The information below explains how the alternatives have been developed, refined, and evaluated.
The funnel diagram below illustrates the process we are following to narrow a group of
preliminary concepts to a single preferred alternative. Each step includes both technical analysis and public input.
Identify Concepts
In the spring and summer of 2007, a long list of preliminary project concepts was compiled through
a public workshop, an on-line survey, and a series of Task Force meetings.
Screen Concepts
The project team screened these concepts to determine if they met the minimum
"baseline" requirements of the project, called threshold criteria. These criteria were developed as part of the
Evaluation Framework
during spring 2007 to ensure that the alternatives are feasible and solve the problems identified in the project
Purpose and Need.
Develop Alternatives
The Task Force reviewed concepts that met the threshold criteria during summer 2007. Some of the
concepts were viewed as clearly inferior to others, and the Task Force recommended elimination of them. In August 2007 the
Oversight Team considered Task Force recommendations and
adopted a Range of Alternatives
to be advanced for further analysis. Concepts dropped from the range of alternatives will not be considered further.
Evaluate Alternatives
This is the current phase of the project
This step of the evaluation process, to be conducted in September through December of 2007,
will compare the remaining project alternatives against a broad set of evaluation criteria (refer to the
Evaluation Framework for more information).
A team of technical experts will rate the performance of the alternatives against each of the evaluation criterion selected by the
Task Force — producing performance ratings. A total score for each alternative will be calculated by multiplying the sum of all
the performance ratings times the weightings established by the Task Force.
The evaluation results, along with public input, will be used by the Task Force and Oversight Team to develop its recommendation
for a small number of alternatives to be evaluated further in the Draft EIS.
