Court Rules On Rights In Environmental Impact Assessment

If there are two or more conflicting water use projects (eg, hydroelectric power stations), the Water Act provides for a special conflict procedure. A pending conflict procedure suspends decisions in all underlying approval procedures. As a result of the conflict procedure, the project which serves public interests best will take priority over the inferior project.

Approval procedures

Once a conflict procedure is completed, the approval procedure for each of the conflicting projects will continue. In the past, the Federal Administrative Court stated that the party to the inferior project in the conflict procedure was entitled to claim certain rights in the approval procedure of the winning project.