The Environmental Evaluation

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The Environmental Evaluation

• Where Science and Technology Meets Programs

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• What is the environmental evaluation?
• The part of planning that inventories and
  estimates the potential effects on the human
  environment of alternative solutions to resource
  problems. CFR 650 4(c)

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Science Technology Meets Programs

• Programs
• Planning
• Financial Assistance
• Technical Assistance
• Science Technology
• We need to understand the effects of the actions
  we recommend and fund
• Science-based
• Technology-based tools and products

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Planning

• The environmental evaluation is part of the
  planning process
• Inventory resources Baseline or benchmark
  conditions
• Identify alternatives No action, proposed
  action, others
• Evaluate effects Document them briefly!
• Integrate NEPA Findings

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Productivity Growth in U.S. Agriculture, 1948-96
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U.S. commercial fertilizer use, 1960-98
Million Nutrient Tons
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Conventional pesticide use on major crops, 1964-97
Million pounds of active ingredient
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Financial Assistance

• What are the concerns? Which programs can meet
  that need? Any tradeoffs?
• Irrigation efficiency improvements v. artificial
  wetlands
• Mowing affect nesting birds?
• Does the recommended action meet the intended
  purpose?
• ESA, clean water act or other potential
  violations?

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Objectives of Water Conservation

• Quantity
• Quality
• Timing and In-stream Flows
• Risk Management

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Technical Assistance

• Its just a design!
• Any listed aquatic species going to be disturbed?
• Floodplain functions altered?
• Dont lead a landowner to do inadvertent resource
  damage
• Inventory ALL the resources first not just
  soils/geology
• Assess effects and design to avoid adverse effects

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Science Technology

• Understand the effects of the actions we
  recommend and fund
• Dont just give the landowner what they ask for
• Dont put in a buffer or wildlife feeding plot
  just to meet a goal
• What is the problem that needs to be solved?
• What practice(s) will best address that problem?
• Where should they be located to be most
  effective?

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Science-Based

• Quality Criteria is based on concepts of
• Best available technology and
• Cost efficiency/practicability
• Ecology is the great integrator!
• Changing the landscape by putting in a structure
  or measure may change interactions of humans
  and/or species with each other or with other
  elements of the environment

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Technology-based tools

• Give the field folks tools that make the science
  easy to understand and apply
• They cant be experts in everything!

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Science Technology Meets Programs

• Planning
• Financial Assistance
• Technical Assistance
• Science Technology
• We need to understand the effects of the actions
  we recommend and fund
• Science-based
• Technology-based tools

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State-Of-The-Art
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