations will only be known after further field work. Impacts related to the site treatment will only be known when the treatment design is completed. Therefore Zhejiang Province has developed a Resettlement Policy Framework to deal with the possible land acquisition and resettlement issue. b. Liaoning Resettlement Action Report. The Shenyang PCB Waste Disposal Facility involved in this project is built at a developed site on a state forest farm. This site was selected and established in 2002. Its selection followed a consultative process with various stakeholders, including local governments, related institutions and local communities. The facility information was shared with local communities. Public acceptance of the site was assessed through a survey and a final agreement was signed. The site required about three hectares of forest land. The acquisition process and all payment were completed in early 2002.The PCB incineration would not require any relocation or additional land acquisition. 5. Identify the key stakeholders and describe the mechanisms for consultation and disclosure on safeguard policies, with an emphasis on potentially affected people. Public consultation was conducted in Shenyang and Zhejiang respectively, with project affected people specifically in Shenyang and general public in Zhejiang. Given the fact that site characterization and clean-up will be conducted during the implementation, it is agreed that detailed public consultation with specific project-affected people will be conducted prior to site cleanup, following the consultation/disclosure procedures developed in the EA/EMP. In compliance with Bank?s Policy on Information Disclosure, the Shenyang EA document has been disclosed to the public in Xinmin City Library, relevant village committees for Shenyang component on December 30, 2004, and the Zhejiang EA has been disclosed to the public on the Zhejiang EPB?s external website on February 8, 2005. The Shenyang and Zhejiang EAs were disclosed in the InfoShop on January 14, 2005. The resettlement planning in Zhejiang for this project would involve local governments, the affected villages, institutions and the affected households in the inventory of impacts and development of the compensatory packages. B. Disclosure Requirements Date Page 9 Environmental Assessment/Audit/Management Plan/Other: Date of receipt by the Bank 10/10/2004 Date of "in-country" disclosure 02/08/2005 Date of submission to InfoShop 01/14/2005 For category A projects, date of distributing the Executive Summary of the EA to the Executive Directors 04/15/2005 Resettlement Action Plan/Framework/Policy Process: Date of receipt by the Bank 10/10/2004 Date of "in-country" disclosure 10/10/2004 Date of submission to InfoShop 01/14/2005 * If the project triggers the Pest Management, Cultural Property and/or the Safety of Dams policies, the respective issues are to be addressed and disclosed as part of the Environmental Assessment/Audit/or EMP. If in-country disclosure of any of the above documents is not expected, please explain why: C. Compliance Monitoring Indicators at the Corporate Level (to be filled in when the ISDS is finalized by the project decision meeting) OP/BP/GP 4.01 - Environment Assessment Does the project require a stand-alone EA (including EMP) report? Yes If yes, then did the Regional Environment Unit review and approve the EA report? Yes Are the cost and the accountabilities for the EMP incorporated in the credit/loan? No OPN 11.03 - Cultural Property Does the EA include adequate measures related to cultural property? Yes Does the credit/loan incorporate mechanisms to mitigate the potential adverse impacts on cultural property? Yes OP/BP 4.12 - Involuntary Resettlement Has a resettlement plan, abbreviated plan, or process framework (as appropriate) been prepared? Yes If yes, then did the Regional Social Development Unit review and approve the plan / policy framework / policy process? Yes BP 17.50 - Public Disclosure Have relevant safeguard policies documents been sent to the World Bank's Infoshop? Yes Have relevant documents been disclosed in-country in a public place in a form and language that are understandable and accessible to project-affected groups and local NGOs? Yes All Safeguard Policies Have satisfactory calendar, budget and clear institutional responsibilities been prepared for the implementation of measures related to safeguard policies? Yes Page 10 Have costs related to safeguard policy measures been included in the project cost? Yes Does the Monitoring and Evaluation system of the project include the monitoring of safeguard impacts and measures related to safeguard policies? Yes Have satisfactory implementation arrangements been agreed with the borrower and the same been adequately reflected in the project legal documents? Yes D. Approvals Signed and submitted by: Name Date Task Team Leader: Ms Helen Chan 03/29/2005 Environmental Specialist: Mr Bekir A. Onursal 03/29/2005 Social Development Specialist Mr Chaohua Zhang 03/29/2005 Additional Environmental and/or Social Development Specialist(s): Mr Peishen Wang 03/29/2005 Approved by: Regional Safeguards Coordinator: Mr Glenn S. Morgan 03/29/2005 Comments: Sector Manager: Comments: