By Marcia Barnes
Staff Writer
The public commenting period on the Shooting Creek transmission route proposed by the Tennessee Valley Authority ended with more than 200 comments representing at least 148 families. Adam May, TVA Senior Media Specialist said that a few postmarked before the deadline were still trickling in by U.S. mail.
The next step is for TVA to consider all data available related to environmental impacts, engineering considerations and public feedback to arrive at a preferred route decision which is tentatively planned to be announced this spring. Although the 30-day commenting period closed Jan. 5, May said that their team will always be open to hearing from elected officials, stakeholders and community members as the project progresses.
Manager of transmission siting, Shane Beasley explained what actually takes place on the ground during a study of the environment and how TVA got to where they are today.
“Before we even begin looking at route alternatives on a project like this, we start by defining what we call a regional study area,” Beasley said. “You can think of that as a geographic project boundary that we plan to stay within. That information is handed off to our environmental team and our cultural team. Our environmental team has access to a wealth of existing environmental data all across our system. So, they take that study area we provide them and they populate that area with all known environmental features that we need to consider before we even start to put pen to paper.”
TVA's environmental team is identifying wetlands, endangered species habitats, stream crossings, cultural and archaeological resources, an extensive list. Beasley said that there's a lot of desk-top environmental review before they start and that some of the alternatives they presented to the public at the open house on Dec. 4 had already been reviewed, also from an engineering and constructability standpoint.
“A lot of that was already factored in to what we showed the public at the open house. The commentary, and the social feedback is the third factor that goes into the analysis. When we begin the analysis of the segments that are under consideration, we quantify those impacts, and in terms of the environmental, for every segment we are calculating what is the calculated impact of the wetlands, the acreage of threatened or endangered specie habitat, et cetera.”
The environmental component plays into what TVA calls the preferred route analysis of every route under consideration. Beasley said that preferred does not mean final and that after that announcement they will continue ground level dialogue with impacted property owners on any fine adjustments TVA can make in the route to minimize the impact.
“We don't call that route final until it has been surveyed and gone through a full field environmental review that would then feed the subsequent National Environmental Policy Act activity. Our environmental team will conduct a full NEPA review in accordance with NEPA and TVA standards like we do on every new transmission route.
“Once a preferred route is announced, we don't call it final until it has gone through a full field review. We have to be able to go out in the field and survey that route on the ground, mark the right-of-way boundaries so that the environmental team, and the cultural team when they go out to do a full field review, they know exactly where to go and where the boundaries are, where they need to perform those activities,” Beasley said.
If anything results out of the field review that requires any route modification or mitigation procedure, that would be done in strict accordance to NEPA standards. Once it is surveyed and crews know exactly where to go after it has been marked on the ground for them, they will capture everything.
The environmental team verifies wetland resources, endangered species habitats, archaeological sites, cultural resources and waterways. Beasley said that it will be field verified before they call it a final route. That field survey will feed the NEPA activity.
“We have a NEPA team at TVA and they will conduct that NEPA activity strictly according to NEPA and TVA guidelines. The route won't be called final until that piece of it is complete.”
With the comment period just ended, for the next several weeks they will be going through those comments and that will become a part of the route analysis, along with the environmental and constructability considerations. Once there is a preferred route announcement, TVA will continue dialogue with those physically impacted owners on any fine adjustments that can be made.
“We will then move into the survey portion of the project and basically follow that with a full out field environmental, ground trooping process that will feed the NEPA activity. At that point, we would move in to right-of-way acquisition, and from there to clearing and construction.
“We welcome any questions from government officials, third party,” Beasley said. “Our main focus moving forward is with those specifically impacted property owners. We make every attempt to minimize the impact to them to the extent possible and are always available if public officials have questions, we're glad to take those.”