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Faced with a mandate to replace outdated cooling equipment that uses chemical refrigerants, Cornell engineers are considering using deep lake water to chill water from the campus.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 (enclosed) describing the next step in the SEQR process and announcing the public meeting is being mailed this week to about 600 people interested in the project.

Also, Cornell utilities engineers met with the City of Ithaca Conservation Advisory Council on Feb. 26, and they are scheduled to meet with the Town of Ithaca Conservation Board at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 7, at the Town Hall, 126 E. Seneca St.

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.

The scope covers such items as:

• a project description and justification -- alternatives to the proposal
• description of the aquatic and terrestrial setting of the project
• statement and evaluation of potential significant environmental impacts (on lake, land use, traffic, flora, wildlife and archaeology)
• proposed measures for mitigating significant impacts The Technical Review Committee of Cornell's Center for the Environment (CfE), charged with assessing the potential ecological impact of the project, will be carefully monitoring ecological data produced for the project's draft environmental impact study.

The independent committee has been involved for the past two years in reviewing the project's preliminary aquatic studies for accuracy and completeness. To date, it has found nothing in the preliminary analysis to suggest that the project would have a substantial negative impact on the ecology of Cayuga Lake, but it has identified several issues that require further investigation.

CfE's Technical Review Committee members were appointed by center director James P. Lassoie, based on their expertise in aquatic ecology. Chaired by Nelson G. Hairston Jr., professor of ecology and systematics, the committee includes Robert W. Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology; Ray Oglesby, professor of natural resources; and Gerhard H. Jirka, professor of civil and environmental engineering.

"The committee will evaluate the aquatic sections of the draft environmental impact statement and will issue its own findings," Hairston said.