Welcome to District 12 Orange County

The goals of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are to assure that governmental actions or activities promote the general welfare, to allow people and nature to live in productive harmony, and to fulfill the social, economic, and environmental require-ments of present and future generations. Under CEQA, an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is pre-pared when a project may have impacts to the environment that cannot be mitigated below the thresholds of significance. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is prepared under NEPA to address the envi-ronmental impacts which are likely to result from implementation of the Federal action and to consider reasonable mitigation for adverse impacts. The DEIR/EIS is distributed to the public, potentially affected agencies, and other interested parties. Following an opportunity for the public, agencies, and interested parties to comment, a Final EIR/EIS (FEIR/EIS) would be prepared, which incorporates responses to all comments received and identifies the lead agency's Preferred Alternative.

Although CEQA and NEPA share many similarities, there are differences between them that would have to be satisfied for this joint environmental document. CEQA has thresholds of significance, to be used as bases for determining mitigation. NEPA determines level of significance based on context and intensity. Under NEPA, all impacts are discussed regardless of any thresholds amount and include mitigation measures where reasonable.

This DEIR/EIS is organized in a manner that satisfies both CEQA and NEPA regulations. The "Summary of Impacts Table (S.5-1)" in the Summary (S.0) section describes the impacts to environmental resources for each alternative (No Build, TSM/Expanded Bus Service, Full Build and Reduced Build). The "Impact" and "Mitigation" columns in the Summary of Impacts Table discuss environmental issues to comply with CEQA and NEPA. The "Level of Significance after Mitigation (CEQA only)" column discusses specifically the level of significance for CEQA compliance. Section 4.0, titled "Environmental Consequences", is di-vided into fifteen subsections, one for each affected environment such as air quality, cultural resources, and hazardous waste. This section discusses impacts to environmental resources for all alternatives un-der consideration and describes mitigation measures. Under each subsection, there are separate dis-cussions on level of significance for the CEQA process.