This Topic: Freeland Sub-Area Plan Environmental Review & Plan Sched

[Bill Frederick]

<b>Freeland Sub-Area Plan Environmental Review<b>

[Your comments to influence this process are solicited. Email or mail them to Roger and/or Greg at the emails at the end below. The earlier you submit the better, because the time crunch increases to complete this project the later you input. If you need further ideas on what to comment on, see our draft list of subjects at <a>http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=adgvqjh8r2nm_8f3twbr<a>.
As part of the planning process, Island County will prepare an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) to evaluate the possible environmental impacts of adoption of the community plan and
designation of a Non-Municipal Urban Growth Area (NMUGA). The EIS will consider the
relative differences between the draft plan prepared by the Freeland Planning Committee, the
current adopted Rural Area of Intensive Development (RAID) designation, and possible new
proposals that emerge from this current 2007 process. The EIS will be integrated with the Plan
into a single document.

State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) Terms

• Action: A legislative or administrative decision – in this case, possible adoption of the
subarea plan and NMUGA by the Board of County Commissioners.

• Determination: A decision by the lead agency that the proposed action may or may not
have “significant adverse” environmental impacts – in this case the County made a
Determination of significance (DS that adoption of the proposal “is likely to have one or
more significant adverse environmental impacts that should be evaluated in an
environmental impact statement (EIS)”.

• Draft EIS (DEIS): A document that includes analysis of probable significant adverse
environmental impacts of a proposal, reasonable alternatives, and possible mitigation
measures to be reviewed by the public for comments on the analysis.

• Final EIS: A second document that includes all of the comments on the DEIS, the lead
agency’s responses, and any corrections to the analysis in the DEIS. The FEIS can also
include a “preferred alternative” that may combine parts of the alternatives that were
evaluated in the DEIS.

• Lead agency: The local agency responsible for the environmental review - in this case,
Island County.

• Mitigation: Mitigation is avoiding, minimizing, rectifying (repairing), reducing, eliminating,
compensating, or monitoring of environmental impacts – in this case, the policies and
strategies of the Plan and related regulations would be intended to mitigate impacts.

• Programmatic EIS: (Also “Non-project EIS”) A more generalized analysis of
environmental impacts addressing the broad range of possible plans, policies or
regulations rather than specific development projects

• Scoping: The initial step in the production of an EIS, where interested agencies, tribes,
and the public have the opportunity to comment on issues to be focused on in the EIS – in
this case, the County identified potential issues in the scoping notice. Additional issues
raised in this current scoping period may add more issues to be addressed.

• SEPA Rules: Chapter 197-11 WAC, the rules adopted by the Department of Ecology to
implement the Act.

• State Environmental Policy Act: Chapter 43.21C RCW

<b>Freeland Sub-Area Plan Schedule<b>

(Note: Dates shown for August, September & October are tentative & subject to change) [Note that the Bar Chart formatting is lost, so what you can see are the Milestone Action (meetings, tasks) dates. Sorry for the loss. The intended formating schedule can be seen at <a>http://www.islandcounty.net/planning/freeland/Schedule%205-24-07.pdf<a>)

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct

Planning Commission Briefing
4/24

Background Review
Open House & SEPA Scoping
5/29

Update Plan & DEIS
Internal Review
Issue Draft Plan & DEIS

Planning Commission Hearing(s)
8/14

Preferred Alternative & FEIS
Commission Recommendation
9/11

State GMA Review

BOCC Hearing
10/8

BOCC Adoption
10/22

On-going community contacts, website
information & BOCC briefings
Roger Wagoner, 206.505.3400, fax 206.505.3406, roger.wagoner@bhcconsultants.com
Greg Waddell, 206.505.2400, fax 206.505.3406, greg.waddell@bhcconsultants.com