Share your ideas for improving Minnesota's environmental review program
Consultation has concluded
The Environmental Quality Board (EQB) is gathering ideas for improving the state’s environmental review program, and we’d like to know what’s important to you. This is part of a wider effort to identify and prioritize program changes in a strategic, transparent, and efficient manner. Find more information on our continuous improvement webpage.
The ideas you share here will be considered by third-party consultants. Consultants will also conduct background research which includes analyzing past evaluations of the environmental review program. Consultants will prepare a report with program recommendations to the board this summer.
What is environmental review?
Public and private projectsContinue reading
The Environmental Quality Board (EQB) is gathering ideas for improving the state’s environmental review program, and we’d like to know what’s important to you. This is part of a wider effort to identify and prioritize program changes in a strategic, transparent, and efficient manner. Find more information on our continuous improvement webpage.
The ideas you share here will be considered by third-party consultants. Consultants will also conduct background research which includes analyzing past evaluations of the environmental review program. Consultants will prepare a report with program recommendations to the board this summer.
What is environmental review?
Public and private projects in Minnesota can have impacts on our air, land, and water resources. Since 1973, Minnesota has required that certain projects go through an environmental review process before getting governmental permits or approvals. The process provides an opportunity for public comment and produces a document that identifies potential environmental effects of a proposed project, as well as ways to reduce any negative environmental effects.
Environmental review is an information-gathering process that helps decision makers protect Minnesota’s environment. The review does not approve or deny a project.
What is the Environmental Quality Board's role in environmental review?
The state of Minnesota's environmental review program provides information about the potential environmental effects of certain proposed projects. The board oversees the program, including:
- Monitoring the effectiveness of the program
- Making program improvements
- Directing staff to implement rule-related administrative tasks
What improvements are we considering?
Help us improve environmental review now and into the future. Improvements that are in scope may include updates to forms, guidance, practices, standards, rules, statutes, data gathering practices, and more. Anything related solely to permitting or programs outside of the environmental review program are outside of the scope of this effort.
How will EQB use this information?
The EQB hosts this engagement platform, but third-party consultants will transparently evaluate your feedback. The consultants will also review background documents, including past environmental review program evaluations. For instance, in 2007, a report was requested by the board to evaluate the ideas that resulted from previous reports, studies and efforts related to improvement of the environmental review program. A 2011 evaluation report drafted by the Office of the Legislative Auditor examined the environmental review process as well. Your feedback, alongside previously cited recommendations, will be analyzed together by the consultants in a final report to EQB.
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How can we ensure that Minnesota's environmental review program meets your needs now and into the future?
about 1 year agoCLOSED: This ideas has concluded.Post any idea you have related to Minnesota's Environmental Review Program in the public forum, below. You may post more than once and respond to others' ideas as well. Not sure how to get started? Consider answering one of the following prompts:
- If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you do to improve the environmental review program?
- What is the environmental review program doing well or not well?
- What are the characteristics of an effective environmental review program?
UPPERSIOUXabout 1 year agoTribal governments were not contacted regarding this “modernization” effort and were not provided information about how to participate.
The EQB has invited the general public to participate in this rulemaking but has not initiated consultation with Tribal Nations. 2. EQB should be working with Tribes on a one-on-one basis to ensure that tribal concerns are fully understood by the EQB, and an open dialogue is maintained during these types of institutional processes. Tribes are governments, not special interest groups. Due to Tribes' sovereign status and the subject-matter expertise of their environmental departments, Tribal concerns must be given "significant weight" in environmental review. In re City of Cohasset's Decision on Need for an EIS for Proposed Frontier Project, A22-0550, 2023 WL 1770149, at *8 (Minn. Ct. App. Feb. 6, 2023). Accordingly, all parties to environmental review would benefit from early and meaningful consultation with Tribes.
0 comment0SSL SWCDabout 1 year agoStream Diversion - Subpart 26 of EAW
Recommendations: Recommend modifying this category to exempt stream realignment projects on streams (both trout and warm water streams) that fit the following criteria: the project 1) is ecologically-based, 2) is grant-funded, 3) adds sinuosity to the project reach, and 4) is implemented by the RGU. Justification: South St. Louis SWCD is currently working on a project to restore a ditched reach of a trout stream in Duluth. This creek is impaired for aquatic life and this project has long been a high priority for delisting the stream according to area natural resource professionals. The project has been vetted and is 100% funded by LSOHF dollars administered by the MN DNR River Ecology Unit. In spite of the project's clear environmental goals and outcomes, South St. Louis SWCD is required to complete an EAW because of the mandatory category criteria. Completing an EAW properly requires significant staff capacity and takes away from the other good work that our office does. It is not in the spirit of the law to require EAWs for stream restoration projects that seek to restore floodplain connectivity and ecological function to highly degraded, ditched trout streams using grant funding. Our office has completed many EAWs in the past and has never once received a comment through the process that has resulted in any meaningful change in the project scope or design. Any questions or concerns about project particulars can be addressed through the various permitting processes that these projects have to also go through.
0 comment0Paul Mossabout 1 year agoInclude Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions in All Environmental Review
I appreciate your recent improvements on the Environment Assessment Worksheet (EAW) to include calculation of greenhouse gas emissions for projects undergoing environmental review. However, the current agency guidance on the revised EAW only requires calculation of direct and indirect emissions, rather than full lifecycle accounting. Calculating lifecycle emissions is especially important for making sound decisions about fossil fuel infrastructure, because these types of projects will often enable the transportation/release of massive amounts of carbon. Please update the agency guidance and/or the EAW to include a full lifecycle accounting of greenhouse gas emissions related to a project, in addition to the currently required calculation of direct and indirect emissions
0 comment5Amanda Koehler, Land Stewardship Projectabout 1 year agoPetitions
EAW petitions should be automatically granted if 50 or more signees live within 10 miles of the proposed project. The public should also be able to petition for an EIS if 100 or more people who live within 10 miles of the proposed project sign a petition. Those who would be most impacted by a proposed project deserve to know what the potential impacts are and to have a voice.
0 comment4Chris Labout 1 year agoEnvironmental review decisions need to be made in light of treaties signed w/ the Indigenous people of this state, which are still valid...
Also, please include lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions as part of your calculations - not just direct and indirect emissions. Thank you for your time!
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Who's Listening
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Email Karen.Gaides@state.mn.us