1. 1 Practice of EIA Inquiry Committee in Japanese Local Governments Shigeo NISHIKIZAWA and Yasuhiro FUJII The University of Shiga Prefecture IAIA 27 th Annual Conference 6 June 2007 Seoul, KOREA

2. 2 Viewpoint and Objective Transparency Third Party Check System EIC=EIA Inquiry Committee : Local Governments To examine the validity of EIA Procedures of inquiry are left to … Ordinances or discretion  To clarify the practical conditions of EIC

3. 3 Methodology Ordinances or Guidelines of EIA Panel Survey ( Nov.-Dec., 2006 ) 56 Local Governments ： collecting rate=100% 44 Prefectures + 12 Ordinance-designated cities EIA officer answer on the basis of… projects within 5 years

4. 4 Questionnaire Contents of the Inquiry by EIC EIA guideline?, Scoping document?, DEIS? …etc Member of EIC The number of committee members?, Officer’s opinion of committee member? Procedures of inquiry Period for inquiry?, Committees conduct project-site survey? Disclosure of EIC Meeting?, Minute?, Announcement on the internet?

5. 5 Contents of inquiry regulated by ordinance ～ 56 Local Governments ～ Contents of Inquiry (95%) (73%) (91%) (84%) Number of Local Gov. Yamanashi Pref., Toyama Pref., Fukuoka Pref. and Yokohama city

6. 6 Practical condition of Inquiry Guideline of EIA Tech. Scoping Document DEIS FEIS Follow up Document Number of Local Gov. Fukuoka Pref. All committees haven’t examined except for Okinawa Pref. ～ no provision, discretion ～ Contents of Inquiry Only Shizuoka, Okinawa and Kagawa Pref. have examined All committees have examined for all project

7. 7 23 56 29 35 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 EIA System Ecology Climate Change Sustainability Science Public Advertisement Realities Ideal (Officer’s opinion) Committee Member’s Major field Number of Local Gov. Reality and Ideal of Committee Member 37 56 41 42 1 0 EIA system experts are not enough Kawasaki City: necessity to be appointed by PA

8. 8 Procedure: Period for inquiry Completion of Scoping ～ Submission of DEIS Month 3 days Local Governments :Longest period project :Shortest period project Proponents have conducted the greater part of the survey at the scoping process Spend more than 1 year in order to consider impact caused by the changes of seasons

9. 9 Project ‐ site survey conducted by the committee Project Phase Scoping （ n=56) DEIS （ n=53) Project Implementation （ n=51) Project Completion （ n=50) Conduct Do not Conduct fifty-fifty Number of Local governments Saitama Pref. Yamanashi Pref. have conducted at the all stages. Most of committees have conducted at either stage

10. 10 Disclosure of EIC conferenc e open 50 closed 6 Minutes open full text specify the name announce on the web13 37 52 not announce on the web13 withhold the name 11 summary 15 closed 4 Inquiry Report open announce on the web 12 49 not announce on the web37 closed 0 Member List open announce on the web 43 56 not announce on the web13 closed 0 Scoping Document, DEIS etc announce on the web 14 56 not announce on the web 42 Committee of Saitama Pref. is so excellent in information disclosure that satisfies all conditions.

11. 11 Conclusions １） It is cleared that most committees examine scoping documents and DEISs. To the contrary, few committees examine FEIS and follow up documents. ２） All of the committees appoint ecology-experts. However, EIA system-experts are appointed at a few committees because of short supply. ３） Most of survey for EIA have been completed for less than one year. It implies that the greater part of survey have been conducted at the scoping process. 4 ） Saitama prefecture’s committee has been taking appropriate measures for disclosure. In future, it should be improved the announcement on the internet in many local governments.