Environmental Assessment Report Environmental Impact Assessment Project Number: 42383 January 2009 People’s Republic of China: Shanxi Small Cities and Towns Development Demonstration Sector Project – Pingyao Huiji River Treatment Project Prepared by Pingyao County Development and Reform Bureau for the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The environmental impact assessment is a document of the borrower. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of ADB’s Board of Directors, Management, or staff, and may be preliminary in nature. Asian Development Bank Pingyao Huiji River Treatment Project ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT Final Version 0.1 January 2009 Table of Contents: 1 Project Background...................................................................................................................1 2 Project Description....................................................................................................................2 2.1 Engineering Design and Execution Plan.............................................................................2 2.2 Construction Plan................................................................................................................4 3 Description of the Existing Environment..................................................................................5 3.1 Physical Environment .........................................................................................................5 3.2 Ecological Environment......................................................................................................8 3.3 Social and Economic...........................................................................................................8 4 Anticipated Environmental Impacts and Mitigation Measures...............................................10 4.1 Impacts on the Ambient Air and Mitigation Measures......................................................10 4.2 Impacts on Surface Water and Mitigation Measures.........................................................11 4.3 Noise Impacts and Mitigation Measures...........................................................................12 4.4 Solid Waste Impacts and Mitigation Measures .................................................................13 5 Conclusions and Recommendations .......................................................................................15 5.1 Conclusions.......................................................................................................................15 5.2 Recommendations.............................................................................................................15 Appendix Figures............................................................................................................................16 Figure 1 Project Location Map ...............................................................................................16 Figure 2 Pingyao City Overall Development & Huiji River Treatment Plan..........................17 Figure 3 Huiji River Treatment Project Scheme .....................................................................18 Figure 4 Environmental Baseline Monitoring (Air, Surface Water, Groundwater) – Sampling Locations.................................................................................................................................19 1 Project Background Located in the south-east of the central Taiyuan Basin in the middle reaches of the Fenhe River, Pingyao, a renowned historic Ancient City, is easily accessible to the National Highway 108 and Qi-Lin Expressway crossing Fen-Tun Highway respectively and with the Nan-tong-pu Railway and the National Highway running side by side along within its territory. Huiji River is 3.5 km away from Pingyao ancient city and Yihui Reservoir was built at the intersection of its eastbound and westbound branches. The dam height is 20.4m, and its length is 730m. There are some supporting facilities such as spillways and spillway tunnel, etc. The storage capacity of reservoir is 26,300,000m3 and its effective storage capacity is 6,400,000m3. The reservoir was designed in accordance with “just once in one century” standard, was checked in accordance with “Just once in one thousand years” standard, thus it is a mid-size one whose primary function is flood control and irrigation and secondary function is supplying water for Pingyao County. The riverway is flexural and blocked and due to the inefficient management in recent years and severe conditions like dumping rubbish into the riverway as well as encroachment of buildings and fields, the normal flood passing has been severely affected. The current flood passing is in a poor state between the downstream of Yihui Reservoir and section along the Dong-Xia highway. The riverbed was severely damaged by human activities and became very rough. The riverbanks on both sides have collapsed and blocked the flood discharge. Pingyao old town is the political, economic and cultural center of Pingyao County with a population of more than 80,000 people. It houses a great number of key plants and mines at province and county levels. Many important communication arteries like railways and roads run through Pingyao old town. Pingyao old town boasts a very critical location and even became more important at home or abroad, esp after Pingyao old town was listed as one of the world cultural heritage by UNESCO. Once it was flooded, the losses and social and political impact would be enormous. Therefore, the treatment of Huiji River is imperative. It is imperative to treat Huiji River comprehensively in hope that the economy in Pingyao old town can develop in a healthy way and a good environment can be provided to the foreign and domestic investors. On top of that, water will be stored in the riverway of main areas so that the treatment project of Huiji River can be an ecological project which gives consideration to urban beautification and tourism, on the premise of guaranteeing flood control safety. Project site location and the proposed Pingyao City overall development plan are shown in Appendix Figure 1 and 2. 1 2 Project Description The scope of the comprehensive treatment of the Huiji Riverway extends from the downstream of the Yinhui Reservoir in the south to the Huiji Bridge in the north, total length of which is 7,211.7 meters. Details of the River treatment plan include: - Treatment and dredging of riverway for flood control: total length of 7,211.7m; - Riverway slope protection: total treatment length will be 2,396.4m; - Riverbed anti-seepage project: total length of riverbed to be treated will be 3,093.6m; - Riverway embankment: a dike of totally 3,190.6m long will be built; - Water storage and beautification project: three rubber dams for water storage will be installed through the riverway, with a total length of 3,093.6m. Proposed project execution scheme is shown in Appendix Figure 3. Total investment of the proposed Huiji River treatment project is estimated to be RMB 263.12 million, among which 130.2 million will be loaned from ADB and 132.92 million from local government. According to proposed project schedule and ADB’s requirements the whole project execution period will last two years, from Jan. 2009 to Dec. 2010. 2.1 Engineering Design and Execution Plan 2.1.1 Riverway Embankment According to Pingyao City Overall Layout Plan (from 1999 to 2020) the flood control capability of Huiji River shall meet a “once in 50 years” standard, corresponding maximum flow rate of which is 420m3/s. The whole embankment plan is divided into two sections: one for the non-water-storage section of the River (mark 0+340~2+736.4), and another for the water-storage section. Within the non-water-storage section two levels (inner and outer) of dikes will be constructed. The inner one will be 2.2 meters high with a slope of 1:6. The slope will be lined with geotextiles and then covered by bricks. Another layer of gravels will be filled between geotextiles and bricks. The dike base will be filled by gabion with stones. Investment for the dike is estimated to be about RMB 2,783 per running meter. The sidewalk is close to the inner dike and 5 meters wide. The outer dike is planned to be higher than the designed flood level, top of which is 6 meters wide. The slope of the outer dike will be covered by grass and bricks. Two levels of dikes will also be built along the water-storage riverway. Height of the inner dike will be 2.8m, which will be made of reinforced concrete. Top of the dike will be 0.4m wide, while the bottom is 3.7 meters wide. Investment for the dike is estimated to be about RMB 2,834 per running meter. The sidewalk and outer dike will be the same as that within the non-water-storage section. 2 2.1.2 Riverbed Treatment and Water Storage Water resources required by the water storage project will come from Yinhui Reservoir, annul demand of which is estimated to be 171,900m3. The storage capacity of the Reservoir is designed to be 26,300,000m3. According to local statistic data annul fresh water collection volume into the Reservoir was separately 9.68 million m3 for 2003, 2.17 million m3 for 2004, 4.30 million m3 for 2005 and 9.43 million m3 for 2006. Currently the Reservoir only supplies water for irrigation, annual consumption of which is about one million m3. As a result Yinhui Reservoir can supply adequate water resources for the proposed Huiji River water storage project. Upon evaluation and comparison of several options for water