China - Bengbu Integrated Environment Improvement Project

Page 1 INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS DATASHEET APPRAISAL STAGE I. Basic Information Date prepared/updated: 10/08/2007 Report No.: AC3137 1. Basic Project Data Country: China Project ID: P096925 Project Name: China Bengbu Integrated Environment Improvement Project Task Team Leader: Shenhua Wang Estimated Appraisal Date: September 17, 2007 Estimated Board Date: December 20, 2007 Managing Unit: EASUR Lending Instrument: Sector Investment and Maintenance Loan Sector: General water, sanitation and flood protection sector (80%);Roads and highways (10%);Water supply (5%);Sub-national government administration (5%) Theme: Pollution management and environmental health (P);Water resource management (S);Regional integration (S) IBRD Amount (US$m.): 100.00 IDA Amount (US$m.): 0.00 GEF Amount (US$m.): 0.00 PCF Amount (US$m.): 0.00 Other financing amounts by source: Borrower 128.00 128.00 Environmental Category: A - Full Assessment Simplified Processing Simple [] Repeater [] Is this project processed under OP 8.50 (Emergency Recovery) or OP 8.00 (Rapid Response to Crises and Emergencies) Yes [ ] No [X] 2. Project Objectives The project development objective is to improve the effectiveness of selected urban environmental services delivered by agencies of BM. Key outcome indicators are: (i) reduction of the area of submergence, and losses from floods in Bengbu City; (ii) improvement or maintenance of Huai River water quality without deterioration, in the stretch in Municipality; (iii) reduction of pollution discharges from BM to the Huai River; (iv) relocation of specified polluting industries from the urban core of Bengbu City; (v) increase in the number of new industries setting up in BM; (vi) improvement in the reliability of water supply for Bengbu City; and (vii) improvement of financial viability of wastewater companies. 3. Project Description The proposed project covers activates which aim to: (a) address water environment issues through integrated investments in flood control, water resource management, catchment protection, storm drainage, wastewater collection, joint inter-district infrastructure Page 2 development, and environmental management; (b) introduce professional management services and load-based charges for industrial wastewater management; (c) encourage PPP in infrastructure service provision; (c) enhance cooperation between administrative units (municipality, District and Counties) of Bengbu Municipality in information sharing, inter-municipal cooperation in infrastructure optimization, interfacing water quality databases, flood monitoring and control systems, and water resource management, (d) improve development-related information dissemination to the public; and (e) support regulatory reforms, and create a better investment climate in the Municipality. BIEIP consists of four components and they cover Bengbu City and three satellite Counties of Huaiyuan, Wuhe and Guzhen as follows: Component 1: Water Resources Management: (a) increased reliability and protection of the catchment of one of the Bengbu?s long-term drinking water source ? Tianhe Lake; and (b) protection and ecological restoration of the Longzi Lake in Bengbu City. Component 2: Urban Environmental Infrastructure Improvement: storm drainage networks and flood control including ancillary structures; sewer networks; and roads in Bengbu City and Huaishang District, including Huaishang and Huaiyuan sharing wastewater treatment facilities. Component 3: Sub-urban Environmental Infrastructure Improvement: storm drainage network and flood control including ancillary structures; water supply treatment and distribution network, wastewater treatment and collection networks, including load-based tariffs in the Mohekou Fine Chemical Park (MFCP); and roads in Guzhen, Huaiyuan and Wuhe. Component 4: Institutional Development and Capacity Building: Implementation Support (Package A): (a) project management support to the BPMO; (b) independent design review services; and (c) independent monitoring of safeguards implementation. Capacity Building (Package B): institutional and financial strengthening of utility companies; (b) technical assistance support for preparing the regulatory framework, and procuring a private service provider for the Mohekou Township and MFCP; (c) preparation of a water resources management and catchment protection plan for Tianhe catchment; (d) flood monitoring and control system for project towns; (e) capacity improvement for water quality monitoring management for Bengbu EPB and the three EPBs, including data sharing with the public; (f) investment climate institutional reform; and (g) training. Page 3 4. Project Location and salient physical characteristics relevant to the safeguard analysis The Bengbu Municipality is one of the municipalities in Anhui Province located in the central eastern part of China, occupied by plains (86% of the whole municipality) with relatively centralized hills and many interlaced inland rivers, canals and lakes (water surface accounts for 8%). Bengbu is at the northern edge of North Subtropical Zone and in the humid region of subtropical monsoon climate. The annual average precipitation is 905.4mm, and the dominant wind direction in Bengbu throughout the year is east. In Bengbu Municipality, there lie many rivers and lakes which belong to Huai River system and Huaihongxin River system. Bengbu section is in the lower section of the middle reaches of Huai River, which has resulted in the frequent floods due to large amounts of flood discharge from upstream during the flooding season every year. As known, Huai River is one of the most polluted rivers in China despite considerable efforts by government (including participation of the World Bank on the Huai River Pollution Control Project); it has proven to be one of the most difficult rivers to clean up. According to the historical monitoring results, although the government has made significant investments on the pollution control of Huai River, the water quality of Huai River for Bengbu section does not meet the Class III water quality target in the last seven years. This situation frequently occurs during the dry season from January to March when the flow rate of Huai River is too low to dilute the incoming pollution. Ethnic Minority: Benbu municipality has 36 minority groups (mainly including Hui, Menggu, Man, Yi, Zhuang, Miao, Hani and Korean nationality) based on information obtained from social assessment but their total population is relatively small in comparison with total population of the municipality (minority population is about 1% of total population.). Social assessment confirmed that no minority group will be affected by the project. Therefore, the Bank's Policy on Indigenous Peoples OP 4.10 is not applied. 5. Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialists Ms Chongwu Sun (EASCS) Mr Chaogang Wang (EASCS) 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 Physical Cultural Resources (OP/BP 4.11) X Indigenous Peoples (OP/BP 4.10) 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 Page 4 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 Issues: The proposed project will bring following positive benefits: (1) construction of storm drainage pumping stations will effectively upgrade the flood management standard of defined service area to prevent frequent floods, guarantee the safety of people?s lives and properties, and promote the industrial and agricultural development of the project areas; (2) completion of the urban (south of the Huai River) drainage system under proposed project could increase almost 50,000m3/d wastewater for the No.1 WWTP, which could increase the loading rate of the WWTP from the current 68% up to about 93%, so as to significantly reduce the total pollutant discharge into the Huai River. By calculation, the actual reduction of pollutants due to the increase of collected wastewater is projected as follows: CODcr 3650t/y and NH3-N 730t/y; (3) dredging of the lake, rivers, canals and storm drainage ditches will improve flood management and drainage capacity, surface water quality, ecological environment and local landscape. However, in the construction and operation phases, there would be some adverse impacts. During the construction stage, airborne dust, noise, traffic disruption and disposal of spoiled materials can be generated. In operation stage, because effluents from wastewater treatment plants will still have relatively high concentrations of pollutants (higher than surface water quality standards allowed), effluent flows with higher concentration pollutants can be discharged into single locations, and receiving water could still be impacted adversely. And the operation of wastewater treatment plants may generate odor and noise, impacting the surrounding residential areas. Furthermore, wastewater treatment will also produce sludge, with a risk to release contaminants if the sludge is not appropriately collected and safely disposed. In addition, if dredged sediment is not properly handled and disposed, environmental impacts at the sites may be found. Involuntary Resettlement Efforts have been made to minimize the resettlement impacts during project planning and design. The resettlement impacts have been significantly reduced through optimizing the project design and implementation arrangements. But involuntary resettlement is still unavoidable. Six of 8 subprojects involve land acquisition and resettlement. The resettlement impacts scattered in 35 villages of 8 townships. The project will affect 8598 people in total, in which, (i) 7276 people (1844 households) are affected by permanent acquisition of the collective land; (ii) 267 people (77 households) are affected by demolition of urban residential houses; (iii) 1041 people (260 households) are affected by demolition of rural residential houses; and (iv) 24 people are affected by demolishing 4 small grocery stores. Among the PAPs, 27 persons from 13 households are identified as vulnerable according the criteria as described in the RAP. Individual RAPs for each of these subprojects were prepared in Chinese by the respective design institutes, assisted by the respective PMO, house demolition offices, Page 5 land resources bureaus, affected villages and communities, and potential displaced persons. The RAPs were prepared in compliance with OP 4.12 Involuntary Resettlement and describe in detail the impacts, affected populations, consultation process, rehabilitation measures, budget, and implementation and monitoring arrangements. There are no resettlement impacts identified for the remaining two subprojects (including Longzi lake subproject and Tianhe lake subproject) based on their current design, and a brief note was prepared for them to explain why there are no resettlement impacts. On the basis of individual RAPs, RAP Summery was drawn up in both Chinese and English. In the process of project design, the project owners and design institutes assessed possible linkages by ongoing or previous activities and found the linkage issue exists in Mohekou Industrial Park. To address the linkage issue, a resettlement retroactive review (RRR) and a resettlement policy framework (RPF) were prepared. 2. Describe any potential indirect and/or long term impacts due to anticipated future activities in the project area: For environmental safeguards, as noted in the Section 1 above, there are potential negative impacts in the operation of wastewater treatments if the operation is not appropriately designed and managed, including effluents from WWTP with relatively high concentrations of pollutants, odor and noise, and production of sludge. Furthermore, wastewater treatment will also produce sludge, with a risk to release contaminants if the sludge is not appropriately and safely disposed. In addition, if dredged sediment is not properly handled and disposed, environmental impacts at the sites may be found. 3. Describe any project alternatives (if relevant) considered to help avoid or minimize adverse impacts. Several technical alternatives were considered for each component during the preparation of the feasibility studies, such as methods for dredging, process technology of wastewater treatment, with the objective of minimizing the environmental impacts and the costs. In terms of minimizing the impacts associated with involuntary resettlement, efforts have been made during project planning and design. The resettlement impacts have been significantly reduced through optimizing the project design and implementation arrangements. These are described in details in Section 1.4 of RAP Summary and each subproject RAP. 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. Environmental Issues: In the EMP, during construction stage, contractors have been asked to use spray water at construction sites during dry and windy seasons, develop careful plans to mitigate noisy construction activities, avoid night time construction, maintain equipment in good operating conditions, develop temporary traffic plans to detour traffic around construction sites, and dispose of contaminated soil only at pre- approved sites. During operation stage, the following measures will be taken to mitigate the issues mentioned in Section 1: Page 6 -For WWTP, sanitary buffer zone is set up strictly in accordance with national requirements and regulations, and at the same time, green isolation belt will be set up as well. Strict management will be made on storage, transportation and disposal process for the sludge. In addition, Accidents Emergency Response System will be established to prevent risk accidents. -Monitoring system and program will be set up to monitor the quality of the effluents, sludge generated, noise level, and other parameters mentioned in the EMP, regularly. Involuntary Resettlement: Some implementation agencies have implemented Bank projects and have resettlement specialists in the past. But some IAs, particularly at county level, including Wuhe, Huaiyuan and Guzhen, has no Bank project experience. Training on Bank?s social safeguards policy has been provided and additional training on safeguard issues will be necessary. An independent resettlement monitoring will be contracted under the project, and semi-annual resettlement monitoring reports will be submitted for the Bank supervision teams. 5. Identify the key stakeholders and describe the mechanisms for consultation and disclosure on safeguard policies, with an emphasis on potentially affected people. Environmental Safeguards: Two rounds of public consultation and the information disclosure have been conducted during preparation of the environmental assessment. The first round public consultation was carried out in all the project areas in January 2007 and the second round in July 2007. The primary objective of the first round was to share the project information, learn of their initial concerns, and gather information on public concerns about the project, while that for the second round was to communicate the EIA findings and proposed mitigation measures and confirm public acceptance and satisfaction. Both rounds of public consultation focused on the project-affected people and beneficiaries of different age groups, genders, educational backgrounds and occupations as well as other stakeholders. The consultation exercise covered following forms: bulletins in the press, public opinion questionnaires, public meetings, and so on. In addition, there have been many rounds of consultation with government agencies, local governments, non-government organizations and other stakeholders of the project to discuss Project locations, scope, environmental and socio-economic concerns and environmental management and mitigation plans. Information was disclosed through announcements published in the local newspaper and the Internet about the major information relative to the project: EA reports prepared and display locations, etc., for interested group to access. Social Safeguards: Public consultation and participation was a key element in resettlement planning. The affected residents, business people and district governments participated in the census, inventory and formulation of the livelihood rehabilitation strategy, measures and relocation sites. Their feedback has been reflected in determining the compensation rates and livelihood rehabilitation measures. The RAP contains a list of major consultation sessions. The participation and consultation process will continue Page 7 in resettlement implementation. To facilitate active public participation, following complains handling mechanism has been established: Step 1: Displaced persons can appeal by verbal or paper way to village committee or project demolition implementation institution if they are not satisfied with resettlement plan. For verbal appeal, village committee and demolition institution should record in written form and solve the problems within two weeks; Step 2: If displaced persons are still not satisfied with the decision of Phase 1, they can appeal to municipal PMOs/ administration institutions after receiving decision notice and the latter should resolve it within two weeks; Step 3: If displaced persons are still not satisfied with the decision of municipal PMOs/ administration institutions, they can appeal to subproject leading team or local municipal construction commission after receiving decision notice. The latter should handle the case within two weeks; Step 4: If displaced persons are still not satisfied with the decision of subproject leading team or local municipal construction commission, they can bring a lawsuit to a civil law court in case of objection to any aspect of the resettlement plan after receiving decision notice. B. Disclosure Requirements Date Environmental Assessment/Audit/Management Plan/Other: Was the document disclosed prior to appraisal? Yes Date of receipt by the Bank 08/14/2007 Date of "in-country" disclosure 08/09/2007 Date of submission to InfoShop 08/14/2007 For category A projects, date of distributing the Executive Summary of the EA to the Executive Directors Resettlement Action Plan/Framework/Policy Process: Was the document disclosed prior to appraisal? Yes Date of receipt by the Bank 08/14/2007 Date of "in-country" disclosure 08/09/2007 Date of submission to InfoShop 08/14/2007 * If the project triggers the Pest Management and/or Physical Cultural Resources, 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: Page 8 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 or Sector Manager (SM) review and approve the EA report? Yes Are the cost and the accountabilities for the EMP incorporated in the credit/loan? Yes OP/BP 4.12 - Involuntary Resettlement Has a resettlement plan/abbreviated plan/policy framework/process framework (as appropriate) been prepared? Yes If yes, then did the Regional unit responsible for safeguards or Sector Manager review the plan? Yes The World Bank Policy on Disclosure of Information 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 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 Shenhua Wang 09/04/2007 Environmental Specialist: Ms Chongwu Sun 09/04/2007 Social Development Specialist Mr Chaogang Wang 09/04/2007 Additional Environmental and/or Social Development Specialist(s): Approved by: Regional Safeguards Coordinator: Mr Panneer Selvam Lakshminarayanan 09/27/2007 Comments: Sector Manager: Mr Keshav Varma 09/27/2007 Comments: Page 9