Cumulative impacts in environmental assessments: How well are they considered?
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States). Energy Division
- Miami Univ., Oxford, OH (United States). Inst. of Environmental Studies
The usual reason for preparing an environmental assessment (EA) is to ``provide sufficient evidence and analysis to determine whether to prepare a finding of no significant impact or an environmental impact statement`` (40 CFR 1508.9). Significant impacts may result from direct, indirect, or cumulative impacts. Thus, in addition to assessing direct and indirect impacts, EAs should give enough evidence and analysis to determine whether or not the action contributes to a cumulatively significant impact. Consideration of cumulative impacts in NEPA documents in general, and EAs in particular, is less fully developed than consideration of impacts resulting solely from the proposed action. The authors analyzed 89 EAs to determine the extent to which their treatment of cumulative impacts met the requirements of 40 CFR 1508. Only 35 EAs (39 %) mentioned cumulative impacts. Of these, 8 stated that there were no cumulative impacts without supporting evidence; 5 identified a potential for cumulative impacts and concluded they were insignificant but presented no evidence or analysis to support the conclusion; 19 addressed cumulative impacts of some resources but not others; and 18 EAs identified past, present, and future actions that could, with the proposed action, contribute to cumulative impacts, but only actions of a similar type were identified, usually those in the agency`s area of responsibility. The paper presents several recommendations: (1) Past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions that could affect resources affected by the proposed action should be identified at the same time as, and listed with, the proposed action. (2) For each resource, the discussion of cumulative impacts should follow immediately after the discussion of direct impacts to that resource. (3) Conclusions about cumulative impacts should be supported by data and analyses. (4) Agencies need a central review function to ensure the quality of their EAs.
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 31819
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Professional, Journal Name: Environmental Professional Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 17; ISSN 0191-5398; ISSN EPROD9
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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