Uganda's government this week published an enormous environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) report on the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) that will export oil from the Lake Albert basin to Tanga on Tanzania's coast.

Uganda’s National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) has given affected parties until 30 August to submit comments - three weeks earlier than originally planned - on the line's Uganda section.

Compiled for French supermajor Total, Eacop's lead proponent, the 3599-page document (which includes the Tanzania section) is dated December 2018, so appears to have taken little or no account of recommendations made recently by an independent Dutch organisation on the 296-kilometre, 24-inch pipeline section that will run through Uganda.

At the behest of NEMA, the Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) was asked to review the ESIA, with its findings presented at a retreat held in early July in Fort Portal, Uganda, which was attended by NEMA officials plus representatives of lead agencies and Uganda districts.

NCEA broadly viewed the report as positive but stressed it “does not… provide enough information for sound decision-making” and "does not explain what the key concerns are".

NCEA's opinion is that "the Eacop project, if executed in the way it is described in the ESIA report, would most likely not lead to major or unacceptable impacts" while the proposed pipeline technology and methodology and the general environmental and social approach and standards "do not immediately lead to red flags".

It added that the report contains "a wealth of good-quality and detailed information".

However, NCEA said it "has the impression that the ESIA in general, and the non-technical summary (NTS) in particular, are biased in stressing the positive impacts and downplaying the negative ones.

"Economic benefits are highlighted and spelled out while potential negative effects are concluded to (be) insignificant without (any) proper, concrete, transparent assessment or justification."

Continuing, NCEA said the ESIA "is difficult to read, focuses insufficiently on key issues and fails to facilitate decision making", adding that the assessment processes "are not very transparent and many questions remain".

NCEA highlighted a litany of shortcomings linked to water use, wetlands, ecosystem threats, land ownership, emissions and what it called “exaggerated” claims about jobs and economic benefits.

It recommended extra information is needed about the "five key weaknesses" it identified, and called for the NTS and executive summary to be re-written.

"The summaries should provide a good and easily understandable overview of the most important impacts of the Eacop project and corresponding mitigation and/or compensation measures," said the Dutch organisation.

These two summaries were also said to "raise high expectations with respect to jobs and other economic benefits".

NCEA said: "The overall benefit of the project as presented for the Uganda economy seems a bit one-sided (while) the promise of local content is far-fetched and will only raise people’s expectations (so) future disappointments will be created."

The proposed open trench technique to be used for water and wetland crossings was called into question because of the potential for "significant" negative impacts, particularly in wetlands.

"This seems to be ignored and the report does not make clear ...why the proposed technology is acceptable," said NCEA, adding that clarity is lacking on other water-related issues such as "potential conflicts between water needed for the project and water supplies for people and animals".

Also lacking is adequate information on how the pipeline would affect wildlife migration routes, while its routing through the Taala Forest Reserve was not justified and the effects of an oil spill on this area were not explained.

NCEA said "the situation with land ownership seems tricky... proposed mitigation measures are too vague (and) it is not sufficiently substantiated why impacts will be negligible". It believes this lack of clarity on land issues could be addressed in the "still to be developed" Resettlement Action Plan.

The report's section on energy and CO2 impacts is said to be "insufficient" because "most emission sources are left out, the calculations are not transparent and the outcome seems unrealistically low".

In addition, total CO2 emissions of all oil projects in Uganda have not been presented.

Furthermore, said NCEA, a decommissioning plan should be included in the ESIA report, "clearly stipulating who will do what and when" while further details should be included on emergency response plans.

Once public comments have been submitted on the ESIA in Uganda, NEMA and the project proponents are expected to initiate public hearings in September and October, with the aim of securing environmental approval by mid-December.

Ugandan civil society group Acode called on the government to provide detailed and simplified information to host communities before the public hearings take place in order to achieve effective participation of the communities.

"Our experience in the past has shown that participants at the public hearings usually have very little understanding of what the process is about and are unable to raise issues that relate to the impacts of the projects on the environment and livelihoods of the project-affected persons," Acode said.

The group also said a mechanism should be created via which stakeholders get information on how issues raised before and during the public hearings have been addressed. "A feedback mechanism to stakeholders is one of the tenets of accountability."

The status of the ESIA approval process in Tanzania is unclear but will likely work to a similar schedule.

The heated pipeline will run for 1445 kilometres from Kabaale in Uganda to the Chongoleani peninsula near Tanga port in Tanzania.

Total had not responded to queries on the ESIA report at press time.

Weekly

Concerns raised over ESIA report for Eacop project