Dredging & Reclamation

1. An official letter requesting to purchase, store and handle chemicals must be submitted by the applicant to the Head of Environmental Licensing Section at the SCE.
2. Complete and submit the Environmental Screening (EA-4) Application form (EA-4 Environmental Screening Application Form.pdf) accompanied with the required attachments which includes:

• Municipality reclamation application form
• Survey map produced by the Survey & Land Registration Bureau
• Relevant documents as clarified in the EA-4 form related to the Directorate of Marine Resources, Agricultural Engineering and Directorate of Water Resources, as well as the application fees

1. 1. Once the application has been submitted, it will undergo a screening process based on the criteria set by Ministerial Decision (1) of 1998 – Article 2 by the environmental licensing team at the SCE.
   2. Following screening, the applicant will be advised on whether an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study will be required or not or whether the project is preliminarily rejected.
   3. If an EIA is required (which is usually the case for the majority of projects), then the applicant will be requested to commission an approved environmental consultant to develop an Environmental Scoping Report (EIA-2 Guidelines for EIA Reports.pdf).

1. Once the Environmental Scoping Report is submitted by the consultant, the SCE will review the report and advise on the detailed EIA report requirements.
2. The consultant will then be requested to prepare the draft EIA report and conduct accompanying environmental studies (such as field surveys) which upon completion must be submitted to the SCE for review.
3. The SCE shall review and provide comments on the draft EIA report within 60 working days.
4. In addition to the EIA report, the consultant will be required to submit an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) based on the guidelines outlined in the EIA-15 document (EIA-15 Environmental Management Plan Guidelines_Reclamation.pdf).
5. Following submission, the SCE shall review the EMP and provide comments.
6. Following the review of the final EIA and EMP reports, the SCE will issue a final approval and determine the authorization conditions (e.g. monitoring strategy based on the EMP) based on the guidelines outlined in the EIA-6 (EIA-6 Guidelines for Reclamation Projects exceed 0.7 hectares.pdf)  EIA-7 (EIA-7 Guidelines for Reclamation Projects less than 0.7 hectares.pdf) and EIA-8 documents (EIA-8 Guidelines on Mitigation Measures_Reclamatino Methods.pdf).
7. If the final documents and application are all in order, an approval is granted by the SCE.

Following approval, the SCE will proceed towards issuing a licence that allows the applicant to commence with the proposed dredging or reclamation works.

1. Once an environmental permit has been issued, the environmental consultant or the project applicant is expected to carry out environmental monitoring throughout the project phase as per the approved EMP. 
2. One of the main requirements for any dredging or reclamation work is to monitor various water quality parameters including total suspended solids (TSS) to detect any changes caused by the project. Guidelines for TSS monitoring are provided in the EIA-9 document (EIA-9 Guidelines on TSS Monitoring Programs_Dredging and Reclamation Operations.pdf).