Pilot Testing of the TCAPP Decision Guide and Related Capacity Products: Hoopstick Creek, South Carolina (2014)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Recommendations for SCDOT and Partner Agencies The SCDOT will likely use TCAPP as a guide and resource when looking to advance a project having significant environmental impacts to facilitate interagency coordination and cooperation. One of the most beneficial aspects of the TCAPP tool is the identification of partners and stakeholders who need to be brought together at crucial decision points in the project development and review process. By having the necessary partners communicating and discussing the project concerns, the SCDOT feels that progress can be made in the regulatory agency review and approval process. Based on the participation in the pilot test, the SCDOT and agency partners are considering implementation of the following practices during the environmental permitting process: • Regular ACE meetings will be reinstated. o Ensure that agencies are given adequate time to review materials before meeting. o Ensure information provided is clear and comprehensive. o Schedule site visits, if requested or determined to be necessary. o Potentially use webinar format for agency partners that are unable to attend. • The SCDOT is committed to establishing effective communication regarding permit applications and submittal process for the common goals of o Decreasing repetitive administrative efforts, o Assembling complete applications, and o Maintaining all laws and requirements. • The SCDOT and agency partners will schedule regular meetings to discuss consistent submittal deficiencies, updated requirements, new regulations, and the approval processes. The SCDOT also plans to disseminate information about TCAPP to planning organizations, such as Council of Governments, metropolitan planning organizations, and local transportation planning staff. The SCDOT hopes that exposure to TCAPP will help planning staff recognize how decisions made during long-term transportation planning can influence environmental permitting and NEPA decisions. Once TCAPP is housed under the FHWA, the SCDOT hopes to collaborate with the FHWA South Carolina office in this coordination effort. Recommendations for TCAPP This section of the report more specifically evaluates distinct components or elements within the TCAPP tool that were considered during this test of TCAPP to facilitate environmental approvals for a bridge replacement over Hoopstick Creek. This section was derived from meeting minutes prepared by CBC. 39

Breadth and Depth of Information After the training, SCDOT personnel felt the tool provided valuable resource information, but the breadth and depth of the website were overwhelming. The team understands that the tool’s complexity may be a result of its intended nationwide use, from the federal to local planning levels. The linkages to the Integrated Ecological Framework were unclear and further complicated the website and TCAPP Decision Guide. Team members expressed frustration with the “wordiness” of the website and difficulty in finding information applicable to the project. Recommendation: TCAPP could be more useful and project-specific if an interactive portal was used to lead the team into applicable portions of the TCAPP Decision Guide. Leading questions, such as “Are you new to planning?” could help tailor the level of information based on experience. Questions could also be used to gauge where the project is in the TCAPP Decision Guide process. The team also suggests greater use of explorer or search tools to limit the amount of text on the website. For example, if an experienced practitioner is using the website, definitions could be hidden unless the practitioner clicks on the link or explorer symbol for more information. Requests for greater customization were repeated several times during the pilot project. TCAPP may benefit from additional capabilities to create a project file so that the user can select specific steps needed for their project, identify partners and stakeholders, edit roles, and so on. This type of customization could be used to share information among agencies and document environmental concerns at each step. The project file could be saved and updated as the project progresses and used in future project planning to help identify potential challenges. Marketing the Tool as a Resource TCAPP helped team members see the big picture of how decisions made during long-term planning influence permitting and NEPA decisions. However, the project team encountered some reluctance to apply TCAPP because current methods already work or limited time is available to redesign environmental processes. Members of the project team and partners with extensive experience in transportation planning were not as responsive to TCAPP as those new to the environmental process. Recommendation: During the pilot, several members of the project team said that the TCAPP tool would be best suited for transportation practitioners new to the planning field. Several members of the project team and partners agencies referred to TCAPP as a resource instead of a tool. The project team recommends emphasizing TCAPP’s value as a resource when problems arise or projects stall, with value to even the most experienced practitioner. Application to States without an Environmental Permitting and NEPA Merger Process South Carolina is a state where the NEPA/permitting merger process has yet to be implemented. The Environmental Review/NEPA Merged with Permitting section of the TCAPP Decision Guide is set up to follow the merged process between federal agencies. Therefore, the TCAPP 40

Decision Guide for environmental permitting/NEPA was best fit for the Hoopstick Creek project. It proved to be a challenge to completely follow the TCAPP Decision Guide simply because the project team and partners are not currently set up according to the merger process. The SCDOT and partner agencies had to be creative in the use of the TCAPP Decision Guide to facilitate a fair evaluation of the tool. Steps from the ENV portion of the TCAPP Decision Guide were selected based on their applicability to the categorical exclusion reevaluation and application for a general permit. While the SCDOT and project partners adequately maneuvered through the TCAPP Decision Guide, frustration was expressed by all partners. Because the SCDOT and partner agencies do not follow a merger process, the team expended greater time and effort than expected on deciding which steps to follow, at which time in the project, and on defining partner roles. Recommendation: Using TCAPP without an environmental permitting/NEPA merger process is a challenge. However, the project team found the tool useful and would not deter states without a merger process from using the tool. It would be helpful to have a brief narrative discussion in one of the existing links explaining that the current ENV setup is designed to be used in the merged context but that the TCAPP Decision Guide can also be used when there is not a merged process. The tool could be marketed as a resource to help correlate the permitting and NEPA steps until an official merger process is adopted. Routine Projects The TCAPP tool was helpful in engaging the correct agency at the correct time. The TCAPP Decision Guide also allowed the SCDOT to engage each partner agency for the length of time needed to comment, coordinate, and/or advise. Despite this, the project team felt the level of coordination and meetings to complete ENV-3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 12 was too extensive for a routine project such as the Hoopstick Creek Bridge Replacement. The SCDOT and the partner agencies do not have the personnel or time for face-to-face coordination at the level conducted for the pilot project. The project team realizes that most of this coordination for the steps in the TCAPP Decision Guide would occur via letters, e-mails, and telephone. Recommendation: The TCAPP application is better suited for large projects, such as environmental impact statement (EIS) analysis, than a routine bridge replacement project with a categorical exclusion–level analysis. For this reason, the SCDOT does not anticipate using TCAPP for every project. TCAPP could be customized for application on all classes of action (e.g., categorical exclusion, EA, and EIS). Similar to the tool’s Applications: Special Topics tab, an application could be created to highlight relevant portions of the Decision Guide for each class of action. However, TCAPP should be marketed to emphasize that portions of the Decision Guide are useful and can apply to routine projects. Applying TCAPP to a routine project may identify procedural issues not evident to partners, stakeholders, or practitioners. Even without full applicability of the tool for this pilot project, TCAPP facilitated discussion of project alternatives 41

and impacts among the SCDOT and agency partners. As one agency partner commented, “I did not really get the full use of the tool, but it allowed us to come together and comment.” Other states may benefit from using TCAPP to identify and improve procedures in routine projects, even if the tool is not applied to all projects. Partners Roles A significant portion of the discussion during the first two meetings revolved around TCAPP’s identified partner roles. TCAPP was beneficial in that it required the SCDOT and agency partners to consider what and where their role was in the pilot project. However, agency partners did not understand how they fit within this process, and the definitions were unclear. In some cases, the resource agencies could have participated more as stakeholders, but the SCDOT perceives them as partners. In most cases, the USACE was a decision maker but disagreed that its regulations allowed it to approve a step in the environmental permitting process. For the regulatory agencies, such written approval does not occur until the permit is issued. One agency partner explained that that agency could provide guidance on the purpose and need and alternatives but still deny the permit application. Recommendation: Roles defined by TCAPP are based on standard federal processes; but they may require adjustment to state-specific partner roles as there may not be shared goals among the agencies. The team found it helpful to identify partner roles early in the pilot project and determine how they differed from the TCAPP-designated roles. In many cases, resource agencies were not defined and that generated confusion about partner roles. Non-SCDOT agencies prefer terms such as collaborator, arbitrator, reviewer and/or consultant and negatively received a perception that they had a partner role in a transportation improvement project. Partner Collaboration Assessment The project team and agency partners felt the TCAPP Partner Collaboration Assessment was confusing. The assessment may have been taken too early in the process or not explained with enough detail. Even though the partners at the meeting have worked together extensively in the past, during the first meeting, there continued to be discussion over partner roles and terminology in the tool. Many of the responses were neutral because of the timing of the assessment. This may have contributed to the overall dislike of the assessment. Recommendation: The Partner Collaboration Assessment would have been more useful with enhanced analytic capabilities. For example, instead of taking the assessment as a group or having to manually input results into electronic format, the assessment could be taken by multiple agencies and partners through a website (i.e., similar to Survey Monkey). This would allow instantaneous data interpretation and analysis of collective results. The PDF handout on the website contains errors. The team noted that the questions under Decision-Making Authority are the same as those under Tools and Technology. The small font size makes it difficult to print the assessment and provide it to partners in a meeting setting. 42

The project team reiterates a recommendation from the Minnesota pilot project that the assessment could better adapt results based on specific collaboration ratings. The results and recommendations provide valuable information but do not adjust to the weaknesses and strengths of the particular partners. The assessment results could be improved to identify potential solutions based on the input for the specific user. 43