Annual environmental compliance obligations in El Salvador.

By zone_admin | 24 de May de 2022 | Blog

Individuals, companies, businesses or institutions whose activities are subject to environmental requirements must annually carry out a verification of environmental compliance with their obligations, which will have the purpose of collecting and analyzing information on the status of compliance, and will also allow detecting and correct possible violations of the law.   In this opportunity we will analyze the Annual Operation Report, as a core part for the Supervision of Environmental Compliance in El Salvador. Art. 9 of the Special Wastewater Regulation establishes that the owners must prepare and submit to the Ministry operational reports on the wastewater treatment systems and the conditions of their discharges, reflecting the frequency of sampling and that this will form part of the annual report on the results of the application of the Environmental Management or Environmental Adaptation Programs.  The Annual Operation Report (IOA) is the environmental compliance mechanism of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARN), by means of which companies and institutions that have the Environmental Permit for their work, activity or project, either in the construction or operation stage, they must report annually during the first three (3) months, the operational status of their activity, detailing key information on the generation, management and disposal of: 
  • Solid waste.
  • Sewage water.
  • Atmospheric emissions.
  • Use of hazardous materials and waste.
  • Consumption of water and other raw materials used in its production process. 
The Annual Operational Report, being prepared by the company or institution itself, provides much more complete information on the compliance of the company or institution than that which can be obtained through periodic inspections, and its main purpose is to provide the necessary information to carry out a mapping of the country's environmental situation and determine the points of greatest problems, in terms of polluting stationary sources. Likewise, the information in these reports constitutes a source for identifying sectors of the productive activity that need to improve their environmental performance.  The IOA must show the environmental performance information of the immediately previous year and must be complemented with proof of execution of the environmental measures and of the laboratory analyzes of the study period.   Failure to comply with this annual obligation is sanctioned in article 87 of the Environmental Law, which classifies as Serious Offenses the breach of the obligations contained in numerals c) and i) of article 86 of the same legal body, allowing the initiation of an administrative sanctioning process and the imposition of fines.