Reading the BDCP: What page are you on? plus how to sound like you're reading the BDCP, even if you're not ~ MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK

It’s New Years Day – what better day to check in with all of you BDCP readers out there, just to make sure you are keeping the pace and staying on track! If your New Year’s resolution is to actually read the BDCP, I’ll help you out by setting your pace. And if you just want to sound like you read the thing, I’ll point you to a few key documents and sections you can read. Hey, I’m just helpful like that. You can thank me later.

First, let’s review the totals. I’m going with the figure of 40,115 total pages of which the Plan document itself is a brief 8992 pages and the environmental document is wrapped up into a concise 31,123 pages. I reported in my last post that the pace was 334.2 pages per day to read the entire document, which means you should have visually consumed 6349.8 pages by today.

But now for some good news. The actual comment period lasts from Friday, December 13, to Monday, April 14, 2014, which is 17 weeks and 3 days, or 122 actual days. Yes, there are two extra days! Good news! This, of course, changes things! You can breathe a sigh of relief, pull back on the gas pedal to just 328.8 pages per day, about 6 pages less. So, if you’re only at page 6,247.2, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You’re still on track!

For you Plan-only readers, your pace is just 73.7 pages per day, so you should be merely at page 1400.3; for you EIR/EIS readers, your daily page total is 255.1, meaning you should have buried yourself in a scintillating 4846.9 pages by now.

If your New Year’s resolution is to read the BDCP, there’s still time to get started. You’re a little behind, but not by much. You still have 104 days left! So, if you are starting today, you need to read 385.7 pages each and every day. At 8 hours of reading per day, that’s just 48.2 pages per hour. Piece of cake!

But, of course, unless you have a professional reason to do so, you likely don’t need to read the entire document – but with just a few shrewd choices, you can sound like you actually read it – or at least part of it. Here are my suggestions:

Heck, why not plug my own product first! I’ve been slicing, dicing, extracting a jpeg’ing a new BDCP Road Map which will hopefully guide you to the sections that interest you the most. The Road Map is still under construction, but I’ve been working on the sections first that I think are of the most interest, with pages posted as they are completed. At the time of this posting, the page for all the Conservation Measures as well as Conservation Measure 1 (BDCP-speak for the twin tunnels) and the Effects Analysis are done. A new addition to this road map – a library of all extracted documents, tables, and figures. New pages will be added as they are completed. Check out my progress by clicking here.
There are “Highlights” documents for both the Plan and the EIR/EIS; at around 60 pages each, they are more than just brochures. Check them out here: BDCP Highlights and BDCP EIR/EIS Highlights
Both the Plan and the EIR/EIS now have executive summaries as well; you can find them here: BDCP Executive Summary and BDCP EIR/EIS Executive Summary
If you want to sound smart about the effect of the BDCP on specific species, check out the “net effects” summary sections for each covered specie that are in Chapter 5. You can access them from the Chapter 5 Library of Extracted Documents, Tables and Figures page. Also, this section of the BDCP’s Highlights document discussing the Effects Analysis is very useful: Effects Analysis pages from the Highlights Document
If you are looking for something in particular, you can tweet your request using the tag #WhereInBDCP and the outreach staff at @BDCP_CA will answer your request within 72 hours, the BDCP website says. Click here for more information.