Coordinating and Managing the Environmental Impact Analysis Processes - Environmental Impact Analysis: Process and Methods - page 343

r Includes monitoring requirements to ensure the rules and conditions
are met
r Establishes monetary and sometimes criminal penalties for violations
r In most cases must be periodically renewed or at least reviewed
based on monitoring results
r Ensures environmental protection, usually in a very narrow area,
such as dissolved oxygen levels or square meters of wetlands
resources that can be altered
Some environmental approval programs are resource specific and some
are activity specific, but all are directed at protecting a specific environmen-
tal resource. The Endangered Species Act (7 U.S.C. §136, 16 U.S.C. §1531 et
seq.) and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. §§703-712) are examples
of environmental approvals that are resource specific, and the implement-
ing regulations for such Acts specify the level of effects allowable on these
resources from any proposed action. In contrast, activity-specific permitting
regulations have established through scientific research, engineering feasi-
bility, practicality, or some combination a given intensity level that will not
threaten an environmental resource. The Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §1251 et
seq.), Section 404 is an example of an activity-specific environmental permit-
ting program addressing activities in wetlands. After research, public input,
compromises, and evaluation of practicality, the U.S. EPA and Army Corps
of Engineers who jointly administer wetlands protection under the Act have
established maximum allowable activities affecting wetlands (e.g., square
meters of fill allowed). Similarly the U.S. EPA has established secondary
treatment of municipal sanitary waste as the minimum requirement under
Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (see Section 5.3.3 for a full discussion of
the limitation).
Whether an environmental approval addresses an activity or resource, it is
based on an objective and typically scientific consideration of the resource's
requirements and sensitivity. For example, approval under the Endangered
Species Act is based on research determining the population levels neces-
sary to ensure the species survival and the number of individuals that can be
“taken” without threatening the population. For an individual proposed action,
the information on the local population is developed through a location or
activity-speciic Biological Assessment, but the final approval is also based on
comprehensive research determining sustainable population density, habitat
characteristics, food consumption, nutrition requirements, etc.
The concept of developing standards protective of the environment and then
basing permit approvals on meeting those standards has evolved into an effec-
tive environmental protection system. Many diverse environmental approval
procedures including the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. §300f et seq.), Clean
Air Act (42 U.S.C. §7401 et seq.), Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. §470 et seq.),
and as cited above the Endangered Species Act follow the model to some degree,