Record of Decision for the Navajo Transmission Project (DOE/EIS- 0231)

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Western Area Power Administration

Record of Decision for the Navajo Transmission Project (DOE/EIS-

0231)

AGENCY: Western Area Power Administration, DOE.

ACTION: Record of Decision.

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SUMMARY: Based upon the analysis and information contained in the

Navajo Transmission Project (NTP) Draft and Final Environmental Impact

Statements (EIS), the Department of Energy (DOE), Western Area Power

Administration (Western), has decided that should the NTP be built, it

should follow the preferred alternative described in the NTP Final EIS.

This is the alternative identified in the EIS documents as the Kaibito

1 (K1) for the eastern half of the project area, and the Northern 1

West (N1W) for the western half. The K1 lies between the Shiprock

Substation and either the Red Mesa, Copper Mine, or Moenkopi Substation

sites. It parallels the existing Western 230-kilovolt (kV) Shiprock-to-

Glen Canyon and 345-kV Glen Canyon-to-Pinnacle Peak transmission lines

for most of its route. The N1W lies between the Moenkopi and

Marketplace Substation sites and parallels an existing 500-kV

transmission line for most of its route.

In making this decision, Western evaluated: (1) alternatives to the

proposed project, and (2) alternatives that cover the reasonable range

of options for siting and constructing a 500-kV transmission line.

Western released the NTP Draft EIS in September 1996. The Notice of

Availability for the Final EIS was published on August 8, 1997. This

Record of Decision is pursuant to the Council on Environmental Quality

regulations (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508), which implement the procedural

provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, and DOE's

regulations (10 CFR Part 1021).

DATES: This decision will become effective October 31, 1997.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Nicholas Chevance, NTP EIS Project

Manager, Corporate Services Office, Western Area Power Administration,

1627 Cole Boulevard, Golden, CO 80123-3398, (303) 275-1713.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

Dine Power Authority (DPA), an enterprise of the Navajo Nation,

requested assistance from Western in 1993 in planning for the

construction, operation, and maintenance of a 500-kV transmission line

from the Four Corners area in northwestern New Mexico across northern

Arizona to a terminus in southern Nevada. As a Federal power marketing

agency, Western is responsible for marketing and transmitting power

from Federal power projects in the region. Since the 1960's, Western

and its predecessor agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, have been

assisting the Navajo Nation in meeting its energy needs through firm-

energy agreements with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, a Navajo

Nation enterprise providing utility services and various energy related

projects. Western has provided technical assistance to DPA with the

NTP, invested funds in the project, administered DOE grants to DPA for

the project, and anticipates owning a portion of the NTP capacity

commensurate with its final pro rata investment in the project.

The DPA proposal was developed in response to needs of the electric

industry and of the Navajo Nation. These include the following:

Relieve the constraints on the transmission of electricity

west of the Four Corners area.

Improve the operational flexibility and reliability of the

extra-high-voltage transmission system in the region.

Allow increased economical power transfers, sales, and

purchases in the region.

Improve economic conditions of the Navajo Nation.

Facilitate the development of Navajo Nation energy

resources and its participation in the electrical utility industry.

Western agreed to assist DPA in this endeavor by participating as

the lead Federal agency for the preparation of the EIS. Federal

involvement was provided because of the need to acquire rights-of-way

across public lands, construction of the project could benefit Western

and Western's customers, and because DOE supports the development of

Native American energy programs pursuant to

[[Page 58967]]

Title XXVI of the Energy Policy Act of 1992.

Development of Alternatives

The development of alternatives for the NTP EIS first focused on

alternatives to the project proposed by DPA that might meet their

needs. Six alternatives were developed: (1) achieve results through

energy conservation and electric load management, (2) construct new

generation facilities, (3) utilize the existing transmission system,

(4) utilize alternative transmission technologies (different voltages,

direct current versus alternating current, underground construction,

and the use of new technologies), (5) no action, and (6) construct a

new transmission line. The first four alternatives (1, 2, 3, and 4)

were analyzed and found not to be responsive to the purpose and need

for the project. While these would achieve some of the needs addressed

by the proposal, none would satisfy all of them. Western then conducted

a detailed analysis of the no action alternative and the proposed

action alternative, which is to construct, operate, and maintain the

transmission line. Western found that the no action alternative would

not meet the needs addressed by the proposal.

For the proposed action alternative, several general alternative

corridors (approximately 1,800 miles) were identified through a

regional environmental feasibility study (June 1992) and introduced to

agencies and the public during the scoping process for the EIS. This

regional feasibility study evaluated the most reasonable means of

placing a right-of-way corridor from proposed starting point to end

point. It was assumed that to reduce impacts to all resources and

issues associated with transmission line construction, paralleling an

existing utility corridor was preferable. Therefore, the majority of

routes explored in the environmental feasibility study paralleled other

power lines, fiber optic cables and buried pipelines wherever possible.

Scoping and public outreach employed on this project were

extensive. A Notice of Intent to prepare an EIS was published in the

Federal Register on July 13, 1993, that announced the intent to conduct

public meetings. A total of 17 meetings were held in the project area,

in addition to several letters, fact sheets, media releases and notices

posted on and off the Navajo Nation. These resulted in public input

that led to the development of five issues of concern, which were

addressed in the Draft EIS: (1) need for the project, (2) benefits of

the project, (3) siting issues, (4) rights-of-way issues, and (5)

health and safety issues.

Also, a non-environmental factor, the cost to construct, was

tracked throughout the analysis to make sure that the environmental

analysis was not leading to a solution that could not be accomplished.

While this was not the deciding factor, the cost of constructing the

project was monitored over the 4 years it has taken to reach a decision

on the project and was considered in the determination of the final

preferred alternative.

Through scoping, some alternative routes were eliminated and some

were added, resulting in approximately 2,200 miles of alternative

routes studied in detail for the EIS. The alternative routes were then

systematically analyzed considering human, natural, and cultural

environmental factors including, but not limited to, land use,

socioeconomics, visual/aesthetics issues, human and animal health and

safety, air and water quality issues, soil erodibility, and

paleontological, biological and cultural resources. This analysis

resulted in narrowing the number of alternative routes addressed in the

EIS.

Description of Alternatives Evaluated in Detail

Once the scoping process was completed, resource inventories were

conducted for each of the alternative routes to establish the baseline

information from which to evaluate potential impacts. As inventory

information was collected, a process was begun to sort this information

and make decisions about further information needs. The

interdisciplinary teams ranked the potential impacts for each

alternative route in terms of the resources that might be impacted, the

likely mitigation measures that would be required, and the residual

impacts remaining after mitigation. The team then made decisions to

eliminate routes with high potential for impacts. The results were then

presented to the public during a set of 20 meetings held throughout the

project area to obtain comments prior to preparing the Draft EIS.

The alternative routes finally addressed in the Draft EIS included

four alternative routes in the eastern portion of the project area and

six alternative routes in the western portion. The project area seemed

naturally to split into halves, with different concerns and issues in

the eastern portion than in the western portion. In the east, of major

concern were those residual impacts associated with Navajo and Hopi

traditional cultural places, and to a lesser degree, impacts to land

use patterns, which is also related to traditional land uses. In the

west, concerns centered around Hualapai traditional cultural places and

land use, as well as visual impacts and impacts to historic resources.

These alternative routes were chosen for detailed analysis since

they had minimal resource impacts. Impacts on visual resources could be

mitigated to some degree. Other impacts are associated with Navajo and

Hopi traditional cultural places in the Marsh Pass/Northern Black Mesa

area, and to Hualapai traditional cultural places in the western

portion of the project area. Because of the sensitivity of these

resources, specific locations of these resources were not known. Zones

of potential impacts were very general. The direct impacts associated

with the environmentally preferred alternatives on specific resource

locations, when known, can be lessened once engineering on a final

route is completed.

The interdisciplinary team selected a single route in each half of

the project area that avoided to the greatest degree possible impacts

on these resources. The eastern alternative presented as the

environmentally preferred alternative, the Kaibito 1 (K1) route, had

the least amount of potential impacts on visual resources and Navajo

and Hopi traditional cultural places. However, some impacts would

result along a short segment of the proposed route in areas of new

corridor (no existing transmission line) near Red Mesa, Black Mesa,

Marsh Pass, and across the Kaibito Plateau. The Northern 1 West (N1W)

route was chosen as the preferred alternative in the western half of

the project area. Because of an issue associated with where the

proposed line would cross the Colorado River, a termination at

Marketplace was determined to be the least damaging. Therefore, this

alternative would have no potential for significant impacts on

resources.

Decision Process

Following the release of the Draft EIS in early October 1996, 44

public hearings were held throughout the project area, which included

hearings held at each of the 36 Navajo chapters crossed by the

alternative routes. Each of these hearings was preceded by public

information meetings, where information on the project was presented

and questions and comments by the public could be addressed. In

addition, 13 written comments were submitted by the public, and 20

letters from the public and other agencies were

[[Page 58968]]

received. This information was summarized and addressed in the Final

EIS, released to the public on August 8, 1997.

The verbal comments could be summarized into six issues of concern,

expressed mainly but not exclusively by residents of the Navajo Nation.

These were: (1) concerns over the distribution of project revenues to

Navajo chapters, (2) concerns about extending the local electrical

distribution system, (3) concerns for health and safety, (4) concerns

over involving the public in the project status, (5) concerns over the

acquisition of rights-of-way, and (6) concerns for employment

opportunities. In addition, a few comments identified other issues.

Each of the concerns expressed orally or in writing was addressed

in the Final EIS, by providing a reference to a previous discussion in

the Draft EIS, by expanding on those previous discussions in the Final,

and/or by providing new information. A standard answer was provided to

each of the six issues discussed above, rather than respond

individually to multiple questions on the same issues. Only one minor

modification to the environmentally preferred alternative in the

eastern half of the project area was presented in the Final EIS. This

was in response to concerns expressed by the public during and

immediately following the public meetings. Local land users in the

Dennehotso, Arizona area expressed concerns over the preferred

alternative passing through areas of dispersed but common use, though

the alternative would not impact any residences directly. The route of

the alternative was modified slightly to satisfy these concerns.

The Decision

Western has decided that should the NTP be built, it should follow

the preferred alternative described in the NTP Final EIS. The project

would satisfy the needs identified in the EIS: it would relieve the

constraints on the transmission of electricity out of the region; it

would improve the flexibility and reliability of the existing system;

it would allow the economical transfer, sales, and purchases of power

in the region; and it would provide an opportunity for the Navajo

Nation to improve economic conditions. Based upon the information

gathered throughout the EIS process, Western provided the public and

the decisionmaker with complete information on the environmental

impacts associated with the project. Western analyzed several

alternatives to the proposed action in terms of their ability to

satisfy the identified needs. Western then analyzed many routing

alternatives in order to arrive at the least environmentally damaging

alternative routes.

The following factors were taken into account in arriving at the

preferred alternative: (1) environmental acceptability, (2) siting and

permitting requirements that vary by land status (i.e., Federal, state,

tribal, and local), (3) public and agency preferences, especially those

of the Cooperating Agencies, (4) electrical system considerations such

as power flow and the impacts on system interconnections, (5)

engineering factors leading to an increase in costs, such as the length

of route, construction difficulty, accessibility, extent of mitigation

required, and the extent of design modifications needed for mitigation,

(6) rights-of-way acquisition considerations, and (7) consideration of

the statutory obligations of the permitting agencies.

In making this decision, Western believes that all practicable

means to avoid or minimize significant impacts have been presented in

the NTP EIS in the form of standard and specific mitigation measures.

The Kaibab National Forest; Bureau of Indian Affairs, Navajo and

Phoenix Area Offices; Bureau of Land Management, Arizona State Office

(representing the state BLM offices in Arizona, Nevada, and New

Mexico); and the National Park Service, Colorado Plateau Systems

Support Office, participated in the NTP EIS as Cooperating Agencies. In

addition to the Federal agencies, the Hopi Tribe, Hualapai Tribe, and

the Navajo Nation participated as Cooperating Agencies. These agencies

and tribes have decisions to make concerning the granting of rights-of-

way for the alignment described in the EIS, provided a Construction,

Operation, and Maintenance Plan for the construction of the NTP,

including a plan for all necessary environmental mitigation, is

prepared and agreed upon by all parties.

Mitigation Action Plan

The Final EIS presents reasonable and practicable mitigation

measures to reduce the severity of the impacts associated with

construction of the line. The preferred action, given the analysis

process and the proposed mitigation, will not have a significant impact

on environmental factors, with the exception of the potential for

impacts on visual resources and Hopi, Hualapai, and Navajo traditional

cultural places as discussed above. Western will issue a Mitigation

Action Plan (MAP), as required by DOE NEPA implementing procedures

found at 10 CFR Sec. 1021.331, at a later date. The MAP will detail the

mitigation and monitoring required to reduce impacts to less than

significant. Western's final decision is contingent upon the

construction of the line consistent with the requirements of the MAP,

and acceptance of the MAP by the Cooperating Agencies.

Dated: October 23, 1997.

Michael S. Hacskaylo,

Acting Administrator.

[FR Doc. 97-28910 Filed 10-30-97; 8:45 am]

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