EcoLur
EcoLur’s proposals on SHPP construction and operation were included in the “Conclusions and Proposals of Stakeholders” document of European Commission TAIEX Workshop on Reconciling Hydropower Production and Flood Protection with Water Management and Nature Protection.
Participants from 21 countries took part in this workshop: Armenia was represented by the representatives of RA Ministry for Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources, Nature Protection Ministry and “EcoLur” Informational NGO. During the workshop complex management of water resources, strategic planning sufficient to meet energy demand increase, neutralization of flood risks and nature protection were discussed.
EcoLur presented proposals aimed at improving SHPP sector, a part of which was developed in the frames of “Support to SHPP-relating reforms through the dialogue of public and RA Nature Protection Ministry for Sustainable Use of River Ecosystems” implemented with UNDP/GEF support from 2014 to 2016.
The proposals are:
-To determine zones where HPPs and SHPPs are prohibited, which include specially protected areas, forest areas, landslide zones and vulnerable hydrological areas.
-To set a clear procedure, which will enable taking into consideration the opinion of the project affected community in the HPP or SHPP construction.
-International financial institutions together with other stakeholders - Nature Protection Ministry, Energy and Natural Resources Ministry shall bear responsibility for the adversary environmental and social consequences arising from the SHPP operation and violations of the domestic and international legislation.
To assign companies operating HPPs or SHPPs:
-To ensure automated management of environmental flow in SHPP head sections and to equip them with online control water measuring systems.
-When drawing up projects on the construction of fish passways already existing or planned to make use of the consultation of a relevantly certified ichthyologist to ensure the migration of the fish species inherent to the river.
-To equip the entrance of the pressure pipelines with fish-protecting structure.
- To equip transformers with oil-collecting system to decrease the risk of environmental pollution with persistent organic pollutants.
- To review the methodology for calculating environmental flow and to introduce determination methods of flow based on ecological approaches for each river basin individually on monthly and not yearly basis, which will enable making additions in the set environmental flow in case of special conditions (for example, fish spawning season, matters with biodiversity preservation)
- To ban the construction of new SHPPs on the rivers overloaded 30% and more with derivation.
The following reforms are proposed to development banks:
-To grant loans for HPPs and SHPP construction in line with European Water Directive requirements and to monitor the performance of these requirements.
You can read the full version of the document here.
November 15, 2016 at 11:49