Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In addition to identifying the issues and level of investigation for the analysis,
the scoping had other important benefits for the process. First it established a
strong working relationship between the project proponent, RWA, and the stake-
holders, some of whom were initially in strong opposition. Working through the
issues in an open forum and mutually addressing some hard questions created
a sense of trust among all parties: between RWA and individual stakeholders
and among various stakeholder groups with competing and conflicting inter-
ests. It also created an atmosphere of team effort to address mutual problems.
The scoping process also created a forum to dispel misconceptions, such
as the initial desire to dredge the lake. During scoping, the dredging pro-
cess was explained, including the adverse and disruptive attributes of the
process and the stakeholders immediately adjacent to the dredging, dredged
material processing sites, and dredged material transport routes were then
allowed to publicly express their concerns, and the attractiveness of dredg-
ing as a lake management alternative was substantially diminished. It also
allowed RWA technical experts to explain in a nonadversarial forum that
dredging was just a temporary solution and the dredged areas would return
to current conditions within a short time due to watershed contributions of
sand and eroded silt from untreated storm water. The final result was that
dredging was not even an alternative carried forward for detailed evaluation
in the environmental analysis. The time and money saved by not addressing
the dredging alternative in detail could then be used productively to develop
alternatives, evaluate impact mitigation, and address stakeholder issues.
The integration of the scoping input into the alternative comparison and
selection was another benefit of the scoping process. As part of the environ-
mental analysis, the impact of each alternative related to each of the 20 issues/
concerns raised during scoping was determined and assigned a relative level
of significance. When the level of significance was combined with the rela-
tive importance defined by the stakeholder survey and then summed for each
alternative in a decision algorithm, each alternative had an impact score. The
alternatives could then be ranked based on the impact score, which was the
major factor in the selection of an alternative as the proposed action. The result
was dredging was least preferred, primarily because it ranked very poorly
on the top issues such as bird habitats, wildlife habitats, and impacts during
construction. In contrast, the alternative of minimizing lake sedimentation by
controlling and treating storm water runoff in the watershed ranked highly
because of the advantages to the top ranked issues and concerns. Since the
stakeholders had been the primary participants in determining the ranking,
they fully understood and supported the selection process and the proposed
action. As a result of the study, storm water management facilities were con-
structed over time, which addressed the major concerns of the stakeholders,
such as:
r Creating wildlife habitats because they are natural treatment facili-
ties utilizing wetland plants
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