10 February 2012: The Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD) issued two technical guides to aid the Central American Integration System (SICA) countries in taking a common approach to environmental impact assessment (EIA) review of energy and mining projects.

The guides were prepared by regional experts with help from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the context of the environmental cooperation program created by a side agreement to the Free Trade Agreement between the US and Central America and the Dominican Republic (“DR-CAFTA”). Although DR-CAFTA does not include the SICA countries of Belize and Panama, those countries are expected to use the CCAD EIA guides as well.

The first guide covers EIA of energy generation and transmission projects, including those involving fossil fuel power plants, hydroelectric dams, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal, as well as transmission lines. This guide comes in two volumes and an annex, the first volume covering EIA of such projects generally, the second providing examples of EIA terms of reference (ToR), and the annex covers information on the types of technologies that might be assessed and their probable environmental impacts.

The second guide covers EIA of metallic and non-metallic mining projects. It also comes in two volumes. The first volume has two parts: general guidelines, and example ToRs. The second volume is an annex walking through the various phases of the life cycles of both subterranean and open-pit mining projects for evaluators to consider. [CCAD Press Release (Spanish)] [Publication: Environmental Impact Assessment Technical Review Guide: Energy Generation and Transmission (Spanish)] [Publication: Environmental Impact Assessment Technical Review Guide: Metallic and Non-Metallic Mining (Spanish)]