Five Step Process for an EIS

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What is the Five Step Process for the Circ-Williston EIS?

1. Scoping

Scoping is the first step in the EIS process.

Scoping is an open process involving the public, communities, concerned organizations, and state and federal agencies. Its purpose is to identify the major and important issues that should be considered in the EIS, including current and future transportation problems. Scoping also identifies possible options for addressing transportation problems, which should be studied in the EIS. The result of this phase is a Scoping Memorandum that records and responds to all comments and serves as the work plan for the EIS. Public and agency involvement will continue throughout the EIS process.

The process for the Circ-Williston EIS went well beyond the single scoping meeting required by federal regulations. Three public scoping open houses were held to provide an opportunity for the public to learn about the EIS study and share their views on the study and the issues and transportation alternatives it should consider. VTrans and FHWA are also meeting with a state and federal inter-agency group and developed a cooperating agency agreement to provide input during scoping and subsequent phases of the study. Major goals of scoping included the following:

Determine the scope of work necessary to examine and evaluate significant issues in the EIS;
Define the Purpose and Need of the project in detail;
Establish a long list of transportation improvement alternatives to be considered in the study;
Identify issues that must be studied;
Define the responsibilities of the lead and cooperating agencies in carrying out the NEPA process;
Identify other pertinent environmental review and consultation requirements so that they may be undertaken at the same time as, or integrated with, the EIS
Outline a schedule for preparation of the EIS in relationship to the VTrans/FHWA decision-making schedule.

Documentation of the scoping process, which was completed in 2005, is provided in the Scoping Memorandum.

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2. Screening a Long List of Potential Project Alternatives

The consideration of all reasonable project alternatives is required by National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and provides opportunities to avoid environmental impacts. At the same time, all of the alternatives must meet the Purpose and Need of the project.

The purpose and need statement describes the basis for undertaking a project with taxpayers' money. The purpose describes the objectives of the project: what problem or problems will the project solve? The need explains the current issues driving the project: what are the safety, economic, and/or operational issues in the current situation? A clear purpose and need statement explains why the expenditure of funds is necessary and worthwhile.

After the purpose and need statement has been defined, project alternatives can be developed to address the project objectives. If an alternative does not meet the project purpose and need, or if it is clearly not feasible or has clearly unacceptable impacts, it is dropped from further consideration. If an alternative contributes to the project’s purpose and need but is not in itself sufficient to meet these objectives, it may be retained and combined with other potential alternatives; an example might be pedestrian and bicycle improvements.

For the Circ-Williston EIS a long list of transportation concepts received initial (qualitative) transportation screening to eliminate concepts that clearly do not meet purpose and need. Some concepts which have merit but which do not in themselves meet purpose and need were reserved for later consideration. The remaining concepts were organized into preliminary transportation alternatives and assessed in greater detail using quantitative methods. This assessment considered both transportation performance measures (how well the preliminary alternatives meet transportation needs) and environmental performance measures (how they affect communities, cultural resources, and the natural environment). The result of screening is a short list of alternatives for detailed analysis in Step 3.

The project purpose and need drives the alternatives analysis, impact analysis, and ultimate selection of a transportation alternative. Council of Environmental Quality regulations require that an EIS consider the "no-action" (also called “no-build”)alternative as well as “action” or “build” alternatives, and requires evaluation of “all reasonable alternatives." The Circ Williston EIS will therefore consider a broad range of alternatives identified during scoping as the first step in project planning.

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3. Analyzing Environmental Impacts of a Short List of Potential Project Alternatives

The short list of project alternatives identified through the screening process were studied in detail in the Draft EIS (DEIS). These alternatives were subject to the intensive studies defined by project scoping and carried out within the framework of NEPA and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) guidelines for an EIS. The impact analysis covered direct impacts, indirect impacts, construction-period impacts, and cumulative impacts of the project on the environment. Cumulative impact analysis considered the project in combination with all other planned or foreseeable projects; in the case of Circ-Williston, improvements outside the project area such as Circ-Colchester were part of the cumulative analysis.

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4. Preparation of the Draft EIS

The FHWA has well-established guidelines for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act in terms of both process and content of the EIS document. These guidelines include a detailed outline of topics that form the sections of the EIS. As noted under Scoping, the intent of NEPA is to focus on significant issues and avoid detailed study of topics having no issues or impacts. Therefore, the actual contents of the DEIS and amount of detail provided under each topic will vary greatly with each project. The content of a “typical” EIS, however, is presented below, as outlined in the FHWA Technical Advisory T 6640.8A (October 30, 1987), Guidance for Preparing and Processing Environmental and Section 4(f) Documents.

These contents show the large span of resource topics and considerations normally evaluated in an EIS associated with FHWA-funded transportation projects. The contents also reflect the numerous mandates of NEPA – to identify the project purpose and need, to consider alternatives, to evaluate a range of impacts, to integrate regulatory coordination within the document, to include comments identified by stakeholders, and to inform officials and citizens of the project.

The DEIS is available for review in the documents section of the website.

Typical Contents of EIS Documents under FHWA Regulations

A. Cover Sheet
B. Summary
C. Table of Contents
D. Purpose of and Need for Action
E. Alternatives
F. Affected Environment
G. Environmental Consequences

1. Land Use Impacts
2. Farmland Impacts
3. Social Impacts
4. Relocation Impacts
5. Economic Impacts
6. Considerations Relating to Pedestrians and Bicyclists
7. Air Quality Impacts
8. Noise Impacts
9. Water Quality Impacts
10. Permits
11. Wetland Impacts
12. Water Body Modification and Wildlife Impacts
13. Floodplain Impacts
14. Wild and Scenic Rivers
15. Coastal Barriers
16. Coastal Zone Impacts
17. Threatened or Endangered Species
18. Historic and Archeological Preservation
19. Hazardous Waste Sites
20. Visual Impacts
21. Energy
22. Construction Impacts
23. Relationship of Local Short-term Uses vs. Long-term Productivity
24. Irreversible and Irretrievable Commitment of Resources

H. List of Preparers
I. List of Agencies, Organizations and Persons to Whom Copies of the Statement are Sent
J. Comments and Coordination
K. Index
L. Appendices

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At the Draft EIS stage, the results of the detailed impact studies are compared to each other and to the no-action alternative. As the DEIS presents the results of the detailed impact analyses for each alternative, it also provides a framework to make these comparisons. The DEIS therefore provides the necessary information for the next step in project decision-making, to be expressed in the Final EIS (FEIS): identifying a preferred alternative.

Once compiled and approved by FHWA, the DEIS document is filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Federal Register publication and copies are distributed and made available to federal, state, and local agencies, private organizations, and members of the public. A minimum 45-day comment period follows, during which any party may submit comments. Toward the beginning of the comment period, a public hearing is scheduled, at which comments can be submitted in hand-written and/or verbal formats.

The extent and nature of the comments received on the DEIS will drive the level of effort and areas of focus of the next stage of NEPA documentation, the FEIS. Comments may reveal the need for new or clarifying information and/or may bring to light new issues that were not identified in the DEIS but that need to be addressed to fully understand the project’s effects on the environment.

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5. Response to Comments and Preparation of Final EIS (FEIS) With Preferred Alternative

The FEIS provides detailed responses to the public and agency comments received on the DEIS, corrections and clarifications to the information presented in the DEIS and the results of new and revised analyses conducted since the publication of the DEIS. The FEIS also identifies and explains the rationale for VTrans and FHWA’s Preferred Alternative. The Preferred Alternative for the Circ-Williston Transportation Project is a modified version of the Circ A/B Alternative 17 (Circ A/B Boulevard) analyzed in the DEIS. The Preferred Alternative would be located primarily within the existing Circ A/B corridor right-of-way acquired in the early 1990’s. The Preferred Alternative design involves a trumpet interchange with I-89 in Williston, signalized intersections with U.S. 2 and Mountain View Road, and a connection to VT 289 and VT 117 in Essex. The Preferred Alternative would feature two travel lanes in each direction, separated by an 8 to 16 foot wide raised median. The speed limit on the new roadway would be 40 mph, minimizing noise and other community character impacts for adjacent residential areas in Williston.

The FEIS is available here. Comments may be submitted by August 27, 2010.

Distribution of the FEIS is followed by a minimum 30-day review period, after which the ultimate decision about the future of the project can be made. This decision is set forth in a Record of Decision (ROD) by the FHWA. The ROD explains the reasons for the project decision, based on the information contained in the EIS.

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