To Build or Not to Build New Cities

What is wrong with building new cities? After all, they provide escape and exclusivity to the elite. The toxic blight, dust, and degradation that is smeared on our dingy towns and villages is left far behind. Just eleven miles from Pakistan you can drive into one such surreal and soulless new city called Islamabad. But Islamabad is already wearing a haggard look. The sewage system is not functioning. The sewage treatment plants are non-operational. There is shortage of water and the public toilets are not fit for use. The highly disciplined E-9 sector pushes its affluent into the F-9 park, to provide that very special Air Force aroma to the evening walkers. The Capital hospitals callously throw their hazardous waste just across the road. After all it may only mean more patients and more profits. The environmental quality standards, few as they are, are kept in abeyance and used for decoration purposes only. One may need a license to drive a tonga, but not one to build a hospital. Not many people know that there is no law that stops you from doing cardiac transplants in your very own kitchen.

We have no desire to improve quality of life in our cities. That requires a lot of care, compassion, commitment and hard work – seven days a week. Building new cities is much easier and much more rewarding. That is where the profit lies. The ’window of opportunity’is infite, limited only by your greed and imagination in the form of development contracts, new construction, new plots, hotels, townships, shopping malls and even new monorails. Plenty of shiny inaugural plaques and ribbon-uttings for new and old elites.

I do not feel the inclination to vote for yet another new city, regardless of how fancy it might appear. With the money we plan to build a brand new city, we could fix up a dozen existing cities that will benefit millions of our ordinary citizens. It would indeed be a dream come true if every old city was to be revamped, cleaned, made public-friendly and environmentally sustainable. That should be our first priority. But just in case a new city must be built, what should be the basic environmental considerations before creating new master plans. Here is a beginner's guide on the subject.

The first step is to carry out an Initial Environmental Examination (IEE). IEE is carried out to determine the potential environmental impacts of a proposed project. When an IEE reveals potential environmental impacts that may have significant consequences, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) must be conducted. EIA procedure is a means of drawing together, in a systematic way, an assessment of a project’s likely significant environmental effects. This must be done before giving a development consent to a project. EIA ensures that the importance of the predicted effects, and the scope for reducing them, are properly understood by the public and the relevant competent authority before it makes its decision. The environmental effects of a development during its construction and commissioning phases should be considered separately from the effects arising whilst it is operational. Following would be some of the aspects that would be considered during a typical EIA:

a. Purpose and physical characteristics of the project, including details of proposed access and transport arrangements.

b. Land use requirements and other physical features of the project.

c. Energy and other resources consumed.

d. Emissions, discharges to water, noise, heat, deposits/residues to land and soil.

e. Population - proximity and numbers.

f. Flora and fauna in particular, protected species.

g. Soil: agricultural quality and geology.

h. Water: aquifers, water courses, shoreline, including the type, quantity, composition and strength of any existing discharges.

i. Air: climatic factors, air quality.

j. Architectural and historic heritage.

k. Landscape and topography.

l. Statutory designations such as national reserves, sites of special scientific interest, national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, designated green belt, local nature reserves, areas affected by tree preservation orders, water protection zones, conservation areas, listed buildings and ancient monuments.

m. Change in population arising from the development, and consequential environmental effects.

n. Visual effects of the development on the surrounding area and landscape.

o. Loss of, and damage to, habitats, trees, plant and animal species.

p. Loss of, and damage to, geological, palaeontological and physiographic features.

q. Change in local topography, effect of earth-moving on stability, soil erosion.

r. Waste disposal.

s. Effect on surrounding land uses including agriculture.

t. Drainage systems.

u. Changes to other hydrographic characteristics, e.g. groundwater level, water courses, flow of underground water.

v. Effects of pollutants, waste, etc. on water quality.

w. Traffic, congestion, parking, roads.

x. Other alternative uses of the site, including the ’do nothing’ option

The next step in an EIA study is to identify the significance of each impact. This would typically involve assessing the magnitude of change, the e xtent of area affected by the impact, the duration over which the impact will be felt, the potential r eversibility of impact and the likelihood of occurrence. Finally the EIA must also identify the mitigating measures that must be taken to avoid, reduce or remedy those effects. These could be actions such as recycling, pollution control and treatment, containment, tree planting, measures to preserve particular habitats, create alternative habitats and recording of archaeological sites.

An IEE or EIA study would have no value if it does not have inputs from all the stake holders. These could be general public, environmentalist groups, public representatives, regulatory bodies, municipal corporations, building authorities, forest departments, and organizations like WWF and IUCN. It is only ’after’ all the above studies have been carried out, submitted and approved by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency that a project ’Master Plan’ can be approved. If projects do not follow this path, the Environmental Protection Agency is required to use its authority vide Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, popularly known as PEPA and often pronounced as PEEPA. The failure of Federal Agencies to stop such violations is an institutional failure that makes our PEPA look like an empty "PEEPA’.