Conducting the Environmental Impact Analysis and Assessment - Environmental Impact Analysis: Process and Methods - page 226

r Since known and proven methods are part of the proposed action,
the uncertainty regarding anticipated consequences is low.
r Impacts to critical environmental resources are avoided.
r As discussed in great detail in Chapter 6, unnecessary and repetitive
environmental analysis and documentation inefficiently expending
scarce environmental protection resources is avoided.

5.5 Long-Term Productivity, Irreversible Commitment

of Resources and Cumulative Impacts

Early environmental analysis regulations attempted to provide some
detailed guidance, because at that time there was no collective experience in
conducting impact assessments. Most of the guidance provided has proved
very successful and established a base procedure, which subsequently has
been enhanced reflecting research and experience. However, some of the
guidance provided in NEPA (Sec. 102 [42 U.S.C. §4332]) has proven to be
cumbersome at best:

r The relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment
and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity
r Any irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources that
would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented

After years of attempting to understand and then comply with these man-
dates, many environmental practitioners finally realized that these require-
m e nt s r e pr e s e nt e d a n e f f of r t by t h e d r a f t e r s of N E PA t of e n s u r e a c of m pr e h e n s ive
and interdisciplinary environmental analysis. It was the drafter's attempt to
expand, rather than limit the analysis so that it was not short sighted chrono-
logically or limited in terms of the environmental resources considered. Most
environmental analysis practitioners now agree that a thorough analysis
properly planned and conducted addresses the intent specified by the two
ambiguous requirements listed above, and a separate and distinct analysis
of “relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the
maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity” and “irreversible
and irretrievable commitments of resource” does not serve any purpose.
Cumulative impacts are another concern addressed in the early environ-
mental regulations (CEQ regulations §1508.7; see Chapter 2, Section 2.3 for a
discussion of the regulations) which defined cumulative impacts as:

“… impact on the environment which results from the incremental
impact of the action when added to other past, present and reasonably
foreseeable future actions….”