Orientation to Sustainable Environmental Assessment
Date: March 24-28, 2025
Time: Pacific: 8am - 3:30pm (1.5 hr break at 11am) / Central: 10am - 5:30pm (1.5 hr break at 1pm) / Eastern: 11am - 6:30pm (1.5 hr break at 2pm)
Location: Online
Course Cost: $600 (Early Bird: $550 before 2/24/25)
This course uses the environmental process (40 CFR 1500) in general and HUD’s (24 CFR 58), since it delegates NEPA & other environmental authorities to the local level, as a framework for providing insights into issue identification and analysis pointed to consideration of alternatives. The class makes use of abundant HUD resources but also uses interactive classroom exercises. The case oriented exercises provide participants with simulated hands-on experience and opportunities for Q & A and peer-to-peer education.
Projects with even a small federal nexus must go through an environmental planning process that not only requires a compliance check with specific environmental laws, but also provides opportunities to add value through public input, mitigation of potential adverse impacts, and sustainable design. This course uses the HUD Environmental Review Online System (HEROS), a state-of-the-art platform for NEPA environmental review, to actively engage participants in a classroom simulation.
Who Should Attend?:
Local government staff involved in such programs as HUD, subsidized housing, planning and redevelopment; development professionals
Learning Objectives:
- Comply with Federal environmental planning requirements: under NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) which acts as an umbrella for an environmental planning process that includes about 20 other Federal environmental mandates that cover historic preservation, floodplains, wetlands, noise, site contamination, etc.
- Use the NEPA process to promote local or tribal environmental goals and objectives, such as those promoting sustainability
- Use the NEPA process to influence the design and structure of Federal projects, both from an implementing agency’s perspective and from that of an affected local or tribal government.
Agenda Heading link
Monday: NEPA, Getting Started, and Water
- Overview and NEPA Intro
- Exercise: Name that Level of Review
- Floodplain Management – The Awesome Power video
- Water Module
- Wetland Identification and Management
- First Steps – Getting Started (Project Description/Aggregation; Getting Information from Internet; Map Reading; Initial Screening and Issue Identification)
Tuesday: Historic Preservation
- American Legacy: The Work of the Natl Reg of Historical Places
- Historic Preservation Background & 106 Process
- Virtual Site Visit
- Historic Preservation Process
- Work on Case Study Simulation
Wednesday: Site Contamination, Brownfield Redevelopment, Other Authorities, & Healthy Homes
- This is Superfund
- Site Contamination Policy
- ESA Site Characterization Process
- Site Contamination II including Brownfield
- Group Exercise – work on simulation
- Noise
- 51C Explosive and Flammable Hazards & 51D Clear Zones
- Coastal Zones & Barriers
- Other Applicable Authorities (Sole Source Aquifer; Prime Farmland; Air Quality; Wild & Scenic Rivers)
- Biodiversity – Endangered Species
- Local Planning Factors
- Q&A & Case Study Time
Thursday: Using the EA Process to Promote Local (Sustainable) Objectives & Environmental Justice
- Q&A Report on work on case studies for Friday presentation
- Finalizing Review & Request for Release of Funds
- Form Book, HEROS & Record Keeping
- Tiering & Programmatic Reviews
- Groups work
- State & Local EA Processes (including CEQA)
- Environmental Justice (sustainability)
- Using EA Process to promote Local Goals & Objectives
- Q&A & Work on Exercise Cases Study
Friday: Review, Presentations, and Wrap Up
- Review, Q&A
- Review of Pretest
- Final Prep Cases
- Presentation of Cases
- Energy Efficient Rehab
- 11:15–11:45am: Take Home Final Exam
*Agenda subject to changes
About the Instructor Heading link
Eugene Goldfarb was the Midwest Environmental Officer for the U.S. Dept of Housing & Urban Development for approximately 15 years and retired in 2004 to start his own environmental consulting and training firm. Eugene is a certified planner (AICP) & licensed attorney (Illinois). Eugene spent much of his 30 year HUD career in the environmental area, preparing environmental impact statements, noise, historic and other environmental reviews. He has worked for HUD’s Office of Housing on mortgage insurance, subsidized and public housing programs, and for a single family homebuilder, the New York City Housing Authority, and the US Post Office.
He has organized environmental training for local governments administering HUD programs and lectured at various universities (UIChicago, IIT, U of Chicago), US Civil Service environmental workshops, and the American Planning Association’s Institute of Zoning (1977). In 2000, the Great Lakes Center training received a Best Practice award from HUD and Eugene was named a USDOE Energy Champion. In 2002, he was named HUD’s “brownfield guru” in American Planning Association’s Planning Magazine.
Specialties: Environmental Education, (NEPA) Environmental Assessment, Historic Preservation, Brownfield Redevelopment
Eugene Goldfarb, MUP, JD
Adjunct Asst Professor
Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
School of Public Health
University of Illinois at Chicago
egoldf1@uic.edu