Preliminary Environmental Timeline for Sun Devil Project Eric,
As we discussed, with ENSR's assistance I have developed a projected timeline for developing the FERC required F-1 Exhibit (12 part Resource Reports to satisfy the NEPA requirement) in sufficient detail to meet the FERC filing requirements and expedite the processing of the environmental portion of the application.  The aggressive timeline assumes that the expedited FERC "Collaborative Approach" will be implemented throughout the processing of the application.  Even with the "Collaborative Approach" and all of the upfront work done with the environmental community to streamline the processing, the schedule is very, very optimistic and assumes that all conflicting issues will be resolved quickly and the processing continue.  

I have requested that Jon Schmidt (ENSR) begin working on a detailed cost estimate, by quarters in two phases.  The first part of the estimate would be to project the environmental cost, by quarters of preparing the 12 Resource Reports (including the necessary field work) that would get Sun Devil to an FERC filing in the first quarter of 2002 that would not be rejected.  The second component of the cost estimate would be to complete the field work and permitting phases during the processing of the application.  This includes participating in FERC scoping meetings and agency meetings as required.  This would include assisting the third party environmental contractor in working on the EIS to expedite the writing as needed.  It would also include mitigation packages to satisfy agency requirements.  The third and final component would be to budget for a Third Party Environmental Contractor to write the EIS document during the time that the field work is being developed and to process the same with the FERC Staff.  Once we get the "White Paper" Fatal Flaw analysis that ENSR is preparing for this project we will have enough information along with the budget to get us to the FERC filing to make some quantifiable decisions on moving forward when comparing those to the commercial advantages that you are developing.

If you have any questions, please give me a call.  John Shafer

 

