Why Environmental Reviews Are Slowing Down Big Projects

M II A II R II K · #1 Posted: **Jul 4, 2012, 5:01 PM**

Why Environmental Reviews Are Slowing Down Big Projects

Jul 02, 2012

By Nate Berg

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...projects/2443/

PDF Report: http://www.rpa.org/library/pdf/RPA-G...ture-Going.pdf

Quote:

Building major infrastructure projects takes a long time. Not just because they're big, but also because their potential impact on the environment is big. And according to a new report, the time it takes to get projects like bridges and highways through the environmental review process has grown longer and longer over time.

- The National Environmental Policy Act was made law in 1969. In the 1970s, it took an average of 2.2 years for a highway project to complete the environmental impact statement required by NEPA. By 2011, the average time was 8.1 years. NEPA itself has been ostracized by many over the years for bogging things down. But it's not simply the law that's to blame for these growing delays, according to this new report from America 2050, the national infrastructure planning and policy program of the Regional Plan Association. Rather, it's the uneven implementation practices of state and federal agencies that unnecessarily prevent the process from running as smoothly as it could.

- According to the panel of experts America 2050 convened to discuss the subject, "many of these delays can be attributed to a lack of communication and consensus in the pre-NEPA planning stage, administrative process bottlenecks, project management failings, or a lack of capacity among the agencies involved in the process." So, while discussions about expediting project delivery often begin with changing the NEPA law, in reality, rewriting NEPA would likely undermine environmental protections and fail to address root causes of delay. Instead, reforming the internal administrative policies, procedures, and practices currently in place to follow the NEPA law has the potential to shorten project delivery timelines while maintaining the strong environmental protections that NEPA established. Even greater efficiency can be achieved by integrating environmental reviews with state and metropolitan planning requirements into a more cohesive project development process.

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SnyderBock · #2 Posted: **Jul 5, 2012, 9:27 PM**

RTD-Denver completes most of their EIS and EE's in 2-4 years. 8 years seems ridiculous, unless the EIS is completed, but a few years go by before funding is secured and thus the EIS has to be updated, because of the passage of time. DOT has honored RTD-Denver for their efficient, detailed, well organized and well executed EIS's. Could it be that many transit agencies and highway departments across the country, are not executing the EIS process efficiently enough?

mhays · #3 Posted: **Jul 5, 2012, 9:36 PM**

My city is also much faster. I don't understand this stuff at all, but I think states that meet the right standard can have their own EIS processes that supercede the federal process. And projects might be able to pay for expedited review, much as private projects can. Or something like that, maybe.

mthd · #4 Posted: **Jul 6, 2012, 3:22 AM**

there should be a serious review for highway projects. they have serious impacts which have historically been (massively) understated or ignored. perhaps if the true impacts of urban highways had been analyzed in the 50s we wouldn't have carved up entire cities with concrete.

what is unfortunate is that relatively simple projects get caught up in the same lengthy process.

it would be interesting to see what the average time for an EIS (or an EIR in California) on a mass transit project is. i'd suspect it's more like 2-3 years.

SnyderBock · #5 Posted: **Jul 8, 2012, 9:36 AM**

well, I guess projects which use existing ROW, or which reconstruct rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, will no longer be required to conduct an EIS at all. It's a new provision added in the transit bill. So I guess a highway constructed before extensive environmental reviews were done, can now be reconstructed, without an environmental review. So potentially, the mistakes made the first go around, can be made again? It's almost a crime.

Nexis4Jersey · #6 Posted: **Jul 8, 2012, 10:25 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

well, I guess projects which use existing ROW, or which reconstruct rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, will no longer be required to conduct an EIS at all. It's a new provision added in the transit bill. So I guess a highway constructed before extensive environmental reviews were done, can now be reconstructed, without an environmental review. So potentially, the mistakes made the first go around, can be made again? It's almost a crime.

What about all the Restored Railway projects , they shouldn't be forced to do another review...after a certain amount of years...

bunt_q · #7 Posted: **Jul 8, 2012, 12:54 PM**

I think some of the speed of the EIS process in Colorado can me attributed to our reluctance (fear?) of doing anything remotely controversial. Take the I-70 mountain corridor, for example. As soon as we stop doing these reports for fun, and decide to select a preferred alternative we actually intend to build, it'll slow down big time. When you let community groups decide the preferred alternative through a concensus process (and basically ignore the most controversial highway needs) with cost and constructability as secondary factors...sure, that expedites everything.