Environmental Impact Analyses August, 2008 Salem, OR

1. Environmental Impact Analyses August, 2008Salem, OR Oregon Department of Transportation & Federal Highway Administration Kevin Moody

2. Housekeeping • Breaks • First aid • Restrooms • Emergency Exits and Assembly • More …

3. Take Home Messages • Analysis has two parts • Action-Focused part considers how action intersects with resource • Resource-focused part explains “so what?” from the resource’s perspective

4. Take Home Messages • Action-focused part is among input to Resource-Focused part • “So What?” is sustainability • Complete analysis allows for efficient mitigation

5. Take Home Messages • Uncertainty is useful information • Managing uncertainty correctly improves on common sense • Quality of information is a function of the base of knowledge

6. Take Home Messages • Base of knowledge is served best by subject matter experts working as a collaborative enterprise • Practitioners must define and prioritize useful information in a transparent process • Guidance on useful information is common

7. Take Home Messages • Best Practices for indirect and cumulative impact assessments must be merged • Sound scientific and engineering practice to support decisions is not just a good idea; it is the law • Best practices and sound practices provide clarity and reduce controversy

8. You will be able to: • Describe the role of resources, ecosystems, and human communities in analyses and assessments • Identify at least one feature of useful information • Describe at least two ways that mitigation can reduce Total Effects

9. You will be able to: • Name the two (or, three if you like) broad categories of direct and indirect effects • Integrate best practices into a unified EIA • Describe the most common ways to determine sustainability thresholds for a resource

10. Basic EIA Think about things you do every day … say, purchasing a major appliance • Does information play a role in your decisions? • Is all information of equal utility or value? • Characterize the information you find most useful

11. Basic EIA Decision making – buying a major appliance • Affordability (A. Characterize the expense) • How much does it cost? • Will the purchase trigger other major expenses or savings? • Will this use of funds influence other decisions?

12. Basic EIA Decision making – buying a major appliance • Affordability (B. Characterize the account balance or cash flow being affected) • Conceptual model • What is our current balance? • Anticipate future expenses and deposits that stress balance • Some past expenses can inform predictions • How resilient is the account?

13. Basic EIA Decision making – buying a major appliance • Affordability (disclosing the implications to our ability to sustain a positive account balance or cash flow if we make the purchase) • Does this purchase push our account into an unacceptable state?

14. Basic EIA Decision making – the common elements • Identify information that will be useful • Identify a resource of concern and relevant drivers • Establish baseline conditions and trends • Establish “sustainability”

15. Basic EIA Decision making – the common elements • Identify action-focused effects in time and space • Add the action-focused effects to the baseline, and evaluate resource-focused effects • Consider total effects, including uncertainties and ways to reduce adverse effects if warranted • Present results in a meaningful way

16. Key Elements of EIA Resources: Which Attributes or Elements? Resource Trends and Condition Action x Resource Interactions Sustainability: So What? Mitigating Total Effects and Managing Uncertainty

17. Two Parts? NEPA ESA NHPA CWA 404 4(f)

18. Types of Exposure • Additive • Repeated affects from a single project • Repeated affects from multiple sources • Interactive • Nonlinear interactions from single project • Countervailing, or synergistic effects from multiple sources

19. Two Parts?

20. Two Parts?

21. Two Parts?Level of Service

22. Sustainability • Not Defined • Law or Regulation Specific set by administrative process • Resource or Project Specific based on natural phenomena, community standards, perceptions

23. REC • Acronym for: Resources, Ecosystems, and Human Communities; • Some practitioners use: Valued Ecosystem Component, or VEC (see Larry Cantor) • REC’s are attributes of Environmental Quality • REC’s are the dependent variable

24. REC • Ecological, cultural, and aesthetic properties of the natural and cultural resources that sustain and enrich human life • Social resources can include urban and community impacts; life, health, and safety factors; displacement; long-term productivity; and energy requirements and energy conservation

25. REC is Dependent VariableStressor is Independent

27. Project for Public Spaces Factors Affecting Community Cohesion Conflict & Community Disruptions Mobility & Access Natural Setting/Barriers Perceived Safety Aesthetics/Unique Visual Environment Levels of & Satisfaction with Public Services Diversity & Stability of Economic Conditions Land Use & Planning Capacity Demographic Mix

28. Angler satisfaction Creelable fish density Large fish density Population stability Growth rate Fry carrying capacity Interaction of REC and project Trophic state of nursery area Angling mortality Initial adult density Hatch success Natural mortality Action-Focused Influences Stormwater quality from roadway ∆ nutrient loading Township’s wwtp integrity cattle in feeder stream

29. Importance of REC Example Helton-Mayo Farm Nomination • What is REC?

30. REC’s for Helton-Mayo Farm Buildings (pioneer days) Buildings (transition over time) View of Buildings (from where not defined) View of Buildings and Setting (from road) View of Buildings and Setting (inside compound)

31. REC is one of many possible measurable attributes of aresource (societal value)that is affected by the action

32. Two-Part Analytic Question To inform decisions, environmental impact analyses must be broken into two-parts: • What effect does the action have on specific resources? i.e., action-focused • What does that effect mean from the perspective of the resource itself? i.e., resource-focused

33. The Two-Part Question • What are Action-Focused Effects? • Direct (NEPA):Caused by the action and occur at the same time and place. • Indirect (NEPA):Caused by the action and are later in time or farther removed in distance, but still reasonably foreseeable…

34. The Two-Part Question • What are Resource-Focused Effects? • Cumulative (NEPA): Impact on the environment which results from incremental impacts of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions, regardless of agency or person…

35. Direct, Indirect, and Cumulative Direct Indirect (for our purposes, also Secondary) Cumulative

36. The Two-Part Question What do Resource-Focused Effects Analyses Do? • Characterize the … [REC in terms of its’] response to change and capacity to withstand stresses; and, • Characterize the stresses affecting … [the REC in] relation to … thresholds.

37. The Two-Part Question • Relevant analyses are concise descriptions of the action-focused effects, put into resource-focused context, to generate an accurate an precise picture of the effects attributable to a proposal. • This generally means we need to appreciate the sustainability of resources relevant to our values under current conditions, and under conditions altered by the proposed and alternate actions.

38. Common Fallacies • Two-Parts for every resource: DCI, ICI, or D&ICI … ICI is shorthand • If no action-focused effect to a specific resource is suspected, there is no need to consider resource-focused effects to that resource

39. Sources of Project Effects • Planning • Construction • Operations • Maintenance • Decommissioning (rare)

40. Sources of Project Effects

41. Encroachment-Alteration • Ecological • Habitat fragmentation • Habitat degradation (physical, chemical, biological) • Ecosystem disruption • Socio-Economic • Opportunity-Threats • Development/Event • Adaptation/Post-development

42. Planning and Zoning Induced Growth Technology Land Use Ownership Land Markets Environmental regulations Geography/Topography Economic Conditions Individual Preferences Infrastructure Individuals Private Sector Transportation Local Government Federal Government State Government

43. Induced Growth and Related Projects planned to serve specific land developments Projects planned to stimulate complimentary development Projects that influence intra-regional location decisions

44. Transportation May Affect Growth: Amount – a change in overall amount (stock) Pace – a change in the rate Location – a change in the direction or location Pattern – a change in the type (density; use) Thinking About – Induced Growth

45. Transportation May Affect Growth: Within Commute-shed Between Commute-sheds Thinking About – Induced Growth

46. Transportation May Affect Sustainability: Fiscal Disparities and Poverty Concentration Socio-Economic and Cultural Polarization Pollution and Human Health Water and Air Quality Jobs – Housing Balance and Human Migration Habitat and Species Historic Sites Thinking About – Induced Growth

47. Transportation May Affect Location Decisions: Economic Accounting Externality Subsidy Tax Thinking About – Induced Growth