Walvis-Bay-Scoping-Report
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ECC-106-285-REP-08-D ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING REPORT PILOT SUSTAINABLE WATER SUPPLY PROJECT BY MEANS OF DESALINATION, POWERED BY SOLAR TO SUPPLEMENT WATER SUPPLY FOR WALVIS BAY, ERONGO REGION, NAMIBIA PREPARED FOR AUGUST 2020 DESALINATION PROJECT, WALVIS BAY TITLE AND APPROVAL PAGE Project Name: Pilot sustainable water supply project by means of desalination, powered by solar to supplement water supply for Walvis Bay, Erongo Region, Namibia. Project Number ECC-106-285-REP-08-D Client Name: Turnkey Water solutions (Pty) Ltd and InnoVent SAS Joint Venture Ministry Reference: N/A Status of Report: Submitted to Government Date of issue: AUGUST 2020 Review Period N/A Environmental Compliance Consultancy Contact Details: We welcome any enquiries regarding this document and its content. Please contact: Stephan Bezuidenhout Jessica Mooney Environmental Consultant & Practitioner Environmental Consultant & Practitioner Tel: +264 81 699 7608 Tel: +264 81 699 7608 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] www.eccenvironmental.com www.eccenvironmental.com Confidentiality Environmental Compliance Consultancy Notice: This document is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not disclose or use the information contained in it. If you have received this document in error, please notify us immediately by return email and delete the document and any attachments. Any personal views or opinions expressed by the writer may not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Environmental Compliance Consultancy. Please note, at ECC we care about lessening our footprint on the environment, therefore all documents are printed double-sided. AUGUST 2020 PAGE 2 OF 105 ECC DOCUMENT CONTROL - ECC-106-285-REP-08-A DESALINATION PROJECT, WALVIS BAY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In order to ensure water security and sustainability in the context of population and industry demand growth, as well as considering the potential impacts of climate change in Walvis Bay, new innovative solutions for supplementing water supply is required. To augment the water supply and distribution demands, a desalination plant is proposed. Based on confirmation from hydrogeological studies, seawater will be obtained through five onshore beach wells. The approximate pump capacity of the boreholes will be sufficient to produce 3,900 m3/day or 1,422,000 m3/year of clean water, over a lifespan of twenty years, injected into the existing water network. Brine produced from the desalination plant, will be discharged into the ocean through a pipe system. Two options for the route the pipeline will follow into the ocean were considered in the assessment and presented in section 5 of the report. Option 1 is scoped out of the assessment as a non-viable option and the preferred option 2 or similar option 3 and their impacts are assessed. A proposed solar plant onsite will supply power to the desalination plant and will be connected to the grid with a 2km long 11kV underground cable. The grid connection will act as backup power supply to the plant in the event that the solar farm is not producing. In essence it will be a hybrid power supply designed system. The proposed project is planned on a 4ha portion of municipal land adjacent to Kuisebmond, Walvis Bay in the Erongo Region of Namibia. Directly adjacent to the project site on its immediate southern periphery is the remainder of Erf 4688, which is proposed to be utilised by Unam. Located along the Atlantic Ocean further south of the project site, Walvis Bay is Namibia’s only deep-sea harbour and a gateway for at least two corridor routes to the landlocked countries of southern Africa. Climatically, the central part of the Namib Desert where Walvis Bay is located, is referred to as Cool Desert. Temperatures are moderate, not often exceeding 30°C or dropping lower than 7°C. Sea temperatures are rarely warmer than 20°C. Overcast days and foggy nights are common, but rainfall is rare (<50 mm per year), extremely variable, patchy, unreliable and marked by a deviation coefficient of about 90%. The central Namib Desert forms geologically part of the Damara Sequence, covered by recent, shallow deposits of unconsolidated, aeolian material. At Walvis Bay the general topography is flat, and the town is bordered by sand dunes on the east and southeast, and the inactive delta of the Kuiseb River and a lagoon to the south. The coastline is sandy, but the elongated permanent sandbank that forms the Pelican Point peninsula protects the bay and forms the only deep sea harbour of Namibia. Part of the Namib Desert Biome, the central coastal area of Namibia has a sparse vegetation cover. Overall terrestrial biodiversity is low, but endemism is moderate to high further inland from the site. In terms of numbers of birds, the Walvis Bay Ramsar site and Important Bird Area (to the south of the study site) is considered the most important coastal wetland in the Sub-region, and probably one of the three most important coastal wetlands in Africa (Simmons et al. 1998). The area is vitally important for Palearctic waders and flamingos, which make up the majority of numbers. The diversity of 159 bird species for the greater study area is regarded as relatively high for the desert environment. Of the priority species identified, 23 are threatened in Namibia, including 16 species that are also Globally Threatened, and 12 that have some form of migrant status. Twenty-two of these species feed on a diet of marine fish, marine invertebrates or a combination of the two. The project area has no direct influence on the Ramsar site AUGUST 2020 PAGE 3 OF 105 ECC DOCUMENT CONTROL - ECC-106-285-REP-08-A DESALINATION PROJECT, WALVIS BAY The aspect of the proposed project which directly interacts with the marine environment is the activities related to the construction of the pipeline underwater to a distance of 372m from the coastline at a less than 5m depth below sea level. The closest pelagic fish species and horse mackerel to the project site is found at a depth of 20m below sea level, which translates to approximately 8 km’s from the project site. Therefore the project will exert a negligible magnitude of change to existing fish stocks and its significance to this assessment is low. This EIA was undertaken using a methodology developed by Environmental Compliance Consultancy (ECC) which is based on the International Finance Corporation (IFC) standard for impact assessments and complies with the Namibian requirements as set out in the EMA. Through the scoping process, a review of the site and surrounding environment was completed by undertaking desktop reviews and verification of site data. The project site is located on municipal land and uncomplicated service connections to the existing urban infrastructure would be possible. Existing roads will be used to access the site. For the development of the site, the terrain needs to be prepared. Construction related impacts are discussed in the EMP. The water table over the greatest part of Walvis Bay townlands is shallow, but saline and not extracted for human consumption. The project site is located on the Erongo Groundwater Basin, which is marked by its limited potential and low quality. The potential for contamination from the proposed construction and operational activities to both the Kuiseb and Omdel aquifers is regarded as negligible. For the desalination plant, seawater will be abstracted from five onshore beach boreholes. Measures to mitigate potential impacts to water are addressed in the EMP. However, the presence of any water on the site is solely of a marine origin (Water Associates of Namibia, 2020). This study has assessed potential, likely, identified and cumulative impacts. It was determined that the likely effects on the marine environment associated with the project were not highly significant, based on the magnitude of change affected on the receptor and the impacts assessed, the duration of potential impacts and the reversibility of effects on the receptor. The overall potential impact of this proposed project is not considered significant as it does not widely exceed recognised levels of acceptable change, does not threaten the integrity of the receptors, and it is not material to the decision making process. The assessment is considered to be comprehensive and sufficient to identify impacts, and it is concluded that no further assessment is required. On this basis, it is the opinion of ECC that an environmental clearance certificate could be issued, on conditions that the management and mitigation measures specified in the EMP are implemented and adhered to. AUGUST 2020 PAGE 4 OF 105 ECC DOCUMENT CONTROL - ECC-106-285-REP-08-A DESALINATION PROJECT, WALVIS BAY TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 11 1.1 PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT .............................................................................................................. 11 1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT ................................................................................... 11 1.3 SCOPE OF WORK .............................................................................................................................. 13 1.4 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANCY ................................................................................................... 13 1.5 ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................