Solutions & Innovations

Save Money and Time with Programmatic Environmental Impact Reports (PEIRs)

Manager; and Malik Tamimi, Senior Project Manager

Special districts often face significant challenges when managing construction and maintenance activities while complying with complex environmental regulations. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) mandates thorough environmental impact assessments for various projects, resulting in potential delays and unforeseen expenses. However, the Rainbow Municipal Water District (District) has taken a new approach to streamline the process and save substantial time and money through the use of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR). By adopting this novel strategy, the District has not only streamlined the CEQA review process for infrastructure projects, but also significantly reduced costs and project timelines.

A PEIR enables a public agency to prepare a single environmental impact report for a series of actions that have similar environmental effects and can be managed in similar ways. By analyzing the reasonably foreseeable projects and maintenance activities, a PEIR offers a comprehensive consideration of potential environmental impacts, mitigation measures, and alternatives. This streamlines the CEQA process, ensuring a consistent approach for all district activities and generating significant time and cost savings.

The Rainbow Municipal Water District routinely undertakes sewer and water conveyance and storage projects to manage and support its water supply and sewer systems. In the past, the District handled CEQA requirements on a project-by-project basis, leading to redundant analyses, unexpected expenses, and delays. Recognizing the need for a more efficient approach, the District embarked on the PIER process.

RMWD took an innovative and holistic approach by expanding the coverage of the PEIR beyond the known five-year planned capital improvement projects. RMWD included all of its water and sewer pipelines, allowing future repairs and unanticipated projects to rely on the PEIR. This comprehensive and forward-thinking approach enables RMWD to efficiently add unanticipated projects by simply amending the plan, saving valuable time and resources, and reducing the need for extensive additional environmental assessments and potential delays.

Furthermore, the PEIR developed by the District encompasses an analysis of its foreseeable projects, maintenance activities, and construction efforts related to sewer and water conveyance and storage. It takes into account various aspects, including biological resources, cultural resources, and paleontological resources. Through extensive field surveys and detailed technical reports, the District ensures a thorough evaluation of potential environmental impacts, cumulative effects, mitigation measures, and alternatives. Over 75% (280 miles) of the RMWD’s pipeline projects would not require substantial bio measures (i.e., habitat replacement or permitting). As a result, there is no additional CEQA filing for projects covered by the PEIR (all District pipelines).

“While the process of analyzing the entire potable water and wastewater systems took the better part of two years to complete, the end result was worth it,” highlighted Chad Williams, the Engineering and CIP Program Manager. “The