The Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs has issued an environmental authorization on 30 November 2010. An appeal has been submitted and the documentation hereunder is in support of the appeal.
Grounds for the appeal to the MEC dated 10 January 2011. This has been submitted to Dedea and the applicant on 10 January 2011. It is within the prescribed period as provided for in the amended EIA regulations.
Notification of appeal This is the notification of an intention to appeal submitted to DEDEA on 06 December 2010 for which they have acknowledged receipt.
Environmental Authorization: This is the copy of the authorization as issued on 30 November 2010.
Submission to Response Report Addendum 13 October 2010:. This was submitted to the Port Elizabeth office of DEDEA as requested by the EAP. However, the Environmental Authorization (issued in Bhisho) gives no indication that this submission was ever considered.
Submission to EAP dated 04 March 2010. All of these concerns were dismissed and are not even considered by the Department in their environmental authorization.
Here is the extract from the EIA where the specialist study indicates that the existing alignment needs to be considered. Despite this recommendation, which is buried in a report which was never circulated to the public, Dedea has authorized the destruction of a critical biodiversity area so that there will be no inconvenience to people during the construction phase!
Submission in response to the Scoping report where public participation was shown to be insufficient. This submission was made to the EAP in August 2009.
The full EIA can be downloaded here According to the EAP this document was not distributed as it was too big, but, I&APs could purchase it. I have made this available on Google Docs and it can be downloaded (168MB). It contains all the references to key issues which are not noted in the executive summary - like the specialist study which clearly indicates that alternatives to the existing bridge alignment should be pursued.
