Overview and Initiating the Environmental Impact Analysis and Assessment - Environmental Impact Analysis: Process and Methods - page 114

they would not want to ignore an area of impact during the preparation of the
draft environmental impact analysis only to have to come back at a later and
inopportune time. It is the environmental analysis team's and each practitio-
ner's challenge to understand the stakeholders concerns, evaluate the poten-
tial for impact, and digest the scoping input. They then must apply what
they have learned, their wisdom, and experience to first identify each issue,
concern, and each environmental resource at risk. Next they must locate it on
the continuum of exclusion to detailed analysis to determine what should be
addressed in the environmental analysis and to what level of detail.
If approached with the wrong attitude and/or ulterior motives, scop-
ing can be counterproductive by delaying, convoluting, and unnecessarily
complicating the environmental analysis process (Snell and Cowell 2006).
Problems can arise from either side of the table: the proponent of the pro-
posed action or the potentially affected stakeholders. Fox and Murphy (2012)
identify several breaches in sincerity that can inhibit successful scoping, par-
ticularly social scoping (see Section 4.3.2 for a discussion of social scoping):

r Primarily by the public stakeholders including
- Lying regarding existing conditions or impacts from similar
activities
- Manipulation of alternatives ranking through public input to
identify the preferred alternative
r Primarily by the project, plan, and policy proponent including
- Breaking promises

- Inviting public participation with little or no intention of incor-

porating the input received

- Soliciting input that is not meaningful to create the false impression

of cooperation

If the entity proposing the action is not committed to the scoping process
and unwilling to legitimately consider stakeholder input in exchange for their
commitment to participation, the stakeholders' retribution can be detrimental
(Mulvihill 2003). Similarly if the potentially affected stakeholders use the scop-
ing process to delay or add layer upon layer and issue upon issue to the analysis
process just because of their opposition, the effort can be counterproductive.
Because of the fear of these potential pitfalls, there is frequently reluctance from
both parties to engage in more than the minimum required scoping.
However, experience has shown that in many cases if there are counter-
productive forces at play, such as extreme and self-serving opposition or
commitment by project proponents to move forward regardless of the facts,
it will surface at some point in the process. Ignoring them during scoping
does not necessarily make them go away but more likely just delays their
exposure. If the disruption occurs during the comment period on the draft
analysis or worse at the litigation phase, the delays and complications can