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Chapter One: Definitions and Goals
Article One:
In the implementation of this regulation, the following
expressions shall have the meaning set forth below.
1. The Competent Agency: Meteorology and Environmental
protection Administration (MEPA).
2. The Competent Minister: Minister of Defense and
Aviation and Inspector General.
3. The Public Institution: Any Ministry, Department or
Government Establishment.
4. The Licensing Institution: Any Institution In-charge
of licensing projects with potential negative impacts on
environment.
5. The Concerned Institution: The Government Institution
In-charge of environment-related projects.
6. Person: Any private natural or judicial person. This
includes private establishments and companies.
7. The Environment: All that surrounds man such as
water, air, land and outer space and all the contents of
these milieus such as inanimate objects, flora, fauna,
various forms of energy, systems and natural processes
and human activities.
8. Environmental Protection: Preservation of the
environment and prevention of its contamination and
deterioration.
9. Environmental pollution: Presence of one or more
materials or factors in quantities or quality for
periods of time that directly or indirectly lead to
harming public health, bio-organisms, natural resources,
property or adversely affect quality of life and human
welfare.
10. Environmental Deterioration: The negative impact on
environment that changes its general nature or
characteristics or the balance among its elements or
loss of its beauty and appearance.
11. Environmental Disaster: An incident which causes
damage to the environment and requires greater
capabilities to deal with than those required for normal
incidents or exceeding the local capabilities.
12. Source Standards: Maximum allowable limits or
percentages of the concentration of various pollutants
discharged to the ambient environment. This includes
identification of the necessary controlling techniques
to comply with these limits.
13. Environmental Quality: Limits and percentages of
concentrations of Standards pollutants that are not
allowed to be exceeded in the air, water and land.
14. Environmental Standards: Both environmental quality
and source standards.
15. Environmental Criteria: The environmental
specifications and criteria to control pollution
sources.
16. Projects: Any facilities, installations or
activities with potential impact on the environment.
17. Major Change: Any expansion or change in design or
operation of any existing project that might negatively
affect the environment. For the purpose of this
definition, any equivalent substitution of quality and
capacity shall not be deemed a major change.
18. Environmental Assessment: The study carried out to
identify the potential of the project or consequential
environmental impacts, the procedures and appropriate
methods to prevent or reduce the negative impact and
increase or achieve positive outputs of the project on
the environment in accordance with the environmental
standards in force.
Article Two:
This Law and Its Rules for Implementation are aimed to
achieve the following:
1. Preserve, protect and develop the environment and
safeguard it from pollution.
2. Protect public health from activities and acts that
harm the environment.
3. Conserve and develop natural resources and
rationalize their use.
4. Include environmental planning as an integral part of
overall development planning in all industrial,
agricultural, architectural and other areas.
5. Raise awareness of environmental issues and
strengthen individual and collective feelings of the
sole and collective responsibility for preserving and
improving the environment and encourage national
voluntary efforts in this area.
Article Three:
The Competent Agency shall be entrusted with the duties
of preserving the environment and preventing its
deterioration, which comprise the following:
1. Review and evaluate the condition of the environment,
develop observational means and tools for the collection
of information and conduct environmental studies.
2. Document and publish the environmental information.
3. Prepare, review, develop, interpret and issue
environmental protection standards.
4. Prepare environmental regulations relevant to its
areas of responsibility.
5. Ensure that public agencies and individuals abide by
the environmental regulations, standards and criteria,
as well as adopt necessary procedures thereof in
coordination and cooperation with the concerned and
licensing agencies.
6. Review the latest developments in the field of the
environment and its management at the regional and
international levels.
7. Promote environmental awareness at all levels.
Article Four:
1. Each public agency must adopt appropriate actions to
ensure that the Rules set forth herein are applied on
their projects or projects under their supervision or
those licensed by the public agency, and ensure
commitment to environmental regulations, criteria and
standards stated in the General Environmental law and
its Rules for Implementation
2. All public agencies responsible for the issuance of
standards, specifications or rules relating to the
practical implementation of activities that may impact
the environment must coordinate with the Competent
Agency before their issuance.
Article Five:
Licensing agencies must verify that the Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) studies for projects that may
cause negative effects on the environment are conducted
at the project feasibility stage. The agency in charge
of implementation of the project shall be responsible
for conducting the EIA studies in accordance with the
environmental fundamentals and standards specified by
the Competent Agency in the Rules for Implementation.
Article Six:
The party executing new projects, making major
modifications to existing projects, or owning projects
whose specified terms of investment have expired must
utilize the best possible and most suitable technologies
for the local environment and use materials which
introduce the lowest possible level of pollution to the
environment.
Article Seven:
1. Agencies in-charge of education must include
environmental concepts in curricula at various stages of
education
2. Agencies in-charge of mass media must sustain
environmental awareness in various mass media and
support the concept of environmental protection from the
Islamic perspective.
3. Agencies in-charge of Islamic Affairs, Da’wah and
guidance must enhance the role of mosques in encouraging
the community to preserve and protect the environment
4. Concerned agencies must establish appropriate
training programs to increase capabilities in the field
of preserving and protecting the environment.
Article Eight:
Taking into consideration the General Environmental law
and its Rules for Implementation, public agencies and
persons shall:
1. Rationalize the use of natural resources to preserve
and prolong the reserve life of non-renewable resources
and to develop renewable resources.
2. Achieve coherence between the bearing capacity of the
resources and utilization levels of the various resource
categories.
3. Apply recycling technologies and reuse of resources.
4. Develop conventional technologies and traditional
systems that are coherent with the local and regional
environmental conditions.
5. Promote the technologies associated with traditional
building materials.
Article Nine:
1. In coordination and cooperation with the concerned
agencies, the Competent Agency shall develop an
environmental disaster management plan based on an
inventory of local, regional and international
capabilities.
2. Concerned agencies shall establish and enhance
emergency plans, as required, to protect the environment
from pollution hazards resulting from emergencies caused
by their projects during the performance of their
activities.
3. Each person who supervises a project or a facility,
which has the potential for causing adverse impacts on
the environment, shall prepare emergency plans to
prevent or alleviate the hazards of such impacts and
have sufficient means to implement these plans.
4. In coordination with the concerned agencies, the
Competent Agency shall conduct periodical reviews of the
suitability of emergency plans.
Article Ten:
Environmental aspects must be taken into consideration
in planning for projects and programs, in the
development plans for the various sectors and in the
General Development Plan.
Article Eleven:
1. Each person responsible for designing or operating
any project or activity shall ensure that such design
and operation is in compliance with the applicable
regulations and standards.
2. Any person engaged in an activity with potential
adverse environmental impacts shall take the appropriate
actions to limit such impacts or minimize the
probability of their occurrence.
Article Twelve:
1. Anyone performing digging, demolition, construction,
or debris and earth transportation works must take
necessary precautions for safe storage and
transportation of any waste, as well as the proper
treatment and disposal of such waste.
2. All smoke, gases or vapors and solid or liquid
residue resulting from the burning of any kind of fuel
or similar, whether for industrial, power generation or
other activities, must be within allowable limits as
permitted in the environmental standards.
3. The owner of the facility must take all necessary
precautions and measures to ensure that there is no
leaking or emission of air pollutants to the work place
beyond the allowable limits of the environmental
standards.
4. Adequate ventilation requirements must be applied in
enclosed and semi-enclosed public places according to
the size and space capacity of the place and the kind of
activity carried out in the place.
Precautions, measures, methods and environmental
standards must be set forth in the Rules for
Implementation.
Article Thirteen:
All persons engaged in production, servicing or other
activities shall take the necessary precautions to
achieve the following:
1. Prevent direct or indirect contamination of surface,
ground and coastal waters that may be caused by solid or
liquid residues.
2. Preserve the soil and land and curb its deterioration
or contamination.
3. Limit noise pollution, particularly when operating
machinery or other equipment or using horns or
loudspeakers. Noise levels shall not exceed allowable
environmental standard limits set forth in the Rules for
Implementation.
Article Fourteen:
1. Hazardous, poisonous or radioactive wastes are
prohibited from entering the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or
its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
2. Persons in-charge of the production, transportation,
storage, recycling, treatment and final disposal of
poisonous, hazardous or radioactive materials must
comply with the procedures and controls set forth in the
Rules for Implementation.
3. Any harmful pollutants, poisonous, hazardous or
radioactive wastes are prohibited from being disposed
of, or discharged from vessels or alike in the Kingdom’s
territorial waters or its exclusive economic zone.
Article Fifteen:
Projects existing at the time of the issuance of the
General Environmental law shall be given a maximum term
of five years as grace period before enforcement, so
that these projects can organize themselves accordingly.
If the said term is not sufficient for projects of a
special nature then an extension may be granted by a
decision from the Council of Ministers based on the
proposal of the Competent Minister.
Article Sixteen:
Commitment to environmental protection regulations and
standards must be a conditional pre-requisite for
receiving loans for projects from lending agencies.
Article Seventeen:
1. When it is confirmed to the Competent Agency that any
of the environmental criteria and standards have been
violated, it shall coordinate with the agencies
concerned and obligate the violator to do the following.
(a) Eliminate any negative impacts and stop them.
Rectify their effects, within a specified time, as
required by the environmental criteria and standards.
(b) Submit a report showing the steps taken by the
violator to prevent future recurrence of the violations
of the criteria and standards. The proposed steps must
meet the approval of the Competent Agency..
2. If the situation is not rectified according to what
is mentioned here-above, the Competent Agency shall in
coordination with the concerned agencies or the
licensing agencies, take necessary actions to force the
violator to correct his situation in accordance with the
provisions of this Regulation.
Article Eighteen:
1. Subject to Article (230) of UN Marine Convention
ratified by the Royal Decree No. (M/17) dated 11 Ramadan
1416, and without prejudice to any severe penalty
imposed by Islamic laws or provided for in other
regulations, whoever violates the provisions of Article
fourteen of the General Environmental law shall be
punished by imprisonment for a term not to exceed five
years, by a fine not to exceed SR 500,000 or both. An
appropriate compensation shall be ordered and the
violator shall be obligated to eliminate the violation.
The facility may be closed or the vessel detained for a
period not exceeding ninety days. In case of recurrence,
the maximum limit of imprisonment shall be raised but
may not exceed double the initial term, or the maximum
limit of the fine shall be increased but may not exceed
double the initial fine or both. An appropriate
compensation shall be ordered and the violator shall be
obligated to eliminate the violation. The facility may
be temporarily or permanently closed or the vessel
temporarily detained or confiscated.
2. Without prejudice to any severe penalty imposed by
other regulations, the one who violates any of the
provisions of other articles of the Rules for
Implementation shall be subject to a fine not to exceed
SR 10,000, and the violator shall be obligated to remove
the violation. In case of recurrence, the violator shall
be punished by increasing the maximum limit of the fine
but not to exceed double this limit, and shall be
required to remove the violation. The facility may be
closed for a period not exceeding ninety days.
Article Nineteen:
The Competent Agency shall designate staff to report
violations to the General Environmental law and the
rules issued for its implementation. The Rules for
Implementation shall specify procedures to be followed
in reporting and documenting violations.
Article Twenty:
1. The Grievance Bureau shall have the jurisdiction to
apply penalties set forth in paragraph (1) of Article
(18) on violators of the provisions of Article (14) of
this Regulation.
2. Subject to paragraph (1) of this Article, one or more
committees shall be formed by a decision of the
Competent Minister comprising three members each, with
at least one member specialized in the Regulation to
review the violations and apply penalties set forth
herein. Decisions of the committee shall be decided by
majority vote of its members and approved by the
Competent Minister.
Whoever is penalized by the committee shall have the
right to file a petition to the Grievance Board within
sixty days from the date of notification of the penalty.
Article Twenty One:
The committee set forth in paragraph (2) of Article
Twenty may order, if necessary, an immediate elimination
of the violation without awaiting issuance of a decision
from the Grievance Bureau in respect to the petition or
the case, as per the circumstances.
Article Twenty Two:
The Competent Agency shall establish the Rules for
Implementation of this Regulation in coordination with
the concerned agencies. The Rules for Implementation
shall be issued by a decision from the Competent
Minister within a year from the date of publication of
this Regulation.
Article Twenty Three:
Current regulations, rules, decisions and instructions
related to the environment in force at the time of
publication of this Regulation shall remain valid
provided there is no contradiction.
Article Twenty Four:
This Regulation shall be published in the official
Gazette and go into force after one year from the
publication date.
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