St. Lucia geothermal project releases Draft Environmental & Social Impact Assessment

Draft Environmental & Social Impact Assessment, Saint Lucia geothermal project (screenshot)

Alexander Richter 6 Mar 2018

A Draft Environmental & Social Impact Assessment report has been released for the Saint Lucia Geothermal Resource Exploration Project in the Caribbean, with a planned stakeholder meeting next week.

The Government of Saint Lucia (GoSL) proposes to conduct the Saint Lucia Geothermal Resource Exploration Project (project) within the Soufrière, Choiseul, and Laborie regions of Saint Lucia to assess the feasibility of commercial development of geothermal resources in Saint Lucia.

In preparation of the project, the Government has now published the Draft Environmental & Social Impact Assessment for the project and will be holding a stakeholder meeting next week.

The project has also published a Stakeholder Engagement Plan has also published

We previously reported on the project that aims to develop a geothermal power project for the island state in the Caribbean.

The project would initially include drilling slim-diameter and potentially full-size geothermal exploration wells to obtain information on the geothermal resource believed to underlie the area.

The GoSL has obtained financial assistance and technical support from a number of development partners in support of the project. To date, the World Bank has assisted Saint Lucia in accessing grant financing from the Global Environmental Facility and the SIDS DOCK Support Program for the project.

Technical assistance has also been received from the Government of New Zealand and the Clinton Climate Initiative. The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) was prepared for the project in accordance with Government of Saint Lucia laws, World Bank Operational Policies, World Bank Environmental and Social Standards, and World Bank Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Guidelines, to provide an assessment of the environmental and social risks and impacts of the project.

The organization of the ESIA follows the draft World Bank Environmental and Social Framework (World Bank 2017). This ESIA focuses on the exploration phase of geothermal development and does not address development of a power plant in the event that an economically viable geothermal resource is identified. A separate ESIA would be prepared to address potential impacts from power plant development, although much of the information presented in this ESIA could serve as a starting point for evaluation of the existing environmental conditions.

For the full draft document, see link below.

We thank Laurie Hietter of Panorama Environmental, Inc. for sharing this piece of news.

Documents shared:

Source: Government St. Lucia (pdf)