Document Review
Description
A Shipley Group consultant will review environmental documentation required for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance to determine analysis sufficiency, efficiency, and logic flow. The consultant will present findings via a 1-day instructor led webinar (virtual classroom) for up to 35 students. The review will provide rationale as to why environmental information that was included may not be relevant or necessary to the decision being made, as well as why any missing environmental information/rationale may be relevant and important in making findings and decisions. This may include:
How proposed action information such as design criteria assumptions, mitigation, timing, and location were presented to adequately identify relevant environmental information,
How the purpose and need affected analysis efficiency,
How environmental effects were identified and analyzed,
How evidence was provided to make logical conclusions to support the findings made for the decision (finding of no significant impact or absence of extraordinary circumstances),
How consistent analyses were with the conclusions made, and
How effectively and efficiently information was structured and presented in the documents
Objectives
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will be able to do the following:
Using agency NEPA documentation requirements, identify the necessary relevant environmental analysis, evidence, rationale and conclusions to adequately support agency findings and decisions for a categorical exclusion, environmental assessment, and finding of no significant impact.
Identify non-required information and documentation strategies to consider for agency efficiency.
Content
We tailor each workshop to meet participant needs. The interactive webinar format includes the following components:
Introduction to the scope of the document review
Introduction to key documentation requirements related to document review findings
Group discussion of review findings and example agency documents and comments
Audience
Participants for this training generally include people who prepare, review, and use NEPA environmental and decision documents.
Process
The agency provides selected environmental and decision documents to be reviewed.
A Shipley consultant will review and comment on the documents to be used during the session and provide the annotated products to the agency before the webinar.
Results of the analysis will be presented in one or more 1-day webinars.
Shipley will provide the review checklist and provide instruction to webinar participants for using the checklist and modifying it for future reviews.
25% Lecture
20% Discussion
55% Exercises
Materials
Participants receive the following:
Workshop manual with a description of the review and findings and the presentation slides
Electronic environmental and decision documents with comments and electronic checklists with comments for each project reviewed
Checklists used to review documents