Comments of Gavigudet Civil Movement on January-June 2021 Progress Report on Action Plan (2020-2022) for Improving Ambient Air Quality in Rustavi

The Gavigudet (We are Suffocating) civil movement continues to monitor the implementation of the Action Plan (2020-2022) for Improving the Ambient Air Quality in Rustavi within the framework of the “Defending Our Right to Clean Air in Rustavi” project supported by the European Endowment for Democracy.

We have already talked about what the Action Plan implies and what was implemented in the first reporting period – from October 22 to December 31, 2020 (see the link).

In this brief report, we will review and evaluate the implementation of the action plan for the second reporting period – January-June 2021.

On August 2, we shared our comments and opinions with members of the working group, including representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture. We received a response to some of our comments on August 27 and we were offered to discuss some of the issues within the framework of the working group meeting.

Unfortunately, no meeting of the working group has been held yet and will probably not be held until the end of the second round of elections. Accordingly, we decided to share an overview of the progress report with you based on the information available to us, and if we hear additional interesting details during the working group meeting, we will share them with you as a separate document. In addition, it would be better to set a specific timeframe for the working group meeting before a report is published, in order to make communication much more effective and to avoid delays.

In the document that we shared with the Ministry/working group, our first and most important comment concerned the issue of enforcement of air protection legislation (we remind you that legislative changes are one of the integral parts of the action plan). Every day, in the industrial zone, we still see that entrepreneurs commit the biggest violations and we do not only mean the non-fulfillment of the obligation of continuous instrumental self-monitoring of emissions of harmful substances. Even before June 1, 2021, enterprises had been obliged to have an appropriate dust collector and filtration system. However, to this day we have been seeing black, rusty and dubious colored emissions coming out of the pipes of enterprises. We have informed the Ministry that the response of the Department of Environmental Supervision in this regard was that smoke of this color did not automatically mean a violation, that they could not fine enterprises every time and that appropriate inspection was needed. It is understandable that it is necessary to measure whether specific enterprises exceed the permissible level of emissions and to draw up the relevant protocol only after that, but what shouldwe do when we see unorganized emissions and exhaust coming out of buildings? We had a question of why enterprises are not fined each time at least when there is a visible violation that does not need further investigation.

We also asked the Ministry to provide us with a contact email of a specific person, to whom we could send photos and videos with specific dates, in order to assist the Department of Environmental Supervision in obtaining photos and videos showing violations and to facilitate the enforcement of legislation (we often post these photos and videos on our Facebook page and tag the Facebook page of the Department of Environmental Supervision in order to keep them informed).

We read in the progress report that “The failure to comply with the obligation of continuous instrumental self-monitoring of emissions of harmful substances by industrial facilities located in Rustavi is noteworthy and it is advisable to use various facilitative and coercive mechanisms to eliminate it“. We had a question in this regard too, namely what coercive mechanisms (if any) were meant apart from fines relating to the enforcement of legislation.

In connection with Task 1.5 (Increasing environmental awareness activities in Rustavi and the number of participants involved in such activities), we had a proposal to plan certain awareness raising activities jointly so that we did not cover the same segment and thus used resources as efficiently as possible. For example, we read in the report that an information awareness raising meeting is scheduled with representatives of Rustavi media and non-governmental organizations. We think that the local media have a lot of information about the issue of air pollution, they are deeply aware of this issue, understand the problem well and have made a great contribution to media advocacy. Consequently, they do not really need awareness raising and consequently this resource would be better to spend in another direction. Similarly, representatives of active non-governmental organizations in Rustavi, in our opinion, also have adequate information about the issue of air pollution and thus it would be good to direct this resource directly at problem solution.

For the purpose of increasing public involvement in the environmental decision-making process, we asked the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture to introduce a hybrid model of public hearings. We mean the opportunity for citizens to attend public hearings both face to face and online. This is especially important during the pandemic, as even our team could not attend the discussion of the scoping report of one of the enterprises, as such meetings in closed space are dangerous. In addition, a large proportion of Rustavi residents work in Tbilisi, and as discussions take place during working hours, many of them are unable to be physically present in Rustavi, however, they express a desire to attend meetings online. Consequently, offering such an alternative, we think, would further increase the involvement of the population. In this regard, on October 18, 2021, we wrote an official letter to the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture, as well as the Rustavi City Hall and asked them to provide technical support to the Ministry, if necessary, so that they could hold a meeting both face to face and online.

In addition, we wrote to the Ministry that the review/hearing of both annual and progress reports should be held not only for the working group members, but also for the public, and the meeting should be online due to the pandemic, or there may be a face-to-face meeting between working group members that will be broadcast live to ensure maximum transparency. The Ministry said that they would discuss this issue at the next meeting of the working group.

The consolidated status report reads: “In the third quarter of this year, it is planned to organize a meeting with representatives of local companies, during which relevant information will be collected, and information about the green measures taken by the companies will be available in the 2021 Action Plan.” We asked the Ministry to give us the opportunity to attend the mentioned meeting. An additional meeting on this issue may be scheduled, however, the Ministry has already invited us to a meeting held with representatives of enterprises on September 14, 2021, where the staff of the Ministry talked about the purpose of the action plan and the commitments of enterprises under the plan. We voiced the challenges relating to the enforcement of legislation and the dissatisfaction of population.

We also wrote to the Ministry that despite the rehabilitation of the roads listed in Activity 1.3.4, the poor road infrastructure in the industrial zone remained a problem and was a significant source of additional dust. We think that this problem needs to be solved in a timely manner, and when talking about the environmental measures taken by the enterprises, it would be wise to first solve the problems that are created by themselves. For example, they should get involved in the process of improving roads together with the municipality.

We read in the progress report that due to the pandemic, plant seedlings have not been handed over to schools. We had a proposal to the Ministry regarding this issue: We can, in the fall of 2021, get involved in the planting process of one school and one college and arrange an irrigation system for about 200-250 seedlings in each of the selected educational institutions (up to 500 seedlings in total).

We think that instead of just transferring seedlings to schools, it would be better to introduce sustainable urban approaches, as seedlings have been handed over to many schools over the years, however these trees died due to the lack of proper care. The irrigation system will greatly increase the chances of these trees surviving.

We wrote to the Ministry that, in our opinion, it would be very good if we continued the tradition of cooperation in this direction and if the National Wildlife Agency of the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture would again transferseedlings to us, we were ready to arrange an irrigation system. We know that the local municipality is ready to provide some technical assistance in the planting process. As far as we are aware, it would be good to plant linden, cedar, celtisand maples. We think we can reduce delays in the mentioned process in this way. In the comments we sent, we asked the Ministry to notify us of its decision regarding this opportunity for cooperation no later than September 10, in order to mobilize resources accordingly. After we learned that no working group meeting had been scheduled for the near future to discuss this issue, we sent an official letter to the Ministry regarding this issue on October 5. It is true that we have not yet received an official response regarding the transfer of seedlings, but as far as we are aware, the Ministry is ready to get involved in the planting campaign.

Task 1.3.1. indicates that the process of restoration of the meadow forest has started, which is really important for Rustavi. The document also reads that negotiations are underway with donors for the purchase of an automatic air quality monitoring station. We asked the Ministry to intensify its efforts in this direction, so that to comply with bureaucratic deadlines and be able to place the station in Rustavi by the end of 2022.

In addition, for more transparency of the working group, it would be good to have more time to review this document, in order to be able to share the given document with the public, to hear their opinions and to make reasoned notes in the comments we send. At the same time, just a few days for the review of the document is not enough, as it is not possible in such a short time to involve experts in the review and we also have to send comments in an expedited time. The Ministry additionally reflected the difficulties caused by the short deadlines in the report (in the section of challenges and recommendations). Hopefully, this problem will be solved by the next reporting period. In addition, incomplete and delayed provision of requested information by the implementing agencies was named as the reason for the delay in the development of a progress report. We wrote to the Ministry that in an agency that is most late in providing relevant information, it was necessary to designate a responsible person/contact person, who would be actively involved in the development of the Action Plan until the end of 2022 and would be responsible for timely delivery of information. According to the information received from the Ministry, contact persons have been desiganted.

We also recommended to specify the amount of fines (if any) in the document “Inspection Carried out by the Department of Environmental Supervision/Rustavi, I-II Quarter, 2021”.

In response to our request, the Ministry sent us the draft law of Georgia on Industrial Emissions, the initiation of which, according to the action plan, is scheduled for the end of 2021, at the autumn session of the Parliament of Georgia. We are sharing the legislative package in order to allow you to read this document in time, share remarks and views with the Ministry and ensure that the process of review and adoption of legislation is not delayed like it happened in relation toprevious legislative changes.

We also recommended to list specific entities operating in Rustavi in the consolidated status report, so that readers,without asking additional questions or requesting public information, could access information about entities mentioned in Activity 1.1.4, who made the screening decision, as well as companies mentioned in Activity 1.1.7, which have agreed on or are currently in the process of agreeing on a waste management plan. The Ministry took this note into account.

We told the Ministry that it would be good to share the results of indicator measurements with citizens through the action plan progress report. The Ministry told us that “The results of indicator measurements were available on the ambient air portal – air.gov.ge (we indicated this in the progress report as well). The results of indicator measurements will be partlyreflected in the action plan annual report, which will review progress in relation to the outcome indicator of Task 1.2.”

We also had a question of whether the mass of solid particles decreased during the reporting period. The reply of the Ministry was the following: “The mass of solid particles emitted from the industrial facilities in Rustavi is measured on the basis of a report on annual emissions of harmful substances into the air from stationary sources, which will be submitted to the Ministry by the entities by February 14 of the following year. Therefore, this information will be available only in the annual context.”

For more detailed information, follow the link to see the full progress report published by the Ministry.

The Gavigudet movement continues to monitor the implementation of the Action Plan and will periodically update the public on new developments in this process.