China - GEF Hai Basin Integrated Water and Environment Project : environmental assessment (Vol. 1 of 2)

E824 Volume 1 PIP annex 9 - A of GEF Hai Basin Integrated Water and Environment Management Project The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report on the GEF Hai Basin Project (Final Version) GEF Hai Basin Project Office of SEPA and MWR November 2003 Wr f I  Content I Exec utive Summary ..............................................3 2 Overview .............................................4 2.1 Formulation foundations and assessment criteria of the EIA report ...................................4 2.2 Assessment principles ......................................................................6 2.3 Environmental Protection Objectives ...................................................................... 8 2.4 Assessment scope, assessment contents and work procedure .............................................9 3 Overview of the project ............................................. 10 3.1 The basic situation of the Hai river basin ..................................................................... 10 3.2 Description of the project ................... .................................................. 25 3.3 Estimation of the project's expense ............................................ ......................... 30 4 Project Environmental Impact ............................................. 31 4.1 Environmental Impact Analysis in Project Implement Period .......................................... 31 4.2 Environmental impact analysis in operation period of the project ............... .................... 35 4.3 Effects on the water source with the project implementation ........................................... 37 4.4 Effects on water environment quality with the project implementation ........................... 39 4.5 Effects on ecological environment of Bohai and its neighborhood ............... ................... 41 4.6 Effects to the measures on saving water of industry and agriculture ................................ 45 4.7 The Effect of Project Implementation on Regional Ecology and Civilization Course ..... 47 4.8 The Effect of Project Implementation on Other Environment Project .............................. 48 4.9 Demonstration Effect ..................................................................... 52 5 Citizen participation ..................................................................... 55 5.1 Arouse the enthusiasm of citizen participation ................................................................. 55 5.2 The purpose of citizen participation and organizational principle .................................... 56 5.3 The citizen participation and information open procedure ............................................... 57 5.4 The content's set up of citizen participation ..................................................................... 58 5.5 Job placement of citizen participation ................................................................ ..... 59 6 Conclusions and Suggestions ............................................. 64 6.1 The Conclusions of Effects on Water Resources .............................................................. 64 6.2 The Conclusions of Effects on Water Environment .......................................................... 64 6.3 The Conclusions of Effects on Other Environmental Factors .................. ........................ 65 6.4 Improved Integrated Water and Environmental Management .......................................... 65 6.5 The Existing Adverse Effects and Corresponding Settlement Measures .......................... 66 6.6 Some Suggestions on the Project ..................................................................... 66 2  1 Executive Summary The Hai River basin is the key area and also an important industrial and agricultural base of China. The river basin includes the Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi provinces, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the Beijing and Tianjin cities, has a population of 126 million (according to the statistics of 2000), and accounts for 15% of the GNP of the whole country. The Hai River basin, which has significant historical and geographical backgrounds and is enriched with population and natural resources, is now facing an unprecedentedly severe situation in water resources and water environment. On the other hand, the Hai River basin is one of the largest and most significant river basins flowing into Bohai Sea, which is at the northeast corner of Yellow Sea, is one of the water bodies with significant ecological functions for the world and provides substantial fishery resources to China, Japan and South and North Korea. Under the impact of the shortage and severe pollution of the water resources of the Hai River basin, the natural water ecosystem of Bohai Sea is being damaged, and its neighboring oceanic areas are also polluted to different extents. Therefore, it is of great urgency at present to improve the water resources and environment management of the Hai river basin, including to strengthen the management of the water resources demand, and to enhance the utilization efficiency and productivity of water resources. As an important countermeasure to strengthen the management of the pollution control and water resources of the Hai river basin and to treat the environment of Bohai Sea, the "Hai Basin Integrated Water and Environment Management Project" provides an important connection to China's GEF project on improving the oceanic environment of Bohai Sea at the same time. The overall objective is to catalyze an integrated approach to water resource management and pollution control in the Hai River Basin in order to improve the Bohai Sea environment. Specifically, the Project 3  will (i) improve integrated water and environment planning and management in the Hai Basin, (ii) support institutional aspects related to effective local, municipal/provincial, and basin-wide water and environment planning and management, (iii) enhance capacity building in water and environment knowledge management and implementation, and (iv) reduce wastewater discharges from small cities along the rim of the Bohai Sea. During the implementation of the "Hai river basin project", whether the wastewater pollution and area source pollution of small and medium-scale cities (including the towns with a population of less than 500 thousands) will be treated and the Integrated Water and Environment Management (IWEM) will be promoted is the key for the project's success. This is because, according to estimation, at least half of the water pollution in Hai river basin comes from towns (and their attached industries) and rural areas, and almost no town has any wastewater treatment facilities. Thus this is also a direct objective of the "Hai river basin project". 2 Overview 2.1 Formulation foundations and assessment criteria of the EIA report 2.1.1 Formulation foundations The EIA report of this project is fonnulated mainly according to national and local environmental protection laws, regulations, official documents and reports, international environmental protection rules and the operation manual of the World Bank, which include the following: * Environmental Protection Law of the People s Republic of China (December 26, 1989) * Water and Soil Coniservation Law of the People s Republic of China * Reglulations on the Environmental Impact Assessment of River basins Planning * Regulations on the Environmental Impact Assessment of Irrigation and Hydraulic Power Projects * Environnmental Impact Assessment Law of the People s Republic of China (October 28, 2002) . Rules on the Environmental Protection Managenment of Construction Projects (The Ordinance (98) 253 of the State Council) * Regulationls on the Environinental Protection Design of Construction Projects * Water Law of the People s Republic of China (October 1, 2002) 4  * Water Polluttion Prevenition and Treatment Law of the People s Republic of China (May 11, 1984) * Guidelinies on Environmental Impact Assessment (HJ/T 2.2'-2.3-93) * Non-pollution ecological impact, Guiitlelinies on Enivironmenital Impact Assessment (HJ/T1 9-1997) * Beijitig Municipal Water Resources Protection Plani * Beijing AMfunicipal Plan on the Environmental Funsctionls of Water Areas * Tiaijini Mutnicipal Water resources Protection Plan * Tianjiin Municipal Plan on the Environnmental Functions of Water Areas * The Operation Manual of the World Bank * Memorandum of the Preparation Group for Chinia s GEF Hai Basin Integrate Water Environment Management Project and its Appendixes * PIP Report on the Be[jing City Project of the GEF Hai Hai Basin Integrate Water Environment AMlatnagement Project * PIP Report on the Tiar{/in City Project of the GEF Hai Basinz Integrate Water Environmenit Management Project * PIP Report on the Hebei Province Project of the GEF Hai Basin Integrate Water Environment Maniagement Project. 2.1.2 Assessment Criteria This project is a large-scale ecosystem construction project operated cooperatively by the World Bank and relevant departments of our country, and should observe the following principles: (1) Should comply with relevant laws, regulations, policies and standards of our country, and take into account relevant regulations of provinces and cities concerned in the Hai river basin. (2) Should comply with relevant regulations of both the Chinese and foreign parties, and important data in the assessment should be discussed and confirmed by the Chinese and foreign parties jointly. ( 3 ) Should strive to reflect completely and objectively all benefits this investment will bring about, such as economical benefits, social benefits and environmental benefits. (4) When conducting exist-or-not comparisons or comparing and selecting different 5  schemes, whether as a qualitative or quantitative analysis, should pay attention to the comparability. The written standards adopted include the following: * Agricultural Fields Irrigation Water Quality Standards (GB5084-96) * Surface Water Environmenttal Quality Standlards (GB3 838-2002) * Integrated WastewaterDischargeStanidards (GB8978-1996) * Groundwater Quality Standlards (GB/T14848-93) * National Soil Quality Standards (GB1 583 8-95) * Soil Envirotinmental Quality Standards (GB 1 5618-95) * Irrigation Canal Systems Design Stanidards (SDJ-78) * Beijing Municipal Water Pollutants Discharge Standards (Issued by the Beijing City People's Government of in October 15, 1985) * Water Engineering Designi Manual 2.1.3 Assessment level According to the official document numbered as environmental-supervision [1993] 324 and the principles concerned with environmental classifications in the World Bank's operation manual, and considering with the concrete situations of the project areas, we have decided this project's environmental assessment level as class B. 2.2 Assessment principles Environmental impact assessment is an important component of planning, and it is to emphatically study the situation of environmental quality, determine the capacities of environmental elements and predict the impact of development activities. Therefore, it is a highly scientific, comprehensive, predictive, planned and practical work, and should observe the following principles: * The integrated principle. Environmental impact assessment should be integrated into environmental planning, and the environmental impact assessment work should be conducted simultaneously with environmental planning. . The wholeness principle. The assessment involves coordinating and solving various environmental problems emerging from development and construction activities, and embraces all departments, regions and construction units that produce pollution and ecological damages. So we should assess comprehensively 6  the development behavior of every construction project and the mutual influence between these development projects, and understand and solve the environmental impact problem from an overall perspective. We should not only propose the environmental protection measures for every construction project, but also propose the schemes and countermeasures for centralized control of development. * The comprehensiveness principle. The assessment work should not only consider the social environment, but also take into account the natural environment and the impact on the living quality. Therefore, during the assessment and analysis, we must stress adopting comprehensive measures in order to reach correct assessment conclusions. * The strategy principle. Environmental impact assessment should not only assess the pollution impact on the surrounding environment of development activities, but also, from a strategic level, assess the consistency between development activities and the development plan of the region where they take place, evaluate the rationality of the internal function layout of development activities, and from the consideration of total volume control, propose the principle of division between projects and constrained projects, the total control volume of pollution discharge and the reduction scheme. * The practicality principle. The practicality of environmental impact assessment is reflected concentrately in formulating optimization schemes and pollution prevention and treatment countermeasures, which should be technically practical, economically reasonable, reliable in effect, and can be adopted by construction departments. * Sustainability principle. Development activities are usually a long-termn rolling developing process; therefore, in the environmental impact assessment, we should not only assess the development activities from the perspective of sustainable development, but more importantly, ensure the sustainability of the development activities in respect of environmental management system.  2.3 Environmental Protection Objectives The purpose of the "Hai river basin project" is to actually enhance the integrated management capability for the water resources and water environment of the Hai river basin, actually reduce the pollution of the Bohai bay, actually reverse the trend of water quality deterioration and severe over-excavation of surface and groundwater resources. In addition, this project will facilitate resolving the wastewater pollution and area sources pollution of Small and Medium Sized cities and towns (including towns with a population less than 500 thousands). Although the concrete data are not available, according to estimation, at least half of the wastewater pollution in the Hai river basin comes from small cities and towns (and their attached industries) and rural areas, and almost no town has any wastewater treatment facilities. The participation of GEF will help resolve the shortage of funds and management capabilities of towns. The integrated management of water sources and water environment is also a necessary approach to resolve the complex water problem of Hai river basin. A key management question is how to substitute groundwater with recycled water in an integrated way, so as to reduce the excavation of groundwater and the pollution of Bohai Sea from wastewater inflow. Through constructing demonstration projects in the project areas, studying the demonstration projects, formulating integrated water and environment management plans (IWEMPs), training personnel and other means, including pollution source control plan, wastewater recycling and "real water saving" in irrigation agriculture etc., gradually establish an integrated management system of water resources and water environment adapted to the characteristics of project areas. Through gradually spreading the experience obtained from the project areas into the whole city and the whole Hai river basin, develop, from the base level upwards, an 8  integrated water resources and water environment management system, boost the capability construction of the regional IWEM, accelerate the improvement of the water environmental quality of Bohai Sea, and facilitate the realization of the IWEM, which is the project's overall objective. This is also the ultimate aim of the great effort made jointly by the State Environmental Protection General Bureau and the Water Utilization Department. 2.4 Assessment scope, assessment contents and work procedure The assessment scope is the project's planning and implementation scope, including the project implementation areas located in the Beijing area, the Tianjin area, the Hebei province area and the Zhangweinan area. The assessment mainly refers to the assessment of natural environment and ecological environment, including the impact on the water environment (wastewater treatment and recycling, and the scientific management of surface water and groundwater resources), the impact on water and soil conservation, the impact on forestry and vegetation, and the impact on the ecological environment of wetlands etc. The assessment method adopted is a combination of qualitative method and quantitative method. The scientific quality and practicality of the assessment should be strengthened, processing individually environmental parameters should be developed into the integration and relation of parameters, and considering statically the impacts of development behaviors on environment and ecosystem should be developed into studying dynamically these impacts. The main contents of the assessment is as follows: * Assessment of the current situation of the water resources in the project areas. * Assessment of the current situation of the environmental quality in the project areas. * Assessment of the environmental impact of the implementation of the project's contents. 9  * Conclusions and suggestions. The work procedure of the assessment is as follows: * Determine the project's contents, scale, assessment criteria, standards to be adopted, assessment scope and environmental protection objectives. * Investigate and assess the natural geographical, hydrological and meteorological characteristics and social and economical status of the assessment areas. * Assess the environmental status of the surface water and groundwater. * Assess the environmental problems before the projects' construction and the change of the environment and ecosystem brought about by the project's construction. Through the above assessments, put forward objective, practical and realistic conclusions and operational suggestions on abating or preventing negative environmental impacts. 3 Overview of the project 3.1 The basic situation of the Hai river basin 3.1.1 The general natural geographical situation The Hai river basin is located between longitude 1 120 - 1200 east, and latitude 350 430 north, with Bohai Sea in the east, bounded by the Yellow River in the south, relying on the Shanxi Plateau in the west and overlooked by the Mongolia Plateau in the north. It spans 8 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, including the whole of the Beijing city and Tianjin city, most parts of the Hebei province, the eastern part of the Shanxi province, the northern part of the Henan province and Shandong province, and a small part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Liaoning province, with a total area of 318 thousands square kilometers, among which the area of hills, mountains and plateaus is 189 thousands square kilometers, accounting for 60%; and the area of plains is 129 thousands square kilometers, accounting for 40%. The Hai river basin includes there major water systems, which are the Hai river, the 10  Luanhe river and the TuhaiMajia river, and is characterized by dispersed water systems, complex river systems, numerous tributaries, short transition zones, near sources and rapid flows. The areas of every administrative regions and water resources divisions in the Hai river basin are illustrated in Table 3. 1. Table 3.1 The areas of the administrative divisions and the drainage areas of every river systems in the Hai river basin (unit: km2) North Part of East North Shandon Part of Percentag Divisions Beijing Tianjin Hebei Inner Total Shanxi Henan g Liaoning e Mongolia Province Luanhe River and the coast area of East 45870 6950 1580 54400 17.1% Hebei Province The northern system of 82824 26.1% Hai River 14191 6589 37033 19385 5626 The southern system of the 149587 47.8% Hai River 2176 4945 88194 39998 13395 2945 The Tuhaimajia 365 1742 26633 28740 9.0% River The Hai river 16367 11534 171462 59383 15137 29714 12576 1580 317753 100% basin Percentage in the river 5.2% 3.6% 54.0% 18.7% 4.8% 9.4% 4.0% 0.5% 100% basin  The geographical configurations of the Hai river basin is diversified, with mountainous areas and plateaus in the north and west, expansive plains in the east and southeast. The Yanshan Mountain lies in its north; the Jundu Mountain is situated in its northwest, the Wutai Mountain and Taihang Mountain is in its west, which embrace the plains. The coastline is 922.6 km long. The Hai belongs to the half-humid and half-dry continental monsoon climate region of the temperate zone, with north winds and northwest winds prevailing in winters, southeast winds frequently seen in summers, and dry, windy and sandy springs. The annual average temperature of the river basin is 1.5-14