Letters and written requests for information may be sent to:

Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development
P.O. Box 94245
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9245

Environmental Division
Noel Ardoin

Phase II of the I-12 to Bush Corridor Study involves the identification and evaluation of feasible alternatives within the project area. The culmination of this Phase should lead to the development of no more than three "build" alternatives which will be evaluated against the "no-build" alternative in Phase III, in order to develop the "Preferred Alternative". To date, project consultants have held meetings with project stakeholders (as defined by the LADOTD and the NEPA process), and the public. Three open house style workshops/public meetings were held in Pearl River, Mandeville and Bush to allow members of the public to identify feasible alternatives and to voice their concerns about the project. The same technical information was presented at all three public meetings. The stakeholder and public meetings yielded 44 alternatives, which have been narrowed down to 14 common alternatives.

In addition to these 14 identified alternatives, the project team developed four technically derived alternatives to be included in the evaluation process. The goal of the alternatives evaluation process is to develop three to five alternatives with the least impacts to the ecological and manmade environments. To that end, the project team has conducted a preliminary evaluation of all 18 (14+4) alternatives.

Following this first round evaluation, the project team submitted their findings for agency reviews. According to comments received from the three major reviewing agencies for this project - the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Army Corps of Engineers and US Environmental Protection Agency - the project team was requested to make minor adjustments. LADOTD and their consultant team are in the process of making these adjustments. This will extend the evaluation process by about three months. Once the final three-five alternatives have been developed, a round of public meetings will be held to present these alternatives to the public. The dates for these meetings are yet to be announced. Please refer to the tentative project schedule below. Please note that this is a general schedule that will be updated every month.

February: Project Status Meeting: Bogalusa City Hall, 2/12/04 at 6:30 pm

March: Agency Review Meeting (to adjust alternatives evaluation methodology) Alternatives Evaluation (4-6 wks)

April: Alternatives Evaluation (cont)
Project Team review of preliminary results

May: Preliminary field visit
Preliminary alternatives evaluation
Preliminary development of the final three-five alternatives

June: Preliminary alternatives optimization
Final alternatives evaluation
Development of the final set of alternatives

July: Final alternatives evaluation (cont.)
Final alternatives optimization
Meeting with four main Reviewing Agencies
Public Meeting

August: Transcription of Public Meeting comments Report writing

September: Submittal of draft report to LA DOTD
LA DOTD review of draft report
Submittal of final report to LA DOTD
Submittal of application to the US Army Corps of Engineers

The DOTD and its consultant team met with the four main reviewing agencies (US Army Corps of Engineers, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries) on March 10, 2004 to address agency concerns regarding the project methodology. Agency input was helpful in assigning weights to the evaluation variables and buffer zone distances for each relevant variable.