By order of the Minister of Health Protection, the public has been given better opportunities to familiarize themselves with the preparation documents for the assessment of the impact of the planned economic activity on public health. This will help the residents to get more detailed information, how their comments are taken into account during the public discussion of the project, to be more actively involved in the evaluation process, creating a clean and safe living environment.
According to the current legal regulation, when types of economic activities are planned or carried out that require the establishment of sanitary protection zones and they are determined or revised by means of a public health impact assessment (when no environmental impact assessment is carried out), business entities must prepare a public health impact assessment report of the planned activity and presented to residents during a public meeting. Proposals expressed by residents and their consideration must be recorded in the minutes of the meeting, to which residents can also submit their comments and suggestions.
The new ministerial order clarifies that the preparer of the public health impact assessment report of the planned economic activity must indicate how the residents’ comments were or were not taken into account in the minutes of the meeting, and present this information to the public at their headquarters, place of activity and website, or at another publicly agreed place . In all cases, the protocol must be accompanied by information on the introduction of the protocol to the public and responses to the public’s comments.
When submitting a public health impact assessment report of a planned economic activity to the National Public Health Center (NVSC), all documents related to public information must be attached as attachments: documents of publication in public information media, copies of documents confirming the sending of registered letters, data on the public exposure of the report , the minutes of the meeting for the public introduction to the report (including the minutes revised according to the comments, if it was revised), public comments and their assessment documents regarding the report, information about the public introduction to the report, responses to public comments regarding the report, copies of public proposals regarding the report, responses to public proposals, public proposal evaluation document.
If the report preparer does not submit all necessary documents related to public information, the NVSC will not accept the report for consideration.
The order of the Minister of Health, which updated the procedure for public information during the assessment of the impact of planned economic activities on public health, can be found HERE.
The procedure was updated by implementing the recommendations of the Seimas controller, submitted after examining the complaint of the residents of the town of Kairiau regarding the activities of the waste management company.
SAM Communications department
