Usual Suspects: Essay #12

Scoping Checklist

Formulate your arguments to establish a solid groundwork for the entire process, through to appeals and lawsuits.
Identify key scientific information, analyses, and procedures you want considered; document these in written comments, preferably in the scoping phase, but later is okay too.
Determine what you want in an ideal alternative and specify how you want this presented.
Make sure "agreements" are concretely captured in a written alternative.
No agreement is too obvious to be written down,
Don't let the agency weasel out of including your alternative unless they can prove to you that it would be illegal.
Don't let the agency force you to spoon-feed them your alternative in elaborate detail - that's their job. If they have to work through it, they'll retain some degree of "ownership" over that alternative.
Don't let the agency make your alternative into something other than what you originally intended. This is worse than not including it at all, and will make it tougher to appeal.