D.O.E. Request Fortis Resubmit E.I.A. Report for Solar Plant Project

Fortis Belize is taking steps to bolster the solar plant industry in the country by constructing a thirty mega-watt facility at the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. The company submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment to the Department of the Environment for approval to proceed with the project. We spoke with Chief Environmental Officer, Anthony Mai for an update on that report. Here’s that update.

 

Anthony Mai, Chief Environmental Officer, D.O.E.

“So we just wrote to them yesterday with the recommendation from the NEAC and the decision that the D.O.E. has made. As you know, the NEAC is an advisory body. And so the NEAC advises and then the D.O.E. either could accept the recommendation from NEAC or they could not. If we choose to not accept it, we have that authority. But so we deliberated on it and I can speak on it now because we have a problem of what the position is. Basically, NEAC recommended to the D.O.E. that the EIA was incomplete. And so a critical component of the EIA that was not included was the outstanding universal values that the project would have on World Heritage Site. It’s a requirement for all EIA now in an amendment that was done in 2020.  And so that information, we believe, or the NEAC felt, was a critical component.  And so the dean recommended that the EIA report is incomplete.  Fortis has been informed of that. And so the dean recommended that the EIA report is incomplete.  Fortis has been informed of that. To improve the EIA report with that information and we gave them some guidance on some other issues that we found within the report. And then they have to resubmit an EIA report. We did advise them that they will need to conduct a second public consultation because that is a critical component of the EIA report. And then after that the NIAC would have to sit again and deliberate on the project.”