Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers February 16, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Section 116 of Pub. L. 108-447, dated December 8, 2004, authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (Corps) participation in construction of the Central City project. A Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) was completed for the Central City Project in Janauary 2006. A Record of Decision (ROD) recommending the Community-Based Alternative and determining it was technically sound and environmentally acceptable was signed by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works (ASA (CW)) on April 7, 2006. An Interim Feasibility Report with Integrated Environmental Assessment (with signed Finding of No Significant Impact) for the Riverside Oxbow Project was approved by the Chief of Engineers on May 29, 2003. An addendum, dated April 2005, was prepared to address comments from the ASA (CW); however, neither construction funding nor authority for implementation of this project has been provided by Congress to date. By letter dated June 22, 2006, the City of Fort Worth requested the Corps to evaluate the potential benefits of merging the Central City Project with the Riverside Oxbow project. They identified potential benefits including greater opportunity for valley storage requirements, increased restoration opportunities, and cost savings. After an initial evaluation, the Corps determined that alternative areas along the West Fork of the Trinity River including areas within the Riverside Oxbow project had the potential to provide the required hydraulic mitigation, provide comparable ecosystem restoration outputs, reduce habitat mitigation requirements, and lower overall project costs. These potential modifications to the projects may be substantial and a supplement to the Central City environmental impact statement should be prepared concurrently with a more detailed analysis. Therefore, this Notice of Intent to prepare Supplement No. 1 to the FEIS for the Central City project is being issued in accordance with the Council on Environmental Quality's NEPA implementing regulations at 40 CFR Parts 1500-1508.