New York Codes, Rules and Regulations › Title 6 - DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION › Chapter VI - General Regulations › Part 617 - State Environmental Quality Review › Section 617.8 - Scoping

Current through Register Vol. 46, No. 28, July 10, 2024
(a) The primary
				goals of scoping are to focus the EIS on potentially significant adverse
				impacts and to eliminate consideration of those impacts that are irrelevant or
				not significant . Scoping is required for all EISs (except for supplemental
				EISs), and may be initiated by the lead agency or the project
				sponsor.
(b) The project sponsor
				must submit a draft scope that contains the items identified in paragraphs (e)
				(1) through (5) of this section to the lead agency. The lead agency must
				provide a copy of the draft scope to all involved agencies, and make it
				available to any individual or interested agency that has expressed an interest
				in writing to the lead agency.
(c)
				Involved agencies should provide written comments reflecting their concerns,
				jurisdictions and needs for environmental analysis sufficient to ensure that
				the EIS will be adequate to support their SEQR findings. The lead agency must
				include such informational needs in the final scope provided they are
				reasonable. Failure of an involved agency to participate in the scoping process
				will not delay completion of the final written scope.
(d) Scoping must include an opportunity for
				public participation. The lead agency may either provide a period of time for
				the public to review and provide written comments on a draft scope or provide
				for public input through the use of meetings, exchanges of written material, or
				other means.
(e) The lead agency
				must provide a final written scope to the project sponsor, all involved
				agencies and any individual that has expressed an interest in writing to the
				lead agency within 60 days of its receipt of a draft scope. The final written
				scope should include:
(1) a brief description
				of the proposed action;
(2) the
				potentially significant adverse impacts identified both in Part 3 of the
				environmental assessment form and as a result of consultation with the other
				involved agencies and the public, including an identification of those
				particular aspect(s) of the environmental setting that may be impacted;
(3) the extent and quality of
				information needed for the preparer to adequately address each impact,
				including an identification of relevant existing information, and required new
				information, including the required methodology(ies) for obtaining new
				information;
(4) an initial
				identification of mitigation measures;
(5) the reasonable alternatives to be
				considered;
(6) an identification
				of the information or data that should be included in an appendix rather than
				the body of the draft EIS; and
(7)
				a brief description of the prominent issues that were considered in the review
				of the environmental assessment form or raised during scoping, or both, and
				determined to be neither relevant nor environmentally significant or that have
				been adequately addressed in a prior environmental review and the reasons why
				those issues were not included in the final scope.