In Costa Rica, authorities announced that work to widen a 46-kilometer stretch connecting the bridge over the Virilla River to the Sucio River, valued at $643 million and to be paid for with tolls over 30 years, is close to being approved.
The Alvarado administration announced a new platform that will serve to digitalize the process of procedures under form D2, which are used to manage studies of low environmental impact.
The platform will initially simplify the registration and tracking of D2 forms, which represents 54% of all cases. The remaining 46% of cases, of medium and high impact, will also be reviewed more thoroughly thanks to a reform of the General Regulations on Environmental Impact Assessment Procedures, explains the official statement.
Although Costa Rica has a good image abroad, businessmen in the tourism sector with investment plans face long and complex procedures in public institutions.
Businessmen from the hotel sector believe that the growth rate of the construction of tourist infrastructure would be higher if the procedures in institutions such as the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (Setena), the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity and municipalities were speeded up.
In only 30 of the 81 municipalities that grant construction permits in Costa Rica, all of the necessary procedures to obtain a permit can be performed through the official web platform.
The Federated Association of Engineers and Architects (CFIA) stated that in the analysis carried out during the first semester of the year, which included all of the municipalities in the country, what stands out is that of all the communes, construction permits are digital and physical in 40, 100% digital in 30 and in 11 there are only physical.
It has been announced that starting from August 20 companies interested in developing an environmental feasibility study for the new Metropolitan Airport of Costa Rica, to be built in Orotina, may present their proposals.
Civil Aviation Authorities reported that the reference value for the environmental feasibility study of the air terminal is $1.1 million.
In order to resolve the problem of delays in approving environmental impact permits, in Costa Rica industrial sector employers support a proposal for the National Technical Secretariat to intervene.
Arguing that "it affects them negatively", the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica (ICRC), supports the intervention of the National Technical Secretariat (Setena) requested last Wednesday by the Christian Social Unity Party (PUSC).
Since October 2017, constructions whose coverage exceeds 20% of the land must submit a hydrogeological study.
The entry into force of the Generic Matrix for the Protection of Aquifers has generated doubts about what the projects that must comply with the presentation of the hydrogeological study really are.On the one hand, the guide indicates that constructions which have a coverage of land equal to or less than 20% of the area will not need the study, and on the other hand, representatives of the National Service of Underground Waters of Irrigation and Drainage (Senara), suggest a different interpretation.
Setena has ordered the partial paralysis of pineapple production activities in three farms in the northern zone due to environmental damage, such as the presence of sediments in rivers, ravines and wetlands.
The National Environmental Technical Secretariat (Setena) reported that the farms are Cultivo de Piña La Guaria, Cultivo de Piña La Azucena, and Cultivo de Piña Oficinas Administrativas y Taller de Mantenimiento el Concho.
The Setena plans to amend regulations in order to reduce the timescale for ruling on studies for projects with high environmental impact, to 5 months.
At the moment the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA) is takes between 6 months and a year to analyze and decide whether or not to grant permission for construction projects with high environmental impacts.
President Solis has personally announced that the environmental impact study for the expansion to four lanes of Route 32 to Limon has now been approved by the environmental authority.
Almost two months after the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA) rejected the study as "flawed and incomplete", the institution has now granted the approval, according to President Luis Guillermo Solís through his own social networks.
In Costa Rica an environmental permit has been granted for the construction of a new headquarters for Congress, and offers are already being received from companies for the earthworks.
Environmental permits were the missing process needed to start construction of the project to build a new headquarters for the Legislative Assembly, which will cost $63 million and which will have a construction area measuring 50,000 square meters.
The regulation which has been long-awaited because it would lead to dozens of investment projects, has been challenged in the Constitutional Court.
The "preventing" machine still works very effectively in Costa Rica, this time to stop huge investments that would help solve the problem of waste disposal afflicting municipalities.
Environmental viability proceedings for energy projects using trash as a fuel source have been suspended after a constitutional complaint was filed against the regulation governing the incineration of waste.
The Public Prosecutor has initiated criminal proceedings against representatives of the spanish chain RIU for alleged environmental damages generated in the construction area of the hotel it operates in Guanacaste.
Representatives of the hotel company state that all logging jobs in the area where the hotel was built in Matapalo beach, were performed with possession of permits issued at the time by the institutions.
The pit that was supposed to provide filling for the works of APM Terminals complies with environmental standards but its permission was denied after being unable to prove ownership of the land.
Lemon Stone, one of the owners of Tajo La Asunción announced it will sue the State of Costa Rica for $400 million for having banned the exploitation of the quarry to supply material to Van Oord Bam, the constructor of the new container terminal in Moin with whom it has a $350 million contract to supply 7 million tons of stone.
In the nineties a village in Costa Rica was populated by dreams of a promising future driven by the exploitation of a gold mine. Today there are only 27 inhabitants, left without hope.
EDITORIAL
An article on Nacion.com reports on the ups and downs of the gold mine project in Crucitas, in Costa Rica, which eventually fell through because environmental forces prevailed over sustainable development, leaving a long series of damages to the country in terms of confidence in the security of investments, tax losses, and mainly in the hopes of human beings who believed in and supported the mine being a catalyst for progress in the area. As usually happens, the only winners were the lawyers who litigated and continue litigating for both sides.