By Larry Bernard
A public meeting will be held Tuesday, March 12, to help determine the scope of a draft environmental impact statement for an innovative plan to cool the Cornell campus.
Raymond Nolan, environmental analyst with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), will direct the meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Boynton Middle School cafeteria. The DEC has proposed to other agencies involved that its Cortland office coordinate the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process for Cornell's proposed lake source cooling project.
"Before the draft environmental impact statement (dEIS) is prepared, there will be a formal scoping document developed that will provide clear direction for the project sponsors in the development of a thorough and relevant dEIS. As we coordinate the formal designation of lead agency, we will also serve to lead the scoping process," Nolan said.
"Although such a meeting is not required under SEQR, this is an excellent forum for soliciting input from the public on what the scope of the EIS should be," said Robert R. Bland, Cornell's environmental engineer.
Faced with a mandate to replace outdated coolingequipment that uses chemical refrigerants, Cornell engineers are considering using deep lake water to chill water from the campus. Cornell began looking at the idea in early 1994, and utility engineers have been meeting with community and government groups since then to keep them abreast of the studies. A newsletter describing the next step in the SEQR process and announcing the public meeting has been mailed to about 600 people interested in the project.
Once the scope is determined, Cornell and its consultants can gather the information to present to the DEC as a draft environmental impact statement toward the end of 1996.