Environmental Impact Report
Exercise 3: Environmental Impact Reports Length: 2 page, single-spaced memo Grade: 5% of total course grade Purpose The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has had a profound effect on urban and regional planning in California, in both intended and unintended ways. The purpose of this exercise is for you to go through an actual Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and experience first-hand the challenges of gleaning useful information from its pages. Activities Part 1: See what CEQA processes are going on in your home county (or Yolo County, if you want) by searching the CEQAnet Database (http://www.ceqanet.ca.gov). Click on “advanced search.” Set the date range to cover May of last year through April of this year. Select your county in the dropdown menu under “County,” and hit “submit.” Take a look at the search results. NOTE: CEQAnet only shows you 100 documents. If you’re looking at a big county, use the advanced search option to select the kind of document you’re looking for. a. Notice the Project Titles and Descriptions, but also look at the Lead Agency and the Document Type. b. There are about 20 different document types, but the most common types are: i. Environmental Impact Report (EIR) ii. Supplemental (SIR) or Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SBE) iii. Addendum (ADM) iv. Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) v. Negative Declaration (NEG) vi. Notice of Exemption (NOE) vii. Notice of Determination (NOD) viii. Notice of Preparation (NOP) For this exercise, focus on EIRs, MNDs, NEGs and NOEs. Those are the four document types you will need to know for the quiz. c. Click on one of each type (EIRs, MNDs, NEGs and NOEs) that you can find. Make sure you know what the three-letter code stands for. Scroll down to see what kind of information is provided. Think about why that project has that document type. Do you see any projects that are related to land development? NOTE: The CEQAnet database does not always provide links to the documents listed (and briefly described). To get the actual EIRs, MNDs, NEGs, NOEs and other CEQA documents, you may need to visit the lead agency’s website. For local land use projects, the planning department for the city or county approving the project will usually have a webpage with links to the relevant CEQA review documents, like EIRs. Part 2: Find a Draft EIR (DEIR) to review. See if you can find one for a development project, but don’t agonize about which one. As mentioned, an easy way to find a DEIR is to search the website of your city or county’s planning department to see if they’ve posted EIRs for any current development projects. You could choose a DEIR for a project for the city you chose for Exercise 2, or branch out and pick a DEIR for a project in another city or county. A DEIR for a General Plan update would also work well. NOTE: Final EIRs (FEIR) usually consist of only a list of edits to the Draft EIR and the responsesto the public comments. If you can’t find the DEIR for the project/plan you’ve picked, check to see if the FEIR actually includes the environmental analysis. Look through the DEIR to find the following items. Start with the Executive Summary, but move to the full document as necessary, using the Table of Contents as a guide. a. Who is the lead agency for the project? b. Who prepared the DEIR? (HINT: It is often not the same as the lead agency) c. What is the proposed project and what are its objectives? Summarize them in a short paragraph. (HINT: Look at the project description section, which usually lists the project goals and objectives too) d. Discussion of environmental impacts: which impacts are identified as “significant”? List some of the important ones e. Discussion of mitigation measuresfor significant impacts: what does the DEIR suggest? List one mitigation measure proposed in the DEIR (could be any mitigation measure listed for any significant impact). f. Discussion of alternatives: what alternatives does the EIR consider, other than “no project”? Part 3: Write a memo of no more than 2 single-spaced pages that includes a brief summary of what you found in Part 1 and all of the information requested for Part 2, above. End with a couple of sentences on what you think of the DEIR as a tool for informing decision makers. Include a citation for the DEIR at the end of your memo, with a URL. NOTE: we are looking for professional memos that show that you have taken the exercise seriously and put some thought into your review of the EIR.
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