Establishing an appropriate baseline for assessing environmental impacts
An important consideration in assessing environmental impacts for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is to establish a baseline from which to evaluate potential changes associated with a proposed action. For some assessments, establishment of the baseline is straightforward because the proposed action is located in an undeveloped area which has been negligibly affected by human activity. For other assessments, however, the baseline may be more difficult to determine because the proposed action may occur in an area where human activities have affected the environment and, in essence, have established a new (and often changing) baseline. Frequently, appreciable degradation has occurred on the proposed site itself. For such cases, the question arises as to whether the unperturbed condition or the present condition is more appropriate to use as the baseline. This paper argues that a proposed action in a previously disturbed area should not be assessed merely in relation to the new baseline. Rather, a more comprehensive evaluation should be given that compares potential environmental effects with both the unperturbed condition and the present condition and consequently presents a more balanced approach to the assessment. Furthermore, the sponsoring federal agency should take the opportunity offered by the proposed action to improve the environment by shifting the affected area back toward its natural unperturbed condition. mitigation measures should be examined to achieve this goal. A NEPA case study is presented in the paper to support this viewpoint.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-96OR22464
- OSTI ID:
- 486038
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9705100-3; ON: DE97006318; TRN: 97:003963
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 22. annual conference of the National Association of Environmental Professionals, Orlando, FL (United States), 19-23 May 1997; Other Information: PBD: 22 May 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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