TtEC assisted multiple federal and state agencies to prepare all components of a joint federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) led this initiative, along with support from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Forest Service (FS), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection was the state’s lead agency, supported by the Resources Agency, California Department of Fish and Game, and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board. The EIS / EIR involved the protection of the last remaining old-growth redwood trees in private ownership with a land exchange, a sustained yield plan, and a multi-species habitat conservation plan. This multifaceted project was extremely controversial, receiving intensive scrutiny from environmental groups, the media, and the public because of the many sensitive issues involved. Major issues included hydrology, water quality, landscape stability, soils, riparian zones, herbicides, and forest vegetation, particularly relative to aquatic and terrestrial habitat and the effects on numerous threatened and endangered species. Though the main project area covered 210,000 acres in northwestern California, the land and asset exchange components involved National Forest System lands throughout the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains and oil and natural gas reserves in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys.

TtEC was responsible for all aspects of issue identification, alternative development, an analysis of all public comments, and the production of a scientifically credible and procedurally correct NEPA / CEQA document. More than 4,000 public comments were evaluated during the scoping period and 17,000 comments were processed on the Draft EIS / EIR. TtEC prepared the detailed CEQA mitigation and monitoring plan which integrated the full range of permitted actions, habitat types and potential effects. In addition, we evaluated the effects on land use, visual resources, community economic viability and cultural resources. Finally, we conducted an extensive geographic information system (GIS) analysis using a variety of private, FS, FWS, BLM and research GIS databases.

Project Highlights

• Prepared final EIS / EIR under severe time constraints
• Responded to over 17,000 public and agency comments in 6 weeks
• Integrated disparate views of participating agencies into a cohesive EIS / EIR
• Supported data and analyses for evaluating the habitat conservation plan and preparing biological opinions