**Environmental Assessment Level Training**

**NTC Course No. 1620-03BC**

**A Telecast Originating from**

**the BLM National Training Center**

**September 16-17, 1998**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

**BEGINNING OF MORNING SESSION, 1ST DAY, 9-16-98**

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Environmental
Assessment Level Analysis. Course 1620‑03 Bc. An Interagency Forum for
BLM, Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service Employees
to Discuss Environmental Assessments as They Relate to the National
Environmental Policy Act. And Now, the Host of Your Program, Jordan
Pope.

Pope: Good Morning and Welcome to Our Program on Environmental
Assessment Level Analysis. During the next Two Days, the National
Resources Conservation Service and the Bureau of Land Management Will
Present the First Joint Course on Environmental Assessment as Outlined
by the Environmental Policy Act. Our Objective for the First Day Is to
Help You to Understand the EA Process and How it Is Used. To Do This, We
Will Have Discussions, Question and Answer Sessions and a Training
Exercise Based on the Following Three Topics\... When to Do an EA, Who
Needs to Be Involved in the EA Process, And the EA Process and the Parts
of an EA. The Interagency Training Team, We Have Assembled Here Will
Explain the Importance of an EA Level Analysis and Attempt to Foster a
Common Understanding and Consistent Application of the EA Process Across
Agency Boundaries. With a Better Understanding of the EA and NEPA
Processes, You Will Be Able to Make Better Decisions Regarding EAs, Save
Time And Money in Your Decision Making and Improve Customer Service.
Throughout this Two‑day Course, You Should Refer to the Course Outline
in Your Workbook and Course Book Provided to Your Offices. If You
Haven\'t Received These Documents, You Can Download Them From the BLM
National Training Center\'s Home Page at www.blm.ntc.gov. During
Today\'s Broadcast, You Can Communicate with the Trainers Via the
Telephone or Fax Machine. We Encourage You it to Participate as Much as
Possible Because We Want this to Be a Learning Experience for Everyone
Watching. So, If You\'re Not Quite Sure How to Write an Efficient and
Effective Environmental Assessment, this Course Is for You. If You Have
Questions During the Broadcast, There Will Be Several Opportunities for
You to Call in and Discuss Them with Any of the Panelists. Use the
Telephone Number Provided in Your Course Workbook to Do This. If You
Would Prefer to Fax in Your Questions, You Can Do So at Any Time. Use
the Form Provided in the Back of Your Workbook or on a Plain, White
Sheet of Paper. Please Write Legible and with a Dark Marker and Include
Your Name and Telephone Number in Case We Need to Clarify Your Question
or Comment. We\'ll Answer as Many Questions as We Can During the
Broadcast But in Case We Run out of Time, Someone Will Contact You
Regarding Your Question after the Course. The Only Way We Can Know If
You Have Attended this Broadcast Is If You Fill out the Evaluation Form
on the Internet. This Form Is the Last Page in Your Workbook. The Web
Address Is on the Form. You May Fax in the Evaluation Using the Number
on the Form If You Cannot Access the Internet. Joining Me Today for this
Two‑day Broadcast Is a Very Diverse And Distinguished Panel of
Instructors. We Have Andree Duvarney, National Environmental Coordinator
from The Natural Resource Conservation System in Washington D.c. Andree,
It\'s a Pleasure Having You with Us Today.

Duvarney: Thanks a Lot, Jordan. I\'m Excited to Be Here and to Be to Be
Able to Be a Part of this Ground Breaking Interagency NEPA Training.
I\'m Looking Forward to It.

Pope: I\'m Sure Your Presence Will Help out a Lot. Next Is Phil Hall, a
Planning and Environmental Coordinator from The Bureau of Land
Management in Roseburg, Oregon. How Are You Doing Today, Phil?

Hall: I\'m Fine. Glad to Be Here. I\'m Looking Forward to Hearing from
Our Audience.

Pope: I\'m Sure That Will Help to Make it an Outstanding Course When
They Call In. Also with Us Today Is Sharon Churchill, a Planner and
Biologist From the U.s. Forest Service out of Flagstaff, Arizona. Thanks
for Joining Us Today, Sharon.

Churchill: Thank You, Jordan. It Is a Pleasure to Be Here. And You Know
Driving down from Flagstaff to Phoenix, I Go Through Five of the Six
Life Zones That Are Found Here in Arizona and in Looking at That Vast
Landscape and the Contrasts Within That Landscape, and Also Looking at
the Human Activities In That Landscape, I Can\'t Help but Think a Lot
about the Need And Importance for Good Environmental Analysis and
Planning. So, I\'m Pretty Excited to Be Here and I Think We\'re Going to
Have a Very Interesting and Challenging Session.

Pope: Thank You. And Rounding out Our Panel Is Glenn Wallace, Planning
Environmental Coordinator from the Bureau of Land Management in Denver,
Colorado. Glenn, It\'s Good to See You Again.

Wallace: Thanks, Jordan. It Is a Pleasure to Be Here. I\'m Really
Looking Forward to this Afternoon Session on Developing Alternatives.

Pope: Good. As Mentioned Earlier, this Is a Joint Training Session among
Three Federal Agencies. Everyone Involved in this Process Has Learned a
Great Deal about Each Agency and the Differences and Similarities We
Face in Our Approaches to Environmental Assessments. This Course Will
Emphasize What the Agencies Have in Common Which Are the Natural
Environmental Policy Act or NEPA and the Council on Environmental
Quality or Ceq Regulations. We Realize That Individual Agency Management
Goals and Objectives Are More Complex than Just Meeting NEPA and Ceq
Regulations. And That Agencies Are Faced with Unique Challenges and
Situations That Require Different Processes, Procedures and Approaches
to Eas. If One Agency\'s Approach Differs from Yours, it Does Not Mean
That One Is Right and the Other Is Wrong. Or One Is Procedure Proactive
than the Other. Our Missions Are Complex and Diverse. And Different
Approaches Are to Be Expected. If You Have Participated in this Training
with Other Agency Employees, Try and Get to Know Them over the next Two
Days. And Talk about Your Different Missions and Goals. We Think You\'ll
Gain Information and Insight and Discover You Have a Lot in Common.
Well, Without Further Delay, Let\'s Get Started. I Will Turn it over to
Andree, Who Will Discuss When to Do an EA Andree?

Duvarney: Thanks, Jordan for That Great Introduction to Our Training
Session. I\'m Glad to Be Here Today to Talk to You about How to Know
When You Have to Prepare an Environmental Assessment Which Should Be A
Smaller less Complicated Analysis of Environmental Impacts Than You
Would Have to Do for an Environmental Impact Statement Or an Eis. As a
Tool to Help You Decide When You Need to Do an Environmental Assessment,
I\'m Going to Describe a Type of Screening Process You Can Use.

Excuse Me, Andree. I\'ve Been Empowered in the Name of Interagency
Cooperation. To Offer the Nrcs Assistance in Their Screening Process.

Duvarney: Phil, this Isn\'t Exactly What I Had in Mind. But I Guess
Thinking about It, I Suppose it Does Help to Illustrate the Point in a
Way. This Screen, My Friend Phil Here Brought Can Help Keep Unwanted
Bugs and Other Things out of Your House or Shelter. But the Kind of
Screen I\'m Talking about Keeps Extraneous Information or Red Herrings,
If You Will, out of the Process of Deciding What Kind of NEPA
Documentation You Need to Prepare. The Process Is Vague Enough Without
Confusing Things with Stuff That\'s Not Relevant, Right? Ok, Anyway,
There Are Three Main Things I Want You to Get out of My Discussion
Today. The First Is That You\'re Able to Recognize a Federal Action.
Because If There Is No Federal Action, NEPA Isn\'t Triggered and You
Don\'t Even Have to Ask What Kind of Documentation Is Required. The
Second Thing Is That Even When There Is a Federal Action and NEPA Is
Triggered, it There May Still Be a Very Good Reason Not To Prepare
Either an EA or an Eis and I Want You to Know What The Reasons Are.
Finally, I Want You to Get an Idea of the Types of Activities That Each
of Our Three Agencies Has Already Identified as Being Appropriate for
Something Besides an Ea. By Giving You Examples of Activities That Are
Categorically Excluded from NEPA Documentation Requirements or That Have
Already Been Identified as Requiring an Eis. So the First Thing I Want
to Talk about Is What a Federal Action Is. I\'m Only Going to Talk
Briefly about it Because It\'s Generally Not a Big Issue, Especially to
BLM and Forest Service. At Least That\'s My Understanding. I Mean,
Isn\'t Almost Everything That You Do in Forest Service And BLM
Considered a Federal Action Because it Involves Federal Land?

Churchill: for the Forest Service, Andree, That\'s Certainly True. Even
When We Get an External Proposal from an External Proponent. Ultimately
Because the Forest Service Is the Agency, That\'s a Federal Action.

Duvarney: What about BLM?

That\'s True for BLM.

Duvarney: I\'m Sure You All Agree That Makes Sense. Ours Is Different.
We Work Often with Landowners. That\'s the Case When We\'re Providing
Pure Technical Assistance And We\'re Just Helping the Landowner Decide
What to Do. Then We\'re Just Giving Advice about What Conservation
Practices Or Systems Would Help the Landowner Meet Their Goals. And in
Those Cases, Nrcs Has No Control over What Kind of Action Ultimately
Gets Taken So There\'s No Federal Action Triggering NEPA. But Once We
Provide Financial Assistance, There\'s Definitely a Federal Action and
NEPA Is Triggered and More and More Often, Nrcs Is Providing Financial
Assistance. And That\'s Why When Nrcs Provides Technical Assistance, We
Also Conduct What We Call an Environmental Evaluation and Complete What
We Call a Cp 52 Form Which Is Called the Environmental Effects for
Conservation Plans, and Areawide Conservation Plans. That Document
Basically Constitutes the EA That Nrcs Uses for Activities That Involve
Only a Single Landowner. Of Course, it Also Ensures That Nrcs Complies
with and Informs Landowners about Other Environmental Requirements That
Affect Their Planning like the Endangered Species Act. Now, in a
Statewide or Watershed or Other Areawide Planning Level, it Certainly
Makes Sense for Nrcs to Comply with NEPA in Much the Same Way the Forest
Service Does. That Way We Can Be Sure We\'re Considering the Cumulative
Effects Of What We\'re Doing Together with What Others in the Area Are
Doing. That\'s Required Not Only by the Council on Environmental Quality
Or Ceq but Also by Nrcs NEPA Implementing Regulations. Complying with
NEPA on a Broad Level Also Means There Will Be NEPA Documents to Tier
Specific Sites To. Glenn Will Talk about Tiering and Some Other Tools
for Efficiency a Lot More Tomorrow. And How They Can Be Used to Reduce
the Time and Cost of Complying with NEPA. But for Now, Let it Suffice to
Say That Even for Nrcs, it Shouldn\'t Be Too Important to Ask Whether
NEPA Has Been Triggered. It Is Healthy to Assume it Has Been or Will Be
and to Incorporate it into Your Planning Process and Prepare
Documentation Appropriately. Now Let\'s Look at How Ceq Defines Major
Federal Action in Their Regulations. As You Can See, the Rule Says
Federal Actions Include Any Activities That Are Potentially Subject to
Federal Control and Responsibility. It Also Includes Approval of
Specific Projects. And Any Activities That Are Financed, Conducted,
Regulated or Approved by a Federal Agency. Major Federal Action Also
Includes Adopting or Making Substantial Changes to Official Policy or
Formal Plans or Programs. So, as I Said, Pretty Much Everything We Do
When We Can Control The Impacts That Occur on the Ground Triggers NEPA.
You Know, this Does Actually Bring a Question to My Mind. What about All
of Those Forest Service Plans That You Put Together? I Mean I Know Those
Are Considered Federal Actions but What About When the Plans Are Amended
or Revised. Are Those Also Federal Actions That Trigger NEPA?

Churchill: Andree, Yes. Forest Plan Revisions and Amendments Are
Considered Major Federal Actions and Therefore Do Trigger NEPA. The Only
Real Question That We Encounter in Making Those Revisions and Amendments
Is Thinking Through the Level of Detail That We Need to Go into in That
Process.

Duvarney: That Makes a Lot of Sense. I Presume You Can Use Tiering in
Some Cases. That Sounds Good. Ok. Enough about What Triggers NEPA and
What Federal Actions Are. Now Let\'s Get More into the Stuff That\'s
Really Important for You to Know. And That Is the Steps of the Screening
Process That You Can Use To Decide What Kind of NEPA Documentation Might
Be Required. Before Going into the Details about Each Step, Let Me Give
You An Overview of What the All the Screening Questions Are. There Are
Really Only Five Screening Questions You Need to Remember to Ask. As I
Just Said, We\'ll Go into Each One in Detail in a Minute. But First,
Here They Are So That You\'ll Know What We\'re Going to Talk about. The
First Question Is Whether Existing Analysis and Documentation Is
Sufficient. The Second Question Is Whether the Proposal Is Somehow
Excepted From NEPA Requirements. Third Question Is Whether the Activity
Is Categorically Excluded From NEPA. The Fourth Question That You Need
to Ask Is Whether the Activity Is One That Normally Requires an Eis. And
Finally, You Have to Ask Whether the Proposed Activity Will Have
Significant Environmental Impacts. But Regardless of All of This, You
Should Be Aware That the Ultimate Outcome of the Screening Process Will
Be a Decision Either to Do Nothing Except Maybe Prepare an
Administrative Determination or Decision Document of Some Kind or to
Prepare an EA or an Eis. And Those Are Really the Only Possibilities
Once NEPA\'s Triggered. Also I Want to Say by Way of an Introduction to
These Questions That There Really Are Only Four Situations When Neither
an EA Nor an Eis Is Required. And the First Should Be Fairly Obvious.
And That Is When the Agency Decides to Drop the Proposed Action
Altogether. Other Times Neither an EA or Eis Is Required Is When
Existing Analysis and Documentation Is Sufficient or When an Exception
Applies to the Documentation Requirements. And Finally, When an Activity
Is Categorically Excluded from NEPA and There Are No Special
Circumstances That Would Require An EA or an Eis. In All Other Cases,
Either an EA or an Eis must Be Prepared. By Now, I\'m Sure You\'re
Getting the Idea. Basically, the Eis Is Prepared for Activity
Significantly Affecting the Quality of the Human Environment and an EA
Is Prepared for All Other Activities That Require NEPA Documentation or
When There\'s Some Question about Whether the Impacts Will Be
Significant. Now Let\'s Get into Each of the Screening Questions in More
Detail. First Let\'s Talk Briefly about Using Existing Analysis and
Documentation. Ceq Regs Encourage Us to Make the Best Use of Existing
Documents And Avoid Redundancy and Unneeded Paperwork. I Know We All
Want to Do That Every Weekend. We Have Already Enough of That Already.
That\'s the Reason We Ask Our Question Which Is Whether Documentation Is
Sufficient. Some of the Tools That Help Us Avoid the Evils of Redundancy
and Unneeded Paperwork Include Tiering from a Higher Level, More General
Document to a Site‑specific Document. Supplementing Existing Documents
Instead of Writing a New Document from Scratch. Incorporating by
Reference Portions of Other Documents or Analysis. Or Even Adopting
Other Existing Documents or Analysis in Full. Using One of These
Techniques May Enable You to Prepare an EA Instead of an Eis or to
Prepare an Administrative Determination Or Some Type of Decision
Document. And Sometimes No NEPA Documentation at All May Be Required.
But I\'m Not Going to Discuss These with You in Any Detail Right Now
Because Glenn\'s Going to Be Talking about it a Lot More Tomorrow When
He Talks about Tools for Efficiency. The Bottom Line Is Though That When
There\'s an Existing NEPA Document for Substantially the Same Action,
You Can Just Describe the Difference and Issue a New Decision That
References The Existing NEPA Documentation. Ok, Now I Want to Talk Just
for a Minute on a Side Topic That\'s Closely Related to this Issue of
Using Existing Documentation. And That\'s Planning. I Don\'t Want to Go
into Any Detail Because Each of Our Agencies Has Different Approaches to
Planning and Different Amounts of Control over the Planning Process and
Different Ways of Integrating NEPA into the Planning Process. But
Sometimes We Don\'t Distinguish Enough Between Our Plans and Our NEPA
Documents or We Forget to Keep Them Consistent with Each Other. And
That\'s Why it Can Be Important to Ask Another Question Before Even
Asking Whether Existing Documentation and Analysis Is Sufficient. And
That Is Whether the Proposed Action Conforms to an Existing Land Use
Plan That Has Supporting NEPA Documentation. Or for Nrcs, to an Existing
Conservation Plan or Contract That Has Supporting NEPA Documentation. If
an Action Doesn\'t Conform to an Existing Forest Service or BLM Land Use
Plan, Then They Have to Modify the Plan or Modify The Proposal So That
it Conforms to the Plan. Or They Can Drop the Proposal Altogether and
Generally, That\'s What Happens, the Proposal Gets Dropped. For Nrcs If
the Landowner Were to Request to Modify Activities That Had Already Been
Approved for Financial Assistance and Were Already Covered under a
Conservation Plan or Program Contract, We Would Have to Decide Whether
to Modify the Plan and the Contract or Modify the Proposed Action So it
Conforms to the Existing Contract but Still Meets the Landowner\'s Needs
or We Can Refuse to Provide Financial Assistance to Implement the
Practice. But in the Case of Any of Our Three Agencies, If the Proposal
Weren\'t Dropped, We Would Have to Ask Whether Existing Documentation
and Analysis Were Sufficient. Now, I\'ll Review this One More Time
Briefly at the End of My Talk Today but Please Don\'t Let this Issue of
the Relationship Of Plans and NEPA Documents Confuse You or Distract
from You the Main Focus of Knowing When You Need to Prepare an Ea. If
You Want More Information about How Plans and NEPA Documents Relate to
Each Other, Just Contact Your Agency Planning or NEPA Leaders. All
Right. Let\'s Move on Now. If You Find Existing Analysis and
Documentation Are Not Sufficient to Meet NEPA Requirements for the
Proposed Action, Then the next Screening Question You Need to Ask Is
Whether the Proposal Is Excepted from NEPA Requirements. Now We\'ll Talk
about What That Means. If the Proposal Is for an Excepted Activity,
There\'s No Need to Develop NEPA Documentation Before You Implement the
Action. Although There May Be a Need to Develop Something after. This
Will Become Clearer as We Discuss the Three Types of Exceptions That
Exist. There Are Congressionally Exempted Actions, There\'s Certain
Emergency Activities, and There\'s Also, of Course, Situations When an
Agency Decides Not to Take Any Action at All. Now, Let\'s Talk about the
First Type of Exception. Congressional Exemptions. Phil, I Understand
That on a Few Rare Occasions Congress Has Exempted Certain BLM
Activities from NEPA Compliance. Can You Give Us a Couple Examples of
Those?

Hall: Sure, That\'s True. They Have, Andree. One Example Is When
Congress Authorized BLM to Grant the Right‑of‑way for the Alaska
Pipeline. They Specifically Exempted That from NEPA. Another Example Is
the Kerr‑mcgee Land Sale in Las Vegas. Congress Wanted the Land
Available for Industrial Development as Soon as Possible So They
Exempted it from NEPA.

Duvarney: Was Any NEPA Documentation Developed for Those Actions?

Hall: No, it Wasn\'t. That Was the Whole Point Was to Avoid That.

Duvarney: How about the Forest Service? Has Congress Exempted Any of
Your Activities?

Churchill: Congressional Exemptions Are Rare. We Did Have One Exemption,
at Least Partial and Qualified That Occurred Several Years Ago That
Really Affected a Lot of Us Here In the West. In about 1995, a Rider Was
Attached to an Appropriations Bill That Spoke to Issuance of Grazing
Permits. It Was Qualified and it Was Qualified in Terms of If We Could
Not Complete NEPA, the NEPA Process and Make a Decision in Time To
Authorize the Permits at the End of the Calendar Year, We Were Directed
to Go Ahead and Issue the Permit and Then Catch up Basically on NEPA and
That Is to Continue to Conduct Our NEPA Analysis after We Had Issued the
Decision and Issued the Permit. But Then to Go Back and Make
Modifications So it Was Very Qualified. Other Thing Was That it Was
Limited in Time. We Had Direction for Two Years and at Two Years, That
Expired. The Other Qualification Was That We Had to Develop a Schedule
or A Calendar for NEPA Analysis for Those Permits So it Was Not a Full
Exemption from NEPA.

Duvarney: It\'s More than We\'ve Had at Nrcs. I Can\'t Say I\'m Aware of
Exemptions for Nrcs Activity So Far. Ok, the Last Point I Want to Make
about These Congressional Exemptions Is When One\'s Applicable, You
Probably Don\'t Have to Do Anything for NEPA. Though Based on Agency
Policy, You May Need Some Type of Administrative Determination or
Decision Document That Includes A Statement That the Responsible Federal
Official Has Determined That Congress Exempted the Action from the
Requirements of NEPA. But That Would Be about It. The next Exception to
the Normal NEPA Documentation Requirements That I Want to Talk about Is
for Emergency Situations. Now, Ceq Regulations Do Allow Us to Take Any
Action That We Need To So We Can Prevent or Reduce Risks to Public
Health or Safety Or Serious Resource Losses. However, the Regulations
Also Require Us to Consult with Ceq About How We\'re Going to Comply
with NEPA in Such an Event. Only Such Portions of the Action Directly
Related to the Emergency Will Be Discussed with Ceq. Other Portions of
the Action, Including Any Follow‑up Actions And Related or Connected
Actions, Remain Subject to NEPA Requirements Before They Can Be Taken.
Now, Let\'s Look at Some Specific Examples Our Agencies Have Dealt with
under the Emergency Provisions. The Possibility Exists That Nrcs Might
Be Able to Use These Provisions in the Case of the Emergency Watershed
Protection Program. But Generally We Don\'t since We Perform an
Environmental Evaluation and We Do Prepare a Simplified Environmental
Assessment, Sometimes Tiered to a Programmatic Eis or Ea. As Part of Our
Site Eligibility Determination. And Besides That, Most of Our Ewp
Activities Don\'t Rise to the Level of Significance Requiring an Eis So
They Wouldn\'t Qualify For this. But in the Case of Forest Service, I
Understand That You Use These Emergency Provisions for Fighting Forest
Fires. Can You Tell Us about That, Sharon?

Churchill: Sure. Wildfire Suppression Is Probably One of Our Most Common
Emergency Exceptions That We Work with. And Basically, What We Do Is
When There\'s a Wildfire, We Contact Ceq to Let Them Know about the
Wildfire and What Our Plan for Action Is on That. We Can Also Be
Excepted from NEPA in Terms of Doing Immediate And Urgent Postfire
Rehabilitation of the Site. If We Want to Do Long‑term Rehabilitation or
Use the Burned over Site in the Future, We Have to Perform NEPA on That.
But I Think We\'re Very Similar to the BLM Are We Not, Glenn?

Wallace: Yes, Sharon. BLM Complies with NEPA on Fire Rehab.

Duvarney: You Use the Emergency Provisions for That?

Wallace: Yes.

Duvarney: Ok. Glenn, Didn\'t You Also Tell Me about Another Emergency
Exception Once for Related to Seasonal Flooding?

Wallace: Yes, Andree. I\'ve Been Told of a Situation in Las Vegas,
Nevada Where BLM Was Building a Flood Control Dam and the Draft Eis Had
Been Completed. But the Snow Was Beginning to Melt in the Mountains That
Signaled the Beginning of the Hazardous Flood Season. And since BLM Was
So Far along Anyway with the Eis, Ceq Granted BLM Emergency Authority to
Go Ahead and Construct the Flood Control Dam and Then Complete the Final
Eis after the Fact. BLM Did Have to Then Go Back and Complete the Final
Eis However.

Duvarney: at Least the Dam Was Finished Before Hazardous Flooding Began.
I\'m Sure the Folks in Las Vegas Were Happy about That.

Wallace: Yep.

Duvarney: That\'s Really a Good Example of Why Ceq Put the Emergency
Exception in the Regs. For These Emergency Situations or Whenever the
Emergency Provisions Are Invoked, the Responsible Federal Initial May
Need To Record an Administrative Determination or a Decision Document,
What Activities Are Being Conducted and the Determination That They\'re
Covered by the Emergency Exception to NEPA. But That\'s Only If It\'s
Required by Agency Policy. And No Other Documentation Is Required Before
Taking the Emergency Actions. Ok, the Final Exception to NEPA Is When an
Agency Initially Proposes to Take a Federal Action but Then Decides to
Reject It. And this Usually Only Happens When a Third Party Proposing an
Action That Doesn\'t Conform to a Land Use Plan and So Doesn\'t Warrant
Consideration or Isn\'t Within the Agency\'s Authority to Approve. And
in These Cases, No NEPA or Other Decision Document Is Required. But
Whenever One of These Exceptions Applies, Either Congressional
Exemptions, Emergencies or Rejection of the Proposed Action, There\'s No
Requirement to Prepare NEPA Documentation. But Once Again, Depending on
Agency Policy, the Responsible Federal Official Might Need to Document
the Finding That the Proposed Action Is Accepted from Neep 35 and Say
That an Exception Applies and Why it Applies. Ok. Now We\'ve Talked
about the First Two Screening Questions. Which Are Whether Existing
Analysis and Documentation Is Sufficient and Whether the Proposal Is
Accepted from NEPA Requirements for Any One of Three Reasons. So Far We
Still Haven\'t Hit on Any Situations Requiring an Ea. But Now Let\'s
Talk about Another Situation That We Don\'t Usually Need Any NEPA
Documentation for and That\'s Categorical Exclusions. Ceq Regulations
Define Categorical Exclusions as Categories of Activities That Have No
Significant Effect on the Human Environment, Either Individually or
Cumulatively. And in Those Cases, Neither an EA or an Eis Is Normally
Required. In Fact, Ceq Regulations Give Agencies Authority to Identify
Which of Their Activities Ought to Be in this Category and Each Of Us
Has Regulations or Federal Register Notice That Identifies Categorically
Excluded Activities. Both at the Department and the Agency Level. And
Let\'s Look for a Minute at What Some of These Are. Sharon, Can You Tell
Me about Some of the Categorical Exclusions Forest Service Has
Identified?

Churchill: Sure, I Can Give.

Brief Overview. The Secretary of Agriculture Has Established Some
Categories That We Both Nrcs and Forest Service Share. Some of the
Activities Include Educational and Informational Services, Research
Studies, and Such Things as Advisory Activities Which You Engage in
Actually a Lot. The Ones That Affect Us, the Forest Service Most in the
Field Are Such Things as Reconstruction of Trails and Roads, Maintenance
of Recreation Sites and Administrative Sites, Those Sorts of Things. And
for Those Activities, We Don\'t Need Any Specific NEPA Documentation.
Now, There Are Some Exceptions That We Have to Screen for and I Know
You\'re Going to Talk about That So I Won\'t Go into Detail On That. But
There Are a Few More Other Activities That Are Categorically Excluded.
Those Include the Reconstruction of Trails and Roads, Some Salvage
Sales, Additions to Utility Corridors, Those Sorts of Activities and for
Those, We Have to Maintain a Project File on Which We Show How We
Contacted the Public and That We Did the Appropriate Level of Public
Comment and Documentation.

Duvarney: I Can See Why You Would Want Documentation in Those Cases.
Those Are Fairly Controversial Activities.

Churchill: They Can Be.

Duvarney: What about BLM? Can You Give Us Examples of Your Categorically
Excluded Activities?

Hall: We Have, Activities, Too. Things like Nondestructive Inventory,
Monitoring, Studies, We Search. Those Sorts of Things. I Would like to
Add to That, We Have Some Good Forest Service, Good BLM People Working
Together to Look at Our Activities to See What We Have in Common. To See
That If We Might Eventually Publish a Broader List That Would Apply to
Both Agencies. So We\'ll Work at That. I\'m Not Sure How Long That\'s
Going to Take or When it Might Be Out.

Duvarney: Very Worthwhile Undertaking. Sounds like Actually Nrcs Falls
in Line with BLM. The Nrcs Activities That Are Categorically Excluded at
this Time Are Our Data Gathering and Interpretation Programs and Our
Soil Survey and Snow and Water Supply Forecasts. We\'ve Also Excluded
Our Plant Materials Program and Our Inventory and Monitoring and River
Basin Studies. That\'s Really about It. Before Leaving the Topic of
Categorical Exclusions, I Have One More Thing to Say about Them. That Is
They\'re Not Really Quite as Simple as They Seem. And Why? Because of
What Sharon Just Mentioned. There Is Exceptions to These Categorical
Exclusions. And Once You Run into One of Those, You Need to Prepare an
Ea. Let\'s Look at What These Exceptions Are for a Minute. There Are Ten
Exceptions That Result in the Need to Do an EA Even Though You Have a
Categorically Excluded Activity. They Include Any Time That There Are
Adverse Effects to Public Health and Safety, or Adverse Effects to
Unique Geographic Characteristics Such as Cultural Resources, Wetlands
or Even Prime Farmland. You May Also Have to Do an EA When There Are
Highly Controversial Environmental Effects or Highly Uncertain and
Potentially Significant Effects. You Would Also Want to Do an EA If the
Action Is Going to Establish a Precedent for Future Actions. Or If
There\'s Individually Insignificant but Accumulatively Significant
Effects. You Should Consider an EA Is If There\'s Going to Be Adverse
Effects on National Places of Historic Places Properties or on
Threatened and Endangered Species of Any Listed Critical Habitat. The
Same Would Be True When the Proposed Activity Requires Compliance with
Other Environmental Requirements. Such as Fish and Wildlife Coordination
Act for Example. And If Your Activity May Threaten to Violate Federal,
State, Local or Tribal Environmental Laws or Requirements, You Also
Should Consider Doing an Ea. Now, Here\'s Actually Where You Get to Be
Kind of Creative. Just Because You Find That One of These Exceptions
Applies, You Don\'t Necessarily Have to Start Working on Your EA Right
Away. First, Take a Look and See If You Can Modify the Proposed Action
So That it Doesn\'t Trigger Any of These Exceptions. That Way, You\'re
Back to Where You Can Categorically Exclude the Action So No NEPA
Documentation Is Required. Whenever You Have an Activity That\'s
Categorically Excluded Though, and for Which No Exceptions Apply, the
Responsible Official May Need to Document That Finding in Some Kind of
Decision Document or in an Attachment to a Decision Document. And If So,
the Findings Need to Indicate That the Action Is Categorically Excluded
and Say Where the Action Is Found in the Regulations or Federal Register
Notice. It Should Also Include a Finding That There Are No Exceptional
Circumstances Requiring Special Consideration and That That\'s Why
Neither an EA or an Eis Is Needed. Ok, Hang on with Me Now. There\'s
Only Two More Screening Questions to Go! Before We Go There, Let\'s See
How Far We\'ve Come. We\'ve Already Covered Asking Where Existing
Analysis and Documentation Is Sufficient. We\'ve Also Talked about
Whether the Proposal Is Excepted from NEPA Requirements. And Whether the
Proposed Action Can Be Categorically Excluded. Assuming None of the
Answers to These Gets Us out of the Requirement to Prepare NEPA
Documentation, Then We next Need to Decide What Level of Documentation
Is Required. For That, We Ask the next Question\... Which Is Whether the
Activity Is One That Normally Requires an Eis. NEPA Requires an Eis to
Be Prepared Before Taking Any Major Federal Action That Significantly
Affects the Quality of the Human Environment. Now, this Impact Can Be
Beneficial or Adverse but If It\'s Significant, an Eis must Be Prepared.
Ceqs NEPA Regulations Give Agencies Authority to Decide for Themselves
What Kind of Action They Undertake That Will Generally Require an Eis,
Just like the Ceq Regs Do for Categorically Exclude Activities. Also
like Categorical Exclusions, These Actions Are Identified In Each
Agency\'s NEPA Regulations or Other Federal Registered Notice. Now in
Nrcs, Our Regulations Require Projects That Include Stream Channel
Realignment or Modification of Channel Capacity Where There Is
Significant Aquatic or Wildlife Habitat Present. We Also Need to Do Eiss
for Action Though I\'m Not Aware of Any Actions That Fall into this
Category. The Regs Also Apply to Programs That Have Broad Impacts. Now
Let\'s Find out about BLM and Forest Service. What Kind of Activities
Has BLM Identified That Generally Require an Eis? Glenn?

Wallace: Andree, Before You Mentioned Planning and Before We Approve Any
Resource Management Plan, We Also Prepare an Eis in Conjunction with
That. But We Also Require Eiss Before Make Decisions Regarding Wild And
Scenic River Designations, Approving Regional Sales and Also Before
Approval of Major Facilities Such as Major Power Lines or Industrial
Facilities. And I Think You Get the Picture. All of These Are Pretty Big
Actions That Have the Potential for Major Impacts. And That\'s Why Eis
Is a Required.

Duvarney: That Certainly Makes Sense. I Could See in Those Cases. But
Sharon, What about Forest Service?

Churchill: Well, in Listening to Glenn, it Sounds like We\'re Similar to
the Bureau of Land Management. In Our Requirements for an Eis. We
Require an Eis Generally for Forest Plans and Also Designation of Wild
and Scenic Rivers. One Other Area of Activity Where We Require an Eis Is
for the Aerial Application of Herbicides or Pesticides.

Duvarney: Those Are Some Pretty Controversial Activities. I Can See Why
Forest Service Would Want to Do an Eis in Those Cases. Let\'s Look Now a
Little Closer at this Question of Significant Environmental Impacts Just
for a Minute. Because on If the Activity Is Not One That\'s Been
Identified as One That Normally Requires an Eis, We Still Have One Final
Question to Ask Before Deciding That an EA Is the Appropriate Document
to Prepare. And That Question Is\... Whether the Environmental Impacts
Are Expected to Be Significant. Now, to Decide Whether an Action Has a
Significant Impact on the Quality of the Human Environment, You Need to
Look at the Context in Which the Action\'s Occurring and the Intensity
of the Impact Meaning You Have to Analyze the Significance of the Action
in Several Contexts on a National Level, at the Level of The Affected
Region and the Affected Locality and Interests. But Intense Sit a Bit
More Complicated So Let\'s Look at the 10 Considerations That the Ceq
Regulations Identify for Evaluating Intensity. The First Factor
Indicates That You May Have a Significant Impact Whether Those Impacts
Are Beneficial or Adverse. This Is One That\'s Especially Important to
Note Because Many People Think an Eis Is for Adverse Impacts. Next
Factor to Consider When You\'re Deciding Whether You Need Do An Eis Is
the Degree to Which the Action Affects the Public Health and Safety. You
Also Need to Consider the Proximity of the Proposed Action To Any Unique
Geographic or Protected Resources. And You Need to Look at the Degree to
Which the Effects Are of High Controversy or Highly Uncertain or the
Degree to Which the Action Will Set a Precedent. You Also Need to Look
at the Relationship of the Proposed Action To Other Actions That Have
Individually Insignificant but Cumulatively Significant Impacts. This Is
an Important One. And Is at Least Part of the Reason Nrcs Regulations
Require Programmatic or Plan Level or Project Level Eiss in a Lot of
Cases. You May Also Have an Action That Rises to the Level of
Significance Requiring an Eis Depending on the Degree of Impact That You
Have to Structures That Are Listed on the National Register of Historic
Places or on the Loss of Cultural Resources. Same Is True for the Degree
of Impact on Species Listed as Threatened or Endangered under the
Endangered Species Act or the Critical Habitat of Those Species.
Finally, You Need to Look to See Whether the Action Threatens Federal,
State or Local Environmental Laws Because That Might Also Mean You
Should Prepare an Eis Instead of an Ea. Now, Hopefully These Factors
Look Fairly Familiar to You. They\'re Actually the Same Things I Showed
You Earlier That Are Exceptions to Categorical Exclusions. And That\'s
Why They\'re Exceptions. Because They\'re Factors That Indicate an
Action May Be Rising to The Level of Significance So You Need to at
Least Do an Ea. Even for Categorically Excluded Activities, to Be Sure
You Don\'t Have to Do an Eis. A Key Point I Want to Leave You with Is
That There Really Is No One Size Fits All or Cookbook Approach to
Figuring out When an Impact Is Significant and Therefore, an Eis Is
Required. Really, It\'s Just a Judgment Call. The Bottom Line Is If
You\'ve Reached the Last of Your Screening Questions, and the Activity
Doesn\'t Significantly Affect the Environment, Then You Should Prepare
an Ea. If You Don\'t Know If the Effects Will Be Significant, Then You
Can Prepare an EA and Then Do an Eis, Only If the Information in The EA
Indicates There Will Be a Significant Impact. Let\'s Review the
Screening Process Once Again to See What We\'ve Learned. The First
Question That We Asked Was Whether Existing Analysis And Documentation
Is Sufficient. If it Is, Then You Can Just Document That in the
Administrative Determination. I\'m Sure That Tomorrow Glenn Will Talk
about What That Determination Has to Say So I Won\'t Dwell on it Here. A
Closely Related Question That We Talked about Is Whether the Proposal
Conforms to an Existing Land Use Plan or Contract. If Not, You Need to
Decide Whether the Action Warrants Further Consideration or Whether You
Can Modify it So it Fits Within the Plan. If You Want to Consider the
Proposal Further and You Can\'t Effectively Modify It, Then You Have to
Amend the Plan and Maybe A Contract. If Existing Documentation Isn\'t
Good Enough, Then We Ask the Next Question\... And That Is Whether Any
Compensations Apply to NEPA Documentation Requirements. Those Exceptions
Are When Activities Are Exempted from NEPA Requirements by Congress,
When There\'s an Emergency and Alternate Arrangements Made with Ceq or
When a Proposal Is Rejected. In the Case of Rejected Actions, No
Documentation at All Is Required but in the Case of the Other Two
Exceptions, You May Need to Make a Finding in a Decision Document or
Attachment to It Stating That the Exception Applies and Why, Depending
on Your Agency Policy, of Course. Assuming None of Those Exceptions
Apply, Then You next Should Ask Whether the Activity Is One That\'s
Categorically Excluded. If If it Is and None of the Exceptions to
Categorical Exclusions Apply like the Presence of Threatened or
Endangered Species or Critical Habitat, Then Once Again, No NEPA
Documentation Is Required Unless, of Course, Your Agency Requires You to
Document The Finding That the Exclusion Applies. And That No Exceptions
to the Exclusions Apply and Why. But If You Find There Are Extraordinary
Circumstances Related to The Proposed Categorically Excluded Activity,
Then You Have to Prepare an Ea. If the Activity Is Not Categorically
Excluded, Then Just Ask Whether the Activity Is One That Normally
Requires Preparing an Eis. If So, Then Go Forth and Prepare Your Eis.
But If Not, You Still Need to Ask Whether the Proposed Activity Will
Significantly Affect the Quality of the Human Environment Before You
Know What Kind of Document to Prepare. If it Is Likely to Have a
Significant Effect and Once Again, Go Forward and Prepare an Eis. But If
You Get to the Last Question and You Don\'t Know Whether The Effects
Will Be Significant or You Don\'t Expect Them to Be Significant, Then
Just Prepare an Ea. In Wrap‑up, Let Me Just Say You May Have the Same
Activity like A Timber Sale or a Dam Project Requiring Either an EA or
an Eis, Possibly Even No NEPA Documentation at All, Depending on the
Particular Circumstances of the Case. A Lot of it Is Just a Judgment
Call. And That\'s One Reason That BLM, Forest Service and Nrcs Don\'t
Have the Same Categorical Exclusions and We Don\'t Always Develop The
Same Type of Documentation for Similar Types of Activities. We
Constantly Make Independent Site Specific Judgment Calls About the
Significance of the Effect of Our Activities on the Quality of the Human
Environment and as Phil Said Earlier, There Are Actions under Way to Try
Make These More Consistent as We Learn More about Our Own and Each
Other\'s Activities and Their Cumulative Effects on the Environment. In
the Meantime Though, It\'s Important That We Recognize These Differences
and Look for Ways to Adopt Relevant Portions of Each Other\'s
Environmental Analysis and That We Leverage Public Participation
Opportunities. Even When We Can\'t Use the Same Document to Meet the
NEPA Requirements of Our Individual Agencies. Before We Go On, There\'s
One Last Thing I Want to Do and That Is To Review the Answers to the
Pretest Questions That Relate to The Topic of When to Do an Ea. The
Questions about When to Do an EA Are Number 7 and 8. Question 7 Says You
must Do an EA for All Major Federal Actions Significantly Affecting the
Environment. The Correct Answer to That One Is False. In Most All Cases,
the Appropriate Document to Prepare for Major Federal Actions That
Significantly Affect the Environment Is an Eis, Not an Ea. Question 8
Says NEPA Requires Either an EA or an Eis to Be Prepared for All
Activities Conducted by a Federal Agency Unless The Activity Is
Categorically Excluded. The Answer to That One Is False. Because There
Are Tools for Efficiency and Exceptions That May Mean No NEPA
Documentation Is Required. Also, an EA May Be Required Even for
Activities That Are Categorically Excluded If One of the Exceptions to
the Categorical Exclusions Applies. Hope You\'ve Got All of Those Right.
That about Wraps it up for Me this Morning. The Other Folks Here Will Be
Getting More into the Details about How You Do Prepare an EA Once
You\'ve Made the Decision You Need To Do One. But for Now, I Hope You
Have a Good Understanding of How You Decide When to Prepare an Ea.
Jordan?

Pope: Thank You, Andree. You Covered a Lot of Key Issues That Are
Important in Preparing An Ea. Thank You Very Much. Next, Phil Will
Discuss Who Needs to Be or Can Be Involved in The EA Process. But Before
We Go to Phil, I Want to Let You Know That after His Presentation, We
Will Have a 10 Minute Break after Which We\'ll Be Taking Phone Calls and
Faxes. So, Now Is a Good Time to Start Preparing Any Questions You Have
For the Panel. So, Now I\'ll Turn it over to Phil.

Hall: Thanks, Jordan. Well, for the next 30 Minutes or So, We\'re Going
to Be Talking About the Groups and Individuals Who Need to Be or Can Be
Involved in an Environmental Assessment. We\'re Also Going to Talk a
Little Bit at Least in Outline Form Or Briefly Concerning the Roles and
Responsibilities of Those Groups and Individuals. Now, Because We\'re
Early on in the Training, by Necessity, I\'m Going to Be Using Some
Terms That We Really Haven\'t Discussed Much Yet and Haven\'t Defined,
Scoping, Fonsi, That Sort of Thing. I Hope it Will Make Sense. If it
Doesn\'t, Jordan Will Give You Opportunities to Phone or Fax in
Questions. Please Do So. We\'ll Handle Them as Best We Can. Probably
Need to Make Us Panelists Earn Our per Diem, the Phoenix Training Center
Has Pampered Us. We Need to Earn Our per Diem. Who Is it That Needs to
Be or Can Be Involved in Environmental Assessment? There Are Some Common
Denominators. You\'re Going to Find That the List Really Varies
Depending on The Scope and the Issues Involved in the Environmental
Assessment and the Stage at Which the Environmental Assessment Is At.
So, I Think It\'s Best If We Just Maybe Make a Laundry List Then Sort
Through the Laundry as We Go. A Laundry List of Who Should Be Involve
Odd in the Environmental Assessment Would Include a Manager. Also There
Would Be Staff Specialists and Staff Specialists Organized in a Group
Known as an I.d. Team. We Have Members of the Public That Would Be
Involved That Would Include Interest Groups and What Have You.
Contractors Would Be Involved. And We Also Have Federal, State and Local
Government Agencies That Need to Be Involved. And So the List Is Really
Large. And under Each One of These Headings, of Course, Are Many More
Subgroups and So under Agency Specialists, of Course You Have
Biologists, Hydrologists, Soil Scientist and a Lot of People. Interest
Groups Run from Commodities to Environmental and Are Very, Very Diverse.
The Government Agencies Are Many and Diverse. The List Is Really a Big
One. And So Who Is it That Needs to Be Involved? Well, as I Said, the
Scope and Issues Involved in the Environmental Assessment and the Stage
at Which it Is at Is Going to Determine Who in That Big List Needs to Be
Involved. Now, it Would Be a Mistake to Exclude People That Really Need
to Be There. And However There\'s No ‑‑ More Is Not Necessarily Better.
So, the Make‑up of the I.d. Team, the Numbers and Types of Other
Agencies Involved, Really Get Back to That Scope and Issues Involved.
Now the Guiding Question on Who Should Be Involved Should Be What Is
Necessary to Create a Quality Environmental Assessment, A Quality
Document That Will Support Good Decisions. Now, There Are No Points
Given, No Trophies Awarded for the Number of Participants. Only for a
Quality Environmental Assessment That Supports and Contributes to
Quality Decisions.

Wallace: Phil, When Involving the Public in the EA Process, Are There
Any Federal Advisory Committee Act Considerations That Should Be
Considered?

Hall: Yes, There Are, Glenn. It Is an Interesting Question. There Are
Legal Considerations When You Involve Nonfederal Groups in Your
Environmental Assessment Process. So, Let\'s Talk about the Federal
Advisory Committee Act or Faca. Generally, When Decisions Are Made to
Spend Federal Dollars to Adopt or Implement Programs, Policies or
Projects, Those Decisions Are Made by Federal Officials. Now, When Those
Decisions Are Made by a Group That Includes Nonfederals, Then That Group
Becomes an Advisory Committee That Comes under the Requirements of the
Federal Advisory Committee Act or Faca. Now, Whether a Group Is Federal
Advisory Committee Act ‑‑ I\'m Sorry. Whether a Group Is a Federal
Advisory Committee, Depends on the Circumstances in the Faca. Let Me
Give.

Few Examples. A Group That Includes Nonfederals, That Participates in
Consensus Type of Decision‑making as Opposed to a Group That Just
Provides Information and Recommendations to a Decision Maker Is More
Likely to Come under Faca than Not. A Group That Includes Nonfederals
That Works Collaboratively Compared to a Group That ‑‑ Where Individuals
Work Separately Is More like Lie to Come under Faca. An I.d. Team with
Nonfederal Members Is More Likely to Come Under Faca. So a General
Overall Rule Is That Your Process Should Be Open to All Nonfederals If
Any Nonfederals Are Involved. If You Invite Select Groups or Select
Individuals, You May Be at Legal Rest. So That\'s Probably as Much as We
Can Say about Faca, Glenn. However, Be Aware of the Requirements and
When You Need ‑‑ If You Need Guidance, Seek It. Ok, Let\'s Get Back to
the List. Our List Included Manager. Now, Management Will Include the
Responsible Official Who Signs The Fonsi, the Finding of No Significant
Impact and the Decision Document. Now, the Responsible Official or
Decision Maker, If You Will, Is Also Responsible for the Adequacy of the
NEPA Document. And the Responsible Official Cannot Delegate His or Her
Decision Making or Responsibility for NEPA Adequacy to Any Other
Individual or Group. Now, Other Management Involvement Other than the
Responsible Official May Include Managers Who Provide Guidance to the
Team Leader or to the Interdisciplinary Team Concerning Scoping,
Concerning Analysis, Alternatives and Other Parts of the Environmental
Assessment and in Addition, of Course, Management Interacts with Other
Government Agencies and People in the Public. Well, a Second Ago, I
Mentioned Someone Known as a Team Leader. Now, a Team Leader Is a Member
of the Team Who Often Wears More Than One Hat. A Team Leader Could Be
Writer, Editor, Could Be Any Member of The I.d. Team as Far as That
Goes. But a Team Leader Could Be Just a Team Leader. Now, I Compare a
Team Leader Perhaps a Little Bit with an Orchestra Conductor. In this
Case, the Orchestra Conductor Doesn\'t Select a Piece of Music to Be
Played but Is Very Important in What Is Heard. A Team Leader Facilitates
Meetings, Coordinates and Schedules Meeting, Assignments, Troubleshoots
Group Interaction, Interfaces or Is a Liaison to Management. And it
Basically Is Responsible for Good Organization and Solid Process. And
There Really Isn\'t One Solid Process and One Solid Organization That Is
the Answer. So the Team Leader\'s Role Varies from Agency to Agency,
from Office to Office and Even Project to Project. There Is Really No
One Single Way of Doing It. Now, There Is a Trap That We Get into Though
with Environmental Assessments as Well with a Lot of Other Things We Do
and That Is Called the Way We Always Do It. If it Always Works, Cool.
However, Don\'t Let it Get in the Way of Looking at the Responsibilities
of Having to Adjust Where You Need to to Focus On the Goal Which Is the
Product, a Quality Ea. Good Organization, Solid Process Are Necessary
for the Appropriate Product but in the Final Analysis, Organization and
Process Are Not the Goal, Are Not the Focus. Goal and the Focus Is a
Quality EA That Will Contribute to a Quality Decision. We\'ve Got a Team
Leader, a Manager. There Won\'t Be Any Breeze on the Bridge Unless
There\'s Someone Shoveling Coal into the Boilers. So, What\'s under the
Hood? What Makes this Thing Run? What\'s the Engine of the Environmental
Assessment? The Engine of the Environmental Assessment Is the
Interdisciplinary Team. The Interdisciplinary Team Made up of Staff
Specialists and Styles Interagency Specialists. That I.d. Team Varies in
Composition with the Issues and Scope Being Examined by the
Environmental Assessment. So When We Look at the Engine of the
Environmental Assessment, We Don\'t Want an Engine That\'s Overpowered
and Too Big, Inefficient and a Gas Hog. Neither Do We Want Be a Engine
for the Environmental Assessment That\'s Underpowered and Cannot Do the
Job We Want. A Rolls Royce I.d. Team Is Not Necessarily the Answer.
Ideally, We Would like an I.d. Team That Is like an Efficient Sedan,
Sized Right to Do the Job. There\'s All Kinds of Different Specialists
That Serve on the I.d. Team. If I Were to Start Building Scenarios and
Giving Examples for All of the Different Things You Analyze, We Would Be
Here Quite A While and the next EA You Did Probably Wouldn\'t Fit My
Examples Anyway. Scoping and Initial Identification Will Go a Long Way
to Determine Who Sits on the I.d. Team. And We\'re Going to Be Talking
about Scoping and Initial Identification Later on in the Course. I Would
like to Talk a Little Bit about the I.d. Team Process, However. A Good
Interdisciplinary Process Which Officials Listen to Each Other Talk and
Engage in Dialogue Oftentimes Results in Valuable Insights for the
Environmental Assessment and for the Decision Maker. Valuable Insights
That Are Not Sometimes Had in a Multidisciplinary Process in Which
Specialists Turn in Reports To a Writer Editor or to a Team Leader Which
Is Subsequently Turned into an Ea. I Just Finished Saying and I Think I
Heard Andree Say That One Size Does Not Fit All. That\'s True. However,
We Really Do Recommend an Interdisciplinary Approach. An Interdiscipline
Air Approach Does Not Have to Be like Launching the Queen Mary or
Mobilizing for Iwo Jima. Sometimes Will Be a Lot of People on the Team
and Sometimes They\'ll Be Meeting over a Period of Months Our in Other
Situations, the I.d. Team May Consist of Two, Three or Four People
Meeting Once or Twice. The Whole Idea Though Is to Obtain as Valuable
Insights That Are Had by That Across the Table Interaction and Which Are
Sometimes Missing in Action and the Process in Which Reports Are Just
Turned in and it Is Assembled into an Ea.

Duvarney: Excuse Me, Phil. What If Your Unit Lacks the Expertise on Your
Staff to Address Some of the Issues That You\'re Covering in Your Ea?

Hall: Andree, That\'s a Good Question Because Just about Every I.d.
Team, Regardless of Agency Will Be Look at a Situation Where Some
Important Issues Are Before Them, Simply Lacking Expertise. This Is
Where You Have to Look Beyond the Horizon. And It\'s Where it to Get in
the Way. So One Obvious Question Would Be Does the Appropriate Expertise
Lie Somewhere Within Your Own Agency. But Maybe Outside Your
Administrative Unit. I\'m Not Suggesting Our Administrative Units Are
like Planets in Their Own Orbit and Never Communicate. However,
Sometimes Administrative Boundaries Become More than They Should Be. At
Least We Need to Look Hard Within Our Own Agency to See What We Can Do.
Move out to Interagency, Maybe Some Other Agency Has the Expertise That
Would Be Valuable. We Can Look at Contracting. The Theme Is to Break the
Mold. Don\'t Let it Get in Your Way. One Mistake Would Be, However, for
this Lack of Expertise to Become Immobilizing. It Needs to Be Solved. Or
for an I.d. Team to Just Move Forward Anyway and Just Jam the Sink So
Maybe We Don\'t Have the Expertise for this Important Issue That We\'re
Analyzing. So It\'s a Good Question. I Bet There Were a Lot of People
Saying Hey, We\'re Not Worried About Rolls Royce EA Teams, We Can Barry
Put Together a Sedan. We Have Managers. I Have Already Said That. Do Not
Adjust Your Set. My Bionic Brain Just Shut it out. Let Me Start over. We
Have Managers, We Have a Responsible Official. We Have a Team Lead. We
Now Have an I.d. Team. There\'s More. And of Course, You Know There\'s
More. How about Other Federal, State, Local and Tribal Agencies. Who Are
They? When Should They Be Involved? And How Should They Be Involved?
It\'s a Little Bit Complex and Unlike Some Suggestions for Solving Our
Political Process Lately, this One Doesn\'t Fit on a Bumper Sticker. A
Lot of it Is Mandated and by Law. So Let Me Give You an Example or Two
‑‑ Endangered Species. Section 7 Consultation with the Fish and Wildlife
Service and National Fishery Service. Cultural Resource Section 106
Consultation with the State Historic Preservation Officer.
Native‑american Religious and Heritage Consultation and There\'s Also
Coordination with Other Federal, State and Local Agencies For
Consistency Findings with Already Officially‑approved Plans. There Is a
Lot of Stuff out There. More of it Comes on All the Time. We Have a New
Requirement That Doesn\'t Specifically Mandate Other Agency Involvement
but Probably Going to Take You in That Direction. It\'s Called Executive
Order 12898. Environmental Justice. Environmental Justice Directs Each
Agency Should Make Achieving Environmental Justice by Identifying and
Addressing Disproportionately High and Adverse Human Health or
Environmental Effects of its Programs, Policies and Activities On
Minority Populations and Low Income Populations. Holy Cow. We Don\'t
Know about Minority Populations and Low Income Populations. Gotta Look
at Some Other Agencies, Probably State and Local Agencies in That Case.
Environmental Justice Type of Analysis Is Usually Going to End Up
Blended in with Your Economic. Which Sharon Will Talk about Later in the
Course. We Could Make a Whole Entire Course out of How the Requirements
For Other Agency Involvement. And So the Answer to Other Agency
Involvement Is Complex. And I Have by No Means Given You the Complete
Answer. But Worse than Not Having the Answer Is Not Even Having the
Question. You Know Have the Question. And So Track down Your Local NEPA,
Find out the Requirements That Are Legally Necessary for You to Follow
in Terms of Other Agency Involvement. But Not All Agency Involvement Is
Mandated. A Lot of it Is Not Spelled out by Law or Regulation. I\'ve Got
this Favorite Scene in the Movies, the Nazis Are Loading the Covenant
Arc into a Truck. It Is Part of a Fully Armed Convoy. From a Distance,
Indiana Jones and His Friends Are Looking on And Indiana Jones Jumps
Out, Takes off and Before He Goes Very Far, One of His Friends Says
Indy, What Are You Doing? He Says I Don\'t Know. I\'m Making this up as
I Go along. Indy Jumps on a White Horse and with His Bare Hands Destroys
and Wipes out the Armed Convoy and Almost Gets the Arc of the Covenant
Back, Almost. Indy Was Making it up as He Went along but He Really Had a
Clear Goal in Mind Which Was to Get the Arc of the Covenant Back.
What\'s this Got to Do with Environmental Assessments? Don\'t Know. I
like to Tell Stories. Eiss Are Unique Enough and Very Vary Enough That
There Has to Be Some Degree of Making it up as You Go along. Guided by
the Clear Goal, the Clear Focus of Quality EA That\'s Going to Support a
Quality Decision. Well, the Level of Involvement of Other Agencies Is
Going to Vary All the Way down from Just Simply Providing Information to
Assist Your Analysis All the Way up to Joint Team, Jointly Prepared and
Interagency Environmental Assessments. Now, I Said That the Goal of
Quality EA Is Going to Direct and Dictate What Other Agency Involvement
Should Be There but It\'s Not Really Quite as Simple as All of That. It
Never Is. Management May Have Other Objectives in Addition to Getting
the EA Done. And That May Include Strengthening Interagency
Relationships and Improving Coordination. That\'s Why We\'re Here Today.
We\'ve Been Strengthening Interagency Coordination and Maybe Some People
Couldn\'t Spell BLM Before and Now They Can. Is We\'ve Been Doing That.
Public Expectations. So There\'s These Other Valid Reasons for
Interagency Involvement But the Recommendation Is to Keep the Goal in
Mind of a Quality EA and Do Not Let the Process Become the Focus and the
Goal. All Right. Where Are We at Here? Well, the Environmental
Assessment Process Is Not a Spectator Sport. We Need to Have Everybody
on the Field Playing. A Very Important Member to Have on the Team Is the
Public. The Public Involvement Requirements Are Spelled out by Ceq
Regulations Which Are Found in 40 Cfr 1506.6, 1501.7, 1503. Individual
Agency Regulations May Supplement Those Regulation And Give More
Specific Guidance. Now, Jordan Mentioned That Our Process Looks
Different Agency to Agency. That\'s Certainly True of Public
Involvement. As Jordan Said, Because Our Ag\'s Goals Are Broad and
Diverse. And So Public Participation Procedures May Differ by Policy to
Reflect as Differences or to Reflect as Broad and Diverse Goals That We
Have. However, Sometimes We Assume That the Public Involvement
Procedures That We\'re Involved in Are Requirements When in Fact, They
May Be a Matter of Our Own Agency or Office Policy or Simply Tradition.
Ok. Now, the Important and Getting Really Good Public Involvement And
Public Review of Our NEPA Process and Document Is to Request For the
Proper Use of Public Input. And Here You Go Again. You Don\'t Want to
Single Template That Fits All Situations. It Varies with the Scopes and
Issues Involved and Maybe the Geographic Area That You\'re In. So, Some
Eas May Have a Very Complex Public Involvement Process And Receive a Lot
of Comments. Others Might Be Simplistic and Receive Very Few Comments at
All. And If You Receive Very Few Comments at All, Maybe No Comments
Doesn\'t Mean You\'re Not Doing Your Job. You\'ve Made it Available. And
You\'ve Published it and So No Sense in Knocking on Doors and Jamming it
down People\'s Throats So it Varies. So Public Involvement Procedures
Need ‑‑ I Need to Say Something Like Brain Dead Type Stuff Now. Need to
Follow Your Own Agency Regulations and Policy but They Also Need to
Follow the Program Policy. These Requirements Not Only Vary from Agency
to Agency but They Also Vary from Program to Program. So, this Is
Another One of Those Situations Where, as a Panel We Talked about How to
Handle this and Decided it Was Too Complex To Handle in this Course.
However, Again, You Don\'t Have the Full Answer Now but at Least You
Have the Question and So If You Have Any Questions about Program or
Agency Specific Requirements, Track the NEPA Nerd Down in Your Office.
Shouldn\'t Be That Hard. So, We\'ve Gotten Written and Oral Comment.
Oral Comment from Public Meetings. That Written and Oral Comment from
Public Meetings Needs to Be Made Part of the Administrative Record to
Support Your Environmental Assessment. Our Public Involvement Process
Needs to Be Long Enough to Allow The People and the Public to
Participate and Needs to Fairly Judge and Weigh All of the Input That We
Get and Needs to Be Open to Everyone Who Does Want to Participate.
We\'ve Already Talked a Little Bit about Faca. Now, One of the First
Steps in Public Involvement and Some Environmental Assessments Is Called
Scoping or Issue Identification. Now, Scoping and Issue Identification
Are Found in Ceq Regulations 1501.7 and Ceq 40 Most Asked Questions,
Question Number 13. We Conduct Scoping Early on in the Process. And We
Conduct it to Identify Those Significant Issues That Need To Be Analyzed
in Our Environmental Assessment. Now, Ceq Regulations Only Require
Scoping for Environmental Impact Statements and Is Silent Versus
Environmental Assessments. So, Some Agencies Do it All the Time. Other
Agencies Vary That Theme and Maybe Simplify on Occasion. Now, When
Scoping, We Need to Be Clear to the Public of What Stage We\'re At,
Oftentimes We\'re Always Early on in the Process During Scoping. And So
the Amount of Information We Have at That Time Is Going To Be Much less
than Later On. Public Needs to Understand That. Also Need to Make Clear
to the Public of What We\'re Asking for And How We Plan to Use It.
We\'re Not Asking for Technical Comments at this Time, Agree, Disagree
Although We\'re Going to Get That. Mostly We\'re Asking for What Are the
Issues out There We Need to Be Looking At. Have We Missed Something.
What Else Is out There, What Else Do We Need to Be Looking At. Issue
Identification, Scoping Process. Now, Once an EA Is Completed, There\'s
an Opportunity for Public Comment Period. Now, Public Comment Periods
Are Not Required by Ceq for an Environmental Assessment but like
Scoping, Oftentimes it Is a Matter of Agency or Office Policy to Do So.
And it Can Be Discretionary Though. Now, During the Public Comment
Period, like Scoping, We Need to Tell the People Where We\'re At, What
We\'re Asking for and How We\'re Going to Use It. I Think it Would Be
Really Helpful to the Public If They Understood That What Is Most
Helpful to Us Is What We Call a Substantive Comment. Now, a Substantive
Comment Is One That Bears ‑‑ Would Offer Conclusion. It Provides New
Information That Would Alter Our Conclusions. A Comment That Would Show
Flawed Analysis That Would Alter Our Conclusions. Flawed Assumptions
That Would Alter Our Conclusions That Shows Errors in Our Information,
That Would Alter Our Conclusions. Or Something Can Be a Request for
Clarification of Certain Points or Processes That Are Key to the
Conclusions We Made. Now, Just Because Someone Gives You New
Information, Shows Flawed Assumptions or Mistakes in Your Data or What
Have You Doesn\'t Necessarily Tip over Your Environmental Assessment and
Make You Start over. It Has to Do with the Substantive Comments That
Would Alter Your Conclusions. That\'s What\'s Most Helpful to Us. Mostly
We Get ‑‑ and less Helpful to Us Are the Expression of Opinions. Those
Are Not Substantive Comments. Like, Dislike, Approve, Disapprove. We
Need Tell the Public What\'s Most Helpful to Us and We Also Need to Let
Them Know That We\'re Not Polling and We\'re Not Counting Votes but We
Do Value Their Comments. And So it Could Be Important to the Responsible
Official If You Get an Overwhelming Number of Opinions, this Could
Identify this Project as Highly Controversial and as Andree Said, That
Would Then Trigger an Eis.

Churchill: Phil, I Need to Ask You a Question. One That I Get a Lot. We
Solicit These Public Comments and this Feedback. What Are Our
Requirements for Actually Using the Comments?

Hall: We Gotta Use These Things. We Do Have to Use Them, Sharon. We
Particularly Have to Use the Substantive Comments. Substantive Comments
Is a Need to Be Responded to or Use and Incorporate into Our NEPA
Document. Nonsubstantive Comments, Expression of Opinions, Agree,
Disagree, Disapprove, Approve, Don\'t Have to Be Responded to and Don\'t
Require Action. Now, Agencies Have Different Policies on How Comments
Are Officially Received. In this Day and Age, it Is Moving Fast on Us.
With You Now Get Comments Through E‑mail, Fax and Internet. How Do You
Handle Those? Are Those Official Comments? They\'re Not Signed. Your
Agency or Office Has a Policy on Those. We Also Receive Unsigned Written
Comments. We Receive Verbal Comments Outside of Public Meetings but in
All Situations, If You Receive a Substantive Comment Regardless of How
You Get It, You\'re Going to Use It. You\'re Not Going to Base Your
Environmental Assessment on Incorrect Data or Flawed Assumptions That
Would Alter Your Conclusion Simply Because You Got a Substantive Comment
in an Unofficial Manner. Ok. Thanks, Sharon Very Much. Well, I\'ve Been
Talking about the Public as If There\'s One Entity out There Known as
the Public. And of Course We Know That\'s Not True. Public Consists of
All Ages, Gender, Education Background, Cultures, All Sorts of People
Ranging from Birdwatchers to Hunters, Hikers to Off‑road Vehicle Users.
We Have Interest Groups, Diverse Commodities, Environmental Interests,
Local Activists, National Organizations. We Have People Who Live next
Door to Us, People That Have Never Even Seen Public Lands. People That
Feel Passionately about Natural Resources and People That Don\'t Even
Care. So Why Am I Saying All of this Brain Dead Stuff about What the
Public Is, You Already Know It, it Is to Emphasize the Fact There\'s No
One Single Template for Public Involvement. It Not Only Varies with the
Issues You\'re Dealing with but it Varies with the Public You\'re
Dealing with. Our Interested Public May Consist Sometimes of Only Local
Residents in Rural Community. Other Times of Course it Would Be Much
Broader Geographic Area. Well, I\'m Winding down Here. I Want to Quickly
Insert a Couple of Answers to Your Pretest Questions. Questions Number 1
and 2. I Would like Who Should Be Involved in an Ea, Alex for 400.
Individual Numbers of the Public Can Be Invited to Participate In
Interdisciplinary Teams Involved in Producing an Assessment. What Is a
False Statement. Now, We Know in Our Discussion of Faca That If You
Invite Select Individuals in Groups, You\'re at Legal Risk. You Have to
Invite Everybody. Now, this Could Be a True Statement If the I.d. Team
Becomes Chartered under Faca. Select Again, I Would like Who Should Be
Involved for \$500, Alex. Collaborative Approach, the Responsible
Official Can Delegate Decision Making to the Interdisciplinary Team or
Others Working Together to Achieve the Goals of a Quality EA and a
Quality Decision. What Is a False Statement. We Said the Responsible
Official Cannot Delegate His or Her Responsibility or Decision Making or
in Determining NEPA Adequacy. Brief Overview of Who Needs to Be or Can
Be Involved in Environmental Assessment. A Little Bit about the Roles
and Responsibility. Now, the Answer Is, a Great Many Groups and a Great
Many Number Of Individuals, a Further Answer Is That the Number and
Types of Groups and Individuals Involved Varies with the Scope, with the
Issues, with the Stage of Development. Of the Ea. But What Was the
Question? The Question Was What Does it Take to Create a Quality
Environmental Assessment? What Does it Take to Create a Quality
Decision? That\'s the Goal. And So Probably Ought to Keep Indiana Jones
in Mind. Despite the Complexity Despite the Confusion, Despite the
Yelling and Screaming, Gotta Stay Focused on That Goal and the Goal Is
Quality Environmental Assessment That Supports and Contributes to a
Quality Decision. So Jordan, I Know I Am Talked out. I Bet My Audience
Is Listened out and Ready to Hear Somebody Else. Back to You.

Pope: Thank You, Phil. That Was Very Interesting and Informative. Now
We\'ll Take a 10 Minute Break. If You Have Any Questions for Us, Please
Fax Them in Now or Give Us a Call after We Come Back from the Break.
We\'ll See You in 10 Minutes.

Pope: Welcome Back. Before We Start Our next Segment, I Want to Remind
You That If You Have Any Questions You Want to Phone In, Now Is the Time
to Do So. Now, Let\'s Get to Your Questions. Our First Question Is from
Price Field Office and it Is for the Forest Service. And the Question
Reads BLM Has a Mineral Related Decision on an Active Lease. BLM Federal
Action. BLM Asks Forest Service for Comments, Consultation. Forest
Service Has No Federal Action. Forest Service Does a Major EA Taken 6 to
8 Months but BLM Has Done a Minor EA or Even a Cx Taking One Month. Is
this Consultation with Forest Service a Federal Action? Does Forest
Service Need to Do a Manger EA to Comment on a Mineral Related BLM
Action? Sharon?

Churchill: Wow! Well, Jordan, That\'s a Complex and Interesting Question
Especially for Me. I Don\'t Have a Good Background in Minerals
Operations with the Forest Service. You Know, Technically, I\'m Not
Sure. I Would Hesitate to Make Some Real Strong Comments Now or Some
Suggestions as to What Our Position Should Be. However, I Would like to
Get the Name and Phone Number of That Caller and I\'ll Research That and
Get Back to Them. I Would Prefer to Give That a Little Thought and
Research Before I Respond.

Pope: We Have a Phone Number Here That We Can Give to You.

Churchill: We\'ll Work on That and Get Back to That Person.

Pope: Our next Question Is ‑‑ It\'s Kind of a Scenario and Then the
Question Will Come. There Are Many Cases Where BLM Has Issued Various
Rights of Ways For Range Improvements or Other Authorizations Prior to
the Passage of NEPA. There Is Therefore No Prime NEPA Document. However,
the Authorizations Which Are Issued Allowed Maintenance Of the
Authorized Improvements. We Do Not Normally Do an EA When a Power
Company or a Livestock Permittee Does Maintenance on Their Power Line or
Water Reservoir. Provided They Stay Within the Authorized Right‑of‑way
or Disturbance Which Was Initially Caused. When the Pond Was Constructed
‑‑ They Were Within the Confines Of the Area. My Question Is NEPA
Required under These Conditions, Provided We Do Document There Are No
T&e or Resources or Wsas No Acecs, Set Rate That Are Involved in the
Area Where Maintenance Would Be Performed.

Wallace: Jordan, I\'ll Give a Crack at That. There May Be Some Unknowns
in Your Individual Case That We Aren\'t Aware Of. Normally, I Do Believe
That Maintenance of Range Improvements Is Categorically Excluded. But
Then If One of the Exceptions Applies That Andree Mentioned Earlier,
Then You Would Need to Do an Ea. And since this Was Something That Was
Done Some Time Ago, There Was No Original NEPA Done on That, You
Wouldn\'t Be Able to Do an Administrative Determination. So, You Would
Either Categorically Exclude the Work That Is Being Done or Do an EA or
Hopefully Not an Eis.

Pope: Any Other Comment? Ok. Our next Question, What about When an
Action Is Not Taken Resulting in Significant Adverse or Beneficial
Impacts. Can the No Action Alternative Trigger an EA or Eis? And That
One Is Directed to You, Andree.

Duvarney: I Wouldn\'t Say the No Action Alternative Could Unless That\'s
the Proposed Action. If the Proposed Action Is to Continue with Whatever
the Management Practices and Take No New Action, Then Yes, Perhaps It
Could at Some Point. I Guess I Would Need to Know More Details about
That. So If You Have a Name and Number, I Could Call That Person Back,
Too and Discuss it in More Detail.

Pope: Ok. Our next Question Is from Idaho Falls. It Is BLM. Regarding
Ceqs Excepted Emergencies. Isn\'t it True That the Excepted Emergency
must Be So Significant As to Otherwise Require an Eis, in Other Words,
EA Level Actions Don\'t Qualify as a Ceq Emergency Exception.

Duvarney: That\'s True.

Hall: I Would Say That the Emergencies Have to Really Be of a Pressing
Nature and So, for Instance, We Had a Flood in Western Oregon. We Had
Some Heavy Rains a Few Years Ago. We Had to Replace a Lot of Culverts,
Do a Lot of Road Maintenance. A Lot of That Would Have Been
Environmental Assessments but as Andree Suggests, Those Kind of Actions
Would Have Been Done Under an EA and There Was No Further Immediate
Threat to Life And Property and So Usually the Things That Require an EA
May Not Be of Awful That Pressing but I Would Probably Fall Short of
Making an Absolute Statement There. Because When They Exempt NEPA, They
Don\'t Say Eis, Ea, They Just Exempt from the Requirements of the
National Environmental Policy Act. And So You\'re Absolved of All of
That Sort of Stuff. Don\'t You Even Have to Look at It.

Pope: Thank You. Our next Question\... This Is from Jay Reed. Is There a
Process or Vehicle to Bring Nonanalyzed Federal Actions into NEPA
Compliance? Some Acs Have Occurred Without Environmental Analysis. How
Do We Resolve These past Actions?

Hall: One of the Questions Is Do You Have the Federal Decision. That\'s
Where Andree Focused Is. Is There a Federal Decision at Hand. We Have a
Lot of Stuff out There That\'s Old and Doesn\'t Comply With Current Laws
and Regulations and So the Question Becomes Are These Things
Discretionary? Do We Have to Approve or Disapprove Some Action out
There. Are We Making a Decision. That\'s Going to Be One of the
Triggers, I Think, That Andree Talked about.

Duvarney: Do You Know Whether That Question Came from Nrcs?

Pope: it Does Not Say. It Just Says Jay Reed. There Are Telephone
Numbers on There.

Duvarney: for Nrcs, the Question Might Be Slightly Different. If I\'m
Understanding the Question Right, We Do a Lot of Activities That Would
Not Trigger NEPA. They Are Private but Once We Provide Financial
Assistance, Then It Is Triggered and I I Don\'t Know Whether That
Answers the Question.

Churchill: with the Forest Service, Too. In Case the Person Is a Forest
Service Person to Build on What Phil Said in Determining If That
Activity Is Discretionary, That Would Be One of the First Questions We
Ask. Secondarily We Would Be Looking at the Priority of That Situation
Relative to the Effects. Are There Effects Occurring That Need to Be
Scrutinized. That\'s Looked at and Analyzed If There Were Those Sorts of
Effects and That Activity Was Placed as a High Priority, for Coming to
Terms with the Effects, We Would Probably Go Ahead and Conduct Some Sort
of NEPA Analysis and Document That Even Though There Are Activities
Occurring, We Would Basically Take a Step Back and Take Action on That.

Pope: Ok. Thank You. The next One Is for Phil and it Says What\'s
Twwadi?

Hall: We Have a Cool Solicitor at Our Portland State Office, Roger
Nesbit. He Was Trying to Get Us to Focus on Solving Problems and He Said
The Way We Always Do it and the Acronym Is Twwadi Can Get in the Way.
That Always Sticks with Me Because I Often Trip over Twwadi Myself. It
Is the Way We Always Do It. It\'s Just the Way It\'s Done.

Pope: Jeff Garrett Asks this Question. What If Any NEPA Requirement Is
There to Evaluate Economic Impacts, Adverse to Adjacent Landowners
Resulting from Federal Actions During the EA Process.

Churchill: I\'ll Take a Preliminary Step to That Although I Will Be
Talking to That Topic Tomorrow in the Environmental Effects Discussion.
Basically We Should, as a Federal Agency, I\'ll Speak for the Forest
Service but I Understand That We Have Some Similarities Here among the
Three Agencies. We Should Be Looking at the Social and Effects of Our
Activities On Adjacent Lands Whether or Not They\'re Managed by Another
Federal Agency or Private Individuals So That Would Come under The
Effects Analysis Part. We Would and Should Be Taking a Look at That.

Pope: Anybody Else?

Wallace: NEPA Is a Disclosure Act as Well as an Environmental Act and it
Does Provide That We Should Disclose the Impacts Wherever They May
Occur. As Long as They\'re in the United States, of Course.

Pope: Thank You. Our next Question Is Dealing with Cx List, the
Categorical Exclusion List. Not Long Ago We Were Approached to Comment
on a Proposed Cx List. This List Was Comprehensive and a Finalized Would
Save Us a Lot Of Work and Wasted Time. What Happened to It? Phil, You
Want to Take That?

Pope: I Will Take a Stab at It. Carol Mcdonald and Greg Simmons along
with a Representative at The Forest Service Met in Washington
Approximately Two Weeks Ago To Actually Review the Comments That Were
Coming in from the Reviewers and They Were Making Final Cut on That and
I\'m Not Sure Exactly Where They Are with it Now but They Finalize the
First Cut and They Would Probably Be Rewriting it and it Would Probably
Be Coming Back out to You Again Soon for the Final Review. Anybody Else?

Hall: Good Answer.

Pope: it Says Also Why Can\'t the Cx List Be Coordinated Between
Agencies and Disciplines? And it Has Been. With Forest Service and I
Believe Fish and Wildlife Service Also Is Involved in this Process. Our
next Question, on the Categorical Excluded Exceptions, Please Give
Examples of Actions That Are Highly Controversial, Highly Controversial
Environmental Effects, Highly Uncertain and Potentially Significant
Effects, Actions That Will Establish a Precedent for Future Actions and
Individually Insignificant but Cumulatively Significant Impacts.

Hall: We\'re Going to Need That in Our Hands to Answer That One.

Duvarney: We\'ll Have to Go Through That One.

Hall: the Basis of this Question ‑‑ and I Don\'t Know What Agency
That\'s from but the BLM and the Forest Service Do Have Different Lists
and Different Rules of Categorical Exclusions. I\'m Not Sure Whether the
Nrcs Is on this. But the Degree of Sensitivity Really Varies and Quite
Frankly, Sometimes It\'s Difficult to Take a Walk in the Woods Without
Someone Describing That as Somewhat Significant. And So the Highly
Controversial Is Really Judgment. Now, If You Get into Highly
Controversial Effects Analysis, You\'re Really Talking about the Same
Thing That Andree Said in Terms of Triggering an Eis So We\'re Talking
about a Matter of Degree. We Talked about Nondestructive Sampling and
Inventory. Now, Suppose That, for Instance, You Wanted to ‑‑ Your
Sampling Involves Some Sort of Removal of Plant Material or Wildlife
Species or Something, in Order to Do Whatever You Had to Do to Inventory
It, it Could Be Controversial and Often Cause Enough Public Concern, a
Cx Might Not Be Appropriate. Let\'s See What Else We Have Here. Give
Examples of Highly Controversial, Highly Uncertain or Potentially
Significant. Anybody Else Want to Take a Shot on this? Uncertain, You
Know There\'s Also Always a Degree of Uncertainty In Anything We Do.
There\'s Some Constituents out There That Want Us to Have No Uncertainty
and as Long as We Have Uncertainty, They Want Us to Raise the Ante. You
Shouldn\'t Be Doing a Cx, You Should Be Doing an Ea. You Shouldn\'t Be
Doing an Ea, You Should Be Doing an Eis So the Uncertainty and the
Potentially Cumulative Effects Is Really Somewhat in the Eyes of the
Beholder. We\'re Always Going to Have People Disagree with Us on That.
So, Controversy in and of Itself Does Not Trip You Away from a Cx into
an EA Because the Local Individual May or May Not like It. It\'s Kind of
Judgmental. Wouldn\'t You Say, Glenn?

Wallace: it Sure Is, Phil. Only Example I Can Think of Offhand on the
Uncertain Impacts Is If You Were Doing Inventory Which Is Normally
Categorically Excluded but You Were Using Some Maybe Trying to Do Some
Radioactive Dye or Some New Testing Procedure Never Been Tried Before
That Might Have the Potential for Adverse Impacts to Human Health or
Safety, Then You Would Not Be Able to Categorically Exclude That.

Hall: I\'m Not Sure Whether the Examples Are Going to Be All That
Helpful. I Don\'t Know How Far down this Road We Want to Go.
Individually Insignificant but Cumulatively Significant. Sometimes We
Have Little Minor Access Problems with Isolated Pieces of Ground. Some
of That Stuff Goes under a Cx. However, on a Cumulative Basis, it Could
Be That You\'ve Established a Precedent. You Asked about That in Which a
Lot of These Actions Are Going To Occur. And That Might Be One You Need
to Step Back and Do Some Further NEPA on It. I Don\'t Know Whether We
Could Continue to Provide Examples but Ask Again and If We Haven\'t Hit
on It, Send in Another Question And We\'ll Take Another Shot at it Later
in the Program.

Churchill: We Will Talk about Individually Significant Will You
Cumulatively Significant Effects Tomorrow, Too. So There Will Be Another
Opportunity to Revisit this Question.

Hall: Sharon Will Dazzle You with That Discussion. It Is Impressive.

Pope: We Have Another Question from Mary. If You Use a State Person to
Sit on Your Team as a Specialist Because You Do Not Have the Expertise,
Does That Team Then Need To Be Chartered under Faca?

Wallace: Actually, I Believe That the Most Recent Amendments To Faca,
the Federal Advisory Committee Act Allow for State Personnel to Serve on
Interdisciplinary Teams So I Would Think Not, Probably.

Churchill: Forest Service Guidance Is That Person Is Representing a
Function of Local Government or Some Form of Government So as a
Government Representative They Could Sit on The I.d. Team.

Pope: next Question. Sharon Hoffler, BLM. Exceptions to Cxs. What Is
Considered Significant but Cumulatively Significant Effects. Please Give
Some Site Specific Examples. Andree, You Want to Try It?

Duvarney: I Suppose If You Were Removing a Dam or There\'s One Agency
Removing a Dam in an Area or a State That\'s Removing a Dam and Say My
Agency Is Contributing Some Financial Assistance For Habitat
Improvements and Another Agency Is Contributing Funds for Something Else
and There\'s BLM Lands Nearby Where There\'s Activities Going On, You
Know, the Mere Financial Assistance for Our Part of That Might Be Fairly
Minor. At a Watershed Level, it Could Rise to a Level of Significance.

Hall: That Question Is a Little Bit Easier to Answer. Actually Sharon Is
Going to Talk about Eas and Eiss. It Is Easier to Talk about When
Cumulative Effects from an EA Become Significant Because a Lot of Times
We\'re Dealing with Existing Land and Resource Management Plan or Rmp,
it Defines Significance. They May Have Already Analyzed and Accepted
Some Level of Significance So They\'ve Put Borders on it for Cxs, It\'s
More Ambiguous. And Generally, for the BLM, We\'ve Had a Low Threshold
of Pain For Cxs. It Doesn\'t Take Much to Trip NEPA and So That\'s Why
this Team Is Looking at That So We Can Become a Little Bit More
Consistent.

Pope: Thank You, Panel. That\'s about All the Time We Have at this Time.
That\'s All the Time We Have Right Now for Questions but We Will Be
Taking More of Your Questions after Lunch Which Follows Our Next
Presentation. At this Point, We Would like to Shift Our Focus to the
Introductory Parts of an EA and the Purpose, Need and Scoping For Eas.
Sharon Churchill Will Guide Us Through this Portion. Sharon, It\'s All
Yours.

Churchill: Thank You, Jordan. And I Need to I Guess Put in a Disclaimer
at this Point. Andree and Phil Are Going to Be a Hard Act to Follow
after Their Presentations this Morning. And I Do Need to Reaffirm That
as Part of this Working Group, I Am One That Has Learned How to Spell
BLM and I Can Now Say Natural Resource Conservation Service. So I\'m
Really Pleased to Be Here and Working with You Folks and I\'m Going to
Be Shifting Gears Quite a Bit Because I\'m Going to Be Going into the
Development Process and the Components of the Environmental Assessment.
So We\'re Going to Shift a Little Bit out of the Philosophical
Discussion and Get down to Quite a Bit of Nuts and Bolts. What I\'m
Going to Be Highlighting in this Part of the Course Which Is Going to Be
Fairly Long, Are the Similarities, the Common Ground That Our Three
Agencies Share. We\'ve Been Talking about the Distinctions among the
Three Agencies and There Are Going to Be a Number of Distinctions. We
Don\'t Handle Everything the Same Way. If You Have Questions about That
or If You See Difference in the Way Your Agency Might Be Handling Things
and You Want to Pose Questions to Us, Please Do So. Prepare Them by Fax
or Phone. Jordan Will Continue to Give You Instructions on That. Share
Some Ideas and Thoughts Amongst Yourselves and Questions And Ask Your
NEPA Nerds Back at Your Office after the Broadcast Goes off Tonight or
Tomorrow. NEPA Nerds Is In, Phil, Yes. Ok. I Would like to Cover the
Learning Objectives for this Part of The Course. They Are for You to Be
Able to Identify and Understand the Components That Go into the
Environmental Assessment. And for You to Be Able to Develop and
Integrate Those Components Effectively. Now, I Would like to Talk to You
about How this Module in the Course on EA Components and the Process Is
Laid out. There Is a Logical Order to It. It May Not Appear That All the
Time. But There Is an Order to It. And Several of Us Are Going to Be
Presenting the Five Components To You. Now, I\'m Going to Start this
Morning Talking about the Purpose And Need Proposed Action and Decision
to Be Made Segment. I\'m Then Going to Follow with a Discussion on
Scoping and the Identification of Issues. Glen Will Follow with a
Discussion of the Development of Alternatives and How You Use Issues
from the Scoping Process in That Alternatives Development. Tomorrow
Morning, I\'m Going to Provide You with an Exhilarating Discussion of
Environmental Effects. And Phil Will Follow up with a Discussion on
Monitoring. And Those Basic Five Components Comprise the Environmental
Assessment Process. Now, Tomorrow Afternoon, Andree Will Present Some
Information That Sort of Summarizes the Outcomes of the EA Process. Now,
I Need to Mention That ‑‑ and You Have Been Forewarned but Again You\'re
Going to Have a Homework Assignment. You\'re Going to Have Two Homework
Assignments. This Afternoon, after Glenn Concludes the Alternative
Section, I\'m Going to Be Introducing Your Homework Assignment for this
Evening. We\'re Going to Ask That You Complete That by Tomorrow Morning
When We Return on the Broadcast. And Tomorrow Afternoon, over Your Lunch
Hour, You\'ll Have Another Homework Assignment to Be Completed Prior to
Returning After Lunch. Again, this Is a Logical Process. We\'re Going to
Try to Give it to You in That Way, Very Logically. We\'re Going to Be
Using a Lot of Field Examples to Bring Home The Message of How this All
Works and I\'m Going to Be Referring A Lot as Will We All to the Ceq
Regulations and So You Might Pull Those out. You Have Them in Your
Workbook and Have Them Handy So at Break You Can Touch Back to the
References I Provide and Speak to as Well as Some of the Others. You
Also Have a Copy of the National Environmental Policy Act in Your
Workbook and Your Course Book, Actually and I Would like to Suggest That
You Take That out and Take a Good Look at It. Perhaps this Evening after
You\'ve Attended this First Part of The Broadcast. Ok. Well, with That,
I Would like to Transition into the Section on Determining the Purpose
and Need Proposed Action and Decision to Be Made. And I Would like to
Start with a Quote from the Ceq Regulations That Speaks to Purpose and
Need. This Quote Is from 40 Cfr 1502.13. The Underlying Purpose and Need
to Which the Agency Is Responding. This Constitutes the Purpose and
Need. Now, Webster\'s Dictionary Describes or Defines Purpose as an
Object to Be Attained or an End or an Aim to Be Kept in View. Basically,
Purpose Can Be Described as a Goal to Be Attained. Webster\'s Dictionary
Also Describes Need as the Lack of Something Wanted or the Presence of
Something Unwanted. So, Basically, You Could Define Need as Something
That Constitutes a Problem or an Opportunity to Be Acted On. Now,
What\'s Really Important Is Recalling That Your Task in Describing Your
Purpose in Need Is to Be Very Clear and Focused. This Will Help You
Focus Your Analysis Throughout the Rest of The Process. And I Think this
Will Become More Clear as You Go along. Now, We Have External Proposals
and Internal Proposals for Which We Develop Purpose and Need Statements
and Basically, Internal Proposals Will Demonstrate That You Want to Move
from an Existing Condition Towards Some Sort of Desired Condition. There
May Also Be Planned Direction That Provides for You to Move Towards Some
Sort of Condition. It May Not Necessarily Be Defined in Terms of
Existing Condition To Desired Condition but for Example, You May Have
Planned Direction That Provides You Guidance in Providing Future
Electronic Sites or Utility Quarters. So it May Not Necessarily Be Tied
to Resource Condition. The Process for Looking at External Proposals and
Developing a Purpose and Needs Statement Is Basically the Same as That
for Internal Proposals. But the Question That You Ask with External
Proposals Is Why Is The Proponent Proposing That Action and Why Are We
the Agency Agreeing to Move Forward with It. There Could Be a Variety of
Reasons That We Agree to Move Forward in Defining the Purpose and Need
and Developing a Proposed Action. And Those Reasons Could Be Rooted in
Law, Such as Law Requiring Us to Grant Access to Private Land under
Certain Circumstances In Policy Such as Our Mineral Developments Policy
or in Plan Direction. And Again, an Example Is a Plan Direction
Providing for Utility Corridors, Rights of Way or Such Other Activities.
Now I\'m Going to Keep Going Back to the Fact That the More Narrowly You
Define Your Purpose and Need, the More Narrowly You Will Be Able to
Develop Your Proposed Action and Alternatives. This Will Help You
Contain the Scope of Your Analysis. And Make Your Analysis Process
Efficient and Effective. I Would like to Shift into a Quick Discussion
of How You Determine the Level of Detail That You Need to Include in a
Purpose and Need Statement or a Description. And in Order to Do That, I
Would like to Turn to My Esteemed Colleagues and Ask Them a Few
Questions. For Example, Andree, I Understand the National Resource
Conservation Service Does Some Generally Large Projects for Which They
Define a Fairly Broad Purpose and Need. Can You Give Me an Example of
That?

Duvarney: Sure. One Purpose Might Be to Prevent Flooding of the Abc
River, in a Way That Maximizes Economic and Environmental Benefits. That
Would Be a Real Broad Statement.

Churchill: Ok. And So with That Broad Statement, You Might Be Looking
for an Expect ‑‑ to Receive a Range of Comments as to What Sort of
Action May Take Care of That Problem.

Duvarney: Sure, on Some Internal ‑‑ There Would Be Lots of Alternatives
That Could Solve That Problem.

Churchill: Well, Good. We\'ll Delve into That a Little Bit More in the
next Segment. Phil, What about an Example from BLM. Because I Know BLM
Does, like the Forest Service, a Lot of Site Specific Activities for
Which There\'s a Slightly More Narrow Definition of Purpose and Need.

Hall: I Can Give You an Example. For Instance, in One Instance, We
Interacted with Handicapped Individuals and Groups and Identified a Need
for Handicap Accessible Recreation and as a Result, We Proposed and
Subsequently Implemented the Construction of Handicap Accessible Fishing
Areas, Handicap Accessible Camping Areas.

Churchill: Thank You. I Guess the Point I Would like to Bring Home Here
Is That in Describing Your Purpose and Needs Statement, There Is No
Cookbook Approach to That. What You Need to Do Is Use Your Common Sense
and Your past Experience in Describing Purpose and Need Statements and
Working With Those to Develop Proposed Actions and Alternatives and
Continue to Think about What Will Help You Focus Your Analysis, Help You
Get the Job Done but Also What Will Help You Communicate Both Internally
and Externally about What it Is That You Want to Do. All Right. I Would
like to Shift from Purpose and Need into the Development Of a Proposed
Action. And Also the Decision to Be Made. Now, We\'ve Talked a Little
Bit about the Benefits of Having a Clearly‑defined Purpose and Needs
Statement. I Would like to Go into a Little Bit More Detail on Why It\'s
Important to Have a Clearly Defined Proposed Action. Now, a Clearly
Defined Proposed Action and Purpose and Need Can Help You Focus the
Analysis and Your Communications and Work Towards Meaningful Public
Input. It Can Also Help You Better Identify the Issues, Develop Your
Alternatives and Conduct a Sound Environmental Effects Analysis And
Interpretation of Those Effects. And Again, the Focused Proposed Action
and Purpose in Need Can Provide a Focused Analysis That Leads to a Sound
and Supportable Decision. Now, There\'s a Lot of Discussion Going on
about Whether or Not The Proposed Action Comes First or the Purpose in
Need Comes First. And it Really Doesn\'t Matter. What\'s Important to
Think about Is That the Proposed Action and The Purpose in Need Need to
Be Clearly and Very Tightly Linked. If You Put out a Purpose in Needs
Statement, Don\'t Develop a Proposed Action That Doesn\'t Meet That
Purpose in Need. Linkage Between the Purpose and Need and the Proposed
Action Is What\'s Critical. Ok, I Would like to Shift to Another
Important Definition That\'s Found in the Ceq Regulations and this Is at
40 Cfr 1508.23. The Quote Is Proposal Exists at That Stage in the
Developmental Of an Action When an Agency Has a Goal and Is Actively
Preparing To Make a Decision on One or More Alternative Means of
Accomplishing That Goal. Ok. And Further, Proposal Is When an Agency Is
Preparing to Authorize, Recommend or Implement an Action. Basically,
It\'s a Proposal, the Agency Agrees to Move Forward With into an
Analysis. Again, this Applies to Internal and External Proposals. I
Would like to Talk to You about the Fourth Components of the Proposed
Action. The Who, the What, the When, and the Where. And I\'ll Go Through
Each of Those in a Little Bit of Detail. Now, the Who Is Basically the
Agency. Who Is Proposing the Action. Ultimately, Even in External
Proposals, it Is the Agency Proposing the Action. So the Agency
Constitutes the Who. The What Is Really the Activity That You\'re
Proposing. And It\'s Important to Think in Terms of Painting a Picture
for Our Publics Both Internal and External of What the Activity Is That
We Want to Do. So the Detail, the Level of Detail That You Provide May
Vary by Project. But It\'s Important to Think in Terms of You Want to
Paint a Clear Picture to Folks about What it Is You\'re Proposing to Do.
The When Refers to the Duration of the Project. When Is it Going to Be
Implemented. How Long Will it Take, Are There Logical Phases in the
Process That Require You to Identify the Specific Places from a Time
Standpoint. Now, I Think That We Need to Talk about One Other Subject in
There and That\'s Called Ripe for a Decision. And That Is Related to the
When in That If You\'re Thinking about Proposing a Project That\'s Some
Distance out in the Future, One Of the Things You Need to Consider Is
How Far out into the Future You\'re Able to Predict the Effects from
That Proposed Project. And It\'s Probably Best to Work Through this by
Way of Example. And the Example I\'ll Use Is Say Wildlife Habitat
Project That You\'re Proposing. Now, You Have a Wildlife Habitat
Improvement Project That You\'re Proposing Today but You\'re Actually
Not Going to Implement That For Four Years for Various Reasons. Now,
What Is the Likelihood That in the next Four Years New Information or
New Circumstances or Issues or Even Laws May Arise That Cause You to Go
Back When You Go to Implement and Revisit That Decision and Conduct a
New Analysis? Well, I Would Submit That Within Four Years, the
Likelihood of Your Having to Revisit the Project Is Probably Fairly
High. And So, in Terms of Ripeness for Decision, the Line Manager Needs
to Be Thinking about the Risk or Uncertainty of Making a Decision Today
but Not Implementing That Far out into the Future. In General Terms, We
Talk about a Project Not Being Ripe for Decision If it Expands Moyer
than Say Three to Five Years Beyond The Decision Date. And of Course,
There\'s No Hard and Fast Rule with this. You Have to Use a Lot of
Common Sense and Look at from past Experience at How Other Projects Have
Been Implemented from a Timeliness Standpoint. So, Again, That\'s a
Judgment Call, a Professional Judgment Call And Your Line Officer Needs
to Be Thinking about the Timeliness Of Making That Decision. Fourth
Component Is the Where. And Basically, this Is a Part of the Overall
Picture That You Want to Be Able to Convey to Internal and External
Publics. And That Is Where Are You Going to Conduct the Activity. Be
Able to Describe That in Site Specific Terms. It\'s Frequently Best to
Provide a Map, a Map Is a Great Way of Conveying the Where Part of Your
Proposed Action. Very Accurately. I Would like to Talk in Terms of the
Scope of the Proposed Action and the Ceq Regulations at 40 Cfr 1508.25
Address Scope. Of Proposed Action. I Will Give You That Quote Right Now.
Scope Consists of Range of Actions, the Alternatives and the Impacts to
Be Considered. And So, Relative to the Scope of the Actions to Be
Considered, There Are a Few Things You Need to Be Thinking about. When
You\'re Considering Combining One or More Actions into the Proposed
Action. Now, There Are Three Kinds of Actions That the Ceq Regulations
Identify That You Should Be Thinking about When You\'re Considering
Combining a Couple of Action into the Proposed Action. This Again Falls
under this Range of Actions. The First Is Connected Actions. And Those
Are Actions Which Are Connected Through Either the Fact That They
Automatically Trigger Other Actions and an Example of That Could Be a
Prescribed Burn Followed by Immediate Post Rehab Plantings. Another
Aspect of Connected Actions Is That the Action Cannot Proceed or Will
Not Proceed Unless it Occurs Simultaneously. And That\'s Road
Construction, for Example, as a Part of a Timber Sale. Now, You Would
Not Be Conducting the Timber Sale Because You Couldn\'t Access the
Timber Unless You Had the Road to Access the Sale. The Third Part of the
Connected Action Picture Is When There\'s An Action That Is an
Interdependent Part of a Larger Whole. A Good Example of this Is a Fish
Ladder Associated with a Dam. Now the Dam Provides the Larger
Association. The Real Sit You Would Not Need the Fish Ladder There
Unless You Were Constructing the Dam. So, Again, Connected Actions Are
Related to Those Actions That Automatically Trigger Each Other, Actions
That Cannot Proceed or Will Not Proceed Unless They Occur Simultaneously
or Actions That Are Interdependent Part of a Larger Whole. Now, the
Second Set of Actions That Need to Be Considered under This Range of
Actions for a Proposed Action Are Similar Actions And Those Are Actions
That Are Similar in Timing or Geography. That Is That They May Fall in
the Same Time Period in the Same Location. And a Very Simplistic Example
of That Is If You Have a Watershed In Which You\'re Considering
Implementing Several Prescribed Burns and You Know That Basically You
Want to Implement Those Prescribed Burns in the Same Fiscal Year,
They\'re in the Same Watershed. They\'re Similar Activities. It Makes
Common Sense and a Lot of Situations to Integrate Those Several
Prescribed Burns into One Proposed Action. Now, the Third Area of
Actions Is Cumulative Actions and this Ties Back to Both Some of the
Things We\'ve Mentioned and Are Going to Go into Detail. And I Think Is
Maybe at the Heart of Some of the Questions We\'ve Been Getting.
Cumulative Actions Are Those Activities Which Contribute to Cumulative
Effects. And It\'s Not So Important That You Understand That an Action
Is Cumulative as Much as You Understand and Take Action on the Fact That
Actions May Have Cumulative Effects. This May Be a Little Bit Confusing
and I Think it Will Become More Clear Tomorrow When I Get into a
Discussion of the Cumulative Effects Analysis and What Constitutes
Cumulative Effects Analysis for a Whole Variety of Actions. Now, It\'s
Probably Not So Important That You Understand and Be Able to Describe
Each of These Actions as Much as You Understand That Connected Actions,
Because of Their Nature and Their Interconnectedness Normally Are
Considered in the Same Proposed Actions. Similar Actions and Cumulative
Actions May or May Not Be Included in the Proposed Action. That\'s a
Discretionary Judgment Call on Your Part. So, Just Be Aware of the
Thinking Process That You Can Use in Determining Whether or Not to
Include These Kinds of Actions in A Proposed Action. Now, in a Lot of
Discussion Amongst Our Three Agencies, What We\'ve Come up with Is That
as a Whole, We Encourage Limiting the Number of Activities or Actions
That You\'re Going to Put into a Proposed Action and That Helps, Again,
Focus Your Analysis, Keep It Very Focused and Put Sideboards on It. Ok,
I Mentioned Decision to Be Made and I Would Be Surprised If That
Doesn\'t Trigger a Couple of Questions in Your Minds. What Do I Mean by
Decision to Be Made? Am I Talking about Announcing the Decision That\'s
Going to Be Made? Well, No. What I\'m Talking about in Suggesting You
Need to Develop a Statement on Decision to Be Made Is That You Describe
the Nature Of the Decision That Will Be Made but You Do Not Describe the
Content of That Decision. I Think It\'s Probably Good Here to Use a
Simple Example as a Means of Comparing Nature and Content of the
Decision So You Can Understand What I\'m Talking about. Let\'s Use a
Forest Service Made up Example and Say That the Forest Supervisor of Xyz
Forest Will Decide Whether or Not to Construct a Campground in the Pine
Flat Area. Ok, Now, That Sort of Description, a Decision to Be Made,
Addresses the Line Officer\'s Decision Space but Does Not Make it Ok,
Addresses a Decision Space but Does Not Make it Seem like We\'re Being
Predecisional. If, on the Other Hand We Announced Upfront with the
Proposed Action That the Forest Supervisor Will Decide to Construct a 27
Unit Campground in Pine Flat next Year, That\'s Going to Appear
Predecisional. So, Simply Put, What We\'re Talking about in a Decision
to Be Made Segment Is That You Describe the Decision Space, the Line
Officer Going to Be Making the Decision and the Nature of the Decision
to Be Made. But You Do Not Give an Indication That the Activity Has
Already Been Selected and We\'re Now Open for Any Other Comments or
Alternatives. Ok. Well, I Think We\'re about to the End of this Brief
Discussion on Purpose and Need. Proposed Action and Decision to Be Made.
And I Would like to Just Summarize the Key Points That I Covered In
Here. The First Is Purpose and Need Statement, Again, Purpose Is Working
Towards Achieving a Goal and Need Is Trying to Fix a Problem or Act upon
an Opportunity. Remember to Be as Clear in Your Description as Possible
with the Purpose and Need Statement. The Second Aspect That We Talked
about Was a Proposed Action. And Again, It\'s Important to Cover the
Who, What, When and Where Aspects of Proposed Action and to Be Clear as
to What it Is That You\'re Proposing and Be Able to Accurately Convey
the Information to the Public Again Both Internally and Externally. And
Probably the Most Important Thing Is to Stay in Touch with The Question
of Why Is it Important to Be Clear in Your Purpose And Needs Statements
in Your Proposed Action and Link Those up To the Decision Space. Well,
the Answer to That Question Is That by Being Clear and Focused and
Presenting Your Information Accurately, You Can Convey Information to
the Public and Confine or Constrain the Limits of Your Analysis, Make
Your Analysis Process More Effective and Efficient. Well, That Concludes
this Unit and Again, Before I Shift into The next Unit on Scoping and
Issues, I Would like to Encourage You, If You Have Any Questions, That
You Would like to Ask Us, To Please Get Those Ready, via Phone or Fax.
Be Prepared to Call Those In. We\'re Going to Have Another Question and
Answer Session Later Today. And with That, I\'ll Get Prepared and Slip
into Scoping. Ok. Let\'s Jump off into Scoping and Issues. Now, for this
Section, I\'m Going to Be Referring Quite a Bit to The Ceq Regulations
and the First Regulation That I Would like To Refer to Is 1501.7. This
Addresses Scoping. I\'ll Give You the Direct Quote out of the
Regulations on this. Scoping, There Shall Be an Early and Open Process
for Determining the Scope of Issues to Be Addressed and for Identifying
the Significant Issues Related to a Proposed Action. This Process Shall
Be Termed Scoping. Ok. Well, That Has Pretty Succinctly Defined Scoping.
Basically, You Conduct Scoping to Identify the Relevant Issues That Will
Influence the Scope of Your Analysis. Now, the Ceq Regulations Both Here
at 1501.7 and Throughout Apply to Both Eis and Eas. And Our Three
Agencies Differ Some in How We Interpret and Apply The Regulations.
Basically, the Forest Service Applies Scoping Requirements to Both Eas
and Eiss. The BLM and Nrcs, However, Use a Slightly Different Process by
Which They Assess on a Case by Case Basis the Need for Public
Involvement and Have Their Own Processes Tailored to Meet Their Needs
for Each Project. The Bottom Line among the Three Agencies Is That the
Nature of Your Scoping Process Should Be Tailored to Meet Your Need, to
Address the Scope of the Proposed Action and Also the Scale of The
Analysis That You Want to Conduct. So, Again, There Are Some Agency
Differences but Common Sense And Thoughtfulness Are Probably the Two Key
Guiding Aspects of The Scoping Process. Now, We\'ve Talked about Scope
as in Scope of Actions in this Last Unit and I\'m Going to Talk about
Scoping. And You Need to Know That They\'re Not Synonymous but They\'re
Linked and I Think That as We Go Through this Process in Talking About
the Components of the EA and How They Work Together, That Will Become
More Clear. So Hang in There with Us on Some of this Similar but Not the
Same Terminology. Ok, Let\'s Turn to Another Ceq Quotation. That
Addresses Scoping. This Is 40 Cfr 1501.b. And Let\'s See. This Is in the
Very First Section of Your Ceq Booklet. This States That NEPA Procedures
must Ensure That Environmental Information Is Available to Public
Officials and Citizens Before Decisions Are Made and Before Actions Are
Taken. The Information must Be of High Quality. Accurate Scientific
Analysis, Expert Agency Comments and Public Scrutiny Are Essential to
Implementing NEPA. Most Important, NEPA Documents must Concentrate on
the Issues That Are Truly Significant to the Action in Question. Rather
than Amassing Needless Detail. Ok, There Are a Number of Important
Points in Here That I\'m Going to Highlight as I Go Through this Section
on Scoping and Issues Development. Probably the Last Sentence Says it
All in Here in this Quote and Really Brings to Bear on this Whole
Section. And That NEPA Documents Concentrate on the Issues That Are
Truly Significant Rather than Amassing Needless Detail. This Will Be a
Common Theme Throughout this Course. Ok. Well, Let\'s Assume That
You\'ve Decided That You Need to Do Scoping. And So How Do You Do
Scoping? Well, the Ceq Regulations Providing Several Areas Some Steps of
The Process and How to Conduct Scoping and There Are Three General
Themes in There That I Would like to Go over with You. The First Is That
Scoping Means Informing Agencies and Public About the Analysis Process
and Soliciting Information. Now, this Promotes Hopefully, a Productive
and Meaningful Dialogue with Your Publics. The Second Major Theme Is
That Scoping Helps You Identify the Issues That Are Going to Be Relevant
to the Project and it Also Helps You Eliminate the Issues from Analysis
That Have Nothing To Do with Your Project and Are Not Relevant to Your
Analysis. And the Third Theme Is That Scoping Helps You Assess Your
Information Needs. And to Develop a Strategy for Conducting the Analysis
for Conducting Public Participation and for Getting Folks the
Appropriate Folks Involved in the Analysis Process. Now, Although I\'m
Talking about Scoping in this Section, Phil Has Already Covered a Large
Part of the Who Do You Involve in Scoping in His Discussion Earlier this
Morning. All Right So, We\'ve Talked about Scoping. Let\'s Shift into
Issues and How You Identify an Issue. Well, Even to Step Back Further,
What Is an Issue and Which Ones Are Important? Well, There Are Going to
Be Two Basic Types of Issues That You\'ll Encounter and Address When
Preparing an Environmental Assessment. And the First Is Issues That Are
Relative to the Proposed Action And its Alternatives and the Second Are
Issues That Are Not Relevant to Your Proposed Action and the
Alternatives. So, What Do the Ceq Regs Say about Issues? Well, Again, I
Would like to Refer You Back to 40 Cfr 1500.1 B That I Mentioned Earlier
and I Actually Read the Full Quote. And the Highlight from this Is NEPA
must Concentrate on Issues That Are Truly Significant to the Action in
Question Rather than Amassing Needless Detail. Now, a Second Quote Also
Highlights this. This Is 40 Cfr 1502.2 B. This Is Issues Shall Be
Discussed in Impact to Their Significance. Only Brief Discussion of
Other than Significant Issues. As in a Finding of No Significant Impact,
There Should Be Only Enough Discussion to Show Why More Study Is Not
Warranted. Ok. Well, to Summarize What the Ceq Regs Say, Basically and
the Guidance That We Follow Is That First, Focus on the Significant
Environmental Issues That Are Related to Your Proposed Action. And
Secondly, Discuss the Other Issues Only Briefly. Now, Let\'s Step Back
and Talk a Little Bit More about Issues. We\'ve Had Questions about the
next Topic I Want to Bring In. The Ceq Regulations Speak Heavily in
Terms of Biophysical Issues And Biophysical Effects but What about the
Sociocultural and Economic Effects and Issues. Can We Ignore Them? Well,
Certainly Not and Threaded Throughout the Ceq Regulations Are Hints and
Suggestions and Direction to Consider and Look at The Sociocultural and
Economic Effects of Our Actions. Now, Looking at Those Issues Means That
We Need to Identify How Social Cultural and Economic Effects or Issues
May Be Tied to The Biophysical Issues. And I\'m Not Going to Go into a
Great Deal of Detail Here on That. But Just Know Two Things. One Is That
There Are Two Important Places in Your Ceq Regulations That I Would like
You to Take a Look at on the Break Or this Evening. That We Remember ‑‑
That Refer to Social, Cultural and Economic Issues and Effects. And the
First Area That You Should Look at Is 40 Cfr 1508.8 Under the
Description of Effects and the Second Is 1508.14 Which Speaks to
Elements of the Human Environment. Now, I\'ll Go into More Detail
Tomorrow in a Discussion on Effects about the Social Cultural and
Economic Effects and How You Actually Work Through Those in Your Effects
Analysis. Ok. Well, I Realize That I\'m Referring Back and Forth Between
Purpose and Need, Proposed Action Alternatives and the Effects Analysis.
And Hopefully They\'ve Not Too Confusing. Those Are All Portions of Our
Analysis Process. And Just to Demonstrate That We Have a Process That
Makes Sense But Is Not Linear, I Would like to Work Through this Graphic
With You. And Illustrate the Interrelatedness of These Steps in the
Process. You\'ve Come up with a Purpose and Need. You\'ve Identified a
Proposed Action That Addresses That Purpose And Need. And You\'ve Begun
to Go into Scoping and Issues. Well, When You Look at Your Issues,
Statements and You Look at The Issues That Are Raised Through Scoping,
You See That Some Are Clearly Related to the Proposed Action. Some Will
Be Related and Should Be Related to Your Purpose and Need. Now, as You
Followed the Scoping and Issues with the Development Of Alternatives to
Your Proposed Action, You\'ll Find That in Looking at Your Alternatives,
You\'re Going Back, Going to Be Addressing the Issues, You\'ll Be
Addressing the Purpose and Need, Most Certainly. Now, the Effects
Analysis Provides You an Opportunity to Really Be Looking at the Purpose
and Need, the Effects of the Proposed Action, the Issues That Are
Identified Because a Lot of Those Issues Are What You\'re Going to Be
Analyzing in Your Effects Analysis and You\'re Also Going to Be Linking
Back to the Alternatives Because Sometimes During Your Effects Analysis,
You Come up with New Issues or New Effects That Cause You to Go Back And
Develop a New Alternative. Now, When You Get down to the Part of the
Process Where You Actually Make a Decision and Implement That Decision
and Do Some Monitoring, That Whole Arena Does Tie Back into the Other
Parts Of the Process, Too. And I Would like to Cover Those Very Quickly
with You. You Will Be Tying Back to Obviously Your Purpose and Need, Did
The Activity Meet Your Purpose and Need as ‑‑ That You Implemented as
You Had Planned. Was Your Proposed Action Effective in Meeting Your
Purpose in Need. How Are Your Issues Related to Your Decision and the
Implementation of That Decision. What Does Monitoring Tell You about How
Well You Address the Issues. Ok and Monitoring in Particular Will Give
Pu Some Feedback on The Effects Analysis. Now, Phil Is Going to Talk in
Some Detail about Monitoring So I Won\'t Go into That a Lot but a Lot of
the Monitoring Goes Back To the Issues and the Effects. So, You Can See
That this Is Not at All a Linear Process. It Is Certainly ‑‑ There Is a
Lot of Interrelatedness among All Of These Aspects of the Process and
the Important Point Is to Feel Comfortable with the Fact That You Don\'t
Go from One Step To the next Step to the next Step and Never Go Back,
That it Is Going to Be Ok and It\'s Normal to Revisit Each of These
Steps And You May Be Revisiting Several of These Steps a Number of Times
along the Way. But That\'s Ok. Just Think Through the Process and Make
Sure You\'re Using the Process Appropriately and That It\'s Actually
Guiding You Through The Process. Ok. Well, Let\'s Talk about How You
Identify Issues That Are Relative To the Analysis and That You Want to
Include in the Analysis. Now, Basically, this Also Is an ‑‑ this Is
Looking at Issues and Determining Which Are Going to Be Relevant to Your
Analysis. There Are Four Basic Steps. The First Is to Identify and
Define the Preliminary Issues Associated with the Proposed Action. The
Second Step Is to Clarify and Refine Those Issues and to Develop Clear
Issue Statements. The Third Step Is to Organize or to Group the Issues
Logically. And the Fourth Is to Identify Issues That Are Relevant and
Important to the Proposed Action and These Will Not Only Help You
Constrain the Analysis but it Will Help You Identify the Mitigation and
the Alternatives That You\'ll Want to Develop. So, I Would like to Work
Through Each of Those Four Steps in a Little Bit More Detail. First I
Would Talk about Identifying and Defining Preliminary Issues. How Do You
Do That? What Sources Do You Turn To? And Phil, Can I Get Your Help on
this and Andree, Yours, Too. What I Would like Is an Example of a
Proposed Action and If You Could Give Me an Example of a Proposed Action
and How You Got Information about the Issues for That.

Hall: Sure. I Think I\'ve Got One. The BLM Had a Proposed Action in
Which We Were Going to Use Both Fire and Grazing as a Habitat Management
Tool in an Area That Was Identified as Habitat for an Endangered Species
Plant or an Endangered Plant Species. And So What We Did Was We Sent
Letters and Held Meetings and Talked with the Public. We Met with and
Talked with the Fish and Wildlife Service and The State Wildlife
Agencies and in Addition, We Contacted the People Nearby Who Might Have
Some Valuable Local Information for Us.

Churchill: Ok. So Thanks, a Lot of Engagement with the Local Folks and
Agencies.

Hall: a Lot of Engagement with a Lot of Different People.

Churchill: Andree, How about You?

Duvarney: a Lot of That Is True for Us as Well. Say We Have a Proposal
to Fund the Removal of a Flood Control Structure, We Might Talk to
Adjacent Landowners, We Definitely Talk to Them and We Talked to Other
Folks in the Community. We Would Talk to the Fish and Wildlife and the
State Wildlife, Game and Wildlife. We Probably Would Look at Other
Conservation Plans or Really Probably Other Land Use Plans That Might Be
in Effect to Look at Any Cumulative Effects, Other Actions That Might Be
Affected, Too. Hopefully We Would Also Look to See If Any Other Agencies
or Individuals Had Done Similar Actions in the past and What Kinds Of
Issues Came up with That.

Churchill: Ok. Well, Good. Let Me Share with You Again Some of the
Highlights from These Sources. Basically Phil and Andree Identified a
Number of Sources of Where You Go to Get Your Issues. Again this Relates
to Scoping. And Those Include Meetings with the Public, Going to the
Fish And Wildlife Service, Other Federal and State Agencies, Contacting
Local Interests, Contacting Adjacent Landowners, Reviewing Other Plans
and That\'s Land Conservation Resource Plans That Might Have Included
Similar Activities for Which There Would Be Similar Interests and Again,
That Ties to Activities That Are Very Similar in Nature. So, There Are a
Variety of Sources to Go When You\'re Starting to Identify Your
Preliminary Issues That Might Be Associated with Your Proposed Action or
the Alternatives. So, Great. Thank You Both. The Second Area I Would
like to Go into or Second Step Is Clarifying and Refining Issue
Statements and Actually Building Those Issue Statements. It\'s Important
in Building an Issue Statement Is That to Clearly Link the Proposed
Action to the Effect. And Let Me Step Back and Talk for a Minute about
Clarifying and Refining the Issue. Occasionally, Will You Get Comments
from the Public Either Internal or External That They Sort of Raise an
Issue but You\'re Not Clear on What it Means. It\'s Important to Go Back
to the Individual or Organization or Agency and Ask for Clarification on
That. Don\'t Be Afraid to Engage in Two‑way Conversation with Folks
About What They Mean When They\'re Sending in Issues or Asking
Questions. Seek Clarification on That. You Need to Link the Proposed
Action and Effect. A Simplistic Example of That Is for Example, I Want
to Propose Road Construction in a Certain Area and I Know the Issue
Because I\'ve Talked with State Water Quality Department about This, the
Issue Is Going to Be Ultimately That Road Construction Will Lead To Some
Erosion Which Will Result in Sediment in the Stream, Ultimately Affects
Water Quality. So, in That Instance, I\'ve Clearly Linked up the Cause,
Which Is Construction of the Road in That Certain Area to the Effect
Chain and to the Ultimate Effect Which Is an Impact on Water Quality. So
It\'s Important to Think in Those Levels of Detail and Build Those
Issues Statements Linking the Cause and the Effect. Ok, the Third Step
in the Process Is to Organize a Group Issues. There Are a Variety of
Ways You Can Do this. One Is to Organize Groups That Are Related to this
Same Resource. For Example, Group the Issues That Are All Related to
Water Quality or to Visual Quality. Second Is to Group Your Issues Based
on the Cause‑effect Relationships. And a Good Example I Used a Moment
Ago Was the Effects Related To Road Construction in That Instance, You
Group the Issues Based on the Activity That Is the Cause and it Would
Relate to Road Construction Would Create Erosion Which Would Result in
Sedimentation and Ultimately an Effect on Water Quality. Now, the Third
Area That You Can Use or Category That You Can Use to Group it and
Organize Issues Is If the Issues Are Occurring in the Same Geographical
Area. And for Example, Let\'s Talk Back to the Prescribed Burns in a
Watershed. You Know That the Issues Around Water Quality and the Effects
From the Prescribed Burn Will Be Limited to That Geographic Area. So You
Would Be Looking at the Issues If You\'re Going to Organize it along
Those Lines, You Would Be Look at the Issues Inside the Geographic Area
Related to the Activities You Want to Propose. Now, the Last Area That
You Want to Look at When You Go to Organize Your Group Issues Is Issues
That Are Associated with The Same Action. And an Example of this Might
Be Say, Maintenance of a Camp Ground Area That Requires Trash Pickup
Which May Be an Issue and Also Clearing of Vegetation for Maintenance.
That, Again, Is an Area Where You Can Combine the Issues and Lump Them
Around That One Action.

Churchill: the Fourth Step in this Process Is Really Getting Down to
Identify Issues That Are Relevant to the Proposed Action. And Again,
this Ties to the Scope of the Issue. There Are Three Terms and Actually
Andree Mentioned Them Earlier This Morning. I\'m Going to Mention Them
in a Different Context Tomorrow in the Effects Section. But There Are
Three Terms in Here That Speak to Issues and You Can Use These to Help
You Determine the Relevance of an Issue to Your Proposed Action. And the
First Is Extent. And That Is Basically You Can Ask via a Question and
That Is the Extent Broad Enough or Is There a Broad Enough Geographic
Distribution of the Issue to Raise Substantial Public Interest So Does
it Cover a Large Area. The Second Term Is Duration. And That Means How
Long Will the Issue Be of Interest. The Third Term Here Is Intensity.
And That\'s the Level of Interest or Conflict Generated by the Issue,
Ok. Now That\'s Going to Be Different from Intensity Relative to Impacts
or Effects. Right Now We\'re Still Just Talking about Issues. Ok, Well,
We\'ve Talked about Identifying Issues That Are Relevant to the Proposed
Action. What Do We Do with and How Do We Identify Issues That Really Are
Not Relevant to the Proposed Action. Ok, I Would like to Work Through
this with You, Too. Using this Graphic. Now, There Are a Number of
Reasons That You Would Clearly Eliminate an Issue from Detailed Analysis
and Discussion and Some of Those Reasons Are First Is That the Issue Is
Outside the Scope of the Proposed Action. Now, Another Example Is Oh,
Let\'s Say Global Warming. If You\'re Proposing a Timber Sale in a
Watershed, the Issue of Global Warming Is Probably Not Going to Be at
All Relevant to Your Proposal or Any Alternatives There. It Is Outside
the Scope of the Proposed Action. Now, Another Reason You Might Want to
Eliminate an Issue from Detailed Analysis or Not Even Take it into
Detailed Analysis Is That That Issue Has Been Decided by Law or by Land
and Resource Plans and Good Example of this Is Designation of Wild and
Scenic Rivers or Even Areas of Critical Environmental Concerns. Those
Issues Have Already Been Decided by Either Law or in a Land and Resource
Plan. And So, They\'re Not Going to Be Decided Through this Process and
They\'re Not Related to the Proposed Action. Another Reason You Would
Not Want to Analyze an Issue Is it Is Too Truly Irrelevant. A Simplistic
Example Is If Your Proposed Action Is to Enhance Wildlife Habitat but
the Issue That\'s Raised Has to Do with the Length of the Hunting
Season, Now, Clearly, Length of the Hunting Season Is Not at All Related
to the Proposed Action Which Has to Do with Habitat Management. So, You
Would Not Want to Analyze That Issue. Well, in the Fourth Reason or
Fourth Major Reason That You Would Want to Eliminate an Issue from
Further Consideration Is That It\'s Not Supported by Credible Scientific
Evidence. And Again, this Requires That You Take a Good Look at the
Evidence That\'s Put Forward but If It\'s Not Credible, You Do Not Need
to Include That Issue in Your Analysis. So, a Major Question at this
Point Is If You Have Identified Some Issues That Are Not Related to Your
Proposed Action or the Alternatives, but There\'s Still Issues That Have
Been Raised, See the Scoping Process and in Working with the Publics,
What Do You Do with Those Issues? Well, You Have to Remember That Part
of the Environmental Analysis Process Is to Engage the Public in
Meaningful and Constructive Dialogue and So It\'s Important to
Acknowledge Those Issues That Were Raised, Identify Why They Were Not
Carried into Detailed Analysis or Considered in Detail and Then Document
That Process and That Rationale. Again, We\'re Trying to Acknowledge the
Comments and Promote Constructive Dialogue with the Public. So, Indicate
Your Rationale and Document, Document, Document. Ok, Well, Think That
about Wraps it up for the Discussion on Scoping and Issues. I Would like
to Go Through a Quick Little Overview of Where We\'ve Come Relative to
Scoping and Issues. Early on We Talked about the Ceq Regs and How They
Define Scoping. Scoping Is an Early and Open Process. You Had Some
Practice Walking Through with Me Determining Issues That Were Relevant
to the Proposed Action. And I Also Just Discussed Reasons That You Would
Not Consider Issues That Do Not Pertain or Are Not Relevant to the
Proposed Action. I Also Highlighted the Importance of Documenting Those
Issues And Documenting Their Disposition. So, Before I Close out on this
Unit, I Would like to Cover the Pretest Question That You Took and
Hopefully Answered Correctly. And That Was Pretest Question Number 3.
That Question Is All Issues Identified During Scoping must Be Analyzed
in Detail and the Environmental Assessment. True or False? Well,
Hopefully by this Time You\'ve Come to the Conclusion That Answer Is
False. You Do Not Have to Analyze All Details Necessarily Analyze All
Details That Surface in the Scoping Process. What You Do Need to Analyze
or Those Issues Pertinent to the Proposed Action and the Alternatives.
So, Again, Focus on the Issues That Are Pertinent or Relevant to The
Proposed Action. Those Are What You Analyze. So, We\'ll Take Questions
and Comments. Jordan\'s Going to Give Pu Some Instructions. Right Now
I\'m Going to Turn it Back to Jordan.

Pope: Thank You Sharon for Walking Us Through a Very Complex Process.
Well, It\'s Lunchtime for Many of You. Stretching Time for Others. Your
Exercise for Today, However, During the Lunch Break Is to Introduce
Yourself to Anyone You Do Not Know Who Is Taking the Course with You at
Your Downlink Site and Explain What Your Job Is and How You Are Involved
in the Environmental Process. We Will Be Back at Noon Pacific Time and
Glenn Wallace Will Discuss the EA Process and the Parts of an EA
Focusing on Alternatives. Enjoy Your Lunch! We\'ll See You Soon!

END of MORNING SESSION

**BEGINNING OF AFTERNOON SESSION, 1ST DAY, 9-16-98**

Pope: Welcome Back. Hope Everyone Had a Nice Break. As I Mentioned
Before Lunch, Glenn Wallace Will Now Continue the Discussion of the EA
Process and Parts of an EA Covering Alternatives. But Before I Get to
Glenn, I Would like to Announce That We\'ve Been Getting a Number of
Faxes but We\'ve Not Been Getting Any Phone Calls and Faxes Are Quite
Lengthy and We Would like to Get Some Phone Calls Which We Can Talk
Directly to You and Answer Some of Your Questions So If You Have an
Opportunity at the Appropriate Time, Give Us a Phone Call and We Will
Respond to You. We Will Also Address the Faxes, However. Glenn, What
Have You for Us?

Wallace: Thanks, Jordan. Welcome Back from Lunch, Everyone. Let\'s Turn
Now to the Development of Alternatives. To Briefly Recap, You\'ve
Identified the Underlying Need That Your Agency Is Responding to and the
Decision to Be Made in Response to That Need. And Through Informal or
Formal Scoping You\'ve Identified the Issues Relevant to the Decision
Being Made. And the Underlying Need Being Addressed. Some of the Issues
May Point to Alternatives to Your Proposed Action or to Criteria with
Which to Evaluate the Alternatives. What next? You\'re Now at the Stage
in the EA Process Where You Need to Take A Hard Look at the Alternatives
and to Begin Preparation of the Alternative Section of Your Ea. We Will
Discuss the Following Topics\... The Purposes of this Section in Your
Ea, How to Determine Reasonable Alternatives for Analysis, How to Define
the No Action Alternative, How to Treat Alternatives Not Within Your
Agency\'s Jurisdiction and the Alternatives Considered but Eliminated
from Detailed Analysis. We\'ll Also Cover Project Design Features in
Mitigation and Last, How to Compare Alternatives. Now, the Ceq
Regulations at 40 Cfr Provide Important Guidance For the Alternative
Section of Your Document. The First Paragraph Has Four Main Points about
this Section. It Describes this Section as the Heart of the Document
That Compares Impacts, Sharply Defines the Issues and Provides a Clear
Basis for Choice. Here, Heart Means the One Part of the Document That
Provides the Greatest Information for Decision Making. A Reader Can Get
a Picture of the Issues, the Consequences and The Tradeoffs from this
One Section Alone. And this Section Helps the Decision Maker Develop the
Rationale For the Decision and Eventually to Write the Decision
Document. So, How Do We Produce a Good Alternative Section in Our Ea?
Well, Keep in Mind the Following Three Principles\... First, We must
Treat the Proposed Action and Each Alternative Equally So That Reviewers
Can Evaluate Their Comparative Merits. Second, We must Analyze Only
Reasonable Alternatives and Avoid Straw Dog Alternatives That Would Only
Add Confusion. And Third, to Avoid Redundancy, Design Features That Are
Common To More than One Alternative Need to Be Described in Detail Only
Once. If Necessary, Include a Separate Section and Include Those
Features Such as Standard Operating Procedures and Regulatory
Requirements That Apply to More than One Alternative. Let\'s Move on to
Determining Reasonable Alternatives.

Hall: Glenn?

Wallace: Yes, Phil.

Hall: Why Do We Even Need to Propose Alternatives If We Know The
Proposed Action Is What We Need to Do to Fix the Problem?

Wallace: Phil, I\'m Glad You Asked That. Us Old‑timers Have Done this a
Time or Two Already. We Think We Know What We\'re Doing but There Are at
Least Two Good Reasons for ‑‑ Including Reasonable Alternatives in Our
Eas. The First Reason Is Legal. The Cfr 401507.2 D Requires That We
Study, Develop and Describe Alternatives to Recommended Courses of
Action for Any Proposal Which Involves Unresolved Conflicts Concerning
Alternative Uses Of the Available Resources. The Second Reason Is
Practical. Sometime as We Go Cruising Along, We Encounter Unforeseen
Effects and Potentially Undesirable Effects. If We Go Ahead to Proceed
and Implement the Proposed Action. And by Looking at Alternatives to Our
Proposed Action, We May Find Some Options That Still Meet Our Needs but
Have Fewer Undesirable Effects. 40 Cfr 1502.14 a Also Requires That We
Rigorously Explore and Objectively Evaluate Alternatives. So, How Do We
Develop Reasonable Alternatives? We Start with the Statement of
Underlying Need Described as a Problem or Opportunity. As Well as the
Agency\'s Authority to Take the Action Proposed. We Then Apply the
Purpose or Purposes That May Be Accomplished While Meeting the
Underlying Need. Purposes Are Economic, Environmental, Social,
Engineering or Technical Goals That We Seek to Achieve. Now, the
Proposed Action Is One Means of Satisfying the Underlying Need and the
Underlying Need to Which the Agency Is Responding Determines the Range
of Alternatives That We Should Address in Our Ea. Alternatives That Meet
Both the Underlying Need and Purpose Are The Most Reasonable
Alternatives That Should Be Analyzed in Detail. Perhaps a Real‑life
Example May Be Helpful. You\'ll See More of this Example Tomorrow. BLM
Needs to Respond to an Application by Silver Creek to Expand Its Lease
for a Ski Area So That a Golf Course Can Be Constructed. And During
Scoping, Concerns Were Identified That the Proposed Golf Course Should
Be Moved out of the River Valley and up on to The Uplands to Reduce
Impacts to Wetlands. Now, Minimizing Environmental Impacts to Wetlands
Becomes a Purpose or a Goal to Be Accomplished in Considering this Golf
Course Proposal. So, We Need to Respond to Silver Creek\'s Proposal
Because That Is the Underlying Need. Their Application. And Decide from
a No‑action Alternative That We\'ll Discuss Later, We Can Also Limit the
Alternatives That We Analyze in Detail to Those That Meet the Purposes
or Goals That We Identify. And in this Example, It\'s Alternatives That
Impact Alternatives To Wetlands. The Key Points Are That First We Need
to Be Clear about the Underlying Need That Our Agency Is Responding To.
And Second, We Should Be Responsive to the Purposes to Be Achieved. Or
the Problems to Be Avoided Should the Agency Decide to Meet The Need.
Now, this Brings Us to the No‑action Alternative. Going Back to Our
Target Graphic\... Basically the No Action Is Not Meeting the Underlying
Need and Going Back to Our Silver Creek Example in this Case, as in Many
Of the Cases That We Deal With, the No Action Alternative Is to Not
Approve the Application and Continue the Present Management Of the
Lands, Whatever That Is. This Then Provides the Baseline or Reference
Point to Which Other Alternatives May Be Compared. Now the Practical
Result of Considering the No‑action Alternative Is Not Meeting the
Underlying Need Means That for Externally Initiated Actions, and for Our
Internally Initiated Projects, the No‑action Alternative Mean Tass That
the Action Will Not Take Place. For Programmatic or Planning Actions, No
Action Means a Continuation of Current Management. Now, Please Check
Your Pretest. The Correct Answer to Number 16 Is True. No Action May
Mean That the Action Doesn\'t Take Place or it May Mean a Continuation
of Current Management. Now, the Ceq Requires That the No Action
Alternative Be Included In All Eiss but the Level of Detail Used to
Describe it Is Left To Agency Discretion in Eas. Now, Let Me Turn to My
Colleagues Here and See What Their Policies Are on this. Sharon, What Is
the Forest Service\'s Policy on Addressing the No Action Alternative in
Eas?

Churchill: Glenn, as You Know the No Action Alternative in That Analysis
Provides Great Baseline Information and That\'s One Of the Reasons That
the Forest Service Doesn\'t Require That No Action Alternative Be
Described in Detail and Basically Full and Equal Detail to the Other
Alternatives in Our Eas.

Wallace: Thanks, Sharon. In BLM, the No Action Alternative Need Not Be
Analyze in Detail If Analyzed in a Previous NEPA Document. This
Sometimes Occurs in Documents Previously Analyzed or Other Programmatic
NEPA Document. Even in These Instances, it Is Best to Consider it as an
Alternate Considered but Not Analyzed in Detail. Andree, What Is the
Nrcs\'s Position?

Duvarney: Really, We Have the Same Policy, I Would Say as Forest Service
and BLM. We Would Analyze It, Too Except in Those Cases Where There\'s
No Conflict in the Use of Resources and That Is Usually the Case on An
Individual Landowner\'s Property.

Wallace: Thanks, Andree.

Duvarney: Sure.

Wallace: Alternatives Not Within Your Agency\'s Jurisdiction Is Our next
Topic. And it Rarely Happens. However, Sometimes We Are Asked to
Consider Alternatives That Our Agency Doesn\'t Have the Authority to
Require or to Implement. And Again, My Panel, Sharon? Could You Say How
Do We Analyze Alternatives That Are Not Within Our Agency\'s
Jurisdiction?

Churchill: Glenn, for the Forest Service, What We Would Do Is To Get a
Good Look at the Alternative and the Bottom Line Is That it Has to Meet
the Purpose and Need and Be Responsive to The Issues. So, If That
Alternative Met the Purpose and Need, Responded to The Issues and Was in
Most Other Respects Reasonable, We Would Consider That Even Though it
Was Outside of Our Jurisdiction to Fully Implement.

Wallace: Very Good. Please Check Your Pretest. Answer That Sharon Just
Gave You Is Correct. Question 15 Asked If an Alternative Lies Outside
Your Agency Jurisdiction to Implement, it Does Not Have to Be Analyzed
Even If it Meets the Purpose and Need and Appears Reasonable. And So the
Answer to That Is False. The Ceq Require That We Include Reasonable
Alternatives Not Within the Jurisdiction of the Agency. If You\'re Faced
with this Situation, You Should Make it Clear in Your EA That Your
Agency Does Not Have the Authority to Implement ‑‑ You Should Also
Describe the Laws and Regulations That Need to Be Changed for the
Alternative to Be Implemented. So, Let\'s Move on to Our next Topic.
Alternatives Considered but Eliminated from Detailed Analysis.

Hall: Glenn, Before You Move On. What about Those Alternatives That You
Know Won\'t Be Selected. Do You Need to Talk about Them in Your Ea? They
May Be Alternatives That Were Suggested by the Public or Some Member of
Your I.d. Team.

Wallace: Good Question, Phil. In My Opinion, the Few Minutes it Might
Take to Write Those down Along with the Rationale for Not Analyzing Them
Is Time Well Spent. 40 Cfr 1502.14 a Requires That We Should Briefly
Describe the Reasons for Their Having Been Eliminated. And If You Later
Receive a Protest or an Appeal, You May Be Very Happy That You Did It.
Even If That Is Not the Issue That You\'re Challenged On, it Removes
Another Potential Vulnerability. There Was Another Pretest Question on
this as Well. Question 14\... The Answer to That Was False.

Wallace: Sharon, What Are Some Reasons Why We Might Eliminate An
Alternative from Detailed Analysis?

Churchill: Glenn, There Are a Variety of Reasons That You Would Think
Through in Eliminating an Alternative from Detailed Analysis. One of
Which Is That the Alternative Fails to Meet the Underlying Purpose and
Need for Taking the Action. Again, That\'s One of the Baseline Screening
Questions We Always Ask on Alternatives. Another Reason Is That it
Duplicates an Existing Alternative. Yet Another Reason, it Is Clearly
Unreasonable or it May Be Technologically Infeasible or it May Even
Cause Unreasonable Environmental Harm. You Might Want to Eliminate an
Alternative If it Requires Assumptions That Are Remote or Very
Speculative. You Might Want to Eliminate an Alternative If You Know with
Great Certainty That it Cannot Be Implemented. And You Might Also Want
to Eliminate an Alternative Although You Don\'t Have to but You Would
Consider it at Least If the Decision Has Already Been Made in Another
Planning Document or a NEPA Analysis.

Wallace: Thanks, Sharon. Now, to Move on to Our next Topic, Project
Design Features and Mitigation. The Council on Environmental Quality
Regulations, 40 Cfr 1508.20 Described Mitigation as Including Avoiding
the Impact by Not Taking the Action or Part of the Action, Minimizing
Impacts by Eliminating the Action or its Implementation, Rectifying the
Impact by Rehabilitation or Restoration and Reducing or Eliminating the
Impact over Time by Maintenance or Preservation And Finally,
Compensating for the Impact by Replacement or Substitution. Now, Each of
Our Agencies Have Standard Operating Procedures and Technical
Specifications Designed to Avoid or Minimize the Environmental Impacts
of Our Actions. To the Extent Possible, it Pays to Persuade Applicants
to Incorporate Mitigating Measures into Their Project Design. And by
Doing So, it Obviously Simplifies Our Impact Analysis. It Is Important
Though That We Clearly Differentiate Between Committed Mitigation
Included in the Propose the Action or Alternative and That Possible
Mitigation That Is Being Presented To the Decision Maker for Their
Consideration. Turning to My Colleagues Here, Sharon, How Does the
Forest Service Treat Design Features and Mitigation and Do You Have
Typical Examples?

Churchill: Sure, Glenn, I Do Have a Number of Examples. Internally as
Well as External Applicants We Encourage Building Into the Project
Design Either Design Features and Mitigation That Will Assist in Making
That Proposed Action the Best That You Can. And a Good Example Is
Rerouting a Road to Avoid Damage to Cultural Resources. Another Example
Might Be Rehabilitating Mine Lands or Revegetating Roads and a Third
Example Would Be Changing the Timing of a Thinning Project So as to
Avoid Disturbance During a Raptor Nesting Period.

Wallace: Thanks, Sharon. Andree, How Does the Nrcs Deal with this Issue?

Duvarney: We Also Normally Will Condition Funding of Proposals on
Inclusion of Appropriate Mitigation. We Don\'t Always Do That Unless the
Mitigation Is Something That\'s Necessary to Comply with a Legal
Requirement. But We Certainly Would Encourage it All the Time. It Just
Makes Sense. It\'s Just Good Management to Avoid or Minimize Impact from
the Outset.

Wallace: Thanks, Andree. When We Respond to an Application, it Isn\'t
Always Possible to Have the Am Cant Modify His Proposal to Include All
of the Mitigating Measures That the Interdisciplinary Team May Identify.
As a Result, Our EA May Often Contain the Applicant\'s Proposed Action,
an Alternative That Includes the Uncommitted Mitigation Identified by
the Interdisciplinary Team and a No‑action Alternative Where the
Application Is Denied. Now, to Our Final Topic on the Alternative
Section of Your Ea, Comparing Alternatives. Remember from Our Earlier
Discussion of the Purpose of the Alternative Section. This Section Is
Supposed to Compare Impacts, Sharply Define the Issues and Provide a
Clear Basis for Choice. It Is the Heart of the Document. That Compares
Those Impacts, Sharply Defines the Issues and Provides That Clear Basis
for Choice for the Decision Maker. Now, the Ceq Regulation at 40 Cfr
1502.14 State That the Alternative Section Should Present the
Environmental Impacts of The Proposal and the Alternatives in
Comparative Form. Thus Sharply Defining the Issues and Providing a Clear
Basis for Choice. In a Well‑written Ea, the Alternative Section of the
Document Is Similar to an Executive Summary. It Not Only Describes the
Proposed Action in Alternatives but it Also Compares the Impacts and
Other Factual Information or Relevant to a Reasonable Choice Between
Alternatives. It Is Usually the Last Part of the EA to Be Prepared. And
in My Experience, One of of the Best Ways to Display this Comparison Is
in a Table or a Matrix with the Alternatives on One Axis and the
Comparison Factors on the Other. In this Summary Comparison Table, That
Will Be Coming up on Your Screen Shortly, a Factual Description or
Descriptor Is Preferable to Using Terms like High, Medium and Low or
More, Same and less. Or Better, and Worse. Particularly If These Terms
Are Not Defined. Now That I\'ve Described What Shouldn\'t Be in the
Comparison, Sharon, Can You Describe What Should Be Included?

Churchill: Sure, Glenn, I Can Give You an Idea of the Things We Consider
Important to Include in the Comparison of Alternatives. Of Course,
Environmental Effects Which Also Includes the Social Cultural and
Economic Effects, You Should Include the Response To the Relevant
Issues, Also Consistency Within a Land Use or Forest or Resource Plan.
We Would Ask That Folks Include the Achievement of Land Use Forest or
Conservation Goals and Objectives. We Would Also Identify the Production
of Good and Services by Alternative and Actually Include Anything Else
That the Line Manager Deciding Official Wants in That Comparison.

Wallace: Thanks, Sharon.

Churchill: You\'re Welcome.

Wallace: One Final but Very Important Point to Keep in Mind When
Comparing Alternatives. Be Objective and Neutral. Compare Facts, Not
Opinions or Value Judgments. Now to Summarize in this Section, We\'ve
Discussed the Purpose of The Alternative Section of Your Ea. It Is the
Heart of the EA That Compares Impacts, Sharply Defines The Issues and
Provides a Clear Basis for Choice. We\'ve Discussed How to Develop
Reasonable Alternatives for Analysis by First Determining the Underlying
Need That Your Agency Is Responding To. And by Determining the Purposes
or Goals to Be Achieved or the Problems Avoided. Then We Described the
No Action Alternative and Here it Is Important to Refer to Your
Agency\'s Guidance. The No Action Alternative Is Important Because it
Provides a Reference or a Basis Line from Which the Other Alternatives
Can Be Compared. Depending on Your Circumstance, it May Be Defined as
Either Taking the Action or as a Continuation of Current Management.
Then We Discussed How to Determine If You Should Include an Alternative
That Is Outside Your Agency\'s Jurisdiction to Implement. Included If it
Meets the Underlying Need Is Responsive to One or More of the Purposes
for the Action and Is Otherwise Reasonable. The Importance of Describing
Alternatives That Were Eliminated From Analysis along with a Brief
Explanation of Why They Were Eliminated, this Demonstrates a Good Faith
Effort That You Are Indeed Considering the Input You Received and
Reduces Your Vulnerability to Challenge. Then We Discussed the
Importance of Differentiating Between Project Design Features and
Proposed but Uncommitted Mitigation. When Feasible, Incorporate
Mitigating Measures into the Proposed Action to Reduce the Amount of
Analysis and Impact Description Needed. And Finally, We Concluded with
How to Compare Alternatives Using A Summary Comparison Table or a Matrix
That Compares Relevant Facts Rather than Value Judgments. That Concludes
this Segment of Your Training. I\'ll Turn it Back over to You, Jordan.

Pope: Your Presentation Showed the Importance of Having Well‑defined
Alternatives. Next Sharon Will Outline Your Homework Exercise for this
Evening Which We\'ll Review Tomorrow Morning. When Sharon Is Finished,
We\'ll Have Our Last Question and Answer Session for Today. So, Start
Faxing Your Questions or Call Us Now! Sharon? Why Don\'t You Explain
Tonight\'s Homework Exercise.

Churchill: Ok. Thank You, Jordan. I Would Be Glad to Explain the
Homework Exercise and Want to Remind You All You Got a Heads up upon
Registration You Were Going to Have Homework Assignments. I Forewarned
this Morning. Here Goes. First I Would like You to Find Your Workbooks.
You Don\'t Necessarily Need to Go Through it but Let Me Show You What
That Looks like So That You Can Have That Handy.

Churchill: I\'m Going to Describe the Learning Objectives for This
Exercise and the Specific Tasks for Today Then Walk You Through the
Information in the Workbook. It Would Be Good If You Could Grab this
Workbook and Get Prepared to Walk Through this with Me. And You Might Go
Ahead and Turn to Page 18. Now, First Let\'s Talk about What the
Learning Objectives Are for This Exercise. Remember, Throughout this
Whole Course, What We\'re Trying to Do Is Help You Learn about How to
Prepare an EA and How to Do it Efficiently and Effectively. This Is
Really Practice. The Goal Here Is for You to Practice Preparing the EA
Components And to Utilize the Thinking Framework That We Provide You.
And Just Quickly, I\'ll Tell You What Your Assignments Are for Today.
Then I\'ll Come Back to this in a Few Minutes. Ok, Today\'s Tasks Are
That Given the Information We Provide on Proposed Action, Purpose and
Need and a Decision to Be Made, You\'re Going to it Be Describing in
Detail the Proposed Action So You\'ll Take the Information We Give You
and Describe That in Detail. Secondly, You\'re Going to Identify Issues
and Develop a Public Participation Strategy. Again, Based on Some
Information That We Provide. And the Last Task for Today Is That Your
Agoing to Be Developing Two Alternatives and They\'ll Be Two
Alternatives to the Proposed Action and Remember That There Will Also Be
a No‑action Alternative in this Kind of Analysis Process. So You Will Be
Developing Two Alternatives to the Proposed Action That We Provide. So,
Let\'s Turn to Page 18. In Your Student Workbook. I\'ll Describe What
That\'s All about. You\'ll Find There\'s Some Very Preliminary
Information on Page 18 About a Proposed Action. There\'s General
Information about the Site and a General Purpose And Needs Statement.
Now, the Case Study Exercise That We\'ve Designed for You Centers On a
Prescribed Burn. That Was an Activity That among the Three Agencies, We
Shared That Activity in Common as Well as the Philosophical Approach And
the Analytical Approach. We\'re Going to Use a Prescribed Burn as the
Basis for this Case Study. If You Go to Page 19, 19 Is Your Worksheet.
And this Is Where We Identify Task Number One for You. Relative to the
Proposed Action and Actually Provide the Worksheet for You to Take Notes
on and Complete That Part of Your Assignment. Ok, If You Go to Page 20,
That\'s Exercise 2 in this Assignment. That\'s Got to Do with the
Scoping and Identification of Issues As Well as the Public Participation
Strategy. Basically, What We Provided Again Is Some General Information
And Some Hints as to How to Work Through the Issues Identification and
Developing a Public Participation Strategy. In Addition, Between Pages
21 and I Believe 26 ‑‑ 21 Through 25 ‑‑ Are Letters That We\'ve Received
about the Proposed Action Through Portions of the Public. Those You\'ll
Use ‑‑ the Letters and the Issues Raised in the Letters as Part of Your
Issues Identification and Need for Public Participation Strategy. Of So,
Let\'s Turn to Page 26. And on Page 26, You\'ll See the Task Assignment
for Exercise 3, The Development of Two Alternatives in Addition to the
Proposed Action. Now, Your Task Is Going to Be Clearly Outlined Here and
on this Assignment, and We\'ve Got Two Pages of Worksheets Provided for
You to Basically Describe the Alternative, Speak to Mitigation, The
Issues and the Rationale for That Alternative. So this Is Real‑life
Practice. If You Turn Back to Page 18, I Just Want to Highlight a Couple
Of Things. And That Is That the Information We\'ve Provided You Is
Really Pretty Simplistic. What You\'re Going to Have to Do Is Make Some
Assumptions. Use Your Gut Instinct, Use Your Professional Judgment and
Go Ahead and Work Through the Assignment Without Having All of the Nuts
and Bolts of Details. Remember That You\'re Working Hopefully with Other
Folks, Hopefully Other Interagency Folks and We Would like this to Be As
Best You Can, a Collective Effort. We Would like to Capitalize on All of
Your Collective Experience And Wisdom and Knowledge and Energy in Coming
up with Answers to This Exercise. So, Please Plan to Work Together as
Best You Can as a Group and Also, Some of You Please Plan to Respond to
this. We\'re Going to Rely on You to Give Us the Answers. There Won\'t
Be Any Canned Answers on this. Let Me Revisit Your Tasks for Today.
Those Are You\'ll Be Describing the Proposed Action, Identifying Issues
and Basic Public Participation Strategy and You\'ll Be Developing Two
Alternatives. The Goal Is That You\'ll Have this Assignment Completed by
Tomorrow Morning and When We Reconvene in the Morning, First Thing
We\'ll Go into Is Reviewing this Exercise. So, Again Please Call in with
Your Answers. And I Think That\'s about It, Jordan for Homework
Assignment So Back to You.

Pope: Thanks, Sharon. Now Let\'s Get to Some of Your Questions. We Have
a Question from BLM. The NEPA Overview Presented Two Years Ago on
Categorical Exclusions Was Said to Be Administratively Unappealable.
Does That Then Mean That the 30‑day Delay of Decisions and They Quoted
Here as Prescribed in 43 Cfr 4 and They Think It\'s 4.21 Apply to
Categorical Exclusions as it Does for Eas.

Hall: I Can Take a Shot at That, Jordan. Any Federal Decision Is
Appealable Whether It\'s Supported by NEPA or Not. And So Suddenly an
Administrative Determination. What You\'ve Done Is You\'ve Looked at
Your Proposed Action. You See That It\'s Already Covered by Existing and
Adequate NEPA So You Write the Administrative Determination. Documenting
That Fact Then You Proceed with the Decision. It\'s Appealable. Now, I
Don\'t Have the Cfr to Do Cfr Volleyball but Basically, They\'re
Appealable and Appeal Periods and Processes Vary Between Programs. And
So You Need to Be Aware of That. They Need Not Be Delayed in Being
Implemented, However. But They Are Appealable.

Pope: Thank You. Now Before We Answer Anymore Faxes, I Have Another
Announcement To Make. After Coming on the Air Almost Pleading for You to
Make Telephone Calls to Us, We Find That We Have a Telephone Problem. It
Is Not Ours, it Is At&ts. Blame At&t for That. So Instead of Trying to
Call Us, Why Don\'t You Send Us Faxes and Maybe Tomorrow We\'ll Have it
All Straightened out and Telephone Calls Will Be Accepted Again. Thank
You. We\'re Sorry for the Inconvenience That We\'ve Caused Those That
Were Trying to Phone Us Because of At&t\'s Difficulties, We Were Unable
to Get Your Calls. Thank You. Now, Back to Our Questions. Is the Purpose
the Purpose in Need of the Proposed Action of the Purpose of the EA or
Both.

Churchill: Can I See That? I\'ll Take a Stab at That. I Think I
Understand It. That\'s Related to the Purpose in Need Discussion. Ok. Is
the Purpose of the Purpose in Need of the Proposed Action or Is it the
Purpose of the EA or Both. So the Purpose Actually Is in the Context of
Talking about Purpose in Need, the Purpose Speaks to the Purpose of the
Action That You\'re Proposing. However, If You Were Conducting an
Environmental Analysis and That Environmental Analysis or Assessment Is
Targeted Towards The Proposed Action, Then the Purpose for the Proposed
Action Becomes the Purpose for the Environmental Assessment. So, If
They\'re Linked, That Is True That the Purpose Is Both the Purpose for
the Proposed Action and the Ea. Now, I\'m Making an Assumption That\'s
the Case with this Question. If Not, I\'m Sorry. You\'ll Have to Fax Us
in with Another Follow‑up Question on That. But Think That\'s the Intent
of this Question and I Hopefully Answered That.

Pope: Thanks, Sharon. Our next Question Is for Andree from Nrcs. It Says
Nrcs Completed a Watershed Plan Eis on Appeal 566 in 1977. Structural
Measures Included One Municipal Site and 19 Floodwater Retaining
Structures. Municipal Site and Three Fwrs Have Been Built to Date. We
Are Now Ready to Construct Another Fwrs. What Is the Appropriate
Environmental Document Needed? Is it an Eis, Ea?

Duvarney: Well, Actually, That\'s an Interesting Question. If That Eis
Had Been Written, You Know, a Couple of Years Ago, I Would Say You Could
Do an EA and Tier it to the Eis but Given It\'s over 20 Years Old, I
Think You\'re Going to Have to Look at Whether Circumstances Have
Changed. Let Me Read You the Relevance Reg for a Second. It Says If an
Agency\'s Made a Substantial Change in a Proposed Action That\'s
Relevant to Environmental Concerns or ‑‑ Here\'s The Key Part ‑‑ If
There Are Significant New Circumstances or Information Relevant to
Environmental Concerns and Bearing on The Proposed Action or its
Impacts, a Supplemental Eis must Be Prepared for an Old Eis So the
Agency Has the Best Possible Information to Make Any Necessary
Substantive Changes in its Decisions Regarding the Proposal. I Think I
Said It\'s 1502.9 Subsection C. And Also the 40 Questions of Ceq
Guidance Indicates If It\'s over Five Years, You Need to Consider
Supplementing Your Eis. I Can Pretty Much Say That You Probably Need to
Supplement That Eis and You Probably Could Even Wrap Your New Floodwater
Retention Structure into That Supplement.

Pope: Thank You, Andree. My Question Concerns the Public Review and
Comment Period for Eas. If Public Scoping Is Conducted Prior to Writing
the EA as Recommended, When Would the 30 Day Comment Period Be
Appropriate Or Warranted?

Wallace: Jordan, or the Person Who Made the Fax, a 30‑day Comment Period
Is Not Required in an Ea. Unless It\'s Required by Individual Program
Requirements Which May Be the Case in Your Situation. As to When You
Would Hold a Public Comment Period, You Would Probably Do That after
You\'ve Written the Ea. And Before the Decision Maker Has Signed the
Fonsi or the Decision Document. But That Would Be the Logical Time to
Have That Public Comment Period So That the Public Could Review the
Completed Ea. And Make Comments Based on That.

Churchill: I Can Add from the Forest Service Because We Do Require a
30‑day Comment Period, When the EA Is Completed, Prior To Making the
Decision. And So, We Conduct Scoping Early on and Up‑front in the
Process. But We Do Follow up When the EA Is Completed with a 30‑day
Comment Period, Review and Comment Period, That EA Is Shared With the
Public, They Comment on it and Our Decision Maker Considers the Comments
as Appropriate Prior to Making the Decision.

Pope: Thank You. Our next Question, Centered Around Our Cxs, Categorical
Exclusions, Does Rehabilitation after a Wildlife ‑‑ Which Is an
Emergency Action, Require an EA or Ce since it Is an Emergency Action,
Would Not a Ce Be Sufficient?

Wallace: Well, the Only Things That You Can Categorically Exclude Are
Those That Are on the Categorical Exclusion List. And I Don\'t Believe
That Fire Rehabilitation Is on That. If it Is, Then Yes, You Could. But
You Still Have to Comply with NEPA for Fire Rehab Actions Because
That\'s No Longer Considered an Emergency at That Point.

Pope: Comment?

Hall: Good Answer.

Pope: Our next Question\... Your Direction as to Purpose and Need,
Wouldn\'t it Be More Appropriate to Clarify Who the Proponent Is since
it Is Their Purpose Meeting Their Need. The Agency\'s Role Is Identified
in the Statement Which Addresses The Nature of the Decision under Which
Authority, et Cetera. If the Purpose in Need of the Proposed Action Is
Not Being Proposed by the Agency Itself, It\'s an Outside Proponent.

Churchill: That\'s a Really Good Question. It Calls for Making a
Distinction Between What the Agency Is Proposing and the Desired
Condition Versus Existing Condition Scenario That We\'ve Identified. And
the Person I Think Is Right on Track with the Question and That Is That
If We Get an External Proposal, It\'s Impingement Upon Us to Describe
the Purpose and Need and in Terms That the Proponent Brings in to Us. If
Is Not an Agency Driven Proposal, We Need to Be Able to Describe the
Purpose and Need as it Relates to the Proponent. It Is Incumbent upon Us
to Look at the Consistency of That Proposal with the Forest Plan
Direction, with Any Goals and Objectives That We Might Have So in There,
We Would Be Look for The Links Between the Proponents Purpose and Need
and Any Purpose in Need That Might Be Further Relative to Our Forest
Plan Guidance. So There\'s a Link There. And the Person Has Brought up a
Good Point in Terms of When You Describe the Decision to Be Made You Can
You Clearly Can Identify the Proposal as Coming from the External
Proponent but The Agency Is Having the Decision That\'s Already over
That. That\'s an Important Distinction to Make in Particular with a Lot
Of the Controversial Projects Proposed from the Outside ‑‑ the Forest
Service Has Chosen to Go Forward with Analysis and Is the Decision and
Authority but That Proposal Was Not Generated by The Agency. So Those
Are Two Really Good Questions.

Pope: How Is the Human Environment in Quotations, Defined. Is There Any
Place That Would Not Be Considered Part of the \"Human Environment\"?
Andree?

Duvarney: I Don\'t Know of Any Specific Definition in the Ceq
Regulations of Human Environment but I Also Can\'t Think of a Place That
Would Not Be Considered a Part of the Humidity Environment. Be Happy to
Take Ideas If Somebody out There Has Some.

Churchill: Actually, Human Environment, There Is an Interpretation of
Human Environment in the Ceq Regs and I Mentioned this Earlier When I
Just Spoke Very Briefly to Social Economic and Cultural Effects and I
Happen to Have the Ceq Regs Here. Let Me Read You the Interpretation. It
Is Succinct. This Is 1508.14. It Says Human Environment Shall Be
Interpreted Comprehensively To Include the Natural and Physical
Environment and the Relationship of People Within That Environment. And
this Means That Social and Economic Effects Are Not Intended By
Themselves to Require Analysis and it Goes on to Speak a Little Bit More
about the Analysis Requirements. But Nonetheless, it Clearly Links up
Humans Within the Environment as Part of the Human Environment.

Pope: Thank You. Our next Question, Is There a Clearinghouse Nationwide,
Statewide, Private Group to Find Similar past Actions to Have Identify
Issues and Make Quality Decisions? Where Can I Find this Information?

Churchill: I\'ll Take a Stab at That. For Starters and Maybe See If BLM
or Nrcs Does Something Differently. For the Forest Service, I Am Not
Aware of a Specific Clearinghouse Where We Catalog All past Activities
So That You Can Track Where There Might Be Similarities in Issues in
Effects. However, a Good Starting Place and I\'m Not Sure What Level of
Unit this Person Has Come From, but Start Locally and Look ‑‑ If You\'re
at a District, for Example over at the Forest Service, Look at Your past
Planning Records for That District and See If There Are Similar Projects
and it Seems That We Are Not Doing a Whole Lot of New Things. A Lot of
Our Projects Are Very Familiar and Resemble Some We\'ve Done in the
past. You Can Also Look at the Forest and Look Across the Forest and See
If Other Units Are Doing Similar Activities. Then You Can Go to Your
Regional NEPA Coordinators and Ask Them For Assistance in Tracking
Planning Activities That Might Have Similar Issues in Effects the
Proposed Action You\'re Trying to Carry Forward. I Would Say Start
Locally. The Benefit of That Is That You ‑‑ Remember You Have to
Identify Site‑specific Effects. And If You Start with Something Local,
the Chances Are Better That You\'re Going to Come up with Similar Site
Specific Issues And Effects That Will Pertain to Your Project than If
You Go Half Away Cross the Country to Look for Similarities in Issues
And Effects but We Don\'t Have a National Clearinghouse. Long Way Around
to That Response. Look Locally. I Can\'t Speak for BLM or Nrcs Relative
to a Clearinghouse.

Hall: of Course You Have to Start Locally. If You\'re Doing an
Environmental Assessment, the Purpose of That Environmental Assessment
as Andree Described Was to Determine Significance Are We Going to
Trigger an Eis or Modify the Project. Let\'s Suppose to Be Look at a
Timber Sale. Some Timber Sales, Many Are Done under an Environmental
Assessment. Some Timber Sales Are Done and Require an Environmental
Impact Statement. And So It\'s Very Important to Know What Are the
Circumstances Involved but It\'s Pretty Hard to Transpose Giving the
Unique Site Characteristics of a Certain Methodology to Your Site
Specific ‑‑ So, If the Question Has to Do with Is There a Programmatic
Way to Do These Analysis and If Someone Analyzed Road Construction or
Someone Analyzed Prescribed Burning and Now I Can Apply the Same
Analysis, Methodology May Be Very, Very Useful and Consistent but I
Think You Can Only Go down That Road So Far. And I\'m Not Sure If I\'m
Answering That Question Correctly.

Duvarney: I Just Wanted to Add One Thing. I Would Suggest Look on the
Internet. I Know ‑‑ I Can\'t Remember Now If the Question Was Specific
to Eas or it Was Looking at Activities but the Eis Is Now Becoming More
Frequently Posted on the Internet. You Can Look at the Epa Web Site and
Eas Even Are Being Posted On the Internet Now. So That May Be an
Opportunity to Do Some Web Searches. At Least by Agencies That You Know
May Have Taken Similar Actions.

Pope: Ok. Thank You. If Alternatives Do Not Resolve a Conflict, or If
the Alternative Is More Environmentally Degrading than the Proposed
Action, Then It Should Not Be Brought Forward as an Alternative. Is this
a Correct Assumption?

Wallace: Gee, Jordan, Let Me Take a Look at That. It Sounds like That
Would Be the Case. Not Necessarily Correct Because it May Be an
Alternative That You Are Required to Consider by ‑‑ for Program Reasons.
Now, Hopefully it Wouldn\'t Be the Alternative That Was Selected But it
May Be Required by Program Requirements. Chances Are an Alternative like
That Would Be One That You Would Say Had Been Brought up and Considered
but Not Subjected to Detailed Analysis. And I Hope That Answers That
Question.

Hall: Just One Thing. And this May Not Be Inherent in That Question but
the Preferred Alternative, the Proposed Action, May, in Fact, in Some
Instances Be More Degrading than Other Alternatives. And Sometimes
You\'re Going to Have Alternatives That Resolve the Conflict. And Vary
in Environmental Impact and for Various Reasons, Because of Tradeoffs
Sometimes Having to Do with Amenities Versus Commodities, the
Responsible Official Decides to Implement a Proposal That May Not Be
Maybe More Degrading, I Think That Was the Word. And Particularly If an
Environmental Assessment Is Being Done Under an Existing and Being
Tiered to an Existing Eis, That Environmental Impact Statement May Have
Already Analyzed Significant Impacts and the Decision May Have Been to
Accept Certain Impacts, Environmental Impacts to Do That. Now We Do an
EA and We Determine If Those Impacts Go Beyond Those Anticipated in That
Eis We\'re Tiering To. Those Impacts That We Anticipate Although They
May Be less than Those Anticipated in Eis, Maybe More than Some Other
Alternatives in the Eis. Little Bit Long‑winded but the Bottom Line Is
the Proposed Action Is Not Always Least Environmentally Impacting.

Pope: Thank You. A Prescribed Fire Could Be Considered Substantially the
Same Action. Do All Prepared Burn Plans Need Individual Eas or Can a
Blanket EA Be Prepared for a Given Area District State or Region?

Churchill: I Would like to Comment from a Forest Service Perspective but
I Think BLM ‑‑ I Would like to Hear Your Comment, Too. I\'ll Start. Burn
Plans Vary in Level of Specificity and Area, Obviously. One of the
Things That We Asked Folks to Consider When They\'re Look at the Scale
of the Proposed Action, That Is ‑‑ or the Scope of the Proposed Action
How Much They Put into a Proposed Action and into Analysis Is to
Remember to Anchor on to the Fact That You Have to Be Site Specific in
Describing Your Effects. Every Burn Is Not the Same. Because They\'re
Not Occurring in the Same Gee of Aic Area and They\'re Not Going to Have
the Same Site Specific Impacts So it Doesn\'t Necessarily Mean for Every
Small Prescribed Fire for the Burn Plan You Have to Prepare an
Environmental Assessment. You Need to Logically Set Some Sideboards on
the Area of the Geographic Area of That Analysis So That You Can
Adequately Describe Site Specific Effects and That\'s Our Ongoing
Dialogue With Our Fire Management Folks Is Conducting the Appropriate
Level of Analysis to the Appropriate Level of Detail, Anchoring Back to
the Site Specificity of Effects.

Hall: for the BLM, I Would Add That Environmental Assessment Is
Determining Significance. If You\'re Going to Aggregate ‑‑ the Question
to the Responsible Official Is There Enough Analysis, Enough Site
Specific Information Here That I Can Determine Significance on Each One
Of Those Individual Action and So Suppose I\'m in a Watershed and I\'m
Aggregating Five Prescribed Burns That Are Going to Occur Over a Period
of Two or Three Years. The Fundamental Question Is There Enough Site
Specific Information in That EA That I, the Responsible Official, Can
Determine Significance. I Have to Sign a Fonsi. And So That\'s Really
the Bottom Line. Site Specific Information. If You\'ve Got It, You Can
Put Them Together. But That\'s the Bottom Line. You Need to Be Able to
Say this Is Significant or Not.

Duvarney: I Want to Interject for Nrcs. While We Don\'t Do Prescribed
Burns, We Do Have Prescribed Burn Practices We Occasionally Get Involved
In. And They Don\'t Trigger NEPA When it Is Just a Matter of Technical
Assistance but Once We Provide Any Funding Then You Need to Be Careful
to Perform an Environmental Assessment and That Would Then Trigger the
Same Types of Requirements That BLM And Forest Service Have Alluded To.

Pope: Thank You. I Guess this Question Comes in to the Center. The
Screening Questions Available to Download off the Internet? We\'re Going
to Leave That up to the Training Center to Get That Answer. I Believe it
Possibly Can Be and We\'ll Ask Them and See If it Can\'t Be Done. Next
Question, a Proposed Sand and Gravel Sale on Mineral Estate Has a
Potential to Downgrade Air Quality and Adversely Affect an Adjacent
Business Possibly Putting Them out of Business. The Proposed Sale Would
Also Be Cause of Loy Royalties Adversely Affect Competitive Bidding.
What If Any Is the Role of NEPA in Addressing These Individual Economic
Impacts and How Should They Be Addressed?

Wallace: That\'s an Interesting Question Here. The Role of NEPA in
Addressing the Economic Impacts Here Would Be to ‑‑ Would Be One of
Strictly Disclosure, Not Necessarily Mitigation. As Federal Agencies,
When We Are Considering Other Proposals, We\'re Analyzing the Impacts
Primarily on Federal Lands Except in The Case of Nrcs. Economics Is One
Aspect of it So We Would Want to Disclose What The Effects Might Be of
Opening a Sand and Gravel Pit. If an EA Was Needed for That Action.

Churchill: If I Could Offer Another Slant on That. And I\'m Going to
Speak a Little Bit More to this Tomorrow with The Environmental Effects
Discussion, but from a Cumulative Effects Standpoint, We Do Have a
Responsibility Not Only to Take A Look at Those Social and Economic
Cultural Effects That Are Associated with Biological and Physical
Effects of Some Action That Our Agency or Agencies Are Involved In. I
Believe That the Forest Service Probably Has Some Kind of Role,
Especially If We\'re Permitting or Authorizing Some Activities to Occur
in Injecting or Integrating Mitigation into The Proposal. And So I Would
Submit That the Forest Service Has Flexibility in Looking at Mitigation
Opportunities with a Proposal for Permitting or Authorizing Activities.
Indeed, We Have a Really Critical Role in Analyzing the Cumulative
Effects of That Activity and That Goes Whether It\'s Adjacent Federal
Land, State Lands, Private Lands, We Still Have A Role in Analyzing the
Effects from an Activity We\'re Going to Authorize.

Pope: Thank You. Phil?

Hall: I Think the Answer Has Been Well Done So Far. But I Just Had this
Little Additional Piece. And That Is the Question Talked about Adverse
Impacts. And We\'re Not Mandated to Minimize Impacts. We like to Do That
but Usually We\'re Dealing with Tradeoffs. And So We\'re Going to Affect
Air Quality. We\'re Going to Effect Economics and the Bottom Line
Question, Really Has to Do During an Environmental Assessment Is
Significance. Now, as Environmental Assessment Needs to Provide the
Analysis For this Decision Maker to Make, Good Quality Decisions and
That May Involve Coming up with the Best Balance Possible of Mitigating
and Also Doing What Other Action, Needs to Happen. So, Sharon Spoke to
Mitigation. That\'s Real Important. But We\'re Not Mandated to Minimize
or Eliminate Impacts So We\'re Having Adverse Impacts and a Responsible
Official Could Logically Look at an I.d. Team and Say So What. The So
What Being Tell Me Why this Should Affect My Decision. So, All of Those
Effects Need to Be Put into Context.

Pope: it Seems an Agency\'s Alternative to Implement Cannot Be Slicked.
Alternatives Which Cannot Be Implemented Can Be Eliminated from Detail
Analysis. Could You Give Me More Discussion on Why and Just How We
Should Go about Discussing Reasonable Alternatives We Do Not Have the
Authority to Implement.

Wallace: That\'s a Good Question. This Situation Rarely Occurs. Rather
than Go into Detail with Examples, the Writer Is Correct. That If It\'s
Not Within the Agency\'s Authority to Implement a Decision, it Can\'t Be
the Preferred Alternative. Or the Selected One. But There May Be
Occasions Where an Alternative Might Be Identified That Would Minimize
or Lessen Environmental Impacts. And Might Be Preferable to ‑‑ What\'s
Proposed but the Agency Lacks the Authority. To Mitigate the Impact. By
Identifying That in Your NEPA Document, it Might Point out The Need for
Additional Authority for the Agency or Additional Regulations or
Whatever. It Might Also Be There Is Another Entity, Another Federal
Agency That Might Be Able to Actually Implement That Mitigation or
Minimize Those Impacts, Even Though the Agency, the Lead Agency Doesn\'t
Have That Authority.

Pope: Thank You.

Churchill: I Can\'t Help Myself from a Philosophical Standpoint. I Need
to Throw in a Comment. This Climate Today of Trying to Blur Agency
Boundaries and Promote Collaboration and Partnerships with Other
Governmental Agencies and Groups, I Can\'t Help but Feel That We Have to
Some Degree and It\'s ‑‑ You Know, Gotta Be During Certain Situations
And it Has to Be Well Thought Through but I Had Think We\'re Probably
Obligated to Look at Alternatives That Are Outside of Our Jurisdiction
to Implement as a Means of Promoting Dialogue And Broader Planning
Coordinated Planning Efforts. And it Not Only Shows the Tradeoffs in
Making Decisions. We Don\'t Want to Narrow Our Scope So Definitively We
Only Have Option a and Option B but If We Start to Look Broadly and
Start Blurring Our Jurisdictional Boundaries, I Think We Can Do That a
Little Bit Through Promoting Dialogue and That Is Forest Service\'s
Charge Is to Start Doing More of That. That\'s Not a Cookbook Approach
to Trying to Promote Alternatives That Are Outside of Our Jurisdiction.
But That\'s an Opportunity. That\'s It.

Pope: Thank You. This Comment Came in and it Says You Forgot to Include
How, as a Component, of the Proposed Action Description. Then it Goes on
to Say How Are You Going to Remove the Timber And the Timber Sale and
How Are You Going to Remove the Bridge In the Road Decommissioning
Project and Someone Had an Idea You Were Doing a Certain Project on this
One.

Churchill: That\'s Great They Provided Actually Some Examples To Work
with Because That Person\'s Right. In My Mind and I Think How We
Presented the Information, the Idea Is That the How Is an Integral Part
of the What Is it That You\'re Proposing to Do. For Example, in the ‑‑ I
Think in a Timber Sale, the Example Was Road Construction to Access the
Timber Sale. Those Are Connected Actions and All Part of That Action of
‑‑ That Proposed Action and So the How Is to Develop the Road and Then
You Develop the Road in a Certain Way and a Certain Location and You
Propose Also to Harvest Timber in a Certain Way And to Remove the Timber
off the Land. That\'s All One ‑‑ All Part, I Guess and Parcel to That
Integrated Proposed Action. The Other Example with the Bridge and
Decommissioning, That I View, Too, as All Part of the Proposed Action
and So Your How Is Actually Part of That. What Are You Going to Do, How
Are You Going to Do It. Is the Activity That You\'re Propose. So I Guess
You\'re Right. The How Isn\'t Explicitly Defined but That\'s Certainly
an Important Part.

Hall: in Terms of How, the Purpose and Need Statements Tend To Be Fairly
Succinct. They\'re Supposed to Be. Now We\'re Talking about the
Development of Alternatives. We\'re Starting to Put Flesh on the Bones.
Timber Sale, Will it Be Helicopter, Are We Going to Build Roads, All of
Those Things. That\'s When We Start Getting into the Building of
Alternatives. We\'ve Got a Purpose. We Have a Proposed Action. Now, Late
Start Doing Some Analysis of What That\'s Going to Look Like. That
Starts Building an Alternative So We Don\'t Want to Load the Proposed
Action So Heavily That it Looks like the Alternative. I Think a Succinct
Proposed Action Probably Serves Us Best.

Pope: Here\'s Another One That\'s a Little Bit out of the Realm Where We
Are Today Because It\'s More or less Talking about Eiss But I\'ll Read
it and We Can Determine Whether It\'s Something We Want to Address Today
or Defer It. Please Discuss the Differences Between an Eis for a
Specific Project Versus a Programmatic Eis Supported in Long‑range
Development, a Long‑range Development Plan of a Region. Such as an
Indian Reservation with Bia as a Lead Agency, What Agencies Would Be
Cooperating and How Would the Idi Be Structured?

Hall: Let Me Wade into Something I Think I Know Something About.

Churchill: Good Luck.

Hall: I\'ll Be Quickly over My Head. Discuss the Difference Between an
Eis for a Specific Project Versus Programmatic Eis. Fundamentally, an
Eis Versus an Ea, the Result of an EA Is Generally a Finding of No
Significant Impact or Significance. Now, in an Ea, in an Eis, We Accept
Significance. We Can Deal with Significance. In Order for Our EA to Be
Valid and the Project to Go Forward, We Will Have to Have Decided That
Was Not Significant. Eiss Don\'t Have to Do That. They Can Accept
Tradeoffs. They Can Accept Significance. And So Eiss Are a Different
Animal. They\'re Actually ‑‑ Our Legal People Tell Us That Eiss Are
Easier to Defend Legally than Eas Because Eas Have That Finding Of No
Significant Impacts. Now, Bia, Programmatic. Ok, Programmatic Eis and
Specific Project Eis, Specific Project Eis, Let\'s Suppose That You\'re
Doing Proposed Action. It Could Have Been an Ea. You\'re Going to Do an
Eis. You Don\'t Have to Defend Significance and So You Can Do Whatever
Needs to Happen under There. It\'s Probably Not Going to Be Very Easy to
Tier Other Programs Or Other Projects to a Specific Project Eis. A More
Programmatic Eis, You\'re Look at Broad General Concepts. You\'re
Looking at Cumulative Effects. You\'re Look at a Lot of Things and
You\'re Accepting Some Level Of Significance, Maybe or Probably. Now, by
Programmatic, You Might Make an Assumption That You May Not Have Enough
Detail to Go Forward with a Specific Project. You Did a Specific Project
Eis, the Record Is Assigned. You Go Three Your Administrative Appeal
Project, You Do the Project. With a Programmatic Eis, You Probably
Aren\'t Ready to Do Something on the Ground Yet. You Need Further NEPA
Analysis to Have More Site Specific Information. Let\'s See. Did You
Have a ‑‑

Churchill: No. I Was Just Making Notes on That for Clarification.

Duvarney: I Want to Respond for One Second. Programmatic Eiss Within a
Crs Are the Way We\'re Able to Address Cumulative Impacts. It Is Partly
a Planning Document but the Primary Purpose Is to Provide a Document
That the Site Specific Activities Could Be Tiered To. Your Impacts Will
Be Slightly More General than What You\'ll Get In a Site Specific
Project. Programmatic Eis Generally in and of Itself Won\'t Be Able to
Go Into Sufficient Detail to Be Able to Satisfy the Site Specific
Analysis That\'s Required to Totally Fulfill NEPA\'s Requirements. But
it Does Give You a Fantastic Vehicle for Being Able to Write A Shorter
Site Specific EA and for Estimating Cumulative Impacts.

Hall: Let Me Tie up as I Read this Thing. Long‑range Programmatic Eis
for Long‑range Development Plan of a Region Such as an Indian
Reservation. That\'s Similar Probably to Eiss Supports Land and Resource
Management Plans for the Forest Service and Resource Management Plans
for the BLM. There May Be Some Specific Stuff You Can Go out and Do. But
by in Large, You\'ll Have to Do Additional NEPA Analysis Under That.
With Bia as a Lead Agency, What Agencies Would Be Cooperating? Well,
Depending on the Circumstances. In Cooperating on an Eis and Federal
Energy Regulatory ‑‑ Anyway, Cooperator Intervener Status. By
Cooperating, You\'re Probably Going to Have an Agency Official Sign Part
of the Record of Decision. Generally, Other Agencies Provide Comments
and Input and Those Sorts of Things. It Could Work Either Way. We\'ve
Done Joint Environmental Impact Statements in the Northwest. That
Included Many Agencies, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine, Park
Service, BLM, Forest Service. We All Cooperated and They All Signed. In
Other Instances, We Received Comments Sometimes. So it Could Work Either
Way. How Would the Team Be Structured? Depends on the Issues. And Scope.
Scope Here Is Very Large and So I Suppose You\'re Interdisciplinary Team
Would Be Very Large. Probably Got That One.

Pope: Thank You. Please Comment on NEPA Procedures and Nrcss Development
of Individual Conservation Plans. Please Mention When Only Technical
Assistance, When Financial Assistance Is Involved and the Role of Public
Involvement.

Duvarney: Thank You, Jordan. Ok. If You Refer Back to the Beginning of
My Talk on When to Do an Ea, I Had a Little Section on What Triggers
NEPA and a Little Section That Specifically Talked about Nrcs.
Definitely When We Provide Technical Assistance, NEPA Is Not Triggered.
We Don\'t Have to Comply with NEPA in Those Cases but When Financial
Assistance Is Provided, We Do Have to Comply with NEPA. Now, in Nrcs, We
Don\'t Do a Full‑blown EA Because Generally There\'s No Conflict in the
Use of the Alternative Use of Resources. We\'re Working with a Single
Landowner And, You Know, They Have Control over Their Land. So, They Get
to Decide What the Use of Those Resources O Are and We Don\'t Have to
Develop Alternatives Because of That. If You Refer Back to Glenn\'s
Section, I Think He Quoted from the Ceq ‑‑ from NEPA, Actually, Where it
Talks about When You Need Alternatives. And it Says You Don\'t Need One
When There\'s No Conflict in Alternative Use of Resources. So, That\'s
Why We Go Through Our Environmental Evaluation Process on an Individual
Farm and That\'s Why We Complete That Cpa 52 Form Because That Basically
Constitutes Our Environmental Assessment for a Single Landowner and That
Kind of Case, You Would Not Involve the Public at All. Of Course, on a
Watershed or Areawide Level, Chances Are You Would Want to at a Minimum
Through Our Locally Led Process but Chances Are You Would Want to Go
Ahead and at Least Publish a Notice of Availability of Your Proposed
Action of the EA Supporting the Proposed Action. NEPA Would Be Triggered
Anytime We\'re Giving Financial Assistance. You Would Need to Look at
the Cumulative Impacts of That. Hopefully That Answers Your Question. If
Not, Send in Another Fax.

Pope: Our next Question. A Proposed Action Take an EA to an Eis Level.
Even If the Screening Process Determines an EA Level Document. What If
Public Demands an Eis Level Work, Data and Information When an EA Is
Required.

Churchill: I Really Have to Commend the Audience for the Nature of the
Questions We\'re Getting. These Are Great Questions and Things That We
Deal with All the Time That We\'ve Had Wonderful Discussions over the
Last Several Months in Designing this Course about Some of These Topics.
But I Think There Probably Will Be Something of a Collective Response to
this. I\'ll Start the Ball Rolling Because I Have the Paper. And
Basically, If There\'s Strong Opposition to a Proposed Action, it Is
Incumbent upon the Agency Folks Working with the Proposed Action to Take
a Look at the Nature of That Opposition. And Just to Get the Ball
Rolling, I Think That There Are a Couple of Different Avenues That the
Nature of the Opposition Can Address. One Is That There\'s Strong Public
Opinion about the Nature of The Decision. Just Making a Decision about a
Certain Activity. Another Area Where There\'s Controversy Is over the
Effects of That Activity. When You Start out with an EA Process, for a
Proposed Action, If You Find That There\'s Strong Public Opinion about
the Nature of That Decision, Making it Any Kind of Decision about That
Kind of Activity, but it Doesn\'t Necessarily Have to Do with the
Effects, You Know It\'s up to the Line Manager, the Line Officer, The
Decision Maker to Decide Whether or Not to Continue on in The EA
Process, to Make the Shift to an Eis. Now, Remember You Prepare an
Environmental Assessment in Order To Determine If There Are Going to Be
Significant Effects and If You\'re Going to Have to Prepare an Eis. And
That\'s the Base for Starting the Environmental Assessment Process.
Occasionally We Find That There Are Some Social Political Reasons and
Pressures That Are Exuded on Decision Makers to Have Them Step into the
Eis Arena Even Though They Think There May Not Be Significant Effects
but That\'s a Line Officer Call. Tying this All up in Terms of Is the
Controversy about the Nature of the Decision or Is it about the Effects.
Usually There\'s a Split in Those Two and How You Handle Those. If
There\'s Going to Be Controversy over the Significance of Effects and
There Is Strong Dissenting Opinion in a Scientific Community about the
Effects, You\'re Probably Safer Going into an Eis Process Where You\'re
Acknowledging Upfront That There May Indeed Be Significant Effects.
Rather than Try to Battle it out Within the EA and Try to Justify a
Fonsi at the End. But There Again, the Basis for Taking That Pathway Is
That There\'s Strong Dissension in the Scientific Community about the
Nature of the Effects. So, with That, I\'ll Let Some of the Other Folks
Comment on It.

Hall: Sharon Really Nailed It. Public Controversy Doesn\'t Automatically
Give You an Eis. However, If We Have a High Level of Controversy, If We
Have a Lot of Complexity, this Is Going to Push Us Toward an Eis and If
You Have a Lot of Controversy and You\'re Going to Be Challenged, Eiss
Are Easily to Defend than Environmental Assessments. However, Suppose
You\'re Doing an EA That Is Tiered to Existing Eis under a Land and
Resource Management Plan and a Resource Management Plan and Suppose the
Controversy in the Public Sentiment Was Very, Very Strong on That Eis.
The Eis Was Done, the Record of Decision Made and Just Because That
Document Was Signed, the Public Controversy Did Not Disappear. Now You
Go Forward and Implement a Project under There. Guess What. You Still
Got the Public Controversy. You\'re Doing an Ea. You\'ve Got the Public
Roaring at You, Just as They Roared at You On Eis. However, You\'ve
Addressed That Public Controversy in the Eis. Public Controversy
Doesn\'t Automatically Give You an Eis. Sharon Hit it Well, Determining
‑‑ Talking about the Controversy Over Effects Analysis. So, If You\'re
under an Existing Eis and after You Signed It, the Public Did Not Walk
out and Get a Lobotomy, They Still Feel Strong and They\'re Going to
Tell You about It, but You\'ve Already Been There, Done That and You Can
Move Forward.

Pope: Another Slight Announcement. The Broadcast Will Run a Little
Longer So That We Can Address Several Other Faxes That We Have Received.
And We Want to Make Sure That We Try to Cover All That We Get in Today
So We\'ll Run Just a Little Bit Longer. Our next Question\... What Is
the Best Way to Handle the Emergency Cleanup of Hazmat Spill? In Order
to Be in NEPA Compliance Yet Move Swiftly to Protect Human Health and
the Environment.

Hall: Emergency Procedures. Contact Ceq, You Tell Them You\'re Not Doing
an EA Because of This Emergency Situation. You\'re Not Doing NEPA. You
Handle the Hazmat and You Cover up the NEPA Afterwards. Just Follow the
Procedures There. That\'s a Great Example. Call Them Up, Tell Them
Here\'s Where We\'re At. They\'re Going to Say Go Ahead and Then You
Follow up Later.

Pope: You Said That We Don\'t Have to Address Comments That Are Merely
Expressions of Opinion. However, We Do Have to Look at Economic and
Social Impacts. Should We Look Carefully at Opinions to See If They
Might Express Social Values.

Hall: Good Question. Suppose the Opinions Give You a Substantive
Comments. You\'ve Done Socioeconomic Analysis. And These Opinions Are
Revealing an Aspect of Socioeconomic Informs That You Did Not Have
Before. By Definition, That Makes That Opinion a Substantive Comment. If
It\'s Just an Opinion, That You Already Knew about and Already
Considered in Your Social Economic, It\'s Not Substantive. But If That
Opinion Gives You New Information, Hey, Look at That. That\'s Really
Important to That Group or to That Tribe. We Didn\'t Know That. That\'s
Substantive. And it Would Alter or Conclusion. It Would Affect the Way
We Came out. So Mainly We Didn\'t Know it but it Doesn\'t Affect Our
Decision Anyway Then It\'s Not Substantive.

Churchill: in Addition, it Ties into Our Obligation to Stay Abreast of
Changing Social Values. And Trends in Behavior and Desires, the Public
Desires since We\'re Managing Their Lands.

Pope: Our next Question, We Understand That Result as a Result of Anilca
BLM Cannot Legally Deny Access Across Public Land. If this Is So, What
Is the Point of Wasting Time Analyzing a No Action Alternative? Which We
Also Understand Is Not Discretionary. That Is We Are Required to Analyze
the No Action Alternative.

Hall: I Don\'t Know What the Acronym Means. If You Have a
Nondiscretionary Action and You Don\'t Have a Decision to Make Make
However by Granting a Right‑of‑way That Will Affect Something Else on
Private Lands, You Have Interrelated Interdependent Actions. That Is by
Granting this Right‑of‑way, Something Else Is Going To Happen and
That\'s Not Discretionary. Then You Might Need to Do NEPA on That or
Inform the Permittee Or Whatever You Would Call That. I Wish I Knew What
the Acronym Meant. I\'m Swimming Here. In Oregon, We Have a Checkerboard
Ownership That Has Right‑of‑way Agreements That Don\'t Allow a Lot of
Discretion Sometimes. We Generally Don\'t Do NEPA. We Kind of End up
down That Road on Interrelated or Interdependent.

Wallace: I Believe it Means Alaska Native Claims Act. However the
Question Came to Us from Lewiston, Montana. I\'m Not 100% Sure of the
Situation They\'re Discussing There. Basically, They Mentioned the No
Action That They\'re Required to Do and No Action Alternative. Well, If
You\'ve Already Done a NEPA Document That Is Site Specific, Then You
Wouldn\'t Need the No Action Alternative. To Be Analyzed. If this Is a
BLM Proposal or BLM Is the Agency. Preparing the NEPA Document.
Right‑of‑way Grants Are Normally Discretionary Which Triggers NEPA. The
Comment Said the Right‑of‑way Grant Wasn\'t Discretionary in Which Case
You Would Normally Need to Do NEPA. However, at Any Time the Agency
Decision Maker Can Decide They Want to Do a NEPA Document in Order to
Identify Mitigating Measures or to Just Make Better Decisions. That May
Be One Reason Why You\'re Being Asked to Do a No Action Alternative as
Well as an EA for this.

Pope: Thank You, Panel. Well, That Wraps up Today\'s Discussion on EA
Level Training Analysis. We Hope Our Coverage of Eas Was Interesting and
Informative and Gave You New Insight on When to Do an Ea, What Needs to
Be or Can Be Involved in an EA and the Process and the Parts of an Ea.
Thanks to Our Panelists and All of You for Your Participation. You
Provided Us with Some In‑depth Discussion and We Encourage You to
Continue to Call and Fax Us During Tomorrow\'s Broadcast To Review Your
Homework Exercise, or for Any Other Questions You Might Have. Also,
Please Remember to Complete Your Evaluations for Today\'s Program. Have
a Pleasant Afternoon or Evening. We Look Forward to You Joining Us at
the Same Time Tomorrow but Remember We Will Be on Satellite Galaxy 9
Transresponder 2, Horizontal. See You Tomorrow. Good Luck on Your
Homework.

**BEGINNING OF MORNING SESSION, 2ND DAY, 9-17-98**

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Environmental
Assessment Level Analysis. Course 1620‑03 Bc. An Interagency Forum for
BLM, Forest Service and Natural Resource Conservation Service Employees
to Discuss Environmental Assessments as They Relate to the National
Environmental Policy Act. And Now, the Host of Your Program, Jordan
Pope.

Pope: Good Morning and Welcome Back to Our Program on Environmental
Assessment Level Analysis. Today the Bureau of Land Management U.s.
Forest Service and National Resource Conservation Service Will Continue
the Training Course as Outlined During Day One Guide by the National
Environmental Policy Act. Our Objective for Today Is to Help You
Understand the Ease and Simplicity of the EA Process and to Eliminate
Roadblocks to Successfully Understanding the Implementation of the EA
Process. To Do This, as Was the Case Yesterday, We Will Have
Discussions, Question and Answer Sessions and Training Exercises Based
on the Following Three Topics\... The EA Process and the Parts an EA
Covering Environmental Effects and Monitoring. The Outcomes of an EA
Process and Tools for Efficiency in Completing an Ea. As I Said
Yesterday, this Interagency Training Team Will Continue to Stress the
Importance of an EA Level Analysis and in So Doing, Will Enable You to
Make Better Decisions Regarding Eas, Save Time and Money in Your
Decision‑making and Improve Customer Service. During Today\'s Telecast,
There Will Be Several Opportunities for You to Call or Fax in Questions
to the Panelists. We Encourage You to Participate as Much as Possible
Because We Want this to Be a Learning Experience for Everyone. Remember
to Use the Telephone Numbers and Fax Form Found in the Back of Your
Workbook and to Write Legibly with a Dark Marker. Include Your Name and
Telephone Number in Case We Need to Clarify Your Questions. We Will
Answer as Many Questions as We Can During the Broadcast But If We Run
out of Time, Someone Will Contact You after the Show. And by the Way,
Yesterday Our Phone System Went down but Today It Is Back up So You Can
Make Those Telephone Calls Today. Now, Continuing, Joining Me Again for
the Second Day of this Course Is the Same Distinguished Panel of
Instructors. It Is a Pleasure Having Them Back Today. Sharon Churchill
from the U.s. Forest Service out of Flagstaff, Arizona. Hello Again,
Sharon.

Churchill: Good Morning, Jordan. I\'m Glad to Say it Appears the
Temperature Today Is Going to Cool off Some. It Is Going down to Around
100 Instead of 105. So We Won\'t Be in Meltdown.

Pope: Also Phil Hall from the Bureau of Land Management in Roseburg
Oregon Is with Us, Again. Good Morning, Phil.

Hall: Enjoyed the Session Yesterday. We Had a Lot of Good Questions.
Look Forward to a Lot of Good Questions Again Today.

Pope: Good. And Andree Duvarney from Natural Resources Conservation
Service In Washington D.c.

Duvarney: I\'m Glad to Be Back to Continue Our Interagency Effort Here
and I Also Want to Take a Second to Thank BLM for Making this Broadcast
Possible. It Has Been a Great Group to Work with. I Already Appreciate
It.

Pope: and Glenn Wallace, Planning and Environmental Coordinator from the
BLM in Denver, Colorado, Once Again Is Joining Us. Nice to See You
Again, Glenn.

Wallace: Thanks, Jordan. Pleasure to Work with this Interagency Panel.
My Colleagues Have Been Really Gracious and Fun to Work with. I\'m
Looking Forward to Today\'s Broadcast.

Pope: Good. As We Mentioned Yesterday, this Is a Joint Training Session
Among Three Federal Agencies. Every One Involved in this Process Has
Learned a Great Deal About Each Agency and the Differences and
Similarities We Face In Our Approaches to Environmental Assessments.
This Course Will Continue to Emphasize What the Agencies Have in Common
Which Are the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA And the Council
on Environmental Quality or Ceq Regulations. We Realize That Individual
Agency Management Goals and Objectives Are More Complex than Just
Meeting NEPA and Ceq Regulations. And That Agencies Are Faced with
Unique Challenges and Situations That Require Different Processes,
Procedures and Approaches to Eas. As We Said Yesterday, If One Agency\'s
Approach Differs from Yours it Does Not Mean That One Is Right and the
Other Is Wrong Or One Is More Proactive than the Other. Our Missions Are
Complex and Diverse. And Different Approaches Ought to Be Expected. If
You Are Participating in this Training with Other Agency Employees, We
Hope You Are Getting to Know Them and Discussing Your Different Missions
and Goals. We Think You\'ll Gain Information and Insight and Discover
You Have a Lot in Common. Now, Let\'s Turn it over to Sharon Who Will
Review the Training Exercise You Completed after Yesterday\'s Broadcast.
Sharon?

Churchill: Thank You, Jordan. And I Would like to Thank You All for
Doing Your Homework Assignment. I\'m Going to Make That Assumption. I
Would like to First Let You Know How We\'re Going to Handle the
Responses to the Homework Assignment and How We\'re Going to Cover
Those. What I Would like to Do Is Ask Three Units to Call in with Their
Answers to Each of the First Three Exercises That We Covered and I\'ll
Ask Each Person That Calls in to Go Through Their Answer. I\'ll Briefly
Capture the Information on One of My Overhead Cards Here and Then Share
That with You at the Close of Their Answer. We Have about 20 Minutes to
Go Through the Whole Exercise. I\'ll Ask You for Concise Answers,
Please. But it Is Important to Have Pieces of Your Rationale Included in
Those Answers. So, Remember What the Assignment Was for Yesterday.
You\'re Going to Be Describing a Proposed Action, Identifying Issues and
Public Participation Strategy and Developing Two Alternatives in
Addition to the No Action Alternative in the Proposed Alternative. So,
with That, I\'ll Start and Turn it Back to Jordan Who\'s Going To
Traffic the Phone Calls for Me.

Pope: Thanks, Sharon. I Believe We Have Our First Caller In. And That
Call Is from Elko, Nevada from BLM. And I Will Put Them On.

Churchill: Ok.

Pope: Good Morning.

Caller: Good Morning.

Pope: You Have Some Answers for Us?

Caller: I Need to Give this to Someone Who Is Taking the Class.

Pope: Are You Ready?

Caller: I Have Some Shy People Here.

Pope: We\'re Shy up Here but Can You Tell It? Hello. You Have the
Answers Ready for Us?

Caller: Yeah.

Pope: I\'m Going to Let Sharon Take over Now, Ok?

Churchill: Thanks, Good Morning. Thanks So Much for Calling in and
Making Your Answers Available To Us. What I Would like to Do Is Ask You
for a Proposed Action What Do You Have for an Answer on the Who
Component of the Proposed Action?

Caller: Federal Agency.

Churchill: Ok. And Is it Any Federal Agency?

Caller: Yeah, I Left it Open.

Churchill: Basically the Federal Agency Making the Proposal.

Caller: Yeah.

Churchill: What Constitutes Your What of the Proposed Action. What Did
You Guys Come up with for Describing What Activity You\'re Going to Do.

Caller: a Prescribed Burn.

Churchill: Did You Describe it in Any Other Terms Such as Broadcast Burn
or Any Other Detail?

Caller: No.

Churchill: Ok. Might You Normally Do That, Would You Be Talking in Terms
of What Kind of Burn You Might Be Conducting?

Caller: I\'m Sorry. Could You Repeat That?

Churchill: Sure. When You Normally Talk about a Burn Activity, Would You
Be Describing in Some Sort of Detail the Nature of the Burn and That Is
How Exactly You\'re Going to Do It, Broadcast Burn or Lighting Piles,
That Kind of Thing?

Caller: Um, I\'m Trying to Remember from Yesterday Because it Said Not
to Go into Too Much Detail. But Yeah, on the Assignment I See it Is a
Broadcast Burn of 350 Acres.

Churchill: Thanks for That Clarification, Too. On Not Going into Too
Much Detail. That\'s an Important Point. And We\'re Going to Talk about
That a Little Bit More as We Get Into the Effects Assignment Today. Ok.
What about When?

Caller: Um, We Came up Within Two Years During the next Two Years During
an Appropriate Prescribed Fire Window.

Churchill: Ok. During the Prescribed Fire Window.

Caller: Yeah.

Churchill: Excellent. What Did You Get for the Location, the Where?

Caller: on Federal Lands at an Urban Interface.

Churchill: Ok. Now How Might You Display That Information on the
Location?

Caller: Topo Maps.

Churchill: Great, Good. Thank You Very Much and Let Me Ask Quickly, How
Many Folks Do You Have Working with You There?

Caller: Yesterday Afternoon, We Had a Group of about 7 or 8 People.

Churchill: Ok. From What Agency?

Caller: Mainly BLM.

Churchill: Great. We Really Appreciate Your Calling in with the
Responses. And the Time You Took Yesterday to Do the Homework
Assignment. Thanks Very Much.

Caller: Ok, Thank You.

Pope: Before You Leave the Air, Could You Give Us Your Name, Please?

Caller: Shawna Clark.

Pope: Shawna, Thank You. Pleasure Having You On. Thank You for
Contributing to the Training Exercise. You and the Group Watching with
You, Have a Wonderful Day.

Caller: You, Too. Thanks.

Churchill: I Would like to Quickly Cover the Response There With You
That You All Heard and Thanks Again to Shawna and the Folks in Elko. For
the Proposed Action, the Who Is Really the Federal Agency Make the
Proposal. The What as Shawna Described Is a Broadcast Burn, Prescribed
Burn. And the When Is in the next Two Years and They Specified During
The Fire Window Which Is a Specific Time Frame in Which Weather
Conditions and Ground Conditions Are Best for Conducting Fires. And the
Where, the Location, Is on Federal Lands Within the Urban Interface.
They\'ll Be Using a Map to Display That Information. So, Excellent
Response. Thanks Again to You Folks out in Elko. Ok, Shall We Move to
the next Question?

Pope: Ok, Sharon. We Have a Call Coming in with Answers from Boise,
Idaho. And We\'ll Put Them Through. Good Morning.

Caller: Hello, this Is Frank Fink, Nrcs, Boise, Idaho.

Pope: Good Morning, Frank. You Have Some Answers for Us?

Caller: Yes, We Have Some Answers Here.

Pope: I\'ll Turn You over to Sharon Who Will Walk You Through The
Process.

Churchill: Good Morning, Frank.

Caller: Hello.

Churchill: Thanks Again for Calling In. What I Would like to Do Is Walk
You Through the Issue Tracking Sheet and Also the Public Participation
Worksheet. And We\'ll Start with the Issue Tracking Sheet. Do You Have a
Basic Issue Statement Devised for Us?

Caller: Yes, We\'ve Come up with Several Here. We Have a Team Here of
about 15 People from BLM, Forest Service And Nrcs.

Churchill: Oh, Great! Well, Thanks. Why Don\'t You Start with the First
Issue Statement. We\'ll Work Through Let\'s Say Two Issue Statements
Then Go to the Public Participation Strategy.

Caller: Ok. Let\'s See. We Have One Issue Related with Fire and it May
Adversely Affect Cultural Resource Sites, Specifically to Burn Them and
Damage Them. Also May Affect the Use in the Future of Those Cultural
Resource Sites.

Churchill: Ok. What Is the Source of That Information?

Caller: Source of the Information Was from the Local Tribe.

Churchill: Ok. Great. Is That Relative ‑‑ Relevant to Your Proposed
Action?

Caller: Our Team Said it Was.

Churchill: What Sort of Unit of Measure Would You Use to Track That
Issue?

Caller: That Was a Little Difficult to Come up with. We Said We Would
Either Protect it or Destroy It.

Churchill: Ok. So It\'s Either Total Protection or Loss Of.

Caller: Right.

Churchill: All Right. Thank You. How about a Second Issue Statement?

Caller: That Had to Do with Fire and it May Adversely Affect Threatening
Endangered Plant Species That Have Been Identified In the Project Area.

Churchill: Ok. And What Was the Source of That Issue?

Caller: the Source Was from the Local Fish and Game.

Churchill: Ok. Was That Relevant to Your Proposed Action or
Alternatives?

Caller: Yes, it Was Very Relative.

Churchill: What about a Unit of Measure for That Issue?

Caller: Unit of Measure Was Number of Plants Before and After.

Churchill: Ok. So That Indicates You\'re Going to Be Doing Some
Monitoring.

Caller: Correct.

Churchill: Excellent. Ok. I Think What\'s Important to Point out Here Is
That You Very Accurately Linked the Source to Very Site‑specific Effects
or Potential Site Specific Effects. The Tribe Is a Good Example Because
You Talk in Terms of Burn And Damaging and Effects on Future Use on
Cultural Resources. Again, on the Unit of Measure, the Protection and
Loss Are ‑‑ They Can Be Quantitative Terms but Are Probably Going to
Have to Be Described Qualitatively as Well. That\'s an Excellent Issue
Statement to Use as an Example. And Just One Additional Point Here on
the T&e Species I Would Like to Bring up to You. The Whole Group of You
Participating Is That this Group of Folks Identified a Potential Need
for Monitoring Populations in the Future.

Caller: Correct.

Churchill: Great. Thanks, Frank. Let\'s Shift to the Public
Participation Strategy.

Caller: I\'ve Got More Issues If You Want.

Churchill: I Would like to Shift into Public Participation. We\'re a
Little Short on Time this Morning.

Caller: Ok.

Churchill: So, Why Don\'t You Walk Me Through the Public Participation
Strategy in Terms of Who Should We Involve and Why.

Caller: Ok. We Started off with Talking or Identifying the State
Historic Preservation Officer or Office.

Churchill: Ok.

Caller: That Had to Do with Cultural Resources.

Churchill: Ok. And Who next?

Caller: the Tribe, the Local Tribe and the Why Was Cultural Resources.

Churchill: Ok. Who Else?

Caller: That Was the U.s. Fish and Wildlife Service for Threatened and
Endangered Species. And Fish and Game with Wildlife.

Churchill: Ok.

Caller: City Council for the Town of What, Juniper Hills. Then the
Permittee on the Juniper Site for Grazing Issues.

Churchill: Ok. Homeowner\'s Association with Juniper Hills.

Churchill: That\'s Because of the Urban Interface Issue?

Caller: Yes. And the State Department of Environmental Quality Related
with Air Quality and Water Quality.

Churchill: this Is a Great List, Frank. You Guys Did Some Great Work.

Caller: We Had Bia Also with Tribal Issues.

Churchill: Did You Have More?

Caller: No, That Was All We Had.

Churchill: Great. I Just Ran out of Paper. Frank, Thanks Very Much.
Appreciate the Fact That You All Are Working There Collectively Sharing
Information and That it Is an Interagency Effort in Responding to this.
Thanks Again. We Really Appreciate It.

Caller: Thank You.

Churchill: Hope You Enjoy the Rest of the Course.

Pope: Thank You, Frank. And the Interagency Team That\'s Viewing There
Together, We Enjoyed Having You and Thanks for the Info. Have a Good
Day. We\'ll Go to Our next One.

Churchill: Ok.

Pope: Good Morning.

Caller: Good Morning.

Pope: Would You Give Us Your Name, Please?

Caller: I\'m Lauren Kin Dread.

Pope: You\'re Calling from?

Caller: Columbia, South Carolina.

Pope: You Have Some Answers for Us.

Caller: I Hope So. We\'re Going to Try.

Pope: I\'ll Turn You over to Sharon Who Will Walk You Through The
Process.

Churchill: Thank You, Jordan. Good Morning Lauren.

Caller: Good Morning.

Churchill: How Are You Doing this Morning?

Caller: Great So Far.

Churchill: I\'m Glad You\'re There.

Caller: Have Lots of Great Company.

Churchill: How Many Folks?

Caller: 8 People, Nrcs and Forest Service.

Churchill: Are You at Your Supervisor\'s Facility?

Caller: Nrcs Facility.

Churchill: Thanks for Joining Us. As You Will Recall, Your Assignment,
You Have Wound up with the Question of How to Develop Alternatives and
Your Task Was to Develop Two Alternatives to the Proposed Action and the
No Action Alternative. What Have You Got for Alternative Three for Us?

Caller: We\'re Going to Broadcast Burn about 325 Acres During The Cool
Season. We Would Construct Lines and Brush Removal to Ensure That the
Prescribed Fire Did Not Reach the Cultural Site. Or the Endangered Plant
Population.

Churchill: All Right. Lauren, Was That Mitigation?

Caller: the Line and Brush Removal Would Be Part of Our Proposed Action.

Churchill: Did You Identify Any Mitigation?

Caller: We Would Post Warning Signs on the Highways for Smoke.

Churchill: Ok. Any Other Mitigation?

Caller: We Would Transport Senior Citizens with Lung Problems Out of the
Area.

Churchill: Ok. That\'s an Innovative Approach.

Caller: Time the Burn for Smoke Dispersal.

Churchill: Ok.

Churchill: What Issues Did You Address?

Caller: Well, All of the Ones ‑‑ Just about All of the Ones We Created
Except We Had an Issue Dealing with Antelope Habitat And Private Land
Which We Didn\'t Address but We Felt this Addressed the Site at the
Springs, the Cultural Site, the Endangered Federally Listed Endangered
Plants, the Concern about Water Quality and Fisheries.

Churchill: Ok.

Caller: and the Concern from the Landowners ‑‑ I\'m Sorry. Not That One.

Churchill: Ok. But You Acknowledged in Development of this Alternative
That You Did Not Address All of the Issues.

Caller: Correct.

Churchill: Ok. And What Was Your Rationale for this Issue or Excuse Me,
this Alternative?

Caller: Well, with this One, We Would Still Meet All of Our Purpose and
Need. We Would Provide That Additional Protection.

Churchill: Ok. Excellent. Ok. Excellent. Well Thank You Very Much. What
Have You Got for Alternative Number 4?

Caller: in Alternative Four, We Would Construct the Handline And Do
Brush Removal Around the Springs but We Would Broadcast Burn Additional
Acres Within the Community as Identify by the Homeowners.

Churchill: Ok.

Caller: We Would Have to Have Some Cooperative Effort with The Juniper
Hills Homeowners, State Forestry Commission and Volunteer Fire Fighters.

Churchill: All Right, So with That Alternative, You Would Propose to
Burn Within the Community Itself So Outside of Federal Lands.

Caller: Right.

Churchill: That Would Require Interagency and Community Cooperation.

Caller: Correct.

Churchill: Ok. What about Mitigation?

Caller: the Mitigation Would Be the Same as for Alternative Three.

Churchill: Which Was Post Warning Signs. And Transport Senior Citizens.

Caller: Right, with Lung Problems.

Churchill: Ok. What Issues Did You Address with this Alternative?

Caller: We Addressed the Cultural Site Issue.

Churchill: Ok.

Caller: the Endangered Plant Issue. The Water Quality and Fishery
Habitat Issue.

Churchill: Any Others?

Caller: and the Fuels Within the Community on Private Land.

Churchill: Ok. Great. What Was Your Rationale for this Alternative?

Caller: to Reduce the Wildfire Within the Urban Area, More Than the
Proposed Action. The Wildfire Risk, I\'m Sorry.

Churchill: Ok. Excellent. So You Really Took the Proposed Action, Added
a Few Things to it But Enhanced its Ability or ‑‑ with this Alternative
to Lower The Risk.

Caller: Right.

Churchill: Those Are Great Alternatives. Lauren, Thanks Again for Your
Effort and the Group Effort in Responding to this and Coming up with
Some Really Great Detail In Your Responses. And Thanks to All of You.
This Takes Care of this Exercise. I Would like to Turn it Back to
Jordan.

Pope: Thanks, Sharon. And Thank You ‑‑ and Thank You South Carolina for
Giving Us That Input. You and the Group down There Have a Wonderful Day.
We Also Have Another Call Coming In. So We\'ll Take That One and See
What the Question Is.

Churchill: Ok.

Pope: We Have a Call from Bruce in Roseburg. Good Morning, Bruce.

Caller: How Are You?

Pope: Do You Have Some Answers for Us?

Caller: Excuse Me. We\'re Having Some Feedback Problems Here. Hello?

Pope: Bruce?

Caller: Yeah.

Pope: in Roseburg, Who All Is Watching with You? What Agencies?

Caller: BLM. I Didn\'t Know Where We Were Going to Be as Far as
Answering this Exercise. Do You Want to Give Us a Task?

Pope: Sharon?

Churchill: Thank You, Jordan. Bruce, We Basically Have Gone Through One
Set of Answers on this But I Would like to Turn to You and Ask Our Last
Question That We Dealt with Was Alternatives. And I Would like to Ask
You to Provide Us with an Additional Alternative Three. This Is an
Alternative to the Proposed Action.

Caller: Ok. I Did this Exercise Myself Rather than in a Group. I Came up
with a Patch Burn Alternative.

Churchill: Ok. And What Is a Patch Burn?

Caller: Burning Small Areas, Isolating Small Areas Within That 350 Acre
Parcel.

Churchill: Ok. And What Size Would Your Patch Burns Be Approximately.

Caller: I Didn\'t Really Specify That. Other than it Was Mentioned from
the Fish and Wildlife That They Wanted to Create Openings for the
Antelope Habitat. And So That Would Be a Detail That Would Be Worked out
Through The Process. I Didn\'t Propose Any Specific Size.

Churchill: Ok. Excellent. That Really Ties down to One of the Issues
You\'re Trying to Address Which Is Antelope Habitat and the Linkage with
the Fish And Wildlife Service.

Caller: Correct.

Churchill: Let Me Identify That as an Issue. Do You Have Any Other
Details of Your Patch Burn That You Would Like to Share?

Caller: Yes. Also, I Talked about Creating Fuel and Fire Breaks to
Mitigate The Urban Interface Problem and Also the Riparian ‑‑ You Know,
Keep Fire out of the Riparian Areas While You\'re Doing the Burn And for
in the Future.

Churchill: Ok. Excellent. Like to See That Mitigation Built into this
Design. Bruce, Did You Address Any Other Issues?

Caller: Yes, on the Smoke Issue, More Controllable Timing, in Other
Words, Timing the Burn So That it Doesn\'t Interfere with The Urban Area
and in Oregon, We Have Smoke Management Plan Which Nobody\'s Mentioned
So Far. Which Is Basically Controlled by the State and Deq, State
Forestry and the Department of Environmental Quality. So, We\'re Limited
as to When We Can Burn So That the Smoke Transport Is Away from Urban
Areas. And the Amount of Particulate Loading Is Also Controlled.

Churchill: All Right. So it Sounds like You Have an Opportunity Through
That Plan to Build in Some Design Features That Address That Issue of
Smoke Management.

Caller: Correct.

Churchill: the Last Thing I Want to Ask You, Bruce Is What Was Your
Rationale in the Development of this Alternative?

Caller: My Rationale Was Accomplish Goals That Were Stated in The
Original Proposal and Reduce the Impacts from a Large Broadcast Burn. As
Far as Issues I Thought it Would Address Cultural Resources And the
Fisheries Because You\'re Protecting the Buffer. , That Spring Area and
the Creek.

Churchill: Excellent. Bruce, That\'s an Excellent Job. Thanks Very Much.
I Appreciate the Lone Wolf Approach. And Effort in There. Thank You
Again, Bruce.

Caller: Ok, Thanks.

Churchill: Hope You Enjoy the Show.

Pope: Thank You Bruce and to the Rest of You Watching from Where Bruce
Is, We Appreciate Your Participation. So, You Have a Nice Day and We
Hope to Talk to You Later. Bye. We Would like to Thank Every One of You
for Your Participation. This Homework Exercise Showed How the EA Process
Can Be Simplified and More Easily Understood. Before I Turn it Back to
Sharon Who Will Discuss Environmental Effects Analysis, I Want to Let
You Know That There Will Be a 10 Minute Break Following Her
Presentation.

Churchill: Thank You, Jordan. I\'m Glad to Be Back and Be Able to Walk
You Through the Effects Section. We\'re Going to Be Talking about the
Effects of Environmental Affects. I Wanted to Mention One Thing. I Take
Personally the Effects Analysis Very Deeply. Glenn Described the
Development of Alternatives in the Alternative Section of the
Environmental Assessment as the Heart Of the Document. I Would like to
Suggest That Environmental Effects Section Is The Soul of Your
Environmental Analysis. From That, I Mean That like a Soul, the
Environmental Effects Analysis Causes You to Take Certain Actions to
Revisit Steps in The Process. And like the Soul, If You Don\'t Take the
Right Steps it Can Come Back to Haunt You So I\'ll Leave You with That
Philosophical Thought and Jump into Where We Are in Environmental
Effects Analysis and How That Fits into the Process. You\'ve Come a Long
Ways in the Assessment Process. You\'ve Developed a Purpose and Need,
You\'ve Developed a Proposed Action to Respond to That. You\'ve Done
Some Scoping, Identified Some Issues and Also Developed Some
Alternatives. Now, You\'re Ready to Step into the Analysis of Effects
for the Proposed Action, the No Action and Those Alternatives. I Would
like to Give You an Overview of the Topic We\'re Going to Cover in the
next Segment Which Is Going to Last Probably about 55 Minutes. First,
We\'re Going to Talk about Definitions and Concepts. Tasks in the
Environmental Effects Process. And Then I\'m Going to Spend Some Time
Talking about the Interpreting of Effects and Why That\'s Important. And
Through this Course, this Part of the Course You Can I Would Like to
Think That We\'re Going to Come to Some Common Understanding on Terms
and Concepts and Also on NEPA\'s Requirement for Disclosure of Effects.
I Would Also like to Help Remove the Mystique Around the Effects
Analysis and Maybe Inspire a Little Bit More Confidence in Most Of That
Have Qualms about Doing an Effects Analysis or a Cumulative Effects
Analysis. I Would like to Step into a Brief Discussion about NEPA and
the NEPA Requirements. Boiled down to its Simplest Terms, NEPA Really
Requires Only Analysis and Disclosure of Effects. This Has Been Affirmed
in at Least Two Supreme Court Cases. I Would like to Quote Those to You.
Agencies Have the Obligation to Consider Every Significant Aspect of
Environmental Impacts of a Proposed Action. And Agencies Will Inform the
Public That Environmental Concerns Have Been Considered in the Decision
Making Process. This Does Not Mean That Agencies Need to Elevate
Environmental Concerns over Any Other Concerns, However, NEPA Does
Require Federal Agencies to Take a Hard Look at the Effects of Any Major
Federal Action That They\'re Proposing. So, this Hard Look, Does That
Mean That We Can Take an Action or Implement an Action That\'s Going to
Have Adverse Impacts? Well, Yes. And Does it Mean That We Can Implement
an Action That\'s Going to Have Significant Adverse Impacts? Well,
Again, the Answer to That Is Yes. We Can Implement an Action That Is
Going to Have Adverse Significant Adverse Impacts. Now, There Are a
Couple of Things That Go into Considering Implementation of a Project
That Is Going to Have Significant Adverse Impacts. And Some of Those
Things You Need to Be Thinking about Are the Agencies Land Storageship
Responsibilities Certainly Politics Comes into That and Professional
Judgment in Making That Kind of Call. However, Remember That NEPA
Requires That We Analyze and Disclose the Effects. Pure and Simple. The
Other Point about NEPA Is That NEPA Is Not a Regulatory Act. It Is a
Policy and Procedural Act. Ok, I Would like to Start into the First
Topic Area on Definitions and Concepts. And Start off with a Brief
Highlight of Some Key Items from the Ceq Regs That Are Elements of
Environmental Consequences. Now, the Section on Environmental
Consequences Is Found in the Ceq Regs at 1502.16. And Let Me Just Put up
Here to Show You Again the Regulations That I\'m Going to Be Referring
To. I\'ll Be Referring to These Regulations and Actually Quoting Some Of
Them Specifically Today in this Discussion on Effects. So, You May Want
to Pull Those out of Your Workbook and Have Them Handy for a Check on
the Break. The Environmental Consequences Section at 1502.16 Highlights
Six Key Items That Need to Be Included in Your Discussion of
Environmental Effects. Now, There Are More Items Displayed in 1502.16
but I\'m Going to Share with You the Six That Usually Crop up as the
Most Important. The First Is to Identify Adverse Environmental Effects
That Can\'t Be Avoided. The Second Is to Identify and Discuss
Irreversible and Irretrievable Commitments of Resources. Irreversible
Refers to Something for Which There Is a Total Loss. Such as Minerals
Extraction or Cultural Resources Loss. Irretrievable Is a Temporary Loss
of a Resource Such as Removing Vegetation from an Area in Order to
Provide a Ski Slope. The Third Element You Need to Discuss in Your
Environmental Consequences Section Is the Direct Effects and Their
Significance. The Fourth Are the Indirect Effects and Their
Significance. We\'re Going to Talk a Little Bit More about Direct and
Indirect Definitions in a Few Minutes. The Fifth Item That You Should
Include in Your Discussion Is the Environmental Effects of All the
Alternatives and That Includes The Proposed Action and the No‑action
Alternative. And the Last Thing That\'s Really Important to Include in
There Is Mitigation. And You Can Think of it in Terms of Providing
Mitigation Within Your Proposed Action as a Design Feature or Adding
Mitigation Measures to the Alternatives but Those Mitigation Measures
and Their Effectiveness Need to Be Discussed in That Discussion on
Environmental Consequences. Now, the Discussion on Environmental
Consequences Really Provides the Scientific and Analytical Basis for the
Comparison Of Alternatives and Glenn Talked Yesterday Quite a Bit about
What Goes into the Comparison of Alternatives. So, Remember, That Your
Analysis of Effects Does Get Carried Forward into the Comparison of
Alternatives. I Would like to Shift into Some Definitions for You. And
Start with a Definition for Direct Effects. This Is Found at 1508.8. And
Direct Effects Are Those Occurring at the Same Time and Place as the
Triggering Action. Indirect Effects Are Those Occurring at a Later Time
or at a Distance from the Triggering Action. Now I Would like to Shift
to a Slightly Broader Definition\... And this Is Found Also at 1508.8.
And this Is on Effects. And There Are Six Basic Areas That Are
Identified as Effects. Again, in the Ceq Regs, Effects and Impacts Are
Used Synonymously So I\'m Going to Go Back and Forth Sometimes Between
Those Terms. Actually Consequences Fits in There, Too. We\'ll Be Talking
about Effects, Impacts or Consequences. Six Areas of Effects That Are
Identified in the Ceq Regulations Include Ecological, Cultural, Social,
Aesthetic, Economic and Health. I Would like to Switch Now into a
Discussion on Cumulative Effects. This Is Going to Be, I Think, a Pretty
In‑depth Discussion. But I Would like to Start off with Just a Quick
Little Story About My Experience with Cumulative Effects and My First
Real Experience with Cumulative Effects as a Wildlife Biologist. I Moved
‑‑ Actually Quite a While Ago, Probably Seven Years Ago To a District as
a Wildlife and Fisheries Staff. And My First Task Was to Start Preparing
a Cumulative Effects Analysis for a Fairly Large Area of Timber Sale
That Was Going To Occur. So I Went Back to Some Old Eas to Look at Their
Effects Section And to See in Particular How They Addressed Cumulative
Effects. I Found the Section in the EA That Addressed Effects Titled
Direct, Indirect and Cumulative Effects. So, I Started Through the EA
and Went down Through the Analysis And When I Got down to the Cumulative
Effect Section or the Area Where it Is Supposed to Be, There Was None.
What I Realized Was That the Only Place Cumulative Effect Was Addressed
Was in the Title for That Chapter. And in Talking with Folks at the
District, I Came to Know and Understand Very Clearly That There Was a
Great Fear about Doing Cumulative Effects. Folks Didn\'t Understand What
Cumulative Effects Meant. They Had Not Had Any Real Tools Made Available
to Them or Encouragement to Pursue That. And I Was Sort of in the Same
Boat. I Hadn\'t Done a Cumulative Effects Analysis Either. It Became
Partly My Task as Was I.d. Team Leaders to Start Thinking in Terms of
Cumulative Effects and Start Pulling That Information Together. As I
Traveled Around the Country and Worked in a Variety of Places, I Found
That There\'s Almost a Universal Fear for Doing Cumulative Effects
Assessments and Part of That Has to Do with Concerns about Not Having
All of the Available Data or Being Able to Put the Picture Entirely
Together as Precisely as Folks Would like it to Be. Well, I Hope That
Today by the End of this Discussion, I\'ve Convinced You That You Can Do
an Effects Analysis, a Cumulative Effects Analysis Efficiently. You Do
Have the Tools and the Expertise Available and You Can Capitalize on
What Research Is Available. So, with That, I\'ll Shift into the Ceq Regs
Where I\'m Going to Share with You the Definition for Cumulative
Effects. This Is Found at 1508.7.

Churchill: and it Reads, Cumulative Impact Is the Impact on The
Environment Which Results from the Incremental Impact of the Action When
Added to Other Past, Present and Reasonable Foreseeable Future Actions.
Regardless of What Agency, Federal or Nonfederal, or Person Undertake
Such Other Actions. Cumulative Impacts Can Result from Individually
Minor but Collectively Significant Actions Taking Place over a Period of
Time. Almost Every Word in this Definition Is of Vital Importance. And
I\'m Going to Illustrate on a Diagram Here and Summarize Basically this
Equation for You. The Cumulative Effects Equation That We\'re Going to
Be Working With Today Is for Actions Both Federal and Nonfederal,
Cumulative Effects Are past Actions plus the Proposed Action Plus
Present Actions plus Any Reasonably Foreseeable Future Actions. That
Equals Cumulative Effects. Now, You All Know That It\'s Not Simply a
Matter of Adding up All These Actions and Coming up with a Summary of ‑‑
or a Pure Addition of the Cumulative Effects. Frequently These Effects
Have Synergistic Characteristics to Them and So Effects May or May Not
Increase, Decrease or Be Changed in Some Way. It Is Not Purely an
Additive Process but for the Sake of Simplicity, I Would like to Suggest
You Use this as the Basic Equation for Cumulative Effects. We\'re Going
to Go into Some of the Detail, Some of the Complexity by Way of Example
Here Shortly. At this Point Let Me Do a Reality Check with My Colleagues
Here. Basically, Panel, We All Use That Same Equation. For Cumulative
Effects Analysis. And I Know That You\'ve Had Some Experience in Working
with Cumulative Effects Analysis. What Are the Problems? What Kinks Have
You Run into with Cumulative Effects Analysis?

Duvarney: in Nrcs, One of the Things We Have Difficulty with Is Deciding
What Kinds of Actions Are Reasonably Foreseeable.

Churchill: So It\'s Really Identifying the Reasonably Foreseeable Future
Actions That\'s a Problem.

Duvarney: Right. Some May Be Real Speculative.

Churchill: Ok. Phil, You Were Going to Say Something?

Hall: I\'ve Seen a Lot of Problems in Trying to Figure out Where to Put
the Boundaries and Time and Space on These Cumulative Effects. Where Do
You Cut it off.

Churchill: Ah, Ok. Well, Great. Let\'s Dive into this a Little Bit.
Andree, Let\'s Talk about Reasonably Unforeseeable Future Actions First.
Can You Give Me an Example of What Nrcs Proposal Where You\'ve Had to
Take a Look Through Your Cumulative Effects Analysis at Reasonably
Foreseeable Actions?

Duvarney: I\'m Not Sure What You\'re Asking but Let Me Put it This Way.
When We\'re Looking at Reasonably Foreseeable Actions, I Guess We Would
Basically Do That Through the Scoping Process and a Lot of The Same
Resources That We Talked about Before as Being Applicable in the Scoping
Process Would, Again, Identify What\'s Reasonably Foreseeable. For
Example, We Definitely Talk to Local Landowners. They Know Better than
Anyone What\'s Going on in Their Neck of The Woods, So to Speak. We
Definitely Talk to State and Local Tribal Government Agencies Because
They Always Have a Handle on What\'s Going on in the Area In Terms of
Land Use and Planned Land Use Changes and Other Activities. So, We Talk
to Folks like That. Of Course, It\'s Always a Judgment Call, Really as
to Whether Something\'s Reasonably Foreseeable or Is Overly Speculative.
Let Me Give.

Brief Example. Up in the Northwest, It\'s Probably Overly Speculative to
Think That Dams on the Columbia River Will Be Removed But, You Know in
The Northeast, Maybe That Isn\'t Quite the Case. It May Be Totally
Foreseeable, Reasonably Foreseeable There May Be Some Hydro Power Dams
That Could Be Removed.

Churchill: Ok.

Duvarney: It\'s a Matter of Talking to Folks and Deciding.

Churchill: Great. Thanks. You Did Answer the Question. Thank You. So,
Phil, What about You?

Hall: Andree Gave a Good Answer. I Would Add I Think One of the Ways You
Identify Reasonably Foreseeable Future Time Lines and Spaces to Look at
the Parameters and under the Resource Management Plan or Land and
Resource Management Plan You\'re Working on and So, for Instance, If the
Issue Is Hydro Logically Covering a Watershed, You May Look at Your Land
Use Plan and the Accompanying Environmental Impact Statement and Look at
What Were the Assumptions in Those Documents and it May Show That the
Rmp Eis Expected Recovery in \"X\" Decades, Three or Four Decades.
Relative to Fish Habitat or Things like Old Growth Eco‑systems,
Reasonably Foreseeable Future May Be Many Decades. In Fact, Might Even
Be a Century or So.

Churchill: Ok. Great, Thank You for Your Response. You Very Conveniently
Tied Two Things Together There. And Made a Real Important Point. And
That Is One of Our Dilemmas Is Figuring out How Far out into The Future
We Need to Go to Look at the Effects. And There Are Two Primary Factors
That Should Be Considered When You Are Looking at Bounding Your Analysis
Spatially and Temporally to Look at the Location of the Effects and the
Timing Of the Effects, and That Is How Long the Effects Will Last and To
Tie Again into Your Example, Phil and Some of the Time Frames You Just
Mentioned, You Need to Be Look at When the Effects from Activities Will
Overlap and for Example, Setting Bounds on Effects That May Last Well
into the Future Is a Difficult Task. However, to Go Back to the Two
Examples You Cited, If You Look At the Effects on Say Hydrologic
Recovery, You May Be Doing That In Terms of Decades. However If You Are
Looking at the Effects on Old Growth, You Might Be Look out into the
Future for a Century or Longer. So, Again, the Time Will Go Vary by the
Resource. Now, to Step into the Spatial Differential, Too, and Again,
Tie Back to Your Example, Phil, You Might Be Looking at Say the Effects
on Fisheries Habitat in Terms of an Entire Watershed. While Looking at
the Effects of an Activity on Vegetation in Terms of a Stand. So, Again,
the Bounding of Your Analysis and That Is Determining The Size ‑‑ How
Large an Area or How Small an Area and the Location of the Area You
Analyze Is Going to Depend on the Resource Itself. And Phil, You
Provided Excellent Examples of of That. So, Thank You. Now, I Know That
the Cumulative Effects Analysis and this Discussion of Reasonably
Foreseeable Future Actions and How You Bound an Analysis Temporally and
Spatially Can Get Complex and Confusing. I Think the Best Way to Address
That Is to Work Through a Real‑life Example with You. I\'m Actually
Going to Ask My Colleagues Here to Assist Me with This. We\'re Going to
Work Through an Example Using this Diagram. Ok. Now, Let Me Paint the
Picture for You Here Relative to Land Ownership. First the Geographic
Distinction. This Big Arc Area Is a Watershed Boundary. This Area up in
the Northwest Portion of this Map Area Is Private Land. And this Area
down in the Southwestern Portion Is State. And the Rest Is Forest
Service. Ok, and this Is, I Think, a Pretty Good Example and Typical of
a Forest Service Activity in Some of the Areas Where I\'ve Worked Where
There\'s Checkerboard Ownership. Let Me Give You Some of the Biophysical
Characteristics of the Area. There Is a Stream, a Perennial Stream That
Runs Through the Watershed. It Headwaters up on That ‑‑ up on a Private
Land. Ok. And There Are Some Activities in Here, in this Area That I
Need To Mention to You. One Is That up in this Private Land There Is an
Old Mine. The Mine Has Been Closed for about 15 Years, However, There
Are Heaps of Tailings and One of the Concerns in That Area Is That It
Appears the Stream Is Starting to Cut Through the Tailings Piles. Now,
Downstream from the Private Mine Is an Area in Here Where The Forest
Service Wants to Propose a Campground. And What\'s Happening There Now
Is There Are User Developed Roads Off this Ridge down into this Area and
There Is an Awful Lot of Dispersed Recreation, Dispersed Camping and
Increasing User Developed Roads and Trails in this Whole Area along the
Stream. Now, Another Important Biophysical Feature You Need to Be Aware
Of Is That There Is a Habitat and a Presence of T&e Plant Species down
below this Area That\'s Currently Receiving Some Dispersed Recreation
Use. And If You Go Further on Downstream, the State Has a Proposed
Timber Sale up on the Edge of That Watershed. Now, it Doesn\'t ‑‑ it
Doesn\'t Go down to the Stream but it Does Lie in the Watershed above
That Stream. And So, What I Would like to Do Is to Work Through a Fairly
Simplistic Cumulative Effects Analysis and Draw on My Colleagues Here to
Help Me Identify the Activities That Need to Be Included In this Effects
Analysis as Well as the Reasons Why the Issues That Need to Be Addressed
and the Measures That Need to Be Used In Addressing Those Issues. Now,
Let Me First Tell You I\'ve Got an Feedback from the Fish And Wildlife
Service That They\'re Very Concerned about the Health of this Teeny
Plant Species. I\'ve Also Heard from State Department of Water Quality
That They\'re Very Concerned Before Sediment Input Impacts to Water
Quality in this Stream. So Let\'s Start with the T&e Plant Species
Issues. What Activities and Why Would You Want to Consider in a
Cumulative Effects Analysis and Speaking Specifically to the Issue of
T&e Plant Species in this Area. Panel?

Wallace: Sharon, I Think One of of the First Things You Might Want to
Consider Is the Existing Recreational Use along the Stream That Is in
the Area of the T&e Plants. Trying to Find out How Much Use Is Occurring
and What the Effects Are Now to Establish the Baseline. Then Do You
Think Your Impact Analysis Through Projections of How Many More Visitors
along the Stream, the Campground Might Bring into the Area.

Churchill: Ok. So Look at the Existing Disperse Recreation Right along
That Stream. Ok. Great. What Else?

Duvarney: You Would Also Have to Include the Mine. You Don\'t Really
Know ‑‑ There\'s Probably Tailings Still Going On, I Think You Said
That, in Fact. And That\'s Contributing to Water Quality Issue. And I
Guess You Need to Look and See If That Mine Is Going to Be Reopened at
Any Time in the Future. See If There\'s Going to Be a Change in That
Use. And Add That to the Effects Downstream from the Campground.

Churchill: Ok. So There Might Be Some Potential Effect from the Tailings
Still Leeching into the Stream That Would Affect That Population, That
Plant Population.

Duvarney: Right.

Churchill: What Else Relative to Plant Species?

Hall: Well, I Think That Glenn and Andree Are on the Right Track.
They\'re Talking about What Is the Condition We\'re at Already. And You
Need a Fairly Solid Baseline. You Mention the State and Fish and
Wildlife Service Were Concerned. I Think If We Do a Good, Solid
Analysis. We Need to Be Able to First, of Course Know What Are the
Habitat Requirements of That T&e Species Because Given Certain Habitat
Requirements, Certain Actions May Be Irrelevant to Certain Habitats. I
Think Getting a Good Baseline and Tying Those Habitat Requirements to
What We\'re Doing Goes a Long Way to Resolving What I Sometimes Call
Unfocused Anxiety. May Be Very Real Anxiety. Fish and Wildlife Service
Has Concerns. State Has Concerns. It\'s Not Their Project but They Have
the Concerns. We Have the Responsibility to Ground the Concerns. Bring
Them Home to Earth. So We Start Putting Numbers on this Thing. We Get
Baseline Information like Glenn and Andree Said. We Establish What Are
the Habitat Requirements Then Look at the Habitat Requirements and They
May Dictate That Gee, Some of the Stuff We Do Isn\'t Relevant to That
Habitat.

Churchill: Great. Thank You, Phil. Let\'s Shift to the Water Quality
Issue and Applying as Phil Mentioned Here the Same Kind of Needs for
Baseline Information And a Reference Point to Look at the Relevance of
the Effects From Our Activities or the Other Activities in the
Watershed. Let\'s Keep That in Mind but Talk about the Water Quality
Issue.

Wallace: Ok, Again, I Think What Andree Mentioned the Old Mine and the
Possibility of it Being Reopened. I Think We Would Need to Get Baseline
Water Quality Data from Downstream from the Tailings to See What Is
There Now. And Then Talk to the Owner of Mine and Other People to Find
out What the Likelihood of That Mine Might Be in Reopening and What
Effects That Might Cause.

Churchill: Ok.

Duvarney: like Glenn Said Last Time, Was That You Know, the Increased
Usage of the Area, as a Result of the Concentration of The Campground
Site, Obviously Human Waste and the Increased Usage of the Roads and So
Forth, They All Impact Water Quality.

Churchill: Ok.

Hall: I Think When You\'re Dealing with Walter Quality of Course or
Endangered Species We\'re Looking at Existing Laws. You Have Clean Water
Act and Endangered Species Act. There Will Be Drivers in There. They\'ll
Give You Some Parameters. I Think When You Look at Water Quality or
Anything Cumulatively. You Have to Look at Issues in Terms of Relevance
to Your Decision. And as You Mentioned, Get Farther and Farther Out,
Things Tend To Disappear. So, in Order to Look at this Watershed,
You\'re Going to Be Faced With What Anybody Doing Cumulative Effects
Analysis Is Faced With. Move up and down in Scale. So If You\'re Stuck
and Constantly down at the Handline Scale, Everything\'s Significant. If
You\'re in the Apollo 12, Nothing Is Significant. You Have to Be Able to
Move up and down in Terms of Quality. What Is the Effects of That Mine?
What Are the Effects of Sedimentation from the State Timber Sale And
Does That Disperse over Time? We Need to Look at the Effects in Terms of
Our Decision, How Do They Affect Our Decision. We Need to Move up and
down on the Scale to See Significance.

Duvarney: Phil, What Do You Think about the Timber Stale on The State
Land Now? Would You Include That?

Hall: Well, Yeah, So There\'s a Tendency to Look at Heavily Used
Watersheds Saying It\'s So Busy We Can\'t Do Anything. It Might Be the
Case. But You Have to Establish the Good Baseline Then You Look at the
State Forest Practices Act or Whatever in Doing That Then Look At the
Potential of Sediment. So, Whether You\'re Playing the Game Guilty until
Proving Innocent or Innocent until Proven Guilty, You Look at the Whole
Thing and See How it Ties Together. I Don\'t Think It\'s an Automatic
When You Look at a Heavily Used Watershed, We Better Stay out of There.
You Go Methodically Through the Mines, Roads and Timber Sale.

Churchill: I Would like to Wrap it Up. Thank You All. That\'s an
Excellent Walk Through on this Example. Couple of Things, Phil That You
Mentioned and That Actually You As a Whole Group Have Contributed to Are
Tying Back to Points in The Ceq Regs. One of Them Is Individually Minor
but Cumulatively Significant Actions and That\'s in Terms of Looking at
this Overall Picture As We Have Done and Looking to See What Effects We
Might Be Contributing to the Big Picture. And That\'s Where Your Hand
Lens Analogy Is Important plus Understanding Where We Fit in the Larger
Scheme of Activities Within the Watershed. Contributions to Water
Quality May ‑‑ We May Make the Decision To Not Undergo an Activity
Because Our Contribution Pushes a Threshold. But Again, We Would Only
Know That by Establishing Baseline Information. And a Lot of of That
Means Coordination with Other Agencies That Are Regulatory in Nature and
Managing the Issues. And Other Agencies That Are Undergoing Activities.

Hall: I Think I Would Add to Your Baseline. A Lot of Times We Don\'t
Have a Lot of Existing Information So That Doesn\'t Mean You Have to
Come to a Halt and Be Gridlocked But I Think You Can Make Some
Professional Good, Solid Assumptions If They\'re Defensible and So in
Terms of Cumulative Effects, Similarly, There\'s No Hard Lines a Lot of
Times. You Have to Use Professional Judgment. Sometimes it Is Obvious.
If the Bathtub\'s Full of Water, You Get In, it Spills Over, it Is Full.
You Jump in the Pool, it Rises but You Don\'t See the Difference.
You\'ve Got to Move in Between the Two Extremes.

Churchill: Right. Thank You. Let Me Capture the Highlights from this
Exercise. And Summarize Where We\'re At. We Took a Look at Reasonably
Foreseeable Actions. We Looked at past Actions, Existing Activities in
Addition to The Proposal to Address Specific Issues. Here in this
Example, We Had Some Great Discussion about the Area That We Would Need
to Consider, for Example the T&e Plant Is a Fairly Limited Area along
That Stream. But We\'re Look at the Effects on Water Quality Within the
Entire Watershed. Panel Pointed out Some Opportunities for Us to
Coordinate and Talk to and Use Information from Other Agencies. Around
That\'s Really Critical. I Would like to Suggest to You All That We Can
Do a Cumulative Effects Analysis as Phil Mentioned, a Lot of of That Is
Going to Be Based on Our Professional Judgment in Using the Best
Available Information That We Have. There Is an Underlying Assumption
That We\'ll Get the Appropriate Kind of Information to Establish a
Baseline as a Reference Point So That We Can Really Look at the Effects.
We Can Look for Changes That Will Occur as a Result of Activities. So,
Again, Thank You Very Much, Panel. That Was Great. In Summarizing, I
Would like to Remind You it Is Very Important To Document Your Rationale
for Your Approach. Whatever Approach You Use, Again There\'s No Cookbook
Approach to Cumulative Effects, it Is Critical That You Document Your
Approach and Use the Best Scientific Information Available. Let Me
Briefly Summarize What You\'ve Covered Here and Done in The Cumulative
Effects Discussion. We\'ve Gone over with You the Different Spatial and
Temporal Limits. We\'ve Talked in Terms of How Far into the Future and
However Away from the Site of the Activity Do You Look for Your
Cumulative Effects Analysis and We\'ve Talked about Linking to Other
Effects from Other Activities That Overlap in Time and Location with the
Effects from the Activity That You\'re Proposing. Those Are Really Key
Aspects, the Key Aspects of the Cumulative Effects Assessment. I Would
like to Close out on Cumulative Effects by Sharing My Favorite Picture
That Describes Cumulative Effects. It\'s by Gary Larson of Course. After
23, Uneventful Years at the Zoo\'s Snake House, Curator Ernie Schwartz
Has a Cumulative Attack of the Willies. I Hope None of You Have a
Cumulative Attack of the Willies. I Suspect We\'ll See Feedback from
You. I Would like to Shift out of Cumulative Effects and the Discussion
on Direct Indirect and Cumulative Effects into a Short Visit with the
Effects Analysis Process. I Would like to Start with Asking the Question
How Do You Identify the Specific Effects That Should Be Analyzed? And
Where Do You Turn? Well, There Are a Variety of Places That You Can Turn
to for Information about the Effects That Should Be Analyzed and One of
The First Place You Should Look Is in Your Resource or Your Conservation
or Your Land Use Plans. That Provide Guidance for Resource Protection.
That Guidance in Those Plans Should Provide Some Hint of the Issues You
Might Be Encountered. You Can Also Turn to the Pertinent Laws and
Regulations, in Particular, Some That We Deal with Are the Endangered
Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and a Variety of Affects
That Deal with Cultural Resources and Heritage Sites. Another Area That
You Can Turn to for Issues Are the Relevant Issues That You Identified
During the Scoping Process. Hopefully in Your Interaction with the
Public with Other Agencies and Internally, You\'ve Had Some Issues That
Have Been Brought to the Fore That Are Relevant to Your Proposed Action
And the Alternatives. Another Spot Where You Can Look for Issues and
Resource Issues That You Want to Analyze the Effects for Is Turn to Your
Alternatives That You\'ve Developed. Hopefully Your Alternatives Is
Responding to Specific Issues Identified. Those Alternatives Themselves
May Result in Additional Resource Issues That Need to Be Included in
Your Effects Analysis. Ok, Let\'s Talk about Predicting and Estimating
Effects. How Do You Do That? Well, First, as Phil Suggested and Some of
the Other Panel During Our Discussion of Cumulative Effects it Is Very
Important To Identify an Existing Condition or a Baseline for Each
Resource. If You Have a Baseline or Reference Point, You Can Indicate
and Measure the Change or That Is the Effects That Might Occur from The
Activity That You\'re Proposing or the Alternatives. Another Important
Aspect of Predicting and Estimating Effects Is To Develop Qualitative
and Quantitative Measures. And Another Important Aspect in the
Prediction and Estimation of Effects Is to Communicate That Information
to the Decision Maker, to Your Team Members, to the Publics That You\'re
Working With. I Would like to Talk in Terms as You Start Identifying
Resource Effects That You Want to Analyze, Breaking That down into
Resource Facets and Resource Facets Are Really a Subcategory of Resource
Issues. Again, Think an Example Would Probably Make That Most Clear. If
You Think in Terms of Wildlife Habitat as a Resource Issue, a Resource
Facet, One Resource Facet of That Wildlife Habitat Ish Might Be Thermal
Cover. The Important Thing about Being Able to Identify down to a
Resource Facet Is That You Can Get to the Specific Issue and Identify
Quantitative or Qualitative Measures So You Can Actually Track and
Measure That in Your Effects Analysis and Here Again, If You\'re Going
to Talk in Terms of Thermal Cover as A Resource Facet, That You Want to
Identify and Analyze the Effects For, You\'ll Be Think Probably in Terms
of Measuring by Acres of Habitat Affected or Perhaps Even Vegetation
Structure And Composition. So by Going to the next Level of Detail in
the Resource Issue, By Going to Resource Facet, You Can Really Focus in
on the Specific Issue and Units for Measure. Now, I Think Probably the
Best Way to Get into the Identification of Resource Facets and What You
Look at in an Effects Analysis Is to Work You Through a Cause‑effect
Relationship. In a Cause‑effect Relationship Is Where You Clearly
Identify the Cause and Then Map out the Chain of Effects and You Look at
the Direct and Indirect Effects. And That Helps You Identify Clearly the
Resource Facets. It Facilitates You Being Able to Identify Measures to
Track the Resource Facets. It Helps You Identify Where You Want to Put
Mitigation in and Where You Might Want to Monitor and it Also Helps You
Start Thinking in Terms of Cumulative Effects. So I Would like to Work
You Through a Simple Example and Just a Reminder, You Have All of this
Part of the Presentation in Your Course Book and There Is an Example in
There, the Same One I\'m Going to Work You Through Right Now. This Is a
Very Simplistic Approach to Look at a Cause‑effect Relationship. It May
Suit Mostly Left‑brained People. However, it Is Very Effective Again in
Identifying the Specific Facets. And Let Me Just Show You on this
Diagram Where We\'re At. The Causes over Other Here on the Left Side.
Harvesting a Doug Fir Stand in the Winter Range. These Horizontal
Pathways Are the Pathways of Effects. Obviously There Can Be a Couple of
Pathways, Couple or More of Pathways. In the Interest of Time I\'m Going
to Take this Lower Pathway and Work You Through this Chain of Effects So
You Can Get a Sense of Identifying Direct and the Indirect Effects. So,
the Cause Is Harvesting a Doug Fir Stand. That Will Lead to Reduced
Vegetation Which May Lead to Reduced Thermal Cover Which May Lead to a
Possible Increase in Overwinter Mortality. And Ultimately, Some Effect
on the Deer Population. Now, Again, this Is a Very Simplistic Example
and I\'m Going to Cover it Fairly Quickly. But You Can See That by
Identifying the Specific Cause and Starting with the Direct Effect of
Reduced Vegetation, I Can Start to Break down the True Effects and
Identify Clearly the Indirect Effects of Harvesting a Doug Fir Stand.
How Far out down the Chain Do You Go? Well, it Gets down to the Point of
Where the Indirect Effects Become Purely Speculative or Very Remote.
Now, One Important Thing to Remember about this Is That this Also Is a
Pathway. And There May Be Another Pathway of Effects That We Haven\'t
Identified on this Diagram. So, this Is a Very Simplistic Graphic Way to
Work Through a Cause Effect Relationship. I Would Urge You to Use a
Similar Thought Process If You\'re Not Comfortable with Diagraming it
out. You Should Use a Systematic Thought Process and Document it in Your
Rationale. Now, When You Go Through this Cause Effect Relationship
Process, You Also Have the Opportunity to Identify Mitigation and
Measures for the Various Resource Facets. And That Way You Can Track the
Effects and Quantitative or Qualitative Ways Throughout Your Analysis.
One Other Important Point on the Cause‑effect Relationship, Remember
That the No Action Alternative Also Has Some Effects. And it Is as
Important to Analyze the Effects of the No Action Alternative as it Is
for Every Other Alternative. So, When You Go Through this Cause Effect
Relationship Approach, Be Sure That You Include a Description and a
Discussion of the No Action Alternative and the Effects for That.

Churchill: Now, I Would like to Talk about the Effects Analysis Tasks
That I\'ve Been Walking You Through Here. And this Is Just a Brief
Interim Summary of Where We\'re At. We\'ve Talked about How You Can Use
Laws, Plans, Issues and Alternatives to Identify Resource Facets You\'re
Going to Analyze. We\'ve Talked about Cause‑effect Relationships,
Following out the Path of Impacts, the Direct and Indirect Effects and
Using That Information to Help You Get a Grip on Cumulative Effects and
Also That You Can Identify Specific Units of Measure, Quantitatively or
Qualitatively for Those Effects. And Then We\'ve Also Talked a Little
Bit about How Far down the Cause‑effect Chain You Go. And Taking Your
Effects Analysis to a Logical Point and Drawing The Line or Putting a
Sideboard at a Logical Point Before You Start Getting Speculative on
Your Effects. Ok, Well, We\'re at the Stage of the Process Where We\'ve
Gone Through the Estimation and the Prediction of Effects. You\'ve Done
a Lot of Analysis. You\'ve Done an Analysis of Indirect Effects,
Cumulative Effects. You\'ve Predicted and Estimated. And Are You Done?
Panel?

Duvarney: No!

Churchill: Thank You for the Resounding No. What Is Left Is the
Interpretation of Effects. It Is Important That Interpretation of
Effects You Document Your Rationale for the Prediction and Estimation
and That You Continue to Document Your Rationale for the Cause and
Effect Relationship. What You Do in the Interpretation Is You Put All
That Information in Terms of Why Is That Important and Things That You
Need to Do in Your Job of Interpreting Effects Include Describing the
Direction of the Effect, That Is it Increasing or Decreasing, Talking in
Terms of Magnitude or Intensity. How Large a Change Is Going to Occur.
In That Discussion, Include a Discussion of the Duration and That Is How
Long Will the Affect Last. And Talk about the Changes in the Qualitative
Aspects of Resources. Aesthetics Is a Good Example of That. That\'s a
Qualitative Discussion. And the Last Part That You Need to Include to
Really Interpret Your Effects Accurately Is a Discussion at a
Site‑specific Level. Line Managers Need All of this Kind of Information
in Order to Help Them Interpret the Effects and Also Give Them a Clear
Picture of What the Overall Effects Are Going to Be. This Helps Them
Make That Reasoned and Informed Decision That They\'re Charged with.
Now, Let Me Give You Some Meaningful ‑‑ Some Hints on Meaningful
Interpretation. That\'s Some Things to Keep in Mind as You Start
Developing Your Interpretation of Effects in Your Document. First,
Explain the Cause‑effect Relationship and Reference Research and Other
NEPA Documents That You Use to Help You Come Up with a Resource Facets.
Second, Use That Reference Point or That Baseline. As an Indicator of
Change. Another Good One and We\'ve Talked Quite a Bit about That Is
Avoid Relying on Numbers Exclusively. Use Narrative Descriptions to
Enhance and to Support Your Quantitative Measures and Descriptions.
Another Important Element Is to Avoid Technical Jargon as Best You Can.
There Is a Fine Line and There\'s Tradeoffs but You Have to Strike the
Balance Between Maintaining Technical Credibility and Not Being So
Overly Technical That Most Readers Can\'t Understand What You\'re
Describing. Again, That\'s a Balancing Act. Use Graphic Displays in Your
Interpretation of Effects. Photos, Maps, Pie Charts, Graphics Display an
Awful Lot of Information Very Easily and Very Accurately and They\'re a
Lot Easier to Read Usually than Pages and Pages of Narrative Text.
Remember to Be Objective and Glenn Spoke to Maintaining Objectivity in
Describing Alternatives. That Goes Through the ‑‑ Throughout the Whole
Effects Analysis As Well. Don\'t Use Biased Terms. And Remember That
You\'re Going to Be Answering the So What, Why Is That Important
Question. Ok. Well, We\'ve Talked a Lot about Using Available Research
and Information and Data in Order to Substantiate and Support Your
Cumulative Effects Analysis and Your Entire Effects Analysis. But Where
Do You Go to Get That Information on Cumulative Effects or on Cause
Effect Relationships? Well, There Are a Variety of Sources and a Number
of Things to Keep in Mind as You Start Seeking That Information. The
First Is Use Research That\'s Available from the Scientific Community.
This Lends Credibility to Our Whole Process. Another Point Is to
Remember That Although Agency Data and Professional Judgment May Be
Very, Very Solid, Sometimes it Is To Our Benefit to Work with the
Outside Scientific Community to Obtain Information Pertinent to the
Effects of the Activities That We\'re Proposing. Sometimes We Have a
Credibility Problem. Avail Yourselves of the Scientific Community and
Use Their Information to Add Support to Your Analysis. All That\'s
Required Is Using the Best Available Data. I\'m Going to Talk about the
Absence of Data in a Moment. I Think That Will Help Clarify this. You
Have to Have Some Information to Use in Support. But You Don\'t Need to
Collect Every Detail of Data in Order to Make an Analysis, Document it
and Take That into a Decision Maker. And Remember That You Have a
Variety of Data Sources from Which To Draw on Information and Data. Some
of Those Include the Internet, College and University Libraries, Usda
Has its Own Library as Does Usdi. Epa Does Provide Information. There
Are Local Libraries You Can Go To. Other Federal and State Agencies.
There Are a Whole Host of Data Sources So Go Beyond Our Own Agency or
Your Own Agency for the Data That You Need. I Just Want to Wrap up on
the Using Available Research and Data With a Couple of Key Points and
That Is That Your Clarity of Expression and Using a Logical Thought
Process as Well as Providing the Documentation for Your Rationale All
Provide a Lot More Substantive Support for Your Analysis for Your
Environmental Assessment than the Number of Pages or the Bulk of The
Analysis That You\'re Preparing. Again, It\'s Clarity, Logical, and Good
Rationale. So, Package Those Three Elements. Don\'t Worry about the Bulk
of Your Environmental Assessment or How Long it Is. Ok. I Talked about
the Question of Having Incomplete Data. That\'s Where I Want to Jump
into Right Now. What Happens If You\'re Proposing Some Activity, You
Know That There Will Be Certain Effects Say on Water Quality but You
Don\'t Think You Have All of the Information You Need, Say for a
Cumulative Effects Analysis. Well, What Do You Do? Do You Stop the
Entire Project and Wait for a Couple of Years For That Research to Be
Done? Well, I Would Submit That in Most Circumstances You Do Not Have To
Wait for That. The Important Thing Is That When You Come up Against the
Obstacle of Not Having All the Data That You Think You Need for An
Analysis, You Need to Go Through a Very Logical Process and Document the
Thought Process in Order to Determine Whether You Can Move Ahead with
Your Analysis or You Need to Step Back and Wait for Additional Research
That You May Need to Conduct or Have Somebody Else Conduct for You. The
Ceq Regulations at 1502.22 Speak to this. I Would like to Walk You
Through That Guidance on What You Do When You Have Incomplete or
Unavailable Information. But I Would like to Do That via a Simplified
Flowchart. I Have Another Great Graphic for You. Again, this Is
Referring to the Regulations at 1502.22. This Is the Thought Process, I
Would like to Suggest That You Use in Dealing with the Situation Where
You Have Unavailable or Uncomplete Information. It Is a Series of Yes/no
Questions. First Question You Ask Is That Information That\'s Missing
Essential to a Reasoned Choice. If the Answer Is No, Then Identify the
Missing Information, Make Some Assumptions and Move on with Your
Analysis. If it Is a Reasoned Choice, You Need to Move down and Ask
Well, Is Obtaining That Information Going to Cost a Lot or Do We Not
Even Know How to Obtain It? Well, If the Answer to That Question Is No,
Go Ahead and Get the Data and Use it in Your Analysis and Continue On.
However, If the Information Is Essential, and it Costs a Lot and The
Means Are Unknown, You Need to Shift down to the Last Little Box Here
Which Is the Last Step. And You Need to Acknowledge the Fact That the
Information Is Essential but That It\'s Very Costly or Unable to Be
Obtained Currently Because Of, for Example, No Known Methodologies for
Obtaining That Information. You Need to Not Only Acknowledge That but
Document That and There Are Four Important Requirements That You Need to
Fulfill In Documenting That Information and Then Proceeding with Your
Analysis. And These Four Are Interrelated. These Are the Four
Requirements. That You Document. But They Are Very Interrelated. First
Is a Statement That the Information Is Uncomplete or Unavailable. The
Second Is the Statement in Which You Describe the Relevance Of the
Information in Your Evaluation of Effects. The Third Is a Summary of
Existing Evidence. And this Is Where You Really Need to Shine. You Need
to Summarize All the Best Data That You Have Available That Supports
Your Conclusions on the Effects and Also That Supports Your Judgment
Call as to the Import of the Evidence That\'s Missing. And That Ties
into the Last of the Four Requirements and That\'s A Clearly Describing
Your Agency\'s Best Evaluation of the Impacts Given the Information That
You Have on Hand. So, this Is a Long Way Around to the Answer That If
You Don\'t Have the Information ‑‑ If You Don\'t Have the Information
and You Need it but it Is Not Available, What Do You Do? Do You Proceed
or Do You Not? I Would Suggest That by Using this Systematic Thought
Process, That Is Outlined in the Ceq Regulations, You Can Make the
Decision Yourself. Again, the Important Point to Take Home Here Is That
You Document Your Rationale Whether You Decide to Proceed Your Analysis
or Whether You Decide to Step Back and Wait for the Collection of More
Information. Ok. Well, I Would like to Shift into a Quick Description
and Discussion of Significance. We\'re at the Point Where We\'re Going
to Talk about the Significance of Effects. Andree Is Going to Be Talking
about That More in Her Unit That Follows Shortly about the Development
of a FONSI Which Is a Finding of No Significance Impact. But at That
Point in Your Effects Analysis You Need to Be Taking A Look at the
Significance of Effects and Remember That an Environmental Assessment Is
Prepared in Order for You to Make a Call as to Whether the Effects from
Your Proposed Action Is Going to Have a Significant Effect. And Through
the Environmental Assessment Process, If You Find That Your Affects Are
Going to Be Significance, That Triggers The Environmental Impact
Statement. This Is Part and Parcel of the Process. Let\'s Talk about
Significance. The Ceq Regs at 40 Cfr 1508.27 ‑‑ I Need to Make a
Correction in The Information You\'ve Been Given. This Ceq Regulation
Addresses Significance. I\'m Going to Briefly Summarize That
Significance Here. I\'ll Be Using Terms You\'ve Already Heard Me Use in
a Slightly Different Context Yesterday. And They Will Be Familiar and
Andree Will Revisit Those in Her Discussion on the Finding of No
Significant Impact. That First Term Is Context. And the Point Here Is
That You Need to Analyze the Effects and Describe the Effects in Several
Contexts. One Is Society as a Whole and That Is Describing the Effect in
Terms of the Whole Nation. Another Is Describing it in Terms of the
Region. And the Third Area That You Need to Be Thinking about Is the
Locale. Now, for Most of You, for Most of Us That Are Working with
Fairly Site Specific Projects We\'re Going to Be Dealing with Effects
That Are Basically Localized. Rarely Will We Get into Things That Are
Regional, However, If Some of You Are Working with Either the Mexican or
Northern Spotted Owl, You Know How Activities Can Contribute to a
Larger, Such as a Regional Picture. There Are Not Many Activities That
We\'re Going to Be Engaging in That Have a National Context for Effects.
At Any Rate, You Need to Look at the Context of the Effects. The Second
Area You Need to Consider Is Intensity and Again, This Refers to the
Severity of the Impact. Let\'s See. I Guess it Was Yesterday Morning
Andree Covered 10 Factors for Intensity That You Need to Be Thinking
about. You\'ll Also Get a Revisit on That a Little Later Today. But
Remember That Intensity Refers to the Severity of Impact. There Is
Basically a Checklist That You Can Go Through Help You Think about and
Describe the Intensity or Severity of the Impacts. Ok. Well, I\'m to the
Point of Wrapping up the Environmental Effects Analysis Section. I
Suspect this Has Generated Some Thought and Probably Some Questions.
I\'m Looking Forward to Your Questions on Any Aspect of this. I\'m Going
to Turn Them over to Phil, Actually. But in Summary, on the
Environmental Effects Analysis Section, I Would like to Just Cover
Briefly What We\'ve Gone Through this Morning in this Section. The First
Is That I Walked Through a Number of Definitions, in Particular, the
Definitions for Direct, and Indirect Effects and Also Cumulative Effects
and We Invested Quite a Bit of Time in Talking about Cumulative Effects
Analysis, What it Is and How to Do It. The Second Is That I Walked You
Through a Cause Effect Relationship and Tried to Use That as a Vehicle
for Getting Some Practice in Identifying Direct and Indirect Effects,
Looking at Points for Mitigation and Monitoring and Also for Integrating
The Whole Picture into a Cumulative Effects Discussion. And the Last
Area That I Really Tried to Highlight Was the Importance of Interpreting
Your Effects and That Is Answering The Main Question of So What, Why Is
this Effect Important. So, Basically, That Is the Effects Analysis
Section. Last Thing I Need to Cover Are the Pretest Questions That
Hopefully by Now Here at the Conclusion of this Unit, You\'ll Have a
Good Handle on the Answers If You Didn\'t When You Answered the Question
the First Time. We Have Question Number 4. And I\'ll Read this to You
Then We\'ll Talk about the Correct Answer. 4, the Cumulative Effects
Analysis for Your Proposed Action and Alternatives to it Covers\...
Well, the Answer Is C. And That Is the Direct, Incorrect and Cumulative
Effects of Past, Present and Reasonably Foreseeable Future Action Where
They\'re Conducted by Your Agency or Someone Else. And That Basically
Comes Right out of the Cumulative Effects Equation and the Ceq
Regulations That I Cited. The Second Question on Here Was Question
Number 5. And That Was Pretend That You Were the Agency Decision Maker.
You Need to Understand the Long‑term Implication of the Environmental
Effects. Of the Proposed Action Alternatives to It. Which One of the
Following Descriptions of Effects from Road Construction Will Best
Enable You to Understand the Short and Long‑term Tradeoffs of the
Proposed Action Alternatives. Well, Again, the Answer Is C. This Answer
Provides Quantitative Information about the Effects On Water Quality.
The Amount and Duration of Sediment. It Also Provides Specific
Information about Whether or Not Sedimentation Will Meet State
Standards. Remember the State Is the Regulatory Agency for Water
Quality. And They\'re Imposing or Regulating Federal Law Which Is the
Clean Water Act. In Addition, Answer C Includes a Discussion of the
Discussion Space, the Line Manager May Have Regarding Other Future
Activities in the Watershed. So C Really Captured the Whole Essence of
What That Line Manager Needed. Well, this Concludes the Environmental
Effects Analysis Section Of this Module. With That, I\'m Going to Turn
Back to Jordan.

Pope: Thank You, Sharon and Panel for That Thorough Explanation of the
Environmental Effects of the EA Process and The Parts of an Ea. We\'ll
Now Take a 10 Minute Break. When We Come Back, Phil Will Talk to Us
about Monitoring. So There\'s a Lot More Ahead. See You in a Little
While.

Pope: Welcome Back to Our Course on EA Level Analysis. Phil Hall Will
Continue with the EA Process and the Parts of an EA Focusing on
Monitoring. But Before Phil Starts, I Would like to Make One
Announcement. The Screening Process Diagram That the Question Came in
about Yesterday, If it Could Be Downloaded and They Could Be Available
To the Viewers out There, Yes. It Can Now Be Downloaded from the Course
Web Site. So, If You\'re Interested in That Diagram That Andree Used
Yesterday, You Can Now Download It. Phil, Why Don\'t You Show Us Just
How Simple the Process Can Be.

Hall: Ok. We\'ll Take a Shot at Simple. Simple Is Not Easy These Days
and at Least in 15 Minutes We\'ll Try Not to Make it Any More Complex
than it Already Is. I Want to Talk about Monitoring in Terms of the EA
Process. In a Discussion, it Will Be Necessary to Talk about Monitoring
In General Anyway and Monitoring That Applies to a Lot of Different
Situations. My Experience in Talking and Visiting with People Close to
the Ground That Did the Projects ‑‑ it Is My Perception That There Is a
General ‑‑ Some Degree of Uneasiness or Discomfort When it Comes to
Monitoring. I Think Part of That Is Base the on the Fact That There Is a
Thought out There That Well, We Don\'t Monitor or We Don\'t Monitor
Enough or We Don\'t Monitor Correctly. When We Do Monitor, We Don\'t Use
the Results. There Is No Commitment to Monitoring. There Are These Vague
Feelings out There That I Think Are Very Real on the Parts of Some
People. I Think Getting at Least Part of Those Concerns Is to Have a
Good Understanding, a General Knowledge of Monitoring. We\'re Going to
Hopefully Help You Get Your Feet on the Ground Considering Monitoring in
this Discussion. Well, Why Do We Monitor. Well, Basically We\'re Taking
Our Pulse. We\'re Taking Our Temperature. We\'re Seeing How We\'re
Doing. Monitoring, If it Works, Needs to Show Us If Our Management
Actions Comply with the NEPA Decisions We\'ve Made and Other
Requirements, Needs to Tell Us and Give Us a Read on Our ‑‑ the
Management Actions We\'re Doing, Are They Getting the Results We
Expected. Are We Achieving Our Objectives. Final Analysis to Make Us
More Efficient to Improved Decision Making. Now, I Understand That There
Was at One Time, at Least, a Billboard along a Highway in Idaho and it
Had in Big Letters \"Lost?\" And under Lost Was Keep on Going Anyway,
You\'re Making Good Time. Basically Monitoring Is to Keep Us from Being
in That Situation Of Charging Ahead, We\'re Making Good Time but We\'re
Not Sure How We\'re Doing or Even If We\'re Going in the Right
Direction. Monitoring Should Tell Us Where We\'re At, How We Are in
Terms of Our Destination and in Fact If the Destination Is the Correct
One to Begin with Anyway. What Are the Monitoring Requirements? Well,
You Would Imagine That Our Three Agencies Have Somewhat Different
Monitoring Requirements. For Instance, the Forest Service Has Some
Monitoring Requirements That Derive Directly from the National Forest
Management Act and Are Found in the Forest Service Manual and Handbook.
BLM and Nrcs Are Fresh out of Forest Service Manuals and Handbooks. We
Do it a Little Bit Differently. We\'re Not Going to Talk a Lot about
What We Do Differently. What We Want to Talk about Is Those Things We
Have in Common. What We Have in Common Are the Monitoring Requirements
Found in The Ceq Regulations. So, Let\'s Go to the Ceq. Cfr 1502.2 C a
Monitoring and Enforcement Program Shall Be Adopted and Summarized or
Applicable for Any Mitigation. Cfr 1505.3, Agencies May Provide for
Monitoring to Assure That Their Decisions Are Carried out and Should Do
So in Important Cases. 1505.3 D, upon Request, Release to the Public the
Results of Relevant Monitoring. Well, That\'s Pretty Broad Stuff.
That\'s What We Have in Common and Those Are the Requirements. A Few
Details Need to Be Filled In. And So, Let\'s Fill in the Details. Start
with the Types of Monitoring. Basically, There Are Three Types of
Monitoring. And the First One Is We Monitor Management Actions to See If
They Comply with the NEPA Decision That Was Made in Other Requirements,
Called Implementation Monitoring. We Also Monitor to See If Our
Management Actions Are Achieving The Results We Expected and That\'s
Called Effectiveness Monitoring. We Also Monitor to See the Management
Actions Are Based on Accurate Assumptions Called Validation Monitoring.
So, We Monitor to See Did We Do What We Said We Would Do, Did We Get the
Results We Expected and Did it Make Any Difference to Begin with. Let Me
Put Flesh on the Bones and Give You an Example of How This Would Work.
Management Action Is to Buffer a Fish Bearing Stream by 100 Feet. For My
Friends in Western Oregon and Washington, Who Are Falling Out of Their
Chair Right Now, for You People, It\'s 400 Feet. But Anyway, Management
Action, Buffer Fish Bearing Stream 100 Feet. That\'s the Decision. To
Provide Shade on a Stream to Maintain Stream Temperature at 58 Degrees
or less. That\'s the Objective. To Maintain a Healthy Population of
Trout. The Assumption Being That the Healthy Population of Cutthroat
Trout Are Somehow Related to the Stream Temperature of 58 Degrees or
less. So We Go out and Monitor It. And Did We Do What We Said We Were
Going to Do? We Measure the Buffer. Is it 100 Feet or 400 Feet. We Just
Did Implementation Monitoring. Did We Get the Results We Were Expecting?
We Measure the Temperature of the Stream. We Just Did Effectiveness
Monitoring. Did it Make Any Difference to Begin with. Did the Trout Even
Care? We Need to Engage Research Station or University to Do a Research
Project on Whether the Health of Cutthroat Trout Populations Are Related
to Stream Temperatures of 58 Degrees or Less. So, That\'s How it Looks.
Now, Implementation Monitoring Is Done Most Often. And like Other Forms
of Monitoring, it Is Usually Done on a Sample Basis Telling Us If Our
Actions Are Complying with the NEPA Decision. Effectiveness Monitoring
Is Done less Often and the Reason Is Because If a Certain Management
Action in Certain Situations Produce Certain Results, You Could Safely
Assume or it Would Be Reasonable to Assume That the Same Management
Action and the Same Situation Don\'t Give the Same Results. So, If
You\'re Finding That Whatever Stream Buffer You\'re Using Is Maintaining
Stream Temperature Then Maybe All You Need to Do Is Measure the Stream
Buffer and You Don\'t Need to Verify That You\'re Not Affecting Stream
Temperature. You Do Effectiveness Monitoring but Not as Often. Example I
Gave Was Simplistic. Sometimes Effectiveness Monitoring Is Long Term. If
We Do a Management Action That Is Affecting Habitat, Sometimes the
Habitat or the Resources Respond Slowly and Effectiveness Monitoring,
Whether You Got Your Objective, Whether You Obtained Your Result May Not
Be Apparent for Many Years So Effectiveness Monitoring May Take Some
Time. Validation Monitoring Is Done Least Often and the Reason Is We Do
Not Need to Revisit Well‑established Assumptions and Assumptions That
Are Well Documented in the Literature. When We Do Validation Monitoring,
it Is Usually in Some Research Site, Removed from Our Actual Project and
in Fact, Some Effectiveness Monitoring Is Done by Research Also. All
Right. We Did Why Do We Monitor, Monitoring Requirements, What Are the
Types of Monitoring. How about a Monitoring Strategy? Underlying a
Monitoring Strategy Needs to Be Monitoring Needs to Be Done in a Cost
Effective Manner. And Usually That\'s Going to Involve Sampling. We\'ve
Gotta Be Careful We Don\'t Dig Ourselves a Hole We Can\'t Get out Of.
Monitoring Could Be So Expensive as to Be Prohibitive Unless it Is
Carefully and Reasonably Designed. And So it Is Not Necessary and it Is
Not Even Desirable to Monitor Every Management Action. Unnecessary
Detail, Unnecessary Costs Are Avoided by Focusing on Key Monitoring
Questions and Proper Sampling Method. Now, Key Monitoring Questions. Key
Monitoring Questions Derive from the Issues and Effects Analysis That
You Did in Your Ea. You Identified Some Key Issues in Your EA Analysis
and You Looked at Them in Your Effect Analysis. Those Are the Key
Questions You Follow into Monitoring. You Don\'t Need to Monitor Every
Aspect of What You\'re Doing. Proper Sampling Methods. Well, Scientists
Sample, Pollsters Sample. It Is a Valid Way to Get Good Information and
a Cost Condition In a Cost‑effective Way. Sometimes We Can Become
Uncomfortable with Sampling. Suppose We\'re Sampling 20% of Our
Projects. That Means 8 out of 10 Do Not Get Directly Visited and So If
My Project Year after Year Don\'t Happen to Get Sampled, Maybe it Is A
Little Source of this Uneasiness We Don\'t Sample. Sampling it Is a
Valid Way to Do it and in Order to Sample ‑‑ in Order to Monitor
Everything, We Start Creating a Budget Crunch And People Crunch That We
Can\'t Fulfill. Now, the Level of an Intensity of Monitoring Need to
Vary Depending on the Sensitivity of the Resource in the Area and the
Scope of the Proposed Action.

Churchill: Phil, it Seems like an Appropriate Way to Talk About Level of
Intensity Is to Tie it to One of the Great Analogies You Always Manage
to Build. Can You Do That?

Hall: Great Analogies.

Churchill: Level and Intensity.

Hall: Ok. I\'ll Try an Analogy That\'s Not Even from the Movies. How
about That. How about If We Were to Monitor the Health of Our Heart.
That\'s Important. And Suppose I\'ve Been Reading Recently That or at
Least Seeing On Tv That Oatmeal Is Good for Your Heart. I Hate Oatmeal.
And an Excessive Consumption of Pepperoni Pizza Is Not Good for You.
Good for Dinner, Good for Breakfast. Maybe I Ought to Do My Monitoring
of My Heart. But You Know, I\'m in Reasonably Good Health. I Exercise
Regularly, No History of Heart Disease. Either Personally or in My
Family. So, I May Monitor the Health of My Heart So an Annual Checkup
With My Doctor, He Listens to My Heart, Takes My Blood Pressure, Checks
My Cholesterol. I\'m Done. I\'m Satisfied. All Right. I\'ve Heard That
Oatmeal Really Helps Your Heart. I Hate Oatmeal. Excessive Pepperoni
Pizzas Aren\'t Good for Your Heart. Can\'t Get Enough of Them. In
Addition to That, I\'m Overweight, I Hate Exercising, I\'m Sedentary.
I\'ve Had a Previous Heart Attack and Heart Attacks Even Run in My
Family and in Fact a Lot of My Family Don\'t Even Make it to 50 Years
Old. Maybe an Annual Checkup with the Doc Isn\'t Going to Cut It. Maybe
I Need Have More Expensive Tests and Maybe More Frequent Tests. I Have
Raised the Level of Intensity of My Heart Monitoring Based on the
Sensitivity of the Issues. Now, Suppose I Am in Normal Health and I Go
in for the Expensive Tests and I Do the More Frequent Testing. Is it
Possible I May Find out Something Unexpected or That I Didn\'t Know
about? Absolutely. But the Fact of the Matter Is the Cost of Eliminating
Uncertainty of All Uncertainty Is Very Expensive and So it Is Reasonable
or We Get into an Unreasonable Situation If We Try to Eliminate All
Uncertainty. We Have to Live with Some. We Could Break the Bank. Trying
to Eliminate Uncertainty. We End up with a Lot of Information We Really
Didn\'t Need Anyway. Could You Find out Something Somewhere? Possibly.
You Can\'t Afford it Though. And You Really Don\'t Need It. So You
Really Look at Your Action and See Is this Normal Mundane Stuff That We
Do a Lot or Is it Something Unusual? Am I Taking a Trip to the Grocery
Store or Am I about to Take Off on a Space Shuttle. Am I Pulling a
Splinter from My Finger or Am I Doing Heart Surgery? So, the Bottom Line
Is What it Means Is it Is a Level and Intensity of Monitoring, Vary with
the Sensitivity of the Resource or the Area and the Scope of the Project
or Analysis We\'re Doing. Now, If Your Monitoring Includes a Proper
Sampling Method and Key Monitoring Questions, What That Means Is Not
Every Management Action and Not Every Question Is Going to Get
Monitored. However, When You Make Monitoring Commitments in Your NEPA
Decision Document, That Monitoring Commitment Becomes as Binding As Any
Other NEPA Document Decision. All Right. We Have Found out Why We
Monitor. We Have a Few Monitoring Requirements. We Talk about the Types.
We Have a Strategy. But You Know, We Need a Monitoring Plan and as a
Planner, I Know That a Key to Success Are Good Plans. I Know That Not
Only Because I\'m a Planner but Because I Saw it On the Movies. There Is
this Great Scene. Darth Vader Is Meeting with the Management Team of
Death Star. They Have a Lot of Anxiety. Because the Rebel Alliance Has
Stolen the Plan for the Death Star. Meeting Drags On. People Get Testy.
Finally One of of the Managers Getting in Darth Vader\'s Face and Says
Your Belief in the Ancient Religion Has Not Helped You Conjure up the
Plans for this Death Star. Darth Vader Says I Find Your Lack of Faith
Disturbing. Offending Individual Grabs His Throat While Darth Vader
Reaches Out with the Dark Force and Crushes His Windpipe. Eventually the
Rebel Alliance Was Successful Because They Had This Plan. We Can Be
Successful in Monitoring with a Good Monitoring Plan, Meaningful
Monitoring and Effective Monitoring. Monitoring Plans Derive from the
Environmental Analysis That You\'ve Done. Your Issue Identification and
Effects Analysis. What Does it Look like When You See One? Monitoring
Plan Is Either Referenced or Found in Your NEPA Decision Document. I\'ve
Established a Theme of Efficiency. If You\'re Doing a Project under an
Existing Land Use Plan Thats A an Adequate Monitoring Plan, You Can Tier
to or Reference the Monitoring Plan and in Your Decision Document, You
Simply State That this Project Will Be Analyzed under Such and Such
Monitoring Plan. You\'re Done. Now, If You Do That Type of Tiering, That
Monitoring Plan Needs To Be Available to the Public. However, like a Lot
of Things in Our Land Use Plans, Sometimes The Monitoring Strategies Are
Very Broad and General. Sometimes Even Vague. And So Just as We Take the
Broad Eis Analysis and Become Specific in Analysis in the Ea, We Take
the Broad References to Monitoring If They Are Broad and the Land Use
Plan and We Become Specific. We Build a Specific Monitoring Plan for Our
Ea. And So What Are the Parts of That? What Do We Need to Do? The First
One Is to the Monitoring Objective. Why Are We Monitoring? What Is the
Reason. Second One Is the Monitoring Type. We\'ve Already Covered That.
You Know It. Implementation, Effectiveness, Validation Monitoring. Next,
Standards and Thresholds. Let\'s See. I\'m One Behind. Now I\'m On.
Standards and Thresholds. What Are the Thresholds of the Monitoring
Question, What\'s the Measure of Goodness. This Is an Important One
along with the Monitoring Question and I Want to Come Back to Both of
Those in a Minute. Priority\... How Important Is it to Monitor this
Item? That Really Ought to Be Decided Before it Goes in Your Decision
Document. Once It\'s in Your Decision Document, It\'s a Commitment
Similar To Other Decisions You\'ve Made in Your NEPA Document.
Methodology. The Monitoring Technique to Be Used in the Data Collected.
You\'re Going to Collect Water Samples, Count Trees, Count Owls,
Whatever You\'re Going to Do. Frequency or Duration, How Often Will
Monitoring Occur and for How Long? Sometimes it Is over Very Quickly.
You\'ve Done Validation Monitoring. You Measure It, You\'re Done. For
How Long? Sometimes as an Effectiveness Monitoring, We Mention it Goes
on For Quite Some Time. Data Storage, Where Are You Going to Put All of
this Stuff and Where Can You Find It. Reporting Procedures. How Will the
Results Be Reported? Many National Forest and Many BLM Districts Produce
What\'s Called an Annual Monitoring Report Where You Aggregate All of
The Monitoring You\'ve Done for the Year and Put it in That Report and
Distributed it to the Public. Sometimes the Monitoring Report Also
Serves as a Surrogate for a Lot of Data Storage Also. Projected Cost.
Real Cost Associated with Monitoring and Evaluation Are Kind of Tough to
Get At. This Is a Tough One. Not Because Cost Evaluations Are Tough to
Get at in Themselves But We Said That Monitoring Was a Sample Strategy.
And So Perhaps Your Project Is Going to Be Sampled Directly Perhaps
It\'s Not. And So the Costs Are Oftentimes Couched in Terms of an
Overall Monitoring Strategy That Includes Other Projects. Now, in
Addition, Sharon Talked about Cumulative Effects Analysis in an Ea.
There Is Something Analogous to That Called Cumulative Cost. And What Is
the Cost of Monitoring this Project in Terms of the Cost of Monitoring
Other Similar Projects for Similar Information. The Manager Needs to See
the Whole Thing and How it Ties Together. In Order to Make a Decision.
We Could Be Writing Checks for Cadillac or Rolls Royce Monitoring
Project by Project. But When Cumulatively Taken Together, We Cannot
Cover It. So, We Need to Be Able to Show How the Cost for Our Monitoring
Our Project Ties Together with the Cost of Other Projects. Ok. Personnel
Needed. That\'s Very Similar to Projected Costs. If We Go Forth and Put
Cadillac Monitoring on Project after Project, Our People Are Going to Be
Tied up and Pretty Soon You\'re Not Going to Be Doing Anything Else than
Monitoring or You May Not Be Able to Cover it up and Hence, the
Uneasiness, We Don\'t Monitor. Responsible Official, Who Will Collect,
Analyze, Evaluate and Report the Findings. A Lot of Times it Is the
Individual Who Puts Together the Annual Monitoring Report. On My
District, That Happens to Be Me but from That Experience, I Can Tell You
it Takes an Awful Lot of Help from Your Friends. Who Do a Lot of the
Real Work. In Fact, I Guess Sometimes I Feel like I\'m on the Float in a
Parade Waving at the Crowd and Everybody Else Is Doing the Real Work.
I\'m Not Doing Anything. I\'ve Mentioned 12 Considerations for Our
Monitoring Plan and I Think If You Have to Build a Specific Monitoring
Plan for Your Ea, You\'re Going to Find Most of These If Not All of Them
Will Have to Be Addressed. Now, I Said I Wanted to Come Back to
Monitoring Question and Standards and Thresholds. We Do Not Monitor Just
to See How Something\'s Going to Come out. We Don\'t Monitor. We\'re
Going to Try Something and See How it Goes. We\'re Not Going to Use
Monitoring for a Surrogate Informal Uncontrolled Testing or Anyway ‑‑ in
Order to Be Effective, There Needs to Be a Very Clearly‑defined
Monitoring Question. We Need to Know Why ‑‑ What it Is We\'re Monitoring
and We Need To Have a Standard and Threshold. What\'s the Measure of
Goodness. We\'re Not Going to Look at it and See How We Feel about It.
We Need to Know Ahead of Time What Does Success Look like and What Does
less than Success Look like. Only Accomplishment in My Mind of Unfocused
or Poorly Focused Monitoring or Data Collection Is to Spend Money, Keep
People Busy and to Be Monitoring for the Sake of Monitoring. So, What
Are Monitoring Needs to Do Is as We Said to Begin With\... It Needs to
Tell Us If Our Actions Are Complying with Our NEPA Decision and Other
Requirements, Give Us a Read on Are We Achieving the Results and
Objectives That We Wanted and in the Final Analysis, Make Us More
Efficient and Improve Our Decision Making. So, the Bottom Line, We Need
to Go Focused When We Go Forth and Monitor. What That Means Is to Key
Questions, Proper Sampling, Good Monitoring Question Standards and
Thresholds. Ok. Just about at the End of this Puppy and So I Want to
Review the Test Questions. We\'ll Go to Alex Trebek. Question 9 and 10
Had to Do with Monitoring. Question 9. I Would like Monitoring for
\$300, Alex. The Answer Is the Environmental Consequences of Every
Project Analyzed under the National Environmental Policy Act Should Be
Monitored. What Is a False Statement. Correct. Select Again. Well, We
Know That ‑‑ We\'ve Gone Through It. If We Do Key Questions and We Do
Proper Sampling, Not Every Project Is Going to Be Analyzed. I Would like
Monitoring for \$400, Alex. Answer Is Budget and Staff Limitations Are
Valid Considerations In Scribing a Monitoring Plan for a Project
Analyzed under NEPA. What Is a True Statement. Now, You Know My Mother
Knows, I Know, the Dog Knows That Nothing Has Unlimited Budget and
Unlimited Staff. Least of Which Is Monitoring. We Don\'t Want to Dig
Ourselves a Hole We Can\'t Get out Of. When We Do a Monitoring Plan for
an EA Project, We Need to Look At the Context of Other Projects and Look
at a Good Sampling Scheme. Ok. Well, I Hope this Information That I Put
Together Here in the Last 15 Minutes Can Help You Develop a Reasonable,
Cost Effective Meaningful and Implementible Monitoring Plan. So, Do or
Do Not, There Is No Try. Well, this Concludes Not Only the Discussion
about Monitoring But the Whole Module on What the EA Components Are and
How to Prepare Them. In this Module, We Covered\... The Development of
the Proposed Action and the Purpose and Need. We Covered Scoping and
Issue Identification. We Covered the Development of Alternatives. We
Covered Environmental Effects Analysis. And Last but Certainly Not
Least, We Covered Monitoring. Now, Our Objectives Were to Identify and
Understand the Components of an Ea. And Develop and Integrate the
Components Effectively. You Take Each One of These Components, Put Them
Together, it Works. In the next Module, Andree\'s Going to Be Describing
the Outcomes Of an EA for Us and Jordan, Once Again, I Find Myself
Totally Talked out. So Back to You.

Pope: Thanks for the Overview of Monitoring. Andree Will Discuss
Outcomes of the EA Process. But Before She Does, I Want to Remind
Everyone Will Be a Phone In and Fax Period Right after Her Presentation.
Start Thinking about Your Questions or Comments. It Is All Yours,
Andree. Take it Away.

Duvarney: Thanks a Lot, Jordan. Ok. Now You Finished Your Ea. Now What?
Well, Technically it Is up to the Decision Maker or the Responsible
Federal Official from Here but in Practice, That Person Usually Doesn\'t
Do the Actual Writing. Once the EA Is Done, the Responsible Official Has
to Make a Decision about Whether the EA Is Identified Any Significant
Impacts That the Proposed Action Might Have on the Quality of The Human
Environment. And Everything Really Hinges on That. If the Official Does
Believe That the EA Identifies Significant Impacts, Then You Need to
Begin Preparing Your Eis. And the Only Alternative to That Is to Try to
Modify the Proposed Action to Eliminate Those Significant Impacts
Otherwise, the Outcome of the EA in this Case Is You Need to Prepare an
Eis or of Course You Can Always Drop the Action Altogether. Assuming
There Is Evidence in the EA That Indicates There Will Be No Significant
Impact on the Quality of the Human Environment Because of Implementation
of the Proposed Action, Well Then the Responsible Federal Official Could
Issue a Finding of No Significant Impact Which Is Otherwise Known as a
FONSI. What Is a FONSI? Well, a FONSI Is a Document That Briefly
Describes the Reasons And Action Won\'t Have a Significant Impact on the
Environment. The FONSI Includes the EA or a Summary of it and it Also
Has to Note Related Environmental Documents. Basically, a FONSI Is a
Document That Serves as a Formal Determination by the Responsible
Official That an Action Won\'t Have a Significant Impact on the Human
Environment and Because Of of That, the FONSI Has to Include the EA or a
Summary of it And Has to Note Any Other Related Environmental Documents
as I Just Showed You. And it Has to Give Substantive Reasons for Finding
the Proposed Activity Won\'t Have a Significant Impact. And Remember,
Significance Is a Matter of Context and Intensity So Be Sure to
Reference Those Factors in Your FONSI. Let\'s Look Again at Those
Factors for Just a Minute as a Reminder. As I Indicated Yesterday, Ceq
Regs Identify Ten Factors as Being Relevant in Identifying When There
Can Be a Significant Impact From an Action. First One Reminds Us You Can
Have a Significant Impact Whether They\'re Beneficial or Adverse
Impacts. Of Course the next Factor Is the Degree to Which the Action
Affects the Public Health and Safety. And You Also Need to Address the
Proximity of of the Unique Action to Geographic or Protected Resources.
You Also Have to Address the Degree to Which the Effects of of Are of
Hive Controversy or Why They\'re Not or Highly Uncertain. You Need to
Address the Degree to Which Action Will Be Precedent‑setting and You
Need Indicate Whether the Relationship Of the Proposed Action to Other
Actions Will Have Individually Insignificant but Still Cumulatively
Significant Impacts. In Your FONSI, You Need Talk about the Degree of
Impact to the National Register of Historic Structures or the Cultural
Resource and Don\'t Forget to Talk about the Degree of Impact on Species
Listed as Threatened or Endangered or Critical Habitat That Is Listed
under the Esa. And Finally, You Need to Say Whether the Action Threatens
Federal, State or Local Environmental Laws since That Might Also Mean
You Should Prepare an Eis Instead of an Ea. It Is Important to Indicate
in the FONSI Whether Any of These Ten Factors Are Present. If They\'re
Not, That\'s a Pretty Good Indication That the Action Won\'t Have Any
Significant Impact. But If They Are Present, Then the Decision Maker
Would Need to Explain Why the Presence of These Factors Wouldn\'t Raise
the Impacts to the Level of Significance That Requires an Eis. The Last
Thing I Want to Mention about a FONSI Is That the Responsible Federal
Official Has to Be Sure to Sign It. It Is, after All, Their Findings.
Now, NEPA Itself Doesn\'t Require a Decision Document to Be Prepared
When a FONSI Is Issue the as a Result of an EA but I Know That Forest
Service and BLM Policy Requires it and it May Be a Good Idea in Some
Cases for Nrcs as Well to Do It. Especially When There\'s Been Public
Involvement. In Other Words, Decision Documents Related to Eas Really
Are More a Matter of Individual Agency Policy than NEPA Regulatory
Requirements. So, Let Me Talk Briefly for a Minute about What Needs to
Be Included in a Decision Document If You\'re Going to Do One. The
Decision Document Needs to Identify the Alternative That the Responsible
Federal Official or the Decision Maker Has Decided To Implement. It Also
Has to Describe as Specifically as Possible the Main Features of the
Decision and What\'s Involved in Implementing the Action. If Mitigation
Is Involved That Hasn\'t Already Been Integrated Into a Description of
the Proposed Action Itself, Then You Need To Describe What the
Mitigation Measures Are. You Also Need to Say When the Decision Is
Likely to Be Implemented Including Any Limitations Even If You Can Only
Identify a Range of Times. The Decision Document May Be Reviewed
Separately from the EA or FONSI So Because of That, You Also Need to
Name the EA and FONSI That Supports the Decision. And of Course, You
Need to Provide the Rationale for the Decision. You Also Need to
Indicate That Action Conforms to a Land Use Plan or Resource Management
Plan or Contract or Whatever Other Document the Action Needs to Be
Consistent with. If There\'s a Monitoring Plan, Then it Needs to Be
Included in The Decision Document. The Plan Should Include Who Will
Conduct the Monitoring, How it Will Be Done and How Often. It Should
Also State How the Results of the Monitoring Would Be Used to Modify the
Proposed or Future Actions. The Decision Document Needs to Release
Findings ‑‑ for Example, I Know the Forest Service Has Additional
Findings You\'re Required to Make So You Need to Be Sure to Find out
What These Are and Include Them in Your Decision Document. Along with
the Other Findings That Are Required for a FONSI. And Finally, Don\'t
Forget the Responsible Federal Official Needs To Sign That Decision
Document. It Is Their Decision. As a Side, I Want to Mention a Rod or a
Record of Decision, Only Because You May Have Heard That Term and
Wondered How it Is Different from the Other Decision Documents I\'ve
Just Described. The Main Difference Really Is That a Rod Is a Decision
Document A Associated with an Eis Instead of an Ea. It Does Have Many of
the Same Features as the Decision Documents I Discussed Today Though.
The Last Thing I Want to Remind You of Is That the FONSI and the
Decision Document Need to Be Sent to the Affected Public. If You\'ve
Involved the Public in the EA Process, Then You Need To Be Sure to Send
the FONSI and Decision Document If You\'ve Done One to the Interested
Participants and to Locally Publish a Notice of Their Availability. But
Even If You Haven\'t Involved the Public, the Ea, the FONSI And Any
Decision Document Still Have to Be Made Available on Request. And
Here\'s Where I Want to Briefly Mention a Concern That\'s Specific to
Nrcs and That\'s Privacy Rights. Nrcs Has to Be Especially Careful When
We Release NEPA Documents So That We Don\'t Violate Any of Our Client\'s
Privacy Rights. There\'s Usually No Public Involvement in an EA That\'s
Conducted On a Single Farm or Even a Limited Number of Farms and an
Environmental Effects Form Is Generally the Type of Environmental
Assessment Prepared since There\'s No Conflict in The Use of Resources
as We\'ve Discussed Earlier. But Nrcs Folks Need to Remember Especially
in the Case of the Individual Farms, If Information Is Requested under
the Freedom Of Information Act, Any Unique Identifying Information
That\'s Protect the by the Privacy Act or Excluded from Foia Release
Requirements Need to Be Redacted or Crossed out So That it Can\'t Be
Read. Ok, That\'s about it on the Outcomes of an Ea. So Let\'s Review
the Answers to the Pretest Questions You Answered. Question 6 Is the One
about Outcomes. The Question Reads Before an Action Is Implemented, a
Finding of No Significant Impact must Be Prepared If the Decision Maker
Finds Based on Information in the EA That There Will Be No Significant
Impact on the Human Environment from Either the Proposed Action or Any
Alternative. Well, the Correct Answer Is False. I Hope by Now You Know
the Reason Is Because the FONSI Can Be Done So Long as the Alternative
Selected for Implementing Will Have No Significant Impact on the Human
Environment. Even If One or All of the Other Alternatives Is Expected to
Have A Significant Impact, You Can Still Do a FONSI. Ok. I\'ll Wrap up
Now. There Are Only Three Outcomes of an Ea. Either an Eis, If the EA
Points to Significant Impacts. Or a FONSI Decision Document. Or a
Decision to Drop the Action Altogether. Which Often Is Related to Third
Party Proposals. And the Last Thing to Think about If Your Outcome Is a
FONSI or Decision Document Is the Most Appropriate Method for Informing
The Public. Well, That\'s about it for Me on the Outcomes of the EA
Process. Jordan, I\'ll Turn it Back to You Now.

Pope: Thanks, Andree. In Showing Us How a FONSI Affects the Outcome of
the EA Process. It Is Time Now for Our Question and Answer Segment So
Let\'s Get To Our First Question! And Our First Question Is\... Why Can
Was There No Discussion of Thresholds in Our Presentation.

Churchill: Well, I Can Cover That. And it Sounds like Somebody ‑‑ the
Person Asking the Question Might Have Taken the Time to Look Ahead into
the Information That We Provided in the Course Book Because That
Information Is In There. And the Discussion on Thresholds Was Minimized.
I Don\'t Think I Used the Term Thresholds a Lot in the Interest Of Time
and Because I Thought That in Covering the Cumulative Effects Analysis
Discussion and Talking about Establishing Reference Points and Baselines
I Probably Covered the Topic of Thresholds. So, That Was Merely a
Technical Omission as Opposed to a Conceptual Omission. Hopefully the
Information We Provided and the Discussion We Provided on Reference
Points and Baseline Allude Enough to Thresholds but That Is Enough
Important Topic and We Just Didn\'t Have Time to Cover That in Detail.

Pope: Thanks, Sharon. Next Question. Regarding Ceqs Excepted
Emergencies, Isn\'t it True That the Excepted Emergency must Be So
Significant as to Otherwise Require an Eis, in Other Words, an EA Level
Action Don\'t Qualify As a Ceq Emergency Exception.

Wallace: I Think That\'s the Position of Ceq, Jordan Is That If an
Action Isn\'t Really Significant or One That Would Require An Eis,
Considering That an EA Is Supposed to Only Be 10 or 15 Pages, Ceq Would
like Agencies to Go Ahead and Comply with ‑‑ Do The Ea. Now, for the
Federal Agencies, BLM and Forest Service, I Think They Recognize That
Fire Is a Situation Where We Can\'t Always Do That.

Pope: Ok. No Other Comments. For Andree. Prime Farmland ‑‑ this Is the
Subject. Does Building a New Road Through an Area Designated as Prime
Farmland Require an EA or Can it Be Categorically Excluded? Is the Road
Building on Prime Farmland Considered Significant Impact If the Impact
Can Be Reversed at a Later Time Such as Rehabilitation.

Duvarney: Is That Question from Nrcs? And I Ask That Only Because the
Answer Might Depend on Which Agency.

Pope: it Doesn\'t Say Nrcs. It Is from BLM.

Duvarney: Ok. Because Within Nrcs, it Would Depend on Whether We Were
Providing Financial Assistance but since it Is a BLM‑related Question, I
Would like to Turn it over to BLM to Answer.

Hall: Is Building a Road Across Prime Farmland Significant. You Know,
Don\'t Want to Give the Too Big Fuzzy Depends Answer But by in Large,
BLM and Forest Service\'s Agencies, We Build Hundreds, Even Thousands of
Miles of Road and this Tends Not to Be Significant Be it Through \"Prime
Farmland or Site One Forest Lands.\" However, If it Can Be Put Back to
Bed and Returned into Productivity as a Significant, I Think If We Build
a Lot of What We Call ‑‑ Well, Temporary Roads and in the Project
Design, it Describes How Long the Road Is Going to Be There, Whether
It\'s Going to Be There One Season, Two Seasons, Three Seasons and Tell
How It\'s Going to Be Rehabilitated, What Kind of Machinery Is Going to
Do It, How it Will Be Revegetated, How it Will Be Rehabilitated Back
into Productive and Most of Our Cases with The BLM, or Forest Service,
into Productive Forest Land. My Feeling Is it Would Not Be Significant.
But You Know, Depending on the Case, How Much of it Is There, So
Offhand, I Would Say Probably Not.

Pope: Any Other Comments? Thank You. Our next Question\... Sharon
Mentioned in Passing and I Have Read about a Requirement To Notify Ceq
Concerning Emergency Fire Fighting. I Have Never Seen this Requirement
Implemented in the BLM. Who Does This, When and How Often? Expand. If
Yes, Who at Ceq Would We Contact?

Wallace: Jordan, I Don\'t Know If We Routinely Do That or Not. Phil, Do
You Know?

Hall: No, I Haven\'t Been Involved in It. So, I Would Have to Dodge
That. I Know That Requirement Is There. But I Don\'t Know Whether We Do
That.

Pope: We\'ll Put this One in Our Researching Stack and We\'ll Get Back
to this Person and Let Them Know.

Hall: Good Idea.

Pope: this Is from BLM Spokane Addressed to Andree. What If Hundreds of
Farmers Burn Tens of Thousands of Acres of Old Crop Ground for New Crop
in Hazmat and for Seabed Preparation for New Crops. The Individuals Are
Burning Nrcs Specs and the Individuals Are Following Nrcs Specs and Burn
Plans from a Cumulative Effect, Point of View, Is an EA Required?

Duvarney: Well, an EA Is Required for Our Programs to Assess Cumulative
Effects but If We\'re Only Providing Technical Assistance, Then We
Don\'t Trigger NEPA and There\'s No Absolute Obligation to Perform an
Environmental Assessment. But I Would Say If We\'re Providing Financial
Assistance for Any Of That, Then That Changes the Answer. Then it Would
Trigger NEPA and We Should Be Considering the Cumulative Impacts. Most
Often We Don\'t Provide Financial Assistance in Those Cases And So
That\'s Why You Don\'t Often See Eas on Burns.

Pope: this Is, I Believe from Arnold and I\'m Sorry, Arnold, I Can\'t
Make out the Last Name. Significance Is Often Confused with Non‑ceq
Definitions Such as Biological Significance in Terms of T&e or
Substantive Species And Statistically Sensitive. Would You Clarify If
Only the Ceq Defined Word Significance Should Be Used.

Wallace: I Think in the NEPA Documents, That\'s Correct. Otherwise We
Run the Risk of Getting into an Eis Mode When an EA Would Be Sufficient.

Churchill: I Know That We Have Some Problems Occasionally With Speaking
to Some of the Indices Where Indices and Indicators Have Changed
Significance Is a Term and I Think That There Are Times When You May
Have to Use the Term Significance And it Is Not Related to Significance
That Triggers an EA but it Should Be Qualified. And Use That as
Minimally as You Absolutely Can Get Away with Because There Is the
Opportunity There for Confusion.

Pope: this Is a Fax. Has No Name or No Location. Term Programmatic Eas
and Eiss Has Arisen Several Times in the Presentation and Discussions.
What Does Programmatic Mean?

Duvarney: I Would like to Address That for a Second Because We Have So
Many Programs at Nrcs, Programmatic Means an Example Might Be Our
Wildlife Habitats Incentive Program. You Would Probably Want to Do an EA
on That Program and Also Including References to the Other Programs on
an Areawide or a Statewide Basis, it Can Be an Excellent Planning Tool
and it Is Required since it Involves Financial Assistance. So, That
Would Be an Example of a Programmatic Type of an EA That You Could Then
Tier Individual Site Specific Eas To.

Pope: Anyone Else? Thank You. Our next Question Is from Lender. Salt
Lake District. Salt Lake City, Utah. You Have Only Heightened Our
Cumulative Fear for Cumulative Effects. \[ Laughter \] If Effects Are
Cumulatively Significant, Haven\'t We Switched From an EA to an ‑‑
Requirements for an Eis?

Churchill: the Answer Is Yes but the Thing to Remember Is That It\'s up
to Us to Analyze the Effects and Make That Call and Probably the Other
Thing ‑‑ I Hate the Thought of Having Heightened the Cumulative Fears
but Remember That an Environmental Assessment and the Analysis That You
Conduct an Environmental Assessment Should Be as Thorough as it Can
Possibly Be Given the Constraints on Time and Data Availability. Now,
with an Eis, the Analysis in That Should Be No Greater or More Complex
Usually than That Conducted in an Ea. So, Perhaps They Should Work on it
from That End. Preparing an Environmental Impact Statement Should Not Be
‑‑ in General Terms, That Big a Deal Once You\'ve Done a Good, Sound
Effects Analysis Through Your Environmental Assessment Process. So
That\'s a Long Way Around to Yes, If You Find Cumulatively Significant
Effects Relative to Your Proposed Action, or Preferred Alternative, Then
You Need to Shift into an Eis.

Pope: Thank You. Any Other Points?

Wallace: Let Me Add to That That Your Decision Is Going to Be Bounded ‑‑
or Your Analysis Been Bounded by Your Decision So That ‑‑ and the Amount
of Detail You Go to Is ‑‑ Needs to Be Bounded in Time and Space as Phil
Mentioned, I Believe. So That Even Though You\'re Looking at Cumulative
Impacts and Those That Go Beyond the Immediate Proposed Action, You
Still Have the Circumscribed by the Final Decision That Needs to Be Made
and by What\'s Reasonable.

Duvarney: I Would like to Add Briefly One Thing, Too. I Prefer it Not to
Be Such a Scary Thing for Folks, You Know. And I Guess I Would Refer You
to the Discussion in the Ceq Regs About Lead Agencies and Cooperating
Agencies. It Is Entirely Possible That You Won\'t Have to Have the Whole
Burden of Doing the Eis on You Alone. You Can Join Together with Other
Agencies, State, Local, Tribal Groups, to Produce One That Will Address
the Accumulative Impacts and Make the Ultimate Job a Whole Lot Easier
for All of You.

Pope: Interested Publics as Identified in the Grazing Regs Are Involved
in the I.d. Team for a Grazing Project and Decisions. How Do We Make it
an Open Public Process since We Have Involved One Specific Member of of
the Public, the Interested Public Already. This Question Gets to
Question One of the Pretest. I Think What They\'re Trying to Say Here Is
That We\'ve Already Allowed the Interested Public to Get Involved and
Now Are We Going to Allow Other to Make it Open to the Rest of the
Public So They Can Get Involved.

Churchill: Was There a Specific Right Citation for Regulations? Is There
an Indication of the Agency?

Pope: No Agency and No Name.

Hall: If Your Process Has to Be Open to All Members of the Public,
Bottom Line, I Mean You Cannot Exclude Members of the Public. You Would
Certainly Be at Legal Risk If You Did That. Sometimes in Our Informality
and You Know, Difficult Legalities May Not Be Very Apparent If Nobody\'s
Pushing on It. Nobody Challenges It. However, You Have to Be Aware That
If You Have \"Interested Public Involved\" All Publics Have to Be
Invited. Now, Suppose Nobody Else Shows Up. Fine, You\'re Ok. You Have
an Open Meeting. You Put a Published Notification of of That in the
Newspaper or However You Do That, Saying BLM Open Meeting, I.d. Team
Discussion. Now, the Decision Has to Remain with the Decision Maker. And
So You\'re Receiving Public Input but If You Have Members of An I.d.
Team That Are from the Public and Have Specific Expertise, Then We Start
Running a Foul of Faca Again. So it Depends on If They\'re Just
Expressing Their Interest and Their Opinions and That\'s Open to
Everybody, You\'re in Good Shape. But If They\'re Serving in a Technical
Manner or They\'re Specific ‑‑ Others Are Specifically Invited, They\'re
at Risk.

Churchill: I Would like to Add a Bit of Forest Service Perspective. In
the Forest Service When We Work with Permittees Relative to Grazing for
Allotment Management Plans or the Development of Annual Operating Plans,
We Are Allowed to Meet Specifically with The Permittee Relative to
Talking about the Terms and Conditions Of Permits and That\'s a Forest
Service, That\'s an Agency Permittee Discussion about Basically a
Contract That They Have With the Forest Service. And So We Typically Do
Not Have Those as Open Meetings Because That\'s about ‑‑ It\'s Got a Lot
of Information That May Be Considered Proprietary Relative to the
Permittee\'s Business. So, While We May Conduct an Open Analysis Process
and Involve All Affected People or Interested People, Anybody That\'s
Got an Interest in Either That Allotment Management Plan or Any Aspect
Of Analysis about That Allotment, We Can Engage Them in the Planning
Process and in Meetings but We Do Hold Meetings with The Permittee That
Basically in Which We\'re Engaging in Discussions about Specific Terms
and Conditions of Their Permit. Those Are Not Open to the Public. And
the Important Distinction There Is That All Interests Can Be Involved in
the Process but There Are Certain Aspects of Our Permit Obligations with
the Permittee That Are Conducted Only With the Permittee. And That\'s
Not a Planning and Decision‑making Discussion. That\'s Terms and
Conditions of a Permit.

Hall: That\'s an Important Distinction. We Often Do That with Any Number
of Groups. It Could Be off Highway Vehicle Users, it Could Be Fishermen
Groups. It Could Be All Kinds of Groups like That but as Far as an
Established Part of an I.d. Team, Leading to an Ea, That\'s a Different
Matter. That\'s a Good Answer.

Churchill: Thanks.

Pope: Thank You. Our next Question Is from BLM. And I Think It\'s the
Taos Office in New Mexico. How Do the Broad Base Grazing Eas and the
Grazing ‑‑ I Guess This Is Woodlands Meet the Comb Wash Multiple
Document and Site Specific Guidance Given by BLM Employees?

Wallace: Good Question, Linus. I\'m Going to Have to Hedge My Answer on
this. I Haven\'t Seen the Guidance That Linus Is Referring to There. And
Rather than ‑‑ in Terms of Combs Wash, I Think That Pretty Much Reflects
the Ceq Guidance We\'ve Been Discussing Though in Terms of What\'s
Required. A Broad‑based Grazing EA and Juniper Veg Type. If Your EA Is
Only Adjusted Generic Description of the Impacts Of Livestock Grazing in
Juniper, Then it Probably Won\'t Meet the Site Specificity Requirements
of Ceq. What You Would Have to Add in That or Include in That Is
Allotment Specific Information. So That You Need the Site Specificity to
Determine the Impacts For Each Allotment So That the Decision Maker Then
Could Prepare A FONSI or Make That Determination If There\'s Any
Significant Impacts. And it Needn\'t Be a Voluminous Description
Allotment by Allotment but You Need to Go Through That Thought Process
and Incorporate Enough Allotment Specific Information That You Could
Determine the Impacts.

Pope: Thank You. If That\'s Not Good Enough, Linus, You Can Always Give
Us a Call Or Send Us Another Fax and We\'ll Take Another Shot at it or
We\'ll Research it and Get Back to You on That. Should the FONSI Be
Available for Review When an EA Is Released For 30 Day Public Review? If
So, Can it Be a Draft FONSI?

Hall: I Can ‑‑ Number One, We Know That the Comment Period Is Not
Required by Ceq for an Ea. And So this Is We\'re Making this up as We Go
along. However, We Do Have Office Policy and Agency Policy and it
Actually Varies. There Are FONSIs That Go out with the EA but What
You\'re Asking Comment for Is ‑‑ I\'ve Done this Analysis. I\'ve Used
this Data. You Tell Me about it and If You Get Substantive Comments and
it Has to Do with New Information, Missing Information, Errors in Your
Information, Flawed Assumptions, Flawed Analysis, That Means Your
Substantive Comments Would Overturn Your FONSI and So, I Think in Most
Instances, Eas Are Sent out by Themselves Without a FONSI. And I Would
Not Recommend the Draft FONSI by Any Means. We Don\'t Do Draft Eas or
Draft FONSIs. However, the Public May Assume That Given Your Analysis,
Given Your Conclusions They Can See Where That Goes and Maybe Assume a
FONSI but It\'s Not Written Down, Jordan. I Think Most of the Time Eas
Go out by Themselves but There Are Cases Where We Know That FONSI Goes
out with an EA and the Comment\'s Asked for Because the Comment Period
Is Not Really Defined.

Churchill: for the Forest Service, We Have a 30 Day Comment Period on
Our Completed EA Prior to the Decision Being Made. But as Phil
Suggested, We Do Not Typically Send out a Draft FONSI. We Do Not Create
a Draft FONSI. We Gather the Substantive Comments and Integrate Those
into Considerations, Develop the FONSI and a Decision Notice after We
Receive Those Comments.

Duvarney: There Is a Generally a 30 Day Waiting Period, If You Will
after You Publish Availability of a FONSI and That\'s to Give a Public
an Opportunity to Look at it and Provide Comments. There\'s No
Requirement That We Review or Incorporate Their Comments or Do Anything
Else with It. But, of Course, it Can Make You Aware Of, You Know, Maybe
Some Conflicts in the Research That You Based Your Conclusions On.
Basically Gives the Public a Chance to Look at it and Make Sure That
It\'s Reasonable.

Pope: Thank You. Before We Continue with Other Faxes, We Have a Phone
Call Coming In and it Is from John in Phoenix and His Question Will Be
on Monitoring So Let\'s Hear John\'s Question. Good Morning, John. Do
You Have a Question for Us?

Caller: Yes, I Have a Question for Phil.

Pope: Ok.

Caller: My Question Is Regarding Question Nine on the Pretest About
Monitoring. On Page 46 of the Course Book it States That \"You Need Not
Develop a Monitoring Plan for Every Action Analyzed under an EA When
Plans Already Exist.\" Doesn\'t this Provide ‑‑ Doesn\'t this Mean That
Every Action Should Be Monitored Whether with a New or Pre‑existing
Monitoring Plan and the Answer to Question Nine Should Be True, In
Reality We Always Need to Do Monitoring for Every Action Analyzed under
an Ea?

Hall: Good Point. Good Clarification. I Talked about Digging Holes You
Couldn\'t Get out Of. I Might Have Dug Myself a Hole There. What I Meant
Was That Every Project Need Not Be Specifically Monitored. I Think What
That Course Book Is Appropriately Talking about Is You Do Need to
Address Monitoring. And If Something ‑‑ You\'ve Got Key Issues, Key
Analysis, and You Need to Address Monitoring. I Think That\'s What That
Is Getting At. I\'m Not Look at the Course Book Right Now. My Question
Had to Do with in the Process of Monitoring, You Actually Have to
Specifically Put Your Hands ‑‑ Put Your Hands On All of Those Projects.
Is That Getting at Your Question?

Caller: Well, of Course it Makes it Sound like ‑‑ If You Don\'t Do New
Monitoring it Has to Be Because You Tiered it to a Pre‑existing
Monitoring Program in Another Document Which Would Mean You\'re Still
Doing Some Kind of Monitoring, Wouldn\'t It?

Hall: You\'re Addressing Monitoring, I Suppose. Monitoring Plans
Typically Don\'t Include a Lot of Aspects of What We Do. And You Could
Say They Quote Ignore Certain Pieces of What We Do. If Yours Doesn\'t
Involve Let\'s Say a Key ‑‑ Here\'s the Deal. If You Have Which One of
These Cameras Is Working. There I Am. If Your Rmp or Your Land Use Plan
Has Identified Key Monitoring Questions and under an Rmp, That Would Be
Fairly Big Type of Questions and Your Project Does Not Include One of
Those Key Monitoring Questions, That Means Your Project Isn\'t Going to
Get Sampled or Monitored Period Because It\'s Not a Key Question Under
Your Land Use Plan So You Don\'t Really Have to Monitor Everything. But
it Should Be Addressed in Your EA Analysis Just as You Say These Aren\'t
Significant and Here\'s Why. Issues Analyzed or Issues Examined but Not
Analyzed in Detail, That Type of Thing So You Should Address That
Monitoring and Say Why You\'re Not Monitoring Anyway.

Caller: So the Question Could Be Phrased Every ‑‑ You Should Always
Address Monitoring for Every Action under an EA Whether It Results in on
the Ground Monitoring ‑‑ it Would Depend on That Analysis.

Hall: That\'s a Good Idea. I Think That Using the Words Always and
Never, There\'s No Regulation That Says You Do That but I Think You\'ve
Phrased it Quite Well. I Think You Should Do That.

Caller: Thanks.

Pope: Thank You, John for Your Call. And Have a Wonderful Day. Thanks to
All of You for Those Thought Provoking Questions. In a Few Minutes
We\'ll Be Taking Our Midday Break. While We\'re off the Air, We Would
like You to Complete a Training Exercise Which Andree Will Explain.
Andree, Will You Do Us the Honors?

Duvarney: Sure. Ok, Well, We\'ve Discussed the Environmental Effects
Analysis Today. And We\'ve Discussed Monitoring and Then the Outcomes of
an Ea, The FONSI and What\'s Required in That. So, Now You Get to
Practice. Turn to Page 28 in Your Workbook. And That Pretty Well
Outlines What the Assignment Is. That Sets it out. We\'re Going to
Continue to Use the Same Prescriptive Burning Example We Started with.
And There Are Two Exercises. Exercise 4 and 5. Exercise Four Has to Do
with Identifying and Estimating and Predicting the Effects of the
Action. And Exercise Five Has to Do with Preparing a FONSI. If You Look
at Exercise Four, There Are Four Tasks and the First One Is Asking You
to Diagram a Cause and Effects Chart Similar To What Sharon Did for You
Earlier. And She Says That ‑‑ Excuse Me, the Instructions Indicate That
You Should Identify Whether or Not the Effects That You Identify
Contribute to Cumulative Effects. The Second Item Is That You\'re
Supposed to Identify Measures by Which You Can Quantify or Clearly
Describe the Change in the Effects Then You\'re Supposed to Identify
Possible Mitigation and How You Can Measure the Effectiveness of the
Mitigation and Then Determine Which of the Effects You Want to Monitor.
You\'re Also Supposed to Include a Measure to ‑‑ for the Effect That You
Can Measure. That\'s Discussed at the Bottom of Page 28. There\'s Also a
Worksheet That You Can Use for Diagraming Your Cause and Effects, If You
Will. There\'s One Started for You on Page 29. And Then Exercise 5 on
Page 30 Has a Worksheet. It Is a Worksheet and Basically There We Just
Want You to List The 10 Factors That Have to Be Addressed in Your FONSI.
And That\'s Really about it for That Assignment. I Think That\'s Fairly
Clear. So I Wish You All a Lot of Luck and Enjoy the Time Working
Together and Jordan, Back to You.

Pope: Thank You, Andree. Before I Move on to Close the Section Out, We
Have a Lot of Faxes That We Did Not Get to Because of Time Constraints.
However, it Does Not Mean That You\'re Not Going to Get an Answer To
Your Questions. We Will Be Getting Back to You Either Later Today or
after We Go Off the Air but You Will Get Answer Os to Your Questions.
Well, this Concludes Our Morning Session. When We Return, We\'ll Follow
up with the Training Exercise and Answer Any Questions You Have Relative
to That Exercise and Glenn Will Present the Tools for Efficiency for
Completing an Ea. So, We\'ll See You after Lunch.

**BEGINNING OF AFTERNOON SESSION, 2ND DAY, 9-17-98**

Pope: Welcome Back. We Hope You Had a Pleasant Break. Phil Will Begin
this Segment by Going over the Training Exercises You Were Given During
the Break. If You Have Any Questions about the Exercise, Please Give Us
a Call and We Would Be Glad to Discuss Them with You. Phil?

Hall: Thanks, Jordan. Let\'s See. I Think We Said We\'re Going to Have
Some Requests for People to Call In. What We\'re Going to Do Is Go
Through the Exercise and the First Part of it Which Is Not this One, the
First Part of it Is to Build a Diagram for a Cause and Effect
Relationship. We Asked You to Some up with Come Scenarios Then Follow up
with Mitigation and Those Sorts of Things. We Want to Walk Through Some
of the Stuff You\'ve Come up with.

Pope: Yes, We Have Our First Caller in with Answers, John in Alexandria,
Louisiana. Let\'s See What John Has to Say for Us. He\'s from Nrcs, I
Believe. John.

Caller: Hello.

Pope: Are You There?

Caller: Yes, We Are.

Pope: Do You Have? Answers for Us?

Caller: We Looked at the First Answer Where We Had to Diagram Out the
Direct and Indirect Effects. First Issue Was Burning Section. We Said
the Effect Would Be Damaged Soil and Damaged Vegetation And We Said it
Would Not Have Cumulative Effects. The Second Cause, We Said Would Be ‑‑

Hall: Hold Up, John. Your First One Is You\'re Burning What?

Caller: We\'re Burning a Section of the Woods, the 350 Acres.

Hall: Woods, 350 Acres. Ok. That\'s the Issue. That\'s the Cause. And
the Effect?

Caller: We Said the Effect Would Be Damaged Soil and Damaged Vegetation.

Hall: Ok. No Indirect Effects?

Caller: We Said There Would Be No Cumulative Effects. It Would Be a
Temporary Effect.

Hall: Do You Have Any Further Indirect Effects Besides the Direct Effect
of Damaged Soil and Veg?

Caller: We Listed Them as Separate Causes.

Hall: Ok. Did You Have a Way by Which You Could Measure or Quantify the
Effect. Ok, You\'ve Described That You\'re Going to Possibly Have Some
Damaged Soil and Vegetation. How Are You Going to Measure That?

Caller: We Said We Would Survey the Area We Were Going to Burn Before
and after and Then Survey it Again One‑year Later.

Hall: Ok. Good, Before and after. So That Probably ‑‑ or May Lead to
Some Monitoring Commitments.

Caller: Right.

Hall: Ok, Good. Now, Were You Able to Identify Any Mitigation?

Caller: Yes, We Said If We Damaged the Soil Permanently, Then We Could
Vegetate a New Area, Either That or Vegetate, Put New Vegetative
Plantings in the Burned Area Itself.

Hall: Ok. New Plantings Where You Had the Damaged Soil and Veg.

Caller: Yes.

Hall: Ok, Good. Let\'s See. You Talked about Monitoring. How Are You
Going to Set That Up. Is There a Way You\'re Going to Measure and
Identify Whether You\'ve Been Successful or You\'ve Got a Standard or a
Threshold By Which You Can ‑‑ You\'re Going to Go out and Look and See
What You\'ve Got. Do You Have a Way to Determine Whether It\'s Good, Bad
‑‑

Caller: We Used the Russell Equation for That.

Hall: Did You Say You Had Another One of These for Us?

Caller: Yes, We Said the Cause Would Be Runoff of the Burn Section.

Hall: Further Effect Is Runoff?

Caller: We Said the Effect Would Be Poor Water Quality and a Reduction
in Fish Habitat.

Hall: Ok, the Burn Is Going to Cause Runoff. Is That Right?

Caller: Correct.

Hall: Then an Indirect Is Fish Habitat ‑‑

Caller: and Poor Water Quality as Well.

Hall: Great.

Caller: We Said this Also Was Not a Cumulative Effect. It Would Be
Temporary.

Hall: Ok. Did You Describe Any Mitigation for the Runoff Part of Your
Equation?

Caller: We Would Leave a Riparian Strip.

Hall: Ok. You\'re Going to Buffer for Mitigation. Cool. Good. Panel, Any
Questions?

Churchill: No, Looks Good.

Hall: Thanks Very Much, John.

Pope: John, Before You Leave the Air, Could You Tell Us Who All Is
Viewing with You, What Agencies.

Caller: Water Resources Staff of Nrcs.

Pope: Forest Service Anybody with You?

Caller: No, Just Us.

Pope: John, Good Having You and Your Team There and Thanks For the
Questions and Answers Rather That You Have Given Us.

Caller: Thank You.

Pope: Have a Good Day.

Caller: You, Too.

Hall: Jordan, I Think We Have Time for Another One.

Pope: We Have Another One from Terry in Taos, New Mexico. See What Terry
and His Group Has to Say. Good Afternoon, Terry.

Caller: Yes.

Pope: First, Before You Start, Could You Tell Us Who Is Viewing with
You?

Caller: We Have the Forest Service as Well as New Mexico Fish And Game.

Pope: Forest Service and New Mexico Fish and Game. You Have Answers from
Your Group. Do You Have Some Answers for Us for the Exercise?

Caller: Yes.

Pope: I\'m Going to Turn You over to Phil So You Can Present Those
Answers to Him, Ok?

Caller: Ok.

Hall: Terry, What Is Your Cause?

Caller: We Took the Burning Which, in Turn, Had Exposed Soils. We Noted
Increase in Soil Erosion Which Would Lead to Increase In Sediment on the
West Fork and Which Would Lead to a Decrease In Trout Production.

Hall: Sediment Which Led to Fish Habitat Problems. And Reduced Number ‑‑

Caller: We Did Say it Was ‑‑ There Would Be Cumulative Impacts.

Hall: Did You Figure out a Way That You Could Measure or Quantify the
Changes and Effects? So You Think You\'re Going to Have Exposed Soil and
Perhaps Sediment Delivery. Is There a Way You Can Measure That One Way
or the Other?

Caller: We Would Look at Both Turbidity and Pebble Counts.

Hall: and Fish Count, Too, I Suppose.

Caller: Yes.

Hall: What about Mitigation?

Caller: Well, with Mitigation, There Would Be No Burning on Erosive
Soils. The Grazing Would Be Excluded for the Following Two Growing
Seasons. We Would Establish a Buffer along the Riparian Zone.

Hall: What about a Monitoring Plan on That? What Do You Suppose Could Be
Done There?

Caller: Well, We Basically Came up with Two Elements There. The Amount
of Sediment That Would Reach the Stream and Monitoring the Trout
Populations.

Hall: Ok, So You\'re Measuring Turbidity and Pebble Count. What You\'re
Probably Going to Need to Do Is Have Them Measured Beforehand. We Talked
about Baseline So That You\'re Knowing Whether the Thing Has Gotten
Worse or Better over a Period of Time. You\'ve Done Your Activities, Is
That Correct?

Caller: Right.

Hall: Ok. So, Let\'s Talk a Little Bit about That for Just a Second. I
Would like to Hear Your Comments. In Establishing a Baseline and Say Ok,
We Know What the Turbidity Is Beforehand. We Know What Fish Count Is
Beforehand Then the Question Becomes Is That the Standard by Which We
Now Operate, in Other Words, Instead of Reduced Effects, Do We Go for No
Effects. If We Go for Some Effects, How Many Effects Do We Have or How
Much Is Permissible. And So Did You Talk about ‑‑ Did You Get into That,
What Would Be a Standard and Threshold of Acceptability, If You Will?

Caller: Could You Repeat the Last Statement?

Hall: Standard and Threshold by Which ‑‑ If You\'re Going to Monitor,
You\'ll Be out There Looking. How Do You Know Whether It\'s Good or Bad?
Is the Answer Simply That it Got Worse than it Was Before. Was There
Some Other State or Federal Standard out There That You\'re Going
Against?

Caller: Well, Yeah, it Would Depend on the State ‑‑ Whatever The State
Standard Would Be. For Water Quality.

Hall: Good, the Reason I Ask That Is That Sometimes We Discuss Effects
as If No Effects or No Adverse Effects at All Are Acceptable. And We
Need to Be Able to Carefully Define Our Standard and Threshold and
Oftentimes Those Standards and Thresholds Come From Federal and State
Guidelines and So Sometimes, for Instance, We Would Not Want to Design a
Project by Any Means to Put Sediment in a Stream If it Could at All Be
Avoided. But If There Was Some Project Such as a Culvert Installation in
Which Sediment Got into a Stream, Maybe it Would Be Unavoidable And the
Environmental Analysis Would Just Determine If That Was Significant or
Not. Thanks a Lot, Terry. Do We Have Time for Another One? I Think We
Probably Do.

Pope: That\'s All the Questions We Have Right Now.

Hall: Thank You a Lot Terry.

Pope: Thanks Terry and Your Group for Your Participation. Have a Good
Day.

Hall: Those Were Good Examples, Jordan. Now the Second Part of the
Exercise Had to Do with Exercise 5, The Ten Pieces of Irv Us to Be
Addressed in a FONSI. Do We Have Someone That Has Offered to Help Us
with That?

Pope: We Don\'t Have Any Coming Insofar.

Hall: Tell You What. I Can Fill In. \[ Laughter \] Ok, for All of You
People Sitting in Your Chair and Not Grabbing For Your Phone, You Get to
Listen to Me Now. There\'s Ten Pieces of FONSI and They\'re Summarized
in Terms of Significance, I\'m Sorry, That Should Be Addressed in a
FONSI and They\'re Based in 1508.27 and it Talks about Context and
Intensity as Was Described Earlier Today and Then 10 Issues to Be
Identified and the List Here Is Similar to Something You Might Find on
the Tonight Show, the Top Ten List Here and the First One Listed
Summarized Here from the Ceq Is That it must Consider Both Beneficial
and Adverse Impacts If They Are Significant. Second One Would Be Affects
Public Health. Can Almost Read That. The Third One Is Unique
Characteristics of an Area. The Fourth One Is Highly Controversial
Effects. Why Does this Seem More Exciting on the Letterman Show? And the
Crowd Goes Wild When They Get to Number 1. The Fifth One Is That Effects
Are Highly Uncertain or Unique or Unknown Risk. Highly
Uncertain/unknown, Unique. The Sixth One Is Precedent, Is it
Establishing a Precedent. Or Cumulatively Significant. Ok. We\'re on
Number Eight, the Crowd Goes Wild. Historical Cultural ‑‑ My Third Grade
Teacher Would Be Smacking My Hands Right Now the Way I\'m Writing. Or
Scientific Resources. The Ninth Is T&e Species or Habitat. Habitat. And
10th, this Is Where the Crowd Goes Wild, it Violates Law. That\'s a
Summary from 1508.27. Jordan, I Think That Covers Our Exercise. So, Back
to You.

Pope: Thank You, Phil. We Hope That this Exercise Helped You to
Understand the EA Process and How it Can Be Simplified. We Can See as We
Sit as a Panel Here That We Realize That You Have Contributed Greatly
out There with Your Participation. John with His Team and Louisiana and
Terry with His Team in New Mexico Has Helped to Make this a Simplified
Process. We\'re Happy That You Volunteered to Do this. Others of You
Might Feel Free to Call in and Ask Questions Rather than Faxing All the
Time Because We Have a Stack of Faxes That Many Times We Can\'t Get to
All of Them and We Can\'t Readdress the Question to You. But If You Feel
like Calling, Do So. Using the Number That\'s Been Provided to You. Now,
Glenn\'s Presentation on the Tools for Efficiency for Completing an EA
Will Be the Last Presentation of Our Course. After Glenn, We Will Have
Our Final Question and Answer Period. So Start Getting Your Questions
Ready. Make Some Phone Calls in There, Too. Glenn, What Can You Tell Us
about Tools for Efficiency for Completing an Ea?

Wallace: Well, Thanks Jordan. I Would like to Congratulate Our Audience
That Have Borne with Us Here and You\'ve Completed Your EA and Excellent
Responses on That Exercise. The Objective for this Final Segment of Our
Training Is to Re‑emphasize Our Mandate in the Ceq Regulations to Reduce
Paperwork and Delay. And I Hope to Provide with You Some Techniques That
May Make the EA Process More Efficient than Effective. As We\'ve
Described the Various Parts of an EA and Discussed the Exercises, We\'ve
Touched on Many Tools for Efficiency So Far in This Course. I Would like
to Further Explain Some of the Tools We\'ve Already Addressed Then
Introduce You to Some New Tools That You May Find Helpful. As I
Mentioned There Are Many Ways to Make Preparation of Environmental
Assessments More Efficient than Effective. This Afternoon, I Will
Briefly Explain How to Use a Previous Analysis, Incorporate Material by
Reference and Use Appendices, We\'ll Discuss Tiering Your Analysis to a
Previous Nepa Document, Adopting All or Portions of an Analysis Prepared
by Another Agency. We\'ll Also Cover Combining Your EA with Another
Document. And Contracting the Work to Others, Managing the Process for
Results, Making Better Use of Technology and Then Using Plain English to
Write Clearer and More Concise Eas. These Are Only Some of the More
Common Ways or Tools That You Can Use to Improve the Efficiency of Your
Environmental Assessment Process. During the Course We\'ve Explained
Some and Given Some Examples Of How Far to Apply Some of These Tools.
And from Your Responses on the Exercises, It\'s Evident That You
Understand it Well and We\'re Probably Just Bumping Our Gums but I\'m
Not So Sure about Those of You Who Haven\'t Sent in Questions. So, Get
on the Phone and the Fax. I Understand the Phone Is Working Today. So
Get on the Phone and Fax and Get the Questions into Us, Please. I Hope
That Many of You Can Share with All of Us Any Additional Tools for
Efficiency That You Found Particularly Useful in Fostering Better
Decisions While Reduce Pager Work and Delay. Now, Before You Begin
Preparation of an Environmental Assessment, Make Certain That One Is
Needed. By Asking the Five Nepa Screening Questions That Andree
Described Yesterday Morning. For Example, If You\'re Rejecting a
Proposal for Nonenvironmental Reasons, No Nepa Document Is Needed
Because There Is No Federal Action. Or for Proposals That You\'re Going
to Consider, You May Find That it Is Categorically Excluded or That it
Has Been Adequately Analyzed in a Previous Nepa Document Which Brings Us
to Using Existing Analyses. If Your Proposal Is Substantially the Same
as an Action That\'s Already Been Analyzed, Review the Existing Nepa
Documents. These Six Criteria and Any Other Long Lists I May Refer to
Are In Your Course Book. The New Proposed Action Is a Feature of or
Essentially the Same As an Action That Was Previously Analyzed. A
Reasonable Range of Alternatives to the New Proposed Action Was
Analyzed. The Information and Circumstances Are Still Valid and Should
Remain to the New Proposed Action and the Methodology and Analytical
Approach Is Still Appropriate for the New Action. And Most Importantly,
the Impacts Including Cumulative Impacts Are Essentially the Same and
the Most Difficult Is Your Public Involvement for the Previous Action
Provides Suitable Coverage For the New Proposed Action. Now, since No
Two Actions Are Exactly Alike, You Should Use These Criteria to Briefly
Note Any Differences from the Existing Nepa Document and at BLM, this
Review Is Documented by the Responsible Official as an Administrative
Determination. However, If There Are More than One or Two Very Minor
Differences, You Should, Depending on Your Agency\'s Guidance,
Supplement the Previous Nepa Document or Just Prepare a New Ea. Now, the
Ceq Regulations Provide for Supplementing an Existing Ea. However, in
the BLM, this Isn\'t Normally Done. Either We Administratively Determine
and Document That an Existing Analysis Is Adequate or We Just Prepare an
Ea. And this Brings Us to Our next Topic, Incorporating by Reference.
And Using Appendices. Ceq Has Advised Agencies to Keep the Length of
Environmental Assessments to Not More than 10 to 15 Pages. With the
Advice That the Environmental Assessment May Contain Appendices as Well
as Incorporate by Reference Background Data To Support its Concise
Discussion of the Proposal, Alternatives And the Relevant Issues. Now,
the Key Points to Remember Are\... The Materials or Analyses Are Not
Limited to Nepa Documents. You May Incorporate Materials from
Professional or Technical Reports, Books, Resource Assessments or Plans.
And the Material You Incorporate by Reference must Be Reasonably
Available for Review Within the Time Allowed for Comment. Therefore,
Proprietary Data must Not Be Incorporated by Reference. You must Include
a Full Bibliography Citation and State Where The Public May Obtain
Copies of the Material. And Within the Ea, the Relevant Portions of the
Incorporated Materials or Analysis must Be Included or Summarized So
That There\'s No Loss of Comprehension to the Reader. Now, for Some
Advice on Using Appendices. The Most Straightforward Way of Making Sure
a Reference Document Is Available for Public Review Is to Attach it as
an Appendix. However Use Them Efficiently. You Should Only Include
Material That Reviewers Are Likely to Want to Review and That Pertain to
Preparation of Your Particular Ea, for Example, Construction
Specifications. Don\'t Include Anything Not Referenced in the Body of
Your Ea. A Frequent Opportunity to Use Appendices Occurs When Some Sort
Of Facility Is Proposed for Construction. A General Description of the
Proposed Facility in its Construction Can Be Included as the Proposed
Action While Referencing the Engineering Reports That Contain All of the
Technical Specifications and Details. To Illustrate This, Let\'s Look at
a Real‑life Example That Jim Perry in the BLM\'s Area Recently
Encountered.

Recently a Resort Community Came into Our Office with a Request to Lease
Public Land for Construction of a Golf Course. The Resort Community Had
to Prepare Numerous Plans and Documents And Permits for Other Federal,
State and Local Agencies. I Took These Plans and Permits and Documents
and Summarized Them In One Page as My Proposed Action. I Listed All of
the Permits, Plans, and Other Documents in the Appendix. That Way, I
Didn\'t Have to Photocopy the Documents and Include Them in the Ea. I
Really Feel That this Is a Much More Streamlined Approach for The BLM
and it Makes it Easier for the Public to Review.

Wallace: as Jim Has Done, Consider Your Readers. More Is Not Always
Better. Now, Another Tool That Andree Described Yesterday Is to Tier
Your Analysis to an Existing Nepa Document. Now, Tiering Is and the
Incorporation by Reference of the General Discussion Contained in a Nepa
Document with Broad Coverage Often an Eis So That You Can Concentrate
Solely on the Issues Specific to the Environmental Assessment That
You\'re Preparing. To Help Me with This, Let Me Ask Some Questions of My
Panel Here. Sharon, When Can You Tier to Another Nepa Document?

Churchill: Well, Glenn, Tiering Is Appropriate When the Analysis for the
Proposed Action Will Be More Site or Project Specific Refinement or an
Extension of the Existing Analysis. And Another Situation Is When the
Decisions Associated with the Existing Nepa Document Will Not Be Changed
as a Result of the Tiering.

Wallace: Thanks, Sharon. Good Response. Let\'s Look at Some Examples of
Tiering. Most Common Is Probably Incorporating the Relevant Portions of
Your Resource Management Plan Eis or Your Land and Resource Management
Plan Eis. Or an Areawide Conservation Plan Eis into a Site Specific or
Project Specific Environmental Assessment. Another Common Example Is
Incorporating the Relevant Portions of A Programmatic Nepa Document Such
as the Eis for Vegetation Treatment on BLM Lands in 13 Western States or
for Nrcs, the Programmatic Emergency Watershed Eis into an Environmental
Assessment for a Proposed Land Treatment Project.

Duvarney: Excuse Me, Glenn. What Actually Is Required Though When You
Tier to Another Document.

Wallace: Well, Andree, the Requirements Are the Same as When You
Incorporate by Reference. Your Environmental Assessment must Name the
Document to Which it Is Tiering and Both Documents must Be Available for
Public Review. And Your Environmental Assessment must Briefly Summarize
the Issues Relevant ‑‑ the Relevant Portions to the Document to Which
You Are Tiering. To the Extent Needed for Understanding the Relationship
Between The Two Documents.

Duvarney: Thanks, Glenn.

Wallace: on Your Pretest, There Were Two Questions Relating To Tiering.
Question 11 Stated Tiering Refers to Incorporating by Reference The
Relevant Portions of a More Relevant Nepa Document Such as a Land Use
Plan Eis or a Programmatic Eis. To Incorporate by Reference, You must
Name the Document You\'re Tiering to and Brief Live Summarize the
Relevant Portions. So, the Correct Answer to this Question Is True.

Wallace: Question 12 Was Multiple Choice. The Correct Answer Is D, Your
Manager Is Asking You to Name the Land Use Plan Eis and Briefly Describe
How it Relates in Your Ea. Now, Does Tiering Work? Let\'s Look at an
Example That Was Recently Worked on in the BLM Gorge Area.

Recently We Had a Range Permit Come up for Renewal. In the Nepa Document
for This, We Prepared an Environmental Assessment Tiered to Our Resource
Management Plan Eis and to a Previous Environmental Assessment Written
for an Allotment Management Plan. The Overall Effect of this Reduced the
Total Amount of Work That Had to Be Done on the New EA for the Permit
Renewal.

Wallace: We\'ll See More of Pete Again Later but for Now, Let\'s Move on
to Another Tool That Andree Mentioned Earlier. You May Be Able to Adopt
Someone Else\'s Analysis. In the Past, this Has Been a Rare Opportunity.
But with the Forest Service, BLM, Service First Initiative and More and
More BLM Forest Service Personnel Working out of the Same Office, These
Opportunities Are Increasing. The Procedures for Using Another Agency\'s
EA Are as Follows. The Document must Meet Ceq and Agency Standards. You
must Take Full Responsibility for the Scope and Content of The Ea. And
the Adopting Agency must Prepare its Own FONSI and Decision Document. On
the Pretest, Question Number 13 Stated You May Adopt Another Agency\'s
EA If it Meets the Council on Environmental Quality and Your Agency\'s
Requirements. And the Correct Answer Is True.

Duvarney: Glenn, I Have a Question Again. What If You\'re Working on
Something That\'s Unique Just to Your Own Agency and You Don\'t Have an
Opportunity Really to Engage in This Kind of Interagency Cooperation.

Wallace: Good Question, Andree. You Can Still Combine Your EA with
Another Document. The Ceq Regulations Provide That You Can Use Combined
‑‑ an Environmental Document with Any Other Document Needed for Agency
Decision Making. And I Would Say That Any Time You Find Yourself Cutting
and Pasting, You Should Ask Yourself If You Really Need to Be Doing
That. And as an Example, BLM Now Uses the EA Format for its Lands Report
for Realty Actions. And Other Examples That We Have of Combining
Documents Are Using A Habitat Management or Coordinated Resource
Management Plan With an EA and as I Had Mentioned Just a Moment Ago,
Anytime You Find Yourself Cutting and Pasting Material from One Document
to Another, Perhaps You\'re Doing Unnecessary Work. Let\'s Move on to
Another Tool. Contracting Is Used More Often for Eis Preparation but it
Can Be Used for Eas as Well. Phil, from Your Experience, Can You
Describe Some of the Possible Advantages of Contracting?

Hall: Contracting Can Reduce Workload. It Can Allow Us to Obtain Scarce
Skills. It Can Be a Means to Provide an Independent Analysis for Us. It
May Reduce Agency Cost and the Operative Word There Is \"May.\"

Wallace: Phil, Good Response. How about the Disadvantages?

Hall: There Are Some Disadvantages. For One Thing, It\'s More Difficult
to Control the Product. Contractor Might Lack Knowledge of the Agency
Programs or Worse, The Proponent May Influence the Contractor and Then
There May Be The Appearance of a Conflict of Interest.

Wallace: Thanks, Phil. So, If You Do Decide That Contracting Is the Way
to Go, What Are Your Options? The First Option Is the Proponent Supplies
the Environmental Assessment. And in this Option, the Project Proponent
Is Responsible for Preparing the Environmental Assessment and Submitting
it to the Agency with the Project Application. Now, the Proponent May
Write the Document or Choose Any Environmental Consultant. But the
Agency must Conduct an Independent Review to Assure That Nepa Adequacy
Before the Project Is Approved. The Second Option Is Third Party
Contract and this Is the Option Must Often Used. And this Option, the
Agency Selects an Environmental Contractor To Provide an Environmental
Assessment. But the Project Proponent Pays the Contractor. The Agency
Supervises the Contractor and Approves All of the Work and the
Contractor must Have No Financial or Other Interest In the Outcome of
the Project. With this Option, Federal Procurement Requirements Do Not
Apply Because the Agency Does Not Incur Any Cost or Obligation and
Procurs Nothing under the Contract. This Is the Option Most Commonly
Used. The Third Option Is the Agency Contracts with the Consultant. And
with this Option, the Agency Contracts with the Environmental Consultant
to Prepare All or Part of the Environmental Assessment. This Option\'s
Rarely Used When Procurement Regulations Require The Use of Competitive
Bidding. But When Appropriate, Cooperative Agreements with Other Natural
Resource Agencies or Academic Institutions Should Be Explored as A
Source of Scarce Skills. And Independent Analysis. Now, in Response to
Numerous Mining Proposals, the BLM in Nevada Has Made Extensive Use of
Contracting and They\'ve Found That Placing Emphasis on Up‑front
Coordination and Providing as Much Early Guidance as Possible to
Applicants and Contractors Helps Expedite the Process.

Churchill: Glenn, Can I Ask a Question?

Wallace: Sure, Sharon.

Churchill: Contracting Has its Uses and There Are 14 Good Things about
Contracting but What If You Decide the Contracting Isn\'t Going to Work
Very Well? Do You Have Hints or Suggestions for How We Can Make Our Own
Internal Processes More Efficient?

Wallace: it May Overcoming Twwadi as Phil Mentioned Yesterday, the Way
We\'ve Always Done It. We Need to Manage Our Processes for Results. And
in My Experience, the Nepa Process Works Most Efficiently And
Effectively When Managers Are Involved Throughout the Process and Not
Just at the End. Regularly Scheduled Staff Meetings Provide an
Opportunity for The Staff to Present Newly Proposed Actions and Alert
Others Who Need to Contribute to the Analysis. The Manager Can Then Set
Priorities and Provide Guidance to the Interdisciplinary Team and the
Status of Eas in Progress Can Be Discussed and Problems Resolved. You
Can Establish Schedules and Manage Them and Communicate Them In a
Continuous Process So That Everyone Knows What\'s Needed of Them. We
Suggest That the Decision Maker Approve Three Points in the Process.
First, the Proposed Action, Purpose and Need and the Decision to Be Made
Stage. Second, When Significant Issues to Be Addressed Is Being
Determined and Finally, When the Alternatives to Be Considered Are Being
Decided. You Probably Noticed Earlier on Though That My Friend Phil Is a
Big \"Star Wars\" and \"Star Trek\" Fan and He Likes to Look to the
Future and So Should We! If We Want to Make Significant Progress and
Improvements in the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Our Nepa Process. We
Need to Make Better Use of Technology. Many Offices Have Developed
Templates for the Environmental Assessment Form. Using Templates Reduces
Typing Time Because You Don\'t Need to Repetitively Retype the Headings
and the Resulting EA Is Easier To Review. It Is Also less Likely That
Vital Information Will Be Overlooked. Now, Taking this One Step Further,
Is to Automate the Process Using Your Local Area Network. The Advantages
to this Approach Are Considerable. As Demonstrated by Pete Zwaneveld Who
You Saw Earlier.

Two Years Ago the Canyon City Office Developed Nepa Template System to
Help Us Process Our Nepa Documents. This System Works Through Word
Perfect and Runs on Our Local Area Network. The Advantages of this
System Are That it Adds Consistency Because We\'re Using the Same Format
Every Time. It Is a Very Simplified System That\'s Easy to Use Because
it Is Electronically Available on the Lan, Everybody Has Easy Access To
it Which Reduces Paperwork and it Results in a Faster Processing of the
Action. The End Result of this Is a More Defensible Document. One of the
Features of this Automated System Is Having Some Help Screens. On the
Screen Here Right Now Is an Environmental Assessment and Under the
Description of the Proposed Action We Have a Help Screen Which I\'ll
Click On. It Tells You Those Items That Need to Be Addressed in the
Description Such Things as the Who, What, When, Where and How of The
Action That\'s Being Proposed.

Wallace: as You Saw Pete Demonstrate, Contact Sensitive Help Screens Can
Be Built in with Useful Information Right When You Need It. Each Member
of the Interdisciplinary Team Can Be Notified and Receive the Working
Draft for Their Review Right on the Computer At Essentially the Same
Time. This Eliminates the Need for the Originator to Make and Hand out
Xerox Copies or to Just Route One Copy of the EA Around the Office. Each
Team Member Can Provide Their Own Input and Can Review Every Other Team
Member\'s Input Right at Their Computer. And this Stems to Surface
Problems Earlier, Accountability Is Approved Because the Team Leader and
the Manager Can Continuously Monitor the I.d. Team\'s Progress. And
Interdisciplinary Team Meetings Tend to Be More Effective Because
Members Arrive Better Prepared. Each Has the Same Work Draft for
Reference. Yet Another Step Further Is to Provide Public Access to Eas
via The Internet. Eas Being Made Available for Public Review and Comment
and Completed Eas for Action Subject to an Appeal Process May Be Made
Available for Downloading by Computer. This Means That the Interested
Public Needn\'t Call, Write or Visit the Office to Obtain a Copy of the
Ea. And Our Staff Time Is Saved by Not Needing to Receive the Request,
Copy and Mail the Ea. Let\'s Take a Quick Look at One of Our Area
Managers at Work. \[Phone Ringing\].

Hi, this Is Linda Gross. Bob, What Can I Do for You Today? Are You
Interested in the Environmental Assessment? I Just Happen to Have Our
Nepa Register Here on My Computer Screen. You Can Get a Copy of the
Environmental Assessment and Any Other Assessments by Coming into the
Web Through Our Colorado State Web Page. And Going into Kremlin, Pulling
up Our Nepa Register and Printing That Environmental Assessment out
Right in Your Own Office. Excellent. You Have a Good Day Now, Bob.
Bye‑bye.

Wallace: Many Offices Now Have Nepa Information and Documents Available
on the Internet. For Example, Listings of Colorado\'s BLMs Eas Can Be
Accessed From the Locator Shown on Your Screen.

Wallace: Now That Our Geographic Information Systems Are Widely Used,
Maps Can Be Easily Presented in Our Eas. This Brings Me to the Final
Tool I Wanted to Discuss with You Today. Use Plain English! As Sharon
Mentioned this Morning, Avoid Technical Jargon and Acronyms. Remember
Your Audience Includes Members of the General Public. Eas That Are
Easily Read and Understood Are less Likely to End Up in Litigation.
National Performance Review Has Rekindled Interest Within Government in
the Use of Plain English to Improve Written Communications with the
Public. And Although this Site Is Geared to Writing Notices, Rule
Making, Regulations and Manuals, the Plain English Wen Site Is Still a
Valuable Resource for Everyone Who Wishes to Improve Their Writing
Skills. To Access the Plain English Web Site, Go to the Address Shown on
Your Screen.

Wallace: the Plain English Web Site Can Serve as a Source From Which a
Writer\'s Guide Could Easily Be Developed. And Some Additional Writing
Tips for Eas Are\... Describe Your Impacts in Simple, Declarative
Sentences. For Example, the Sentence Subject Describes the Management
Action or Change Agent Which, in this Example Is Campground
Construction. Next, Your Sentence Verb Describes the Effect and Increase
or Decrease. In this Example, it Is Will Decrease. Third, the Object of
the Sentence Describes What Is Impacted. In this Case, it Is Sage Grouse
Habitat. This, Then Is Modified to Describe How Much for How Long. In
this Case, 10 Acres in Perpetuity. And Finally, We Have a Modifying
Clause and We Put this in Context. So That it Describes the Result and
its Importance. For Some Additional Writing Tips, Avoid Vague and
Meaningless Statements. For Example, the State Deer Habitat Would Be
Heavily Affected as Meaningless Without Further Elaboration on How the
Habitat Would Be Affected. Maintain Consistency in Spelling,
Abbreviations, Capitalization, Compound Words and the Use of Numbers.
Keep Your Sentences and Paragraphs Short. Express Only One Idea in Each
Sentence. Sentence of More than 20 or 30 Words May Be Too Confusing or
Have Too Many Ideas for the Reader to Grasp. Long Paragraphs Are Hard on
the Reader\'s Eyes. Use Strong Vigorous Verbs in Your Writing and Avoid
Vague Verbs, Verbs Such as Identify, Indicate, Develop, Have So Many
Meanings That at Times the Reader Can\'t Tell the Precise Meaning. Avoid
Meaningless Modifiers. Certain Adjectives and Adverbs Have Little If Any
Meaning in Many Contexts, Words Such as Applicable, Appropriate,
Available, Basically, Substantially, Truly, Typically, Various, Vary and
Many Others. If You Use One of These Modifiers and Think it Might Not Be
Needed, Just Read the Sentence Without the Modifier. If the Sentence
Still Makes Sense, Then That Modifier Wasn\'t Needed. Place Your
Subjects and Verbs as Close as Possible to Each Other In a Sentence and
Adjectives and Adverbs as Close as Possible to The Words They Modify.
Use Will in Reference to Things for Which a Decision Has Already Been
Made. For Example Standard Operating Procedures. Use Would in Reference
to Things for Which a Decision Has Not Been Made. Now, Let\'s Summarize.
We\'ve Just Discussed Nine Tools ‑‑ or Approaches for Efficiency To
Improve Your Nepa Process. To Briefly Recap\... If Available, Use
Existing Analyses and Describe Any Differences. Keep Your EA Short and
Concise by Using Appendices for Detailed Information and by
Incorporating Background Data for Reference. Tier Documents and Briefly
Summarizing the Relevant Portions. Adopt Another Agency\'s EA by
Reviewing it for Adequacy and Adding Your Own FONSI and Decision
Document. And Look for Opportunities to Combine Documents to Avoid
Repeating the Same Information. Consider Contracting EA Preparation. And
Manage the EA Process by Holding Staff Meetings That Focus On the
Preparation of Nepa Documents. Make Good Use of Technology. Use Word
Processing Templates, Your Local Area Network, the Internet, and
Geographic Information Systems to Improve the Efficiency of Your EA
Process. Use Plain English to Write Eas That Are Easy to Read and
Understand. And I Hope from this That You Have Obtained Some Useful
Information That Will Improve the Nepa Process in Your Office. And That
Wraps it up for Me. Jordan?

Pope: Thanks, Glenn. Your Presentation on Tools for Efficiency Really
Pulls the EA Process Together. Now, Let\'s Get Right to Everyone\'s
Questions. We Will Take as Many Phone Calls and Answer as Many Questions
as We Can in the Remaining Time. To Get Started, We Will Go to Andree.
There Have Been a Number of Questions Coming in on Which They\'ve Been
Asking for Clarification on How Nepa Applies to Nrcs and Some Technical
Assistance and Financial Assistance. We\'ll Turn it over to Andree Who
Will Answer Those Questions and Address a Couple of Other Questions That
Might Have Come In.

Duvarney: Thanks a Lot, Jordan. This One Question I\'ll Read to You. It
Is Very ‑‑ I Think Short, Succinct, to the Point. The Nrcs General
Manual States Nepa Is Activated When Either Technical Assistance or
Financial Assistance Are Provided. It Was Stated Yesterday That Nepa Was
Only Activated for Financial Assistance Which Is Correct. And I\'m
Actually Really Glad to Have the Chance to Expand on This a Little Bit.
Legally Speaking it Is Only Triggered When Financial Assistance Is
Offered. And the Purpose of this Course Was to Focus on this Ceq
Regulations. So Really There Were Two Reasons Why I\'ve Made the
Statements, The Distinctions That I Have and One Is That We Are Focusing
on The Ceq Regulations Here and the Other Though Is That Recently, With
All of Our Downsizing and Everything There Have Been Memos Issued That
Talk about Workload Reduction. One Talked about Using Your Professional
Judgment in Carrying Out the Planning Process and Deciding What Types of
Documentation Truly Are Necessary to Be Developed as a Part of The
Planning Process Which Steps Should We Go Through and So Forth. Now, I
Made this Distinction Hopefully to Inform You and Provide You with the
Information That You Need in Order to Use Your Best Professional
Judgment. If You Are Going to Eliminate Some Documentation at Some Point
From the Planning Process, I Want You to Be Aware That Nepa Absolutely
Does Require a Documentation for Financial Assistance. Clearly, When We
Give Technical Assistance to a Single Landowner, We Would Be Doing That
Landowner Is a Disservice If We Did Not Go Through the Entire
Environmental Evaluation Process and Determine Which Laws or Impacts Are
Affected. We Need to Be Able to Give the Landowner Full Information So
That They Can Decide Truly What it Is Their Best Interest to Implement.
But When it Comes to a Matter of Financial Assistance, it Is Clearly
Nrcs\'s Obligation. Hopefully That Clears Things up a Little Bit Better
for You. If Not, I\'ll Be Happy to Entertain Questions Later On. Also, I
Want to Take a Minute Here to Talk about Another ‑‑ an Issue Brought up
to Me. It Turns out That in the Pretest Questions, We Indicated That
Number 6 about Outcomes Was True. And in Going Back and Reading it
Again, I Guess Glenn Talked About it Here Just a Moment Ago. This Is a
Great Example about Not Using Plain English or Being a Little Vague or I
Suppose ‑‑ a Little Vague than We Could Have Been. My Intent Was to
Emphasize the Point That You Can Write a FONSI And Just Limit Your Nepa
Compliance to an EA So Long as the Action That You\'re Actually
Implementing Will Not Have a Significant Impact If One of the Other
Alternatives Has a Significant Impact, That Does Not Necessarily Mean
You Have to Do an Eis. There\'s No Requirement to Do That. And That\'s
the Distinction That I Was Trying to Make You Aware Of in the Pretest
Question. So I Hope That Clears Things up a Little Bit. One More
Question We Received on a Fax Before I Turn it Back to Jordan and the
Rest of the Panel Here. This Has to Do with Nrcs Programs. Basically, it
Says Many of the Projects We\'re Involved in Are Equipped Priority
Areas, the Equip Is Our Environmental Quality Incentives Program or
They\'re Program Neutral Projects in Small Watersheds. Because of Staff
Cuts it Is Difficult to Complete Eas to the Level We\'ve Described and
Can Simpler Environmental Evaluations Like the Cpa 52 Be Used to
Document Nepa Requirements Assuming They Trigger Nepa. And I Guess in
Response to That, Again, as I Said Earlier, I Would like to Refer You to
the Provisions on Cooperating Agencies and Lead Agencies. I Would
Suggest That You Work with Other Agencies in the Area That Are Taking
Actions. Absolutely Staff Cuts Are a Real Issue. We Do Go Through the
Planning Process Though in Most Cases and That Has Most of the Elements
of Nepa in It. So That\'s One Way to Fulfill the Nepa Requirements as
Well. Do the Whole Thing Together, Integrated as One Process. And You
May Want to Consider Just Integrating All of the Programs Within One Eis
in the State as Well. And Again, If this Hasn\'t Been a Complete Enough
Answer, Feel Free to Call Back. Thanks. That\'s It, Jordan. Back to You.

Pope: Thanks, Andree. Next, We Have a Similar Situation with Sharon and
She Has a Few Questions That She Would like to Address and Give You
Answers To.

Churchill: Ok. There Were a Couple of Questions That Came in Just
Towards the Tail End of Our Last Q and a Session That I Think Are Really
Important. All of the Questions Are Important but These Are Sort of
Complex And So this Gets the First Cut. I Have One Fax, a Long and
Fairly Detailed Fax from the Taos Office in BLM. This Is in Response to
You Folks from out There. Thanks for the Question. Let Me Paint the
Picture Concisely for You. The Situation Is That There Is a Large Chunk
of National Forest Land. There Is a Private Inholding, the Owner of That
Private Inholding Wants to Conduct a Timber Sale. In Order to Conduct
That Timber Sale, That Person, That Party Needs Access and So the Forest
Service Has Been Asked to Issue a Special ‑‑ a Commercial Hauling Permit
for Access Across Forest Service Roads to the Private Land Piece and So
I\'ll Explain as I Go along. First, the Decision Space Really There Is
Limited to Issuance of The Permit. Now, the Question Centered on Because
the Timber Sale Is a Connected Activity with the Road or They\'re
Connected Actions, Should the Timber Sale Be Analyzed in the Effects of
the Timber Sale Be Analyzed in Some Sort of Nepa Documentation. But I
Want to Tag Back to the Fact That We Have to Anchor to Our Decision
Space and Our Decision Space Is Authorization of a Permit, Allowing Haul
Across National Forest Lands. We Have Not Got the Authority to Make a
Determination as to Whether or Not a Timber Sale on Private Land Can
Proceed. But Where the Connected Action Part Comes in Is We\'re
Obligated To Look at and Consider and Analyze the Effects of the Timber
Sale in Any Decision We Make Relative to Issuing the Haul Permit. Now,
Another Complicating Factor Is That There Is Another Private Landholder
That Has Land Across Which the Whole Road Must Go. There Are
Right‑of‑way Questions with That. That Landowner Is Concerned about Some
Dust and Other Effects That Will Have Some Sort of Ultimately an
Economic Impact on That Person. So, Not Only Should the Effects of the
Timber Sale Be Included In an Analysis to Look at the Effects of Issuing
the Permit but Also the Effects on That Other Private Landowner. What
You Come up with Is That You Need to Analyze the Effect of The Other
Action Although You Cannot Make a Determination for The Timber Sale. The
Last Question That\'s Involved in this Is What Vehicle or What Is the
Appropriate Nepa Vehicle for Analyzing and Disclosing the Effects and
Making the Decision. And I See and in Consultation with the Forest
Service Colleagues, We See Two Routes and this Is Where the Line Manager
Or the Line Officer Should Get Integrally Involved in the Process and
Make Some Decisions for You. You Can Use a Categorical Exclusion Because
Ostensibly, a Haul Permit Across Existing Forest Roads Might Fall under
the Exclusion of Minor Special Uses. Now, That Vehicle of Categorical
Exclusions Still Allows You to Conduct Some Sort of Analysis, Contact
Interested Parties, Make A Decision via a Decision Memo and Issue That
Permit. If You Choose to Do That. The Other Option Is to Prepare an EA
That Centers on the Issuance of a Permit for Haul. And Again, You Would
Use the Analysis and the Disclosure of Effects and Let That Lead the
Decision Maker into Making the Decision. I Would Suggest That the Line
Officer or Line Manager at this Time Needs to Get Involved in the
Discussion and Determine What Vehicle She or He Wants to Use in Order to
Provide Enough Information for a Reasoned and Informed Decision about
Issuing The Permit. Again, it Anchors Back to Our Decision Authority
Though. So, Hopefully I Have Answered That Question for You Folks out
There. If Not, I Suspect I\'ll Be Hearing from You and I Would like to
Shift into Another Quick Question That Was Submitted by ‑‑ I Believe a
Group of BLM and Forest Service Folks in Oregon. Thanks to Them for
Their Question. It Ties Back to Environmental Effects and the Disclosure
Effects And the Question Centers on What Is the Baseline Used to Measure
Quantitatively the Effects of an Action. And There Is an Example
Provided That Has to Do with Road Construction ‑‑ Erosion and Increased
Turbidity in a Fish‑bearing Stream. Another Part of the Question Is Are
These Effects Measured Against the Baseline of Pre‑european
Intervention. So, That Can Be Pretty Complex. But What I Would like to
Center on Is What Really Is a Baseline And a Baseline Is Simply a
Reference Point and Remember, Your Charge in an Effects Analysis Is to
Look at the Change That Your Activity Is Going to Produce. And Relative
to Sedimentation in a Stream, the Charge Would Be To Look at the
Existing Condition, Use That as a Reference Point Or a Baseline to
Measure or to Predict How Much Increased Sedimentation You\'re Going to
Get from the Stream Activity. Now, I Think We\'re a Little Bit Mixed up
Here and it Is Easy to Understand. With Thresholds. And That May Have
Been the Point of the Earlier Call about Why We Didn\'t Speak to
Thresholds in this Course. Remember a Threshold Is Really Linked to the
Concept of Acceptability. And Baselines Are Not Necessarily and They
Probably Shouldn\'t Be Thresholds. A Baseline, Again Is, a Basic
Reference Point Against Which You Measure and Indicate Change from Your
Proposed Action or an Alternative. A Threshold Is a Standard of
Acceptability and Those Can Be Established Statutorily for Us Through
Laws Such as Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and Some Other Laws
or She Can Be Established Through the Scientific Community or Other
State and Federal Agencies. But, Thresholds Do Not Necessarily Equal
Baselines and in Most Instances, They Will Not. So Again for Baseline, I
Would Suggest You Would Go Back to Looking at Your Existing Condition
and Use That as a Reference Point in Which to Indicate or Identify and
Assess the Change That Would Be Created If You Implemented Your Project.
Again, I Think That\'s My Wrap on That Question. If You Have Additional
Questions, Feel Free to Get a Question Into Us.

Pope: Thank You. Now Let\'s Get to a Few Others That We Have Here.
Question Has Anyone at the Department Level Pursued Congressional
Exemption for Many of the Every Day Actions That Have Been Analyzed
Countless Times and Consume Much of Our Time But Have Almost Never
Resulted in an Eis?

Wallace: Jordan, That Was Discussed Earlier in Our Program. There Is an
Interagency Group, BLM Forest Service That Is Looking at Updating the
Categorical Exclusion List and Vastly Expanding it in Terms of BLM. I
Think That Would Address a Lot of the Concerns That the Writer Of That
Fax Has Regarding That. So, Hopefully That Will Occur Sometime Soon.

Pope: Thank You. Please Address ‑‑ with Regards to Rights of Way since
Cost Recovery Fees Cover Monitoring Costs and this Is Addressed to Phil.
Should I Read it Again?

Hall: Go Ahead.

Pope: Please Address Monitoring with Regard to Rights of Ways Since Cost
Recovery Fees Cover Monitoring Costs.

Hall: Ok. Well, If There\'s Going to Be Cost Recovery ‑‑ We Talked about
Key Monitoring Questions. If You Have a Right‑of‑way Grant or Some Sort
of Thing That Has A Key Question Be it Soil Erosion or Whatever, You May
Decide to Monitor That. Remember, the Ceq Regulations Said Agencies in
Fact I Think I Could Probably Find it Pretty Quickly. Agencies May
Provide for Monitoring and Then it Goes on to Say And Should Do So in
Important Cases. So Monitoring Really Is an Option. I Think You Should
Address Monitoring in Your Grant and If You\'re Not in the ‑‑ If You\'re
Not Monitoring, You Should Say Why. But I See it as an Optional Thing
Depending on the Issues and Sensitivity of the Issues at Hand.

Pope: We Have a Number of Questions Coming in on Significance. So We\'re
Going to Try Cover a Number of Questions with this Answer. We Have Been
Told Not to Use the Words Significant or Insignificant in Our Eas If the
Specialist Does Not Indicate the Significance of the Impacts, How Can a
Line Manager Determine If A FONSI Is Appropriate? What Is Your Feeling
on this?

Churchill: How about If I Jump in on That One.

Hall: Go of Ahead.

Churchill: We Have Counseled Folks Typically in the Forest Service to Be
Very Judicious in the Term Significance When They\'re Writing Eas
Because Significance Obviously Is a Loaded Term, it Is a Legal Term. It
Addressed in the Ceq Regulations That We All Go by and Implications Are
That If There\'s Significance, You Go to an Environmental Impact
Statement. Therefore, You Have to Use a That Term Very Judiciously. I
Think this Gets to Another Question of Communications with a Line
Officer about What the Effects Might Be Ultimately Impinging on the Line
Officer\'s Ability to Make Some Decisions. And I Would Advise Folks That
Specialists, If You Sense Through Your Analysis That There Is Going to
Be a Significant Impact That the I.d. Team Needs to Sit down and Discuss
That. There Might Be Additional Mitigation That Can Be Add In. There
Might Be Some Other Options, Another Alternative or Something like That
That Needs to Occur. If Not, You Still Need to Be Able to Approach the
Line Officer Before She or He Is Sitting down to Sign the Decision
Notice and Let Them Know That There May Be Significant Effects and What
Implication of That Are. I See it as Watch the Use of Term and Be Sure
to Be Communicating All the Time Within the I.d. Team and with the Line
Officer about How Your Analysis Is Shaping Up.

Duvarney: I Want to Add Something Quickly on That. That Is the Purpose
of the EA Is to Inform the Decision Maker. It\'s Analysis of Effects.
The Purpose Is Not to Reach Conclusions about Those Effects. That\'s up
to the Decision Maker. And That\'s Why the Decision Maker Is Supposed to
Write the Findings of No Significant Impact.

Hall: What I Would Add, I Would Say What Andree Said, it Is The
Responsible Official\'s Role to Determine Significance, Not The Staff.
However, There\'s Nothing Worse than Just Putting Facts on the Table and
Not Evaluating Them. Sharon Talked about Interpreting Results,
Interpreting Effects. Gotta Be Done. So You Do That and You Say Why
Something\'s Important. Why It\'s Not Important and Why and Because.
You\'re Not Going to Be Using the Word Significant Because it Belongs to
the Responsible Official. You Can Describe and Evaluate the Results.
Unfocused Clarity Adds Confusion and Fog. So the Interpretation Is What
Cuts Clarity of the Analysis. So but That Word Significance Belongs to
the Responsible Official.

Pope: What Role Do Nontribal Public Comments Play in Bia Nepa Documents
Especially in Decisions That Are Solely Related to the Use of Tribal
Resources.

Wallace: Well, That\'s Kind of a Difficult Question to Answer. To
Address Any Specific Issue but Basically, Nepa Is a Public Process. And
Nontribal Public Comments May Very Well Add Valuable Insight Or
Information That Might Be Germaine to the Action Proposed Even Though it
May Involve Only Tribal Resources. There May Be Valid Concerns Regarding
Potential Impacts of Maybe Water and Air Resources. Depending Again on
the Proposed Action and What\'s Being Done With Tribal Resources. So, I
Think You Need to Look a Little Bit More Broadly and Consider That All
of Us Are Kind of Here on this Planet Together.

Pope: We\'ll Again Today Run a Little Longer than We Are Scheduled to So
That We Can Try to Get to Some Other Answers to Your Faxes. Next
Question, Why Are We Discussing 40 Cfr 1502? We Do Minimal ‑‑ this Is
What They\'re Asking. We Do Minimal of 30 Eas Annually. 1502 Is
Specifically for Eiss, Not Eas. We Only Do 4 to 5 Eiss Annually. Thank
Goodness. Can You Clarify Regulations Guidance for the Bureau Especially
New People or People New to Nepa? Phil?

Hall: Thanks, Jordan. Yeah, We Said Earlier on and We Kind of Waved Our
Hands at it That a Lot of the Things We\'re Talking about in Terms of an
EA Terms like Scoping and Public Involvement Derive from the Ceq Regs on
an Eis. Now, the Stuff That Sharon Went Through in Terms of Effects
Analysis Is Interchangeable. You\'re Doing Effects Analysis and it May
Change in Magnitude Between an EA and an Eis. But the Piece of an Eis
Depending on Agency\'s Procedure and I Think Sharon\'s Going to Have to
Take Part of this Question but For the BLM, There Is Not Agency
Direction to Make Our Eas Look Like an Eis. And So When We Do Scoping,
in Fact, We Don\'t Even like to Use The Word Scoping in the BLM: We
Prefer Issue Identification to Differentiate These Documents and These
Processes. Public Comment Periods Are Often a Matter of BLM Policy from
Either State Offices or District Offices and We Do Those Things But
They\'re Not Spelled out in Ceq for Eas and So You Mention 1502 Which Is
All about Eiss. And the Ceq Is Relatively Brief on Eas. It Says the EA
Itself Is Supposed to Be Brief. It Doesn\'t Tell.

Lot about It. Think There\'s Stuff in 1501 and 1508.9 about Eas. That\'s
Agency Policy a Lot. But I Think the Ideas Are Very Germaine but Be
Aware That They\'re Not Necessarily Requirements, at Least in the BLM.

Churchill: the for Es Service Has Chosen to Embrace the Ceq Regulation
Through Policy to Apply to Environmental Assessments And So We Do
Conduct Scoping and Conduct an Effects Analysis and Make a Decision
Based on Essentially the Same Guidance We Use For Environmental Impact
Statements. Remember an Environmental Assessment, and the Analysis That
You Do in That Provides Your Basis for Making a Decision as to Whether
or Not You Is Have to Do an Eis and So an Environmental Assessment Can
Be a Substantial Document Not Necessarily in Terms of its Length or its
Bulk but in Terms of its Import in Making the Decision as to Whether or
Not You Need to Do an Eis. Forest Service, We Follow the Same Guidance
as Eiss.

Duvarney: Within Nrcs, I Would Say That We Follow Closer to The Ceq
Regulations Which Require Only Brief Discussions of the Need for the
Proposal of Alternatives as Required by Section 1022 E of the
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action and Alternatives and a
Listing of Agencies and Persons Consulted. That\'s 1508.9 Subsection B.
And Course Public Involvement Can Be Important on an Areawide Level and
Just Follow Your Planning Procedures for That.

Pope: Ok. Next Question\... Regarding Environmental Effects. Is it
Acceptable to State That on Impacts, That Is Adverse or Negative or
Should We Just State the Facts and Allow the Reader Or the Public to
Come up with Their Own Conclusion.

Churchill: the Latter. We Need to Stay Quantitative, Describe the
Effects Objectively And Stay Away from Negative or Adverse Around this
Is Where Being Quantitative and Providing a Narrative Description That
Interprets Those Effects into What it Means Relative to the Big Picture.
So, I Would Say Stay Away from Those Kinds of Terms. It Is up to the
Reader to Make a Determination as to What\'s Beneficial or Adverse or
Negative or Good, That Kind of Thing. That\'s Are Value Judgments.

Hall: We Don\'t Add the Value Judgments, We Do Add the Interpretation.
We\'re Not Neutral. You Don\'t Put it out There and Say What Do You
Think. We\'re Going to Be Talking about Why We Think It\'s Important and
Because and Therefore. And the Value Judgments That Sharon Is Talking
about Belong to The Public or in Another Arena at Least.

Pope: Thank You. Thanks for All of Your Questions and Comments. We Will
Be Contacting You Later to Provide Answers to Any Questions We Did Not
Get a Chance to Respond to During the Broadcast. Over the past Two Days,
BLM, the Forest Service and Nrcs Joined Together to Give You Information
and Methods on How You Understand and Simplify the EA Process. The Focus
of this Training Was on the Environmental Assessment Process of Nepa
Based on the Council on Environmental Qualities Regulations. To Help You
Better Understand the Common Requirements of the Regulations and How to
Analyze Impacts Relevant to Decision Making. You Were Shown the
Similarity of the EA Process in the Three Agencies and How the Nepa
Process Can Work to Benefit Each Agency Publicly as Well as the Public
Who Receives or Reviews Nepa Documents from These Agencies. I Would like
to Thank Our Panel of Instructors. Andree, Phil, Sharon, Glenn for All
of Your Hard Work on the Panel. And I Think We Can Also Say That Our
Audience out There Were Outstanding. They Provided Us Some Good
Information, Good Questions and Answers. We Would like to Thank the
Behind the Scenes Team at NTC as Well As All of You Who Took Time out
from Your Busy Schedules to Participate in this Course. If You Weren\'t
Able to Tape this Program and Would like a Copy To Share with Others,
Call BLM National Training Center at 602‑906‑5585. We Would like All
Viewers to Please Complete the Evaluation Form For this Course Which Is
Available on the Internet at Www.BLM.gov/ce‑053e.html. If You Don\'t
Have Access to the Internet, Please Fax in a Complete Evaluation Form.
Form and the Fax Number Are Provided in Your Course Workbook. We Would
Also like to Remind All Site Coordinators to Please Send Us a Fax
Showing Your Location and the Number of People by Agency Who Attended
this Satellite Course. Before We Close, I Would like to Mention Some
Upcoming Telecasts Here on the BLM Satellite Network. An Irm and Almrs
Forum Will Be Presented on September 18th in Conjunction with BLM\'s
National Irm Conference Being Held at NTC This Week. Discussion Topics
Will Include Year 2000 Compliance, Almrs and a Panel Discussion on the
Future of Irm in the Bureau. On September 29th, an Overview of BLM\'s
New Management Information System or Mis Will Be Presented for Managers
and Employees. This System Which Will Be Implemented in Fiscal Year \'99
Will Be The Bureau\'s Primary Source of Financial Performance and
Customer Satisfaction Information. And on October 7‑9th the Training
Center Will Broadcast Continual Live Coverage of the Internet
Conference. These Telecasts Will Feature All of the Major Presentations
from This Three‑day Look at the Internet and its Role in Natural
Resource Management. Thanks Again to All of You for Watching and Have a
Wonderful Day!

Announcer: to Help Your Office Participate in Future Telecasts, See the
BLM Satellite Downlink Guide. And Visit the NTC Home Page on the World
Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of
this Program and Other Ntc Broadcasts Are Available on the Home Page.
For More Information on Upcoming Distance Learning Events, as Well as
Traditional Courses, Call the Training Center at 602‑906‑5500. Or Visit
the Home Page.

Announcer: this Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.