How are GMA and SEPA documents combined?
Comprehensive or subarea plans and EISs are the documents most often combined. A community’s unique planning circumstances and timing requirements will influence how this is accomplished. There are a number of options to integrating the GMA and SEPA documents, including preparing the draft plan prior to preparing the draft EIS, and issuing them together with a combined comment period. The most seamless option is to document how environmental values were considered at the time each plan choice (goal, policy, program, strategy, designation, etc.) was formulated and decided. The draft plan and draft EIS are written together and are indistinguishable. Perhaps the simplest and most efficient method of presentation is to weave brief discussions about environmental impacts and alternatives into the plan narrative wherever choices are declared in the plan. Other methods include summarizing environmental issues in each plan element or in a stand-alone environmental chapter. When the GMA documen
Comprehensive or subarea plans and EISs are the documents most often combined. A community’s unique planning circumstances and timing requirements will influence how this is accomplished. There are a number of options to integrating the GMA and SEPA documents, including preparing the draft plan prior to preparing the draft EIS, and issuing them together with a combined comment period.
