Multilevel Environmental Impact Analysis - Environmental Impact Analysis: Process and Methods - page 237

federal agencies have modified their approach to NEPA. If an action is strictly
under the jurisdiction of federal agencies, such as significant agency action
on a military base or in a national forest, the federal agency still conducts
the environmental analysis and only seeks comments from the state. If the
action has both substantial federal and state involvement and approval, a
jointly prepared piggyback environmental analysis is conducted to simulta-
neously meet state and federal requirements.
However, in states with strong environmental analysis requirements and
if the action requires state approval or has substantial state participation in
addition to federal agency involvement, the agency often defers to the state
programs. In such cases, it is not unusual to have only a single environmen-
tal analysis conducted under the state program. This involves early coordi-
nation between the state and federal agencies and a documented decision by
the federal agency that they will participate in the process and that the com-
pliance with the state program will meet NEPA requirements. This approach
would typically apply if a federal agency provided a portion of the funding
or a federal permit was required, but it was only a minor aspect of the overall
program.
The Boston Harbor Cleanup (discussed in Section 5.3.5, Section 6.3.1, and
Section 10.1) represents the maturing of the state program and state/federal
coordination efforts for environmental impact analysis. For the first environ-
mental analysis, there was only a federal EIS, which in essence directed the
state on what had to be done for the cleanup. For the follow-up tiers, there
were separate documents prepared under the Massachusetts Environmental
Policy Act (MEPA; see Section 8.6.1) by the Massachusetts Water Resources
Authority (MWRA), the state agency implementing the cleanup and under
NEPA by the U.S. EPA (the federal agency permitting the wastewater dis-
charge). Initially, there was substantial friction between the two agencies
and environmental analyses, but over time as they worked together with
weekly coordination meetings, there was productive and eventually even
enthusiastic cooperation. During later actions in the Boston Harbor Cleanup,
there were single piggyback environmental evaluations carried out jointly
by the state and federal agencies.
The coordination continued to mature and climaxed for the final phase
of the comprehensive Boston Harbor Cleanup, the combined sewer over-
flow (CSO) program. Much of the Boston metropolitan area had combined
storm and sanitary sewers, which worked well in small perception events
when the rain water or snow melt was conveyed to the wastewater treat-
ment plant. However, during large rain or snow events, the combined sew-
ers exceeded capacity, and the combined runoff and raw sewage overflowed
to Boston Harbor and its tributaries. It was most complicated and difficult to
address the Boston Harbor pollution problems and required a lengthy and
iterative process. The U.S. EPA recognized the complexity of the problem
and potential solutions and felt their joint or duplicative environmental
analysis could be a counterproductive complicating factor. Thus based on