The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is often associated with documents such as Categorical Exclusions (CEs), Environmental Assessments (EAs), and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), but successful environmental review involves more than producing a NEPA document.
It requires coordination among project teams, environmental specialists, agencies, stakeholders, and, when applicable, the public.
Beginning those conversations early, before project schedules become compressed, gives teams an opportunity to establish responsibilities, identify information gaps, and understand how individual environmental tasks connect to the overall project.
Understanding Parallel Regulatory Processes
A NEPA document brings together information from different technical disciplines to support the broader environmental review and evaluate a project’s impacts on natural, cultural, and socioeconomic resources.
Project teams often underestimate the importance of starting parallel regulatory processes early.
For example, coordination under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act or Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act may need to begin before the NEPA review process itself.
Understanding these requirements during early project planning can help teams identify necessary coordination activities and incorporate them into project schedules.
Make Environmental Coordination Part of the Plan
Environmental planning should be viewed as a core component of project planning and development, not a separate step that follows later.
Early environmental screening, solicitation of stakeholder and agency feedback, and coordination can improve decision-making and reduce uncertainty throughout the project lifecycle.
Bringing NEPA and environmental professionals into the conversation early helps identify potential constraints, inform project decisions, and reduce the risk of unexpected issues that create schedule pressures and costly delays later in the process.
EnviroScience’s multidisciplinary team provides pre-NEPA environmental planning, feasibility studies, NEPA reviews and environmental impact assessments, biological surveys, stream and wetland delineations, regulatory compliance, permitting, and other natural, cultural, and socioeconomic resource services to support projects from early planning through environmental review.
Have projects on the horizon? Contact EnviroScience to discuss how early NEPA and environmental planning can help your team prepare for the work ahead.
Part 4 of 4 in EnviroScience’s NEPA Planning Series.
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