Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers March 3, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) is being prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations (40 CFR, 1500-1517), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) implementing regulation, Policy and Procedures for Implementing NEPA, Engineer Regulation (ER) 200-2-2 (1988). The study is being conducted in accordance with the requirements of 36 CFR 327.30, dated July 27, 1990 and ER 1130-2-406, dated October 31, 1990. The EA will evaluate potential impacts (beneficial and adverse) to socioeconomic conditions, cultural and ecological resources, recreation, aesthetics, infrastructure, lake water quality, terrestrial and aquatic fish and wildlife habitats, federally-listed threatened and endangered species, and cumulative impacts associated with past, current, and reasonably foreseeable future actions at Beaver Lake. Following the public scoping period and after consideration of all comments received during scoping, USACE will prepare a Draft EA. The Draft EA will be made available for public review and comment. Based on the EA analysis, USACE will either issue a Finding of No Significant Impact or announce its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS). If USACE determines that an EIS is needed, either during preparation of the EA or after completing the EA, USACE will issue in the Federal Register a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an EIS. In that case, the current scoping process would serve as the scoping process that normally would follow an NOI to prepare an EIS. USACE would not solicit additional scoping comments but would consider any comments on the scope of the EA received during this scoping process in preparing the EIS.