Regulatory Change for Lead Acid Battery Manufacturing
Lead acid batteries are rechargeable batteries that store and release energy to power vehicles, ships and marine vehicles, energy systems, the clean technology sector, industrial vehicles and machines, IT servers, telecommunications equipment and buildings. (Province of Nova Scotia / File)
The government is making a change to the Environmental Assessment Regulations for lead acid battery manufacturing facilities, making approval consistent with the rest of Canada.
Effective Wednesday, June 10, these facilities will need an industrial approval only. Previously, they needed a Class II environmental assessment as well, which made Nova Scotia the only place in the country that required both approvals for this activity.
“This change brings Nova Scotia in line with the rest of Canada from a regulatory perspective, while opening the door for new economic opportunities in our province that align with our focus on sustainable prosperity,” said Timothy Halman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. “These types of projects can be done safely and responsibly via an industrial approval, one of our most robust environmental regulatory tools, and they align with our circular economy goals.”
Lead acid batteries are rechargeable batteries that store and release energy to power things like vehicles, energy systems, the clean technology sector, industrial vehicles and machines, IT servers, telecommunications equipment, marine vehicles and buildings. They are recyclable, making them part of the circular economy.
Quick Facts:
- an industrial approval regulates the daily operations of projects or facilities and has stringent terms and conditions that companies must comply with to safeguard the environment and human health
- an environmental assessment is a planning tool that requires companies to identify the possible environmental impacts of their project along with a plan to mitigate them; there are two classes of environmental assessment, Class I and Class II
- environmental assessment approval and industrial approval processes both include opportunities for input from the Mi’kmaq and the public before a project is approved to proceed
Additional Resources:
More information on the industrial approval process is available at: http://novascotia.ca/nse/pubs/docs/ecc-operational-approvals.pdf
Environmental Assessment Regulations: http://novascotia.ca/Just/regulations/regs/envassmt.htm