Amendments to the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Bill

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Meeting report

040825scland

LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE
25 August 2004
AMENDMENTS TO THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT: AIR QUALITY BILL

This is an edited version of a report produced by kind courtesy of Contact Trust: www.contacttrust.org.za

Chairperson:
Rev P Moatshe (ANC)

Documents handed out:
National Environmental Management: Air Quality Bill [B62C-03] Amendments agreed by Portfolio Committee
National Environmental Management: Air Quality Bill [B62D-03] Portfolio Committee Amendments Incorporated into Bill
Proposed Amendments

SUMMARY
The Department briefed the Committee on the proposed amendments to the Bill and presented amendments agreed to. They were followed by an NGO, groundWork, who registered their concerns about Bill Clauses 27-28 on hazardous waste management, and called for further discussion on reducing waste production.
As the Department had mentioned that the larger metropoles might pool air monitoring capacity, Members sough to ascertain what costs would be borne by provinces. The latter would want details in MP reportbacks. The Department assured that they were in the process of securing adequate national funding.

MINUTES
Ms Joanne Yawitch, Department Deputy Director-General (DD-G), gave a brief background on the processes that Bill had gone through before being brought back to the Select Committee.

Representing groundWork, Bobby Peek focused on several issues such as government's failure to respond to civil society requests, the use and prohibition of controlled fuels and health issues. Peek said while they believed that Clauses 27-28 might be applied to manage the burning of substances, including hazardous waste, this debate was being removed from the real concern of appropriate industrial waste management and the reduction of waste production. These clauses allowed for the debate on waste to be fudged, and fuels to be confused with the debate on waste management. Please see attached for more on groundWork's presentation.

Discussion
The DD-G said the Department understood groundWork's concerns and agreed that this amendment, which the Department believed strengthened the Bill, was brought in during the Portfolio Committee deliberations at a late stage. Management of hazardous waste and control of dirty fields were not necessarily the same under all circumstances.

The Department was working on the Waste Bill and intended to have consultation processes before bringing the Bill to Parliament in the early part of 2005. Meanwhile, there was no means of dealing with the issue of controlling particular substances in terms of emissions. The current Bill was an opportunity to regulate and to prohibit the use of certain substances that caused severe problems.

Ms Yawitch said that Clause 27 that prohibited the burning of certain substances was really critical. Tyres as fuel and industrial processes had been dealt with, but there was nothing in the regulatory framework that prevented people from burning tyres in general. This needed to happen in the Air Quality legislation and there was no point in holding this back. They hoped for support from the Committee on this issue.

Mr R Tau (ANC) proposed that the Committee not engage with the details. Members had to brief the provinces on the amendments. It was imperative they got the mandate from provinces.

Mr C Van Rooyen (ANC) commented that the Department appeared to lack the capacity to monitor compliance and prosecute. He asked if this would be the responsibility of the provinces and about the financial implications.

The DD-G said the introduction of environmental management inspectors in all provinces would be the primary tool to enforce laws. Air quality management was currently being done by a component of national government, comprised of 12 people. Most provinces and municipalities were focusing on this and there were plans to build capacity. Thus air quality was largely 'unpoliced' in South Africa and this was unacceptable. Large metropoles such as Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town had substantial capacity that is not being unified. Pooling capacity would improve the situation.

The Chairperson said Members should try to move away from the amendments because the provinces had raised questions about them.

Van Rooyen said it was important to understand if monitoring would be done by and at the cost of provinces. The provinces would question Members on this.

The DDG said ultimately they intended to have a single Air Quality monitoring system. This would take time and require substantial capital. They had made requests for more funding from Treasury to complement existing systems. Eskom ran a monitoring system and in future the Department would seek access to their information concerning monitoring. Licensing requirements also stated that industry should have their own systems. All this would ensure that they did not put a strain on provincial funds.

On the issue of burnt tyres, the Chairperson said there was a process to ensure that all the tyres lying around the country would be recycled. This process would ensure that there was 'money tied to every tyre'. He thanked all the stakeholders for the good job they had been doing in keeping the Committee informed.

The meeting was adjourned.

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