5.0 Cumulative Projects and Impacts
CHAPTER 5.0
CUMULATIVE PROJECTS AND IMPACTS
CEQA Guidelines require a discussion of significant environmental impacts that would result from project-
related actions in combination with "closely related past, present, and probable future projects" located in
the immediate vicinity (CEQA Guidelines, 15130 [b][1][A]). These cumulative impacts are defined as
"two or more individual effects which, when considered together, are considerable or which compound or
increase other environmental impacts" (CEQA Guidelines, 15355).
Federal regulations implementing NEPA (40 C.F.R. 1500-1508) require that the cumulative impacts
of a proposed action be assessed. NEPA defines a cumulative impact as an "impact on the environment
which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably
foreseeable future actions" (40 C.F.R. 1508.7).
In general, effects of a particular action or group of actions would be considered cumulative impacts under
the following conditions:
effects of several actions occur in a common location;
effects are not localized (i.e., can contribute to effects of an action in a different location);
effects on a particular resource are similar in nature (i.e., affects the same specific element of a
resource); and
effects are long-term (short-term impacts tend to dissipate over time and cease to contribute to
cumulative impacts).
5.1
DESCRIPTION OF CUMULATIVE PROJECTS
Cumulative projects considered in this analysis consist of other ongoing or proposed beach nourishment
projects adjacent to the receiver sites; capital improvement or development projects proposed adjacent
to receiver sites; and proposed actions adjacent to the borrow sites. The time frame for considering
cumulative future projects is from 2000 to 2005. This time frame is selected because the sand dispersion
model estimates that most sand placed at individual receiver sites will be redistributed within the littoral
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system within five years (Moffatt & Nichol 2000a).
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Regional Beach Sand Project EIR/EA
Page 5-1
99-69\SANDAG EIREA 5 to 10.wpd 7/17/00
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