Republics include provisions respecting the mining and use of mineral resources. (6) The decree will be accompanied by a unified system of governmental registration of reserves. (7) Mining and fabrication methods used until now have greatly disturbed the balance of nature. The reclamation of land for agriculture, forest and fisheries must be undertaken vigorous-

ly. Thereby a certain degree of improve- ment may be achieved with respect to the condition of water tables, and air and water pollution and the dying out of vegetation may be brought to a halt. (8) Institutions at all levels are called upon to implement the decree. Mining officials are empowered to put a stop to mining activities in violation of its

provisions. Labor unions, youth organi- zations, scientific societies and other mass organizations are requested to participate in the decree's implementation. (9) The central characteristic of the decree is its legislative anchoring of principles which specify planned, com- prehensive and rational utilization of mineral resources as the basis of all activities in this field.

The Environmental Impact Assessment Project by JOHN S. WINDER, Jr .*

Dr. Marion Clawson, acting president of Resources for the Future, Inc., re- cently criticized the NEPA process in an article entitled "Ecology: Second Thoughts". Dr. Clawson stated:

Environmental impact statements surely impede public action, whether it be well or ill conceived. They are costly to prepare, are an open invi- tation to lengthy court disputes, and may in time be largely thwarted as public agencies learn perfunctory com- pliance. A sharp check rein upon pub- lic agencies was almost surely necess- ary, but the short-run efficiency of environmental impact statement is low and their long-run effectiveness is, at best, unproven. 1 Notwithstanding such criticism, the

Council on Environmental Quality con- cluded in its annual report for 1974 that:

NEPA is alive and well. It has passed through a transition period, during which agencies have become aware of the act's widespread requirements, and the basic structure of the environ- mental impact statement process has become firmly established. 2 Although NEPA is indeed alive and

well, EIS's can and should be better. For example, CEQ also suggests and predicts that:

Looking ahead at the next few years, the clearest and most probable major advance is likely to be in the quality of environmental analysis contained in impact statements. 3 By early 1973 it was clear that a

critical period in NEPA's history had

* Director, Environmental Impact assess- ment Project, Institute of Ecology, Washington, D.C., USA.

Environmental Policy and Law, I (1975)

been reached. Further progress toward meeting NEPA's objectives would re- quire a substantial and more systematic infusion of scientific expertise and ob- jective analysis into agency decision- making. It was recognized, in particular, that the environmental impact state- ments (EIS's) prepared by federal agen- cies in compliance with the provisions of the Act had been noticeably lacking in completeness and scientific accuracy.

The preparation of satisfactory im- pact statements is central to NEPA's scheme for ensuring that environmental considerations are given adequate weight in federal policy decisions. Initially, only procedural NEPA guidelines were estab- lished. 4 No similar guidelines were devel- oped concerning the substantive content of impact statements.

In July 1973 the Ford Foundation awarded a grant to The Institute of Ecol- ogy to establish the Environmental Im- pact Assessment Project (EIAP). The Pro- ject was designed to: (1) bring agency personnel responsible for preparing im- pact statements into better communi- cation with scientists, and (2) make available to agencies and other interest- ed parties scientific critiques of particu- lar impact statements for important categories of federal projects, such as highways, irrigation and natural re- source development. The broad goal o f the Assessment Project is to improve the federal planning and evaluation pro- cedures mandated by NEPA which re- quires all federal agencies to

utilize a systematic, interdisciplinary approach which will insure the inte- grated use of the natural and social sciences and the environmental de- sign arts in planning and in decision-

making which may have an impact on man's environment, s The Assessment Project has proceed-

ed on the basis of two principal assump- tions: (1) that federal agency and public review processes under NEPA are of critical importance to the preservation and enhancement of environmental quality, and (2) that the environmental impact statement (EIS) process can be improved by the consistent use of scien- tific knowledge and perspective. 6

The EIAP has given its attention to two distinct but overlapping outputs: the primary product of Phase I was the publication of a number of scientific and policy reviews of selected EIS's, and the principal product of Phase II will be the publication of general and specific sub- stantive guidelines for the preparation of EIS's. Phase II is scheduled to be com- pleted by October 31, 1975.

During the initial months of Phase I of the Assessment Project the EIAP s ta f f reviewed a number of EIS's. Each EIS was examined to determine whether: (1) the EIS represented many of the

"major faults found in previous EIS's; "(2) the proposed project or program posed unusually significant adverse en- vironmental impacts; and (3) the pro- posed project was typical of hundreds of similar projects for which EIS's would have to be prepared in the future.

A few EIS's were selected for an in- depth analysis. Subsequently the Assess- ment Project staff assembled interdisci- plinary teams of biological scientists, economists, sociologists, lawyers and others. The review team size ranged from ten to thirty members. In most cases the reviewers were located in an area near the proposed project site. For each of the reviews, one of the reviewers was ap- pointed review team leader. In each case, a draft of the Assessment Project review was submitted to the federal agency which had prepared the EIS within the time permitted for formal comment - usually 60 to 90 days. Subsequently, each review was edited by the review

93

team leaders and the EIAP staff. Six Phase I reviews have been published and widely distributed to federal agencies, universities, industries and private citi- zens. The EIS reviews which were pub- lished ranged in length from 53 to 250 pages.

Reviews of the following environmen- tal impact statements were published by the Assessment Project during Phase I:

Final EIS on the Prototype Oil Shale Leasing Program of the Department of Interior; ~ Draft EIS on the Crow Ceded Area Coal Lease -- Westmoreland Re- sources Mining Proposal o f the Bu- reau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior; 8

Draft EIS on the North Lake Tahoe- Truckee River Basin Wastewater Treatment and Conveyance System of the Environmental Protection Agency ;9

Draft EIS on the Proposed Federal Coal Leasing Program of the Depart- ment of the Interior; 1°

Draft EIS on the Proposed Develop- ment of Coal Resources in the East- ern Powder River Coal Basin of Wyoming of the Department of the interior;X i

Final EIS on the Initial Stage Garrison Diversion Unit of the Bureau of Re- clamation, Department of the In- terior.12 Each of the EIAP reviews concluded

that the environmental impact statements failed to comply fully with either the letter and the spirit of NEPA. Review teams also recommended major revisions, in the form of either a substantially re- vised final EIS or a new draft EIS.

The Assessment Project reviews dealt primarily with three basic types Of issues concerning impact statement preparation: (1) format issues, such as length of the EIS, need for summaries of the EIS, ci- tations to references, maps, charts; (2) analytical issues, such as the assessment methodologies used, magnitude and severity of impacts, mitigation efforts, missing data; and (3) impact issues, as- sessing the consideration of primary and secondary impacts, short- and long-term impacts, ecological and social impacts.

The most consistent recommendation was the use of better ecological analysis for impact assessment. For example, the reviewers of the Federal Coal Leasing EIS noted:

Understanding the relevant ecosys- tem is, or should be, at the heart of any assessment of the environmen-

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tal impacts of coal development. Al- though the EIS contains a fair amount of information concerning the flora and fauna in the coal provinces, it portrays little understanding of eco- system function and even less analy- sis of the relevant impacts of federal coal development on the biota. 13 Similarly, the reviewers o f the Crow

Ceded Area EIS recommended the fol- lowing expanded consideration of soil impacts:

Soil is not a substance that can be stored in a pile while mining goes on and then profitably spread back over the ground. Soil is a living biogeo- chemical substrate composed of partly weathered and stratified min- erals, delicately bound (but not avail- able tO leaching rain waters) and liv- ing or dead organic substances and organisms that participate in the nu- trient cycle between plant and sub- strate. The stratigraphic order of each two to four inch segment of the top foot or more of the soil should be preserved to facilitate reclamation to a stable community, and each must be kept viable. The EIS does not dis- cuss this problem. It has taken at mini- mum ten thousand years for the soil

and its inhabitants to develop in east- ern Montana, and this soil today is still evolving.14

The Assossment Project is currently engaged in Phase II of its work, which is designed to develop and publish substan- tive NEPA guidelines and recommen- dations. This effort is directed both to the improvement o f environmental im- pact statements per se and also to the im- proved use of the EIS in the federal de- cision-making process.

During 1975 the EIAP will conduct a number of workshops with review team members, government agency staff, indus- try representatives and consultants. The Assessment Project plans to develop one set of general NEPA guidelines which will apply to most types of major federal pro- jects and programs and another more de- tailed set of EIS guidelines using western coal development as the object of a case study.

In the final analysis, the EIAP efforts may help answer, in the affirmative, one major, unanswered NEPA question: "whether environmental impact assess- ment can be made, as NEPA's authors en- visioned, an integral part of Government planning rather than after-the-fact justifi- cation,,.l s

References 1 Marion Clawson, Ecology: Second Thoughts, Washington Post, Feb. 28, 1975, at A22. 2 Environmental Quality - 1974 (The Fifth Annual Report of the Council on Environmen-

tal Quality) (U.S. Gov. Printing Office: Washington, D.C., 1974), at 413. 3 Id. at 409. 4 36 Federal Register 7724 - 29, Apr. 23, 1971:38 Federal Register 20550 - 62, Aug. 1,

1973. 5 The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, P.L. 91 - 190, 42 U.S.C. sections

4321 - 47 (1970). 6 J.S. Winder, "Ecological Considerations in the Preparation of Regional Energy Environ-

mental Impact Statements", Proceedings of the Regional Energy Environmental Impact Statement Seminar sponsored by the Denver Federal Executive Board, March 6 - 7, 1975, Denver, Colorado.

7 K. Fletcher and M, F. Baldwin (eds.), A Scientific and Policy Review of the Prototype Oil Shale Leasing Program Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIAP/TIE, Washington, D.C., Oct. 29, 1973), at 105.

8 R. Applegate and M. F. Baldwin (eds.), A Scientific and Policy Review of the Draft Environ- mental Impact Statement: Crow Ceded Area Coal L ease Westmoreland Resourees Mining Proposal (EIAP/TIE, Washington, D.C., Nov. 29, 1973), at 19.

9 R.B. Smythe (ed.), A Scientific and Policy Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Wastewater Treatment and Conveyance System, North Lake Tahoe-Truckee River Basin (EIAP/TIE, Washington, D.C., March 30, 1974). K. Fletcher (ed.), A Scientific and Policy Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Federal Coal Leasing Program (EIAP/TIE, Washington, D.C., 1974), at 4 - 6. J. S. Winder and C. Loehner (eds.), A Scientific and Policy Review of the Draft Environ- mental Impact Statement on the Development of Coal Resources in the Eastern Powder River Coal Basin of Wyoming (EIAP]TIE, Washington, D.C., Aug. 1974), at 8. G. L. Pearson, W. L. Pomeroy, G. A. Sherwood and J. S. Winder (eds.),A Scientific and Policy Review of the Final Environmental Statement for the Initial Stage, Garrison Diver- sion Unit (EIAP/TIE, Washington, D.C., Jan. 1975). A short review of this report was pub- lished in 1 Environmental Policy and Law, 48 (1975). Supraref. t0. at 174. Supra ref. 8, at 22- 23. G. Hifl, Midpoint of "Environmental Decade": Impact of National Policy Act Assessed, New York Times, Feb. 18, 1975, at C1.

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