Environmental Templates - Big Step Forward

“The EA Template was developed as a way to get back to the intent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which is to ‘count what counts’ and to focus on the issues that influence decision-making,” noted Vanessa Henderson, CDOT Environmental Policy & Biological Resources Section Manager, one of the key players in the new template.  “EAs can be very difficult for the public to understand and the EA Template is set up to be reader-friendly by limiting technical jargon and providing the information in a reader-friendly format by using questions and answers and tables.” 

Henderson and Stephanie Gibson, Environmental Manager at FHWA’s Colorado Division, worked together to develop a template to meet regulatory requirements while maintaining a reader-friendly format.  With the assistance of the CDOT transportation project teams for the State Highway 9 Iron Springs project and the US 50 West project, Vanessa and Stephanie were able to pilot test the preliminary template, which helped them modify the templates to produce the best templates possible. 

Chuck Attardo, the Planning and Environmental Manager for CDOT’s Region 1, estimates that the streamlined document saved 4 months on the schedule for the State Highway 9 Iron Springs project, and also saved between $40,000 to $80,000 for that project.   

Three projects have used the EA and FONSI Templates as of early January 2015: 

• SH 9 Iron Springs at Breckenridge, previous CDOT Region 1 (now Region 3);

• US 50 West from Purcell to Wills in Pueblo West, CDOT Region 2; and

• Federal Boulevard between 7th and Howard in Denver, CDOT Region 1. 

On these three projects, EA document size has been reduced by approximately 75%, averaging 57 pages as compared to an average of 162 pages for traditional EAs completed over the past four years. 

For the US 50 West and Federal Boulevard projects, this new format has reduced the amount of time needed to write the main EA document.  Also, the average length of time from project start to the publication of the documents has been reduced from an average of 49 months to 12.5 months – an improvement of approximately 75%.  

This new EA Template is intended to be used for EAs that analyze one build alternative.  When multiple build alternatives need to be analyzed, a more traditional EA format may need to be used.  The FONSI Template may be used by projects that used the EA Template as well as projects using a more traditional EA format. 

“One of the advantages of this template is that it can be modified and adjusted to meet the needs of any project,” Henderson said.  “No two projects are exactly the same, so having this flexibility is important.” 

A similar template was also developed for Documented Categorical Exclusion (CatEx) documents and several projects are in the process of using that template, but none have been completed yet. CatExs are completed for projects that do not involve significant environmental impacts based on past experience with similar projects.  The Documented CatExs were starting to get longer and more complex, so the template is intended to help focus those as well to make them shorter and more reader-friendly. 

There is another benefit besides reduced complexity and reduced review times: ease of understanding for the general public. Improving transparency and ease of comprehension is the goal of any good government body and the new templates help make that possible for everyone involved in the process.   The results have been encouraging and the new templates are likely to be much further utilized in the future.