CVL300

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & IMPACT

ASSESSMENT
Lecture 17:
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ASSESSMENT
 EA
• Accepted project approval tool.
• A small project no significant
environment impact.
• Numerous small project significant
impacts.
• Problem of EA is cumulative or additive
environmental effects in space and time..
 Cumulative Effects
• Project in different locations but in the
same environmental space will interact
and generate impacts on the same
system.
• Many effects of the same project will
accumulate over time.
 Assessment of 12 Canadian EAs
• not all other projects or sources of impacts
were identified;
• cumulative boundaries in space and time
were not clearly identified;
• potential cumulative impact problems were
not characterized;
• systematic analysis of each cumulative
impact problem was not identified.
 Assessment of 12 Canadian EAs
• CEAA considerations be included “up-front”
in TOR;
• much broader assessment of the entire
ecosystem be included in context scoping;
• more follow up studies or monitoring;
• project be linked to regional Canadian
Environmental Assessment
A cottage shoreline development project
• New marina and housing complex.
• Change vegetation cover, difficult to
identify significant fish population
reduction.
• Development will increase sediment and
nutrient loads, resulting in DO reduction
and pressure on fish due to polluted
runoff.
• Increase population, use of road and
shoreline intrusion
 Highway 404 to Lake Simcoe
• EA was confined to predict direct footprint
impacts.
• Did not estimate:
- land use change due to urban development;
- contaminant generation effects with urban
development;
- cumulative losses of wetlands with
development;
- development stimulated by highway; no long-
term effects of highway.
- fails to protect wetlands and value
environmental components
 Best EA
• Identify project environment effect relevant to the EA;
• Identify other projects with effects from this project
contributes to incrementally;
• Identify geographic scope of project’s cumulative effects;
• Identify temporal scope of project’s cumulative effects;
• Analyze scale of cumulative effects to determine need
for mitigating measures;
• List mitigation measures to offset cumulative effects;
• Determine significance of cumulative environment
effects (after taking into account mitigating measures);
• Define post-construction monitoring program to assess
accuracy of CEA.
 Kinds of Cumulative Impacts
• Additive : arithmetic sum of the same
types of impacts.
• Synergistic : more than the sum of all
individual impacts.
Cumulative Impact Assessment
• CEA requires cumulative assessment.
• Ontario EAA does not require cumulative
assessment.
• Ontario EAA defines environment as
means “any part or combination of the
foregoing and the interrelationships
between any two or more of them.”
 Current EA in Ontario
• existing condition does not include all
projects occurring in the ecosystem;
• boundaries are tightly defined around
single project
• prediction of the effects is usually static
and does not recognize existence of other
project or processes;
• evaluation does not consider the
ecological bioregion when all impact
generating proposals are taken together.
 Federal LLFT EA
• Quebec Hydro and its dam operations
effect on Caribou migration;
• Mining and extraction industries;
• Human disturbances from industry/work
crews and competition;
• wilderness tourism;
• proposed highways north from Quebec
north shore;
• growth of non-native economy.
Should EA be responsible for analyzing
cumulative impacts?
• EA ignores additive effects.
• EA is reductionist.
• “No” because EA was reactive and not a
“stop” process where the desired
environmental quality would be achieved.
• need policy guidance to establish
cumulative effect levels and goals.
EA
Focus on site and project with
specific review
Require impacts predicted for a
single project (reactive)
Large projects in same region
requiring integrated EA which is
infrequent (while Class EAs are
very frequent).
Not armed to do so in the Act
Policy Planning
Cumulative impacts require a
broader regional plan.
Cumulative impact management
requires goal setting and ideal
future environmental quality
state.
Cumulative effects are from small
project not likely to be stopped by
EA.
Can take into consideration
existing and proposed
development in setting
environmental quality goals.
 Oak Ridges Morraine Area Planning Study
• A long-term cooperative strategy for protection
and management of Oak Ridges Morraine.
• It identified valued ecosystem components.
• Cumulative effects of urban expansions and
services, industrial development and aggregate
extraction were evaluated.
• Vigorous environmental assessment methods
were conducted.
• Multiple developments were examined within a
common area of influence and management
goals were developed by examining cumulative
effects.
 Types of monitoring
• compliance monitoring to ensure
regulations and standards are met by the
proponent;
• effects-effectiveness monitoring to ensure
actual environmental effects of an
undertaking and the effectiveness of
measures are valid.