The Caltrans District 3 Regional ACEC Meeting was held via Webex Thursday October 6 at 10 am. Our first presenter was Gary Arnold, Caltrans Branch Chief over Local Development Review, Equity and System Planning (LDR). LDR reviews local plans, projects, and programs to identify if there are any adverse impacts on the State Highway System. Gary explained that the following Federal, State, Local and Tribal projects are reviewed by LDR:

• Subdivisions of Land
• Commercial, including Casino Resorts
• Residential
• Industrial
• Schools and Offices
• Utility Lines
• General, Specific, & Community Plans
• Agricultural, including Forestry & Timber Operations
• Local Agency Formations & Annexations

LDR focuses on safety, significant increases in vehicle miles traveled, accessibility and equity, access management issues, stormwater and right of way issues. Gary stressed the importance of early consultation to develop a partnership-based approach, resolve issues early and avoid unnecessary delays. Communication can be sent to the District 3 LDR at  D3.Local.Development@dot.ca.gov. Gary Arnold can be reached at Gary.Arnold@dot.ca.gov & the other LDR Lead, Sukhi Johal, can be reached at sukhi.johal@dot.ca.gov.

The second presentation was by Kelly Dunlap and Kelly Hobbs on the improvements being made to streamline the Environmental Process. Details of the NEPA process improvements can be found: https://dot.ca.gov/programs/environmental-analysis/standard-environmental-reference-ser/policy-memos  Some highlights from topics include:

• NEPA Environmental Assessments with limited build alternatives and potentially significant environmental impacts can utilize the Streamlined Environmental Assessment template (the end result will be much more concise Environmental Assessments that take less effort to prepare and review).
• Environmental documents requiring HQ review will now be reviewed simultaneously by the District and HQ to reduce time, rather than District review followed by HQ review. One set of comments will now be provided. The District and HQ will work together to resolve comments that are inconsistent between the two groups.
• In certain situations, Caltrans will not require the Biological Opinion (BO) prior to the environmental document.  This change is based on agencies requiring design that often gets developed at later stages of the project. The final environmental document should identify the species determinations (e.g. may affect, not likely to adversely affect).
• For Section 7 Consultation: Projects that meet certain criteria may only be required to prepare a Natural Environmental Study or a Biological Assessment.  Projects will not always need to prepare both documents to support consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Not all projects will need to obtain federal Species Lists. Also, certain projects with limited to no ground disturbance can prepare a “No-Effect Memo” for biological compliance rather than a Natural Environment Study.
• The Categorical Exclusion checklist is no longer needed.

Future improvements to the process include a new PES form that will be piloted next year, there is a potential for the PES process to be tied to an agency certification process. Caltrans is also exploring a process that will streamline the process between the PES & Categorical Exclusion.

Each District has a Policy and Training Coordinator to provide assistance. For District 3 these are:  Quint Chemnitz: quint.chemnitz@dot.ca.gov & Lupe Jimenez: Lupe.Jimenez@dot.ca.gov. The District 3 Environmental Branch Chief is Laura Loeffler: laura.loeffler@dot.ca.gov.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend these meetings. If you are not on the invite for the meeting, but would like to be, please email rgriggs@dokkenengineering.com or howard.michael@aecom.com.