Before many major federal projects can be started in the U.S., whether new commercial construction or modification of an existing building to meet wholly different needs, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) often must be completed.
Although less complicated than an environmental impact statement (the EIS is a more detailed and expensive regulatory sibling), the EIA requires examining a project's potential impacts on the natural environment and the people who may live near it.
Some people might consider the EIA just another bureaucratic waste of time. However, spending the energy to perform one can save a lot of effort on the back end of a federal project.
Instead of dealing with potential slowdowns or work stoppages when environmental, cultural, or social impacts are uncovered in the middle of a project, an EIA can help better inform the real estate project's trajectory and be used to avoid a lot of problems.
What is it?
Understanding an environmental impact assessment
EIAs are regularly used in place of the more complicated (and costly) EIS. Both are commonly utilized to better inform interested parties about the effects of a federal project. However, the EIA can be considered a standalone item if the project doesn't pose serious environmental impacts, reducing the time and money involved in such an endeavor.
Agencies can't simply skip an EIA because they think it's unnecessary. The EIA is there to determine what might have a significant impact on the area around the project site. This might include any kind of impact, from upsetting wildlife breeding grounds to disrupting human remains, changing the flow of water, or even destroying the flow of established neighborhoods.
EIAs have been used in the U.S. since the 1960s, but they received formal recognition with the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) now oversees most of the day-to-day work related to NEPA. The CEQ doesn't have enforcement authority, but it can refer violators to the judicial system.
Since its adoption in the U.S., more than 100 nations have set similar standards based on NEPA. Even the United Nations has a guide for best practices in EIAs that attempts to unify the body of worldwide legislation on EIAs into a gold standard.
The stages
Stages of an environmental impact assessment
There are generally seven stages of an EIA. These steps can vary slightly or sometimes take place simultaneously, depending on the specific circumstances involved. But in general, you can expect that each of these stages will be involved in some way in an EIA:
Stage 1: Screening
Not every project will need an EIA, so screening is done prior to investing the labor and time in the assessment. The projects requiring an EIA will vary depending on the country and how much is already known about potential impacts.
Stage 2: Scoping
Generally, an EIA will cover a limited number of key issues developed with input from the public and non-governmental organizations. Scoping will also examine similar activities nearby and their impacts and identify problems that must be addressed before they become roadblocks to success.
Stage 3: Assessment/evaluation
During the evaluation and assessment phase, the goal is to take the scope previously identified and determine the likely magnitude of the impact of each item on the list. If the change to the environment is determined to be unacceptably high, alternative solutions are explored, including (but not limited to) canceling the project.
Mitigation is the primary goal, but if the changes can't be blunted to make the project less impactful to the community or environment, determining early on that the project isn't feasible is better than waiting until significant resources have been dedicated.
Stage 4: Reporting
If the project makes it to the reporting phase without too many serious bumps, the main report is compiled. An environmental management plan (EMP) and a non-technical summary designed for the public are prepared. It's really important this step be done well since it sets up the rest of the process.
Stage 5: Review
At the review stage, everyone gets a say about what's been prepared so far. Anyone who may be affected within the scope of the reporting, including the public or local or national authorities, will be asked to participate in reviewing the quality of the report.
Stage 6: Decision-making
Once the report has been compiled and scrutinized, decisions about how the project should proceed must be made. Relevant authorities will decide whether the project can be accepted as is, whether changes should be made, or whether it should be deferred or rejected entirely. Approvals are often subject to conditions based on the EIA.
Stage 7: Monitoring and compliance
The final stage of any EIA is monitoring and checking for compliance with the conditions outlined in the final approval. When all things are as they should be, this step is useful in understanding how well projections about the project align with reality. Monitoring can also help get ahead of unpredictable changes or unanticipated impacts of the project so they can be addressed quickly.
More strategic
Strategic environmental assessment
In some places, a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is often performed before an EIA, and it has much the same structure. The SEA is often incorporated into a final EIA. SEAs are meant to provide a more strategic overview of policy at both the local and national levels.
An EIA looks at a project and how its effects radiate outward into the environment and culture, while an SEA examines policies and planning and how those influence the whole area. For example, an EIA might investigate how a building near a seal breeding ground will influence seal populations, but an SEA will look at how policies about building near the same breeding grounds could change outcomes.
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The bottom line
An environmental impact assessment can be a vital tool for a federal project, but it also requires significant time and effort to compile and time to get community feedback. Projects that require EIAs may move very slowly, but the hard work is being done ahead of time to avoid potentially costly and disastrous delays later.
