Monitoring the enforcement of air protective legislation – a brief report
Monitoring the enforcement of air protective legislation – a brief report
The civil movement “Gavigudet” has been avoiding legal battles for a long time because we took into account the importance of jobs for people employed in enterprises, the economic situation in the country and tried not to endanger the functioning of enterprises. That is why our movement was maximally focused on cooperation and tried to demonstrate the need for proper functioning of enterprises, legislative changes, and their timely execution without radical steps. However, the implementation of the air protection laws that came into force on June 1, 2021, is still not effective, in terms of violations in the production zone, in fact, the situation has not changed, so we decided to start preparing for the legal battle.
For this purpose, in the framework of the project “Legislation for Clean Air – Enforcement Monitoring” supported by the “Open Society Georgia Foundation”, we hired a lawyer who joined our team on June 21, 2021 and began to seek information necessary for legal action and to clarify the issue in detail.
As a result, we have requested various information from the relevant public authorities, which we share to you in the present short report, as well as inform you of your plans for the coming months.
As you know, the civil movement “Gavigudet” launched the campaign “Call 153”. The aim of the campaign was to provide citizens with the possibility of providing information/complaints about violations by enterprises on the hotline of the Department of Environmental Supervision. According to the information requested by us on July 21, 2021, the Department of Environmental Supervision informed us by the letter 03/08/2021 that from June 1 to June 30, 2021, 57 reports of violations of ambient air pollution legislation were submitted to the hotline (153), and this happened under the conditions when the organization (Gavigudet) itself has not provided any of the messages. These reports have, in some cases, been met with a response, however, no specific data is provided on the facts of violation of ambient air legislation.
In a letter sent by us on August 2, 2021, we requested information on the measures taken against “Geosteel” LLC (i/c: 216425919), in particular, we were interested in what effective steps were taken towards the company to eliminate problems such as: non-fulfillment of the obligations under the Waste Management Code; inconsistency of the data reflected in the draft norms of maximum allowable emission of harmful substances into the ambient air prepared by “Geosteel” LLC with the actual situation; With this letter we also requested the information on whether professional training was planned for the staff/inspectors of the Department of Environmental Supervision. By letter dated 20/08/2021, the Department of Environmental Supervision informed us that “Geosteel” LLC was fined under certain articles. As for the trainings for the employees of the DES, for the period of sending the letter, in framework of the “Rustavi Ambient Air Improvement Action Plan for 2020-2022” the trainings have already been conducted and we were also informed that periodic trainings are planned.
By letter dated August 4, 2021, we requested information on how many enterprises were fined and what measures are planned against enterprises that have not purchased and installed so-called emission measurement device. According to the information provided on August 8, 2021, from July 1 to August 9, 2021, 11 reports on offences were drawn up and two enterprises (LLC “Heidelberg” and LLC “Russalloys”) were fined with GEL 10,000.
By letters dated 16 August and 31 August 2021, we requested a list and percentage of enterprises that pollute the ambient air in Rustavi. The purpose of requesting this information was to obtain information on which factories have the highest share of emissions and, consequently, air pollution in Rustavi. By the letter dated 06/09/2021 we were provided with the above information according to which 41.6% of air pollution goes to LLC “Sinatle”, which we think, does not correspond to reality, because these data are based on the calculation method, namely the data from report of harmful emissions into the atmosphere 2019 and the results of on-site environmental inspections. However, to our knowledge, such surveys are generally not performed during inspections, therefore, these data are mainly based on the calculation method. In order to identify the main pollutants, we will find information on this issue in more detail.
We have requested information from the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia on the respiratory organs, allergic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, stroke and cancer in the last 5 years according to the regions. This information was provided to us on September 8, 2021, which requires processing and detailed data will definitely be shared with you.
In addition, we filed a statement on September 16, 2021, requesting that enterprises be fined for unorganized emissions based on materials we have filmed, and materials provided by the society. We have provided the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture with 8 facts reflecting the unorganized emission of LLC “Rustavi Steel” – recorded on August 18, 20, 26, 30, 31 and September 12, 13, 2021; Fact of unorganized emission by LLC “Russaloys” on August 20 and 31, 2021; The fact of unorganized emission by LLC “RSM Corp” on September 12, 2021. We are waiting for the appropriate response from the Ministry.
In a statement dated September 16, 2021, we requested information on the continuous monitoring system, as well as when the enterprises purchase the measuring devices, why they are not fined for violations on a daily basis, and why the environmental supervision staff is not acting properly. We would like to inform you that on a daily basis they do not draw up any reports on offences against the enterprises that are obliged to fulfill the obligation to continuously determine the actual number of emissions from stationary sources into the ambient air from June 1, 2021. We will wait for the answer to the above-mentioned statement and based on this answer, we think it will be possible to file a lawsuit to the court and also to file a statement to the Prosecutor’s Office on the fact of the neglect of official duty, as there are daily violations by 24 enterprises located in Rustavi and from July 1 to August 4 only 11 reports on the offences have been drawn up.
“Gavigudet” continues to monitor the implementation of air defense legislation and will definitely share information about this process with the society.
Prepared with the financial support of the Open Society Georgia Foundation. The views, opinions and statements expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs only and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foundation. Therefore, the Open Society Georgia Foundation is not responsible for the content of the information material.