What is environmental emergency? Responsibility for environmental emergency response in Vietnam

What is environmental emergency? Responsibility for environmental emergency response in Vietnam (Internet image)

1. What is environmental emergency?

According to Clause 14, Article 3 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020, an environmental emergency means an accident resulting from human-induced factors or natural changes that cause severe environmental pollution or degradation.

2. General regulations on environmental emergency prevention and response in Vietnam

- The environmental emergency prevention and response shall adhere to technical processes and regulations on safety and environment.

- The motto “leadership on-the-spot, forces on-the-spot, means and materials on-the-spot, and logistics on-the-spot” shall be used for environmental emergency response.

- Entities causing environmental emergencies shall respond to them and pay costs of response.

- An environmental emergency that occurs in an establishment or administrative division, the head of such establishment or administrative division shall direct and organize the response to the environmental emergency. There must be a commander, who will assign specific tasks and coordinate different forces, vehicles and equipment involved in response to the environmental emergency.

- The State shall encourage and enable entities to invest in environmental emergency response services.

- The prevention of environmental emergencies caused by waste leakage, spill or dispersal (hereinafter referred to as the “waste-related emergencies”) shall comply with regulations of Law on Environmental Protection 2020. The prevention of environmental emergencies caused by chemicals, radiation, oil slick, epidemics and others shall comply with relevant regulations of law.

(Article 121 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020)

3. Responsibility for environmental emergency response in Vietnam

- Every investment project/business owner shall perform the following tasks:

+ Comply with requirements concerning plans, measures and equipment for environmental emergency prevention and response as prescribed by law;

+ Carry out regular inspection and adopt managerial and technical plans and measures to eliminate and reduce the risk of environmental emergencies.

- Provincial People’s Committees shall:

+ investigate, statistically report and assess the risk of environmental emergencies within their provinces;

+ build database and compile and publish information about sources that are likely to cause environmental emergencies within their provinces as prescribed by law;

+ build and direct district- and communal-level People’s Committees to build capacity for environmental emergency prevention and response within their provinces.

- Ministries and ministerial agencies shall respond to environmental emergencies as prescribed in Point a Clause 1 Article 127 of Law on Environmental Protection 2020.

(Article 122 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020)

4. Remediating environment after emergency in Vietnam 

 Remediating environment after emergency is specified in Article 126 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020as follows:

- The owner of the investment project/facility causing an environmental emergency shall remediate the environment after the emergency occurs within such facility. The People’s Committee of the commune where the emergency occurs shall inspect and supervise the environmental remediation.

- After a district, provincial or national-level environmental emergency occurs, the environmental remediation shall be carried out as follows:

+ The district-level People’s Committee shall conduct survey and assessment of state of the environment, formulate, approve and direct the implementation of the environmental remediation plan for the district-level environmental emergency. Within 30 days from the end of the stage of organizing the response, the district-level People’s Committee must approve the environmental remediation plan;

+ The provincial People’s Committee shall conduct survey and assessment of state of the environment, formulate, approve and direct the implementation of the environmental remediation plan for the provincial environmental emergency. Within 60 days from the end of the stage of organizing the response, the provincial People’s Committee must approve the environmental remediation plan;

+ The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment shall conduct survey and assessment of state of the environment, formulate, approve and direct the implementation of the environmental remediation plan for the national environmental emergency. Within 90 days from the end of the stage of organizing the response, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment must approve the environmental remediation plan.

- Contents of the environmental remediation plan consist of:

+ Description and assessment of the state of the environment after the emergency occurrence including the level, extent and characteristics of environmental pollution in each area; state of the environment, premises and ecosystems (if any) before the emergency occurrence; requirements for remediating the environment in accordance with the environmental technical regulation on ambient environment quality, premises restoration and recovery of main characteristics of the ecosystem;

+ Environmental remediation measures; analysis, assessment and selection of the best solution for environmental improvement and remediation;

+ List and volume of items serving environmental remediation regarding the selected solution;

+ The implementation plan divided into multiple stages of environmental remediation; program for management, monitoring and supervision during environmental remediation period; plan to commission environmental remediation results.

Diem My

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