THE ENVIRONMENT

FIRST NEW-STYLE ENVIRONMENT PERMIT FOR UTTI AIRPORT

In November 2005 the environmental authority for eastern Finland granted Utti Airport the first airport environmental permit to conform to new regulations. The licence application was made in collaboration with the defence forces, since it was the construction of a new military transport helicopter base at Utti that made the application necessary. In making its decision the licensing authority applied environmental protection legislation that was amended at the end of 2003 and assigned the permit terms separately to the CAA and the Utti Jaeger (light infantry) Regiment. This clarifi es the responsibilities and cooperative relationship between the civilian and military operators regarding environmental matters.

By the end of the year environmental permits had been applied for Tampere-Pirkkala, Turku, Mariehamn, Oulu and Helsinki-Malmi airports. Applications for these last two were submitted during the review year. The decision on the Tampere-Pirkkala permit is expected during the spring of 2006.

Particular effort was made during the review year to improve the process by which permit applications are drawn up. This more streamlined method was employed for the Oulu and Malmi applications. The majority of the required information is written up in the form of a report, with map presentations incorporated into the same document. Any necessary additions and emendations are written directly into a new version of the document, which makes it considerably easier to compose the document, process it and deal with any changes. The licensing authorities have also commended this application procedure.