429-i. Review ESIA Lake Tana Transport Infrastructure Project - Ethiopia

An EIA Report and a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Report have been prepared for the Expansion and Modernisation of the Lake Tana Transport Infrastructure Project in Ethiopia. The project is being developed by the Lake Tana Transport Enterprise and has applied for ORIO funding. The Lake Tana Transport Infrastructure project aims to boost agricultural production, facilitate public and tourist travel to different destinations in the Lake and shore areas, to create employment opportunities and improve the living conditions of local people. It plans to achieve this by upgrading the present ferry infrastructure and facilities at Lake Tana to a more adequate transportation network for passengers and cargo. The RVO, who manages the ORIO facility portfolio, has requested that the NCEA review the EIA report for the lake Tana project.

Advisory reports and other documents

Significant details

The NCEA concludes that essential information is still missing and recommends that an updated version of the EIA report provide additional information on:

• A better, more complete justification of the project and project activities, interventions and locations;
• Public consultation has not been documented and should take place again before actual project works start, so as to get their views on location and design of landing sites.
• The baseline information is rather comprehensive, but needs to be presented in a more accessible manner. The NCEA recommends using overlay maps, which will help with detailed site selection and further impact assessment;
• Information on alternatives is lacking (in terms of number of landing sites, location of landing sites, technical design of e.g. breakwater and dredging technology).
• Potential impacts related to selection of harbor location, construction (and in particular dredging), operation (boat traffic & discharges and cargo operations & waterfront industry) are described in general terms only. This chapter should be supplemented with information on what impacts may occur in each of the selected locations specifically and what measures should be taken specifically.
• Only based on the above information, a sound ESMP can be elaborated, based on the current preliminary version, including a project and site specific monitoring plan. Both need to be available before project approval or environmental permitting.

Parties involved

Members of the working group

Technical secretary: Ineke Steinhauer

Further details

Country: Ethiopia

Last modified: 01 Apr 2019