Environmental documents and NCCP

Enacted in 1970, CEQA is a California statute that requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their projects and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible.

Enacted in 1970, NEPA establishes federal environmental policies requiring all federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of proposed projects prior to making decisions such as issuing permits or spending federal money. The principal goal of NEPA is to ensure that projects are designed, located, and operated in ways that reduce adverse effects and increase beneficial impacts. All projects that receive federal funding are subject to NEPA requirements.

The NCCP is a process for reaching a broad consensus about the limits of development on remaining natural lands in a large area. Participants include private landowners, conservation organizations, builders' and developers' associations, and local, state, and federal government agencies. A well-drawn NCCP pact protects the most crucial portions of an ecosystem as nature preserves, links them with wildlife corridors, and allows well-planned development on the remaining land. Landowners are assured that no future endangered species regulations beyond the NCCP agreement will be imposed on them. IRWD is involved in the NCCP process because we agree with the basic NCCP principle that the business community and local agencies need to work together with conservationists to protect wildlife habitat while allowing development to continue in areas that biologists consider less critical to the ecosystem. In July 1996, IRWD signed the NCCP Implementation Agreement, which protects some 38,000 acres of critical habitats in central and coastal Orange County. Several land managers, including the Natural Communities Coalition (formerly the Nature Reserve of Orange County), Orange County Public Facilities and Resources Department, County Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department, and The Nature Conservancy, are managing this preserve system, which includes the 20,000-acre Irvine Company Open Space Reserve.