Hawaii Administrative Rules › Title 11 - DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH › Subtitle 1 - GENERAL DEPARTMENTAL PROVISIONS › Chapter 200.1 - ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT RULES › Subchapter 9 - PREPARATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS › Section 11-200.1-20 - Public review and response requirements for draft environmental assessments

Current through June, 2024
(a) This section
				  shall apply only if a proposing agency or an approving agency anticipates a
				  FONSI determination for a proposed action and the proposing agency or the
				  applicant has completed the draft EA requirements of sections 11-200.1-18 and
				  11-200-19,
(b) Unless mandated
				  otherwise by statute, the period for public review and for submitting written
				  comments shall be thirty days from the date of publication of the draft EA in
				  the bulletin. Written comments shall be received by or postmarked to the
				  proposing agency, or in the case of applicants, to either the approving agency
				  or applicant within the thirty-day period. Any comments outside of the
				  thirty-day period need not be responded to nor considered in the final
				  EA.
(c) For agency actions, the
				  proposing agency shall, and for applicant actions, the applicant shall: respond
				  in the final EA in the manner prescribed in this section to all substantive
				  comments received or postmarked during the statutorily mandated review period,
				  incorporate comments into the final EA as appropriate, and include the comments
				  and responses in the final EA. In deciding whether a written comment is
				  substantive, the proposing agency or applicant shall give careful consideration
				  to the validity, significance, and relevance of the comment to the scope,
				  analysis, or process of the EA, bearing in mind the purpose of this chapter and
				  chapter 343, HRS. Written comments deemed by the proposing agency or applicant
				  as nonsubstantive and to which no response was provided shall be clearly
				  indicated.
(d) Proposing agencies
				  and applicants shall respond in the final EA to all substantive comments in one
				  of two ways, or a combination of both, so long as each substantive comment has
				  clearly received a response:
(1) By grouping
				  comment responses under topic headings and addressing each substantive comment
				  raised by an individual commenter under that topic heading by issue. When
				  grouping comments by topic and issue, the names of commenters who raised an
				  issue under a topic heading shall be clearly identified in a distinctly labeled
				  section with that topic heading. All substantive comments within a single
				  comment letter must be addressed, but may be addressed throughout the
				  applicable topic areas with the commenter identified in each applicable topic
				  area. All comments, except those described in subsection (e), must be appended
				  in full to the final EA; or
(2) By
				  providing a separate and distinct response to each comment clearly identifying
				  the commenter and the comment receiving a response for each comment letter
				  submitted. All comments, except those described in subsection (e), must either
				  be included with the response or appended in full to the final EA.