Environmental issues loom in Highway 75 debate
By Kevin Wiser
Express Staff Writer
With the final draft of the Highway 75 corridor study due out in February,
the Idaho Transportation Department is preparing to move on to the environmental component
of the highway planning process.
The corridor study, ITD officials say, will program highway projects over
the next 20 years based on traffic forecasts and projected growth in the Wood River
Valley.
The federal NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process will analyze
the environmental impacts of highway projects identified in the corridor study.
Senior ITD environmental planner Charles Carnohan said his agency is in
the process of selecting a consultant to assist in the NEPA process for the Highway 75
corridor.
The ITD has been floating trial balloons throughout the valley on adding
lanes to the busy road. Discussions before various groups have focused on widening the
highway to as many as five lanes.
These discussions come in the framework of a Blaine County advisory ballot
in 1997 which showed that 87 percent of the voters wanted some highway improvements. Last
year, however, an activist group was formed to explore highway overhaul alternatives.
The environmental process for the highway is set to begin this spring or
early summer and should take one to three years to complete. A preliminary cost estimate
for the federally funded NEPA study is approximately $1 million, Carnohan said.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, NEPA was designed to
ensure that all federal agencies incorporate protection and enhancement of the environment
in their actions and decisions.
NEPA outlines three environmental process levels that may be required for
any project.
The first type of environmental analysis is the categorical exclusion (CAT
EX). A highway project is given a CAT EX determination if the Federal Highway
Administration determines that the project does not present any significant environmental
impacts.
The next level is the Environmental Assessment (EA) which is used if there
is uncertainty about whether a project will significantly affect the environment.
If it is determined that a project will significantly affect the
environment, then the NEPA process goes to the next level of analysis or an Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS).
An environmental evaluation for CAT EX determination for the Greenhorn
Bridge project, which includes the 2.5-mile stretch from Alturas Drive to Timber Way, was
approved by the Federal Highway Administration last September.
The evaluation was conducted by Carnohan through coordination with state
and federal agencies, which include the Department of Environmental Quality, U.S Fish and
Wildlife Service, Idaho Fish and Game, Idaho Department of Water Resources, Sawtooth
National Forest, FEMA and the Army Corps. of Engineers.
According to Carnohan, the CAT EX study for the Greenhorn Project took
into account the project’s impact on the community and the environment and resulted
in a "finding of no significance"—which he said "complies with the
spirit and letter of the law under NEPA."
Carnohan, who is based in the ITD’s Shoshone office, said that since
the Greenhorn Bridge project is a small component of the Highway 75 corridor, a CAT EX was
sufficient. However, he said that an environmental assessment or environmental impact
statement would be required for the rest of projects proposed for the corridor.
"By law, if you’re proposing to conduct an action which consists
of numerous projects throughout the valley you are required to conduct a secondary
cumulative impact analysis to see what the impacts are on the entire valley,"
Carnohan said in an interview.
He said most of the impacts identified in the Greenhorn project involve
environmental issues such as the replacement of vegetation disturbed by bridge
construction and observing the spawning window for the native rainbow trout.
However, Carnohan said the socioeconomic and aesthetic issues—such as
the cumulative impact of highway expansion projects on the character of the
valley—would be more difficult to deal with in the NEPA study for the entire Highway
75 corridor.
"We can handle the ecological impacts with relative ease compared to
the socioeconomic issue," Carnohan said. "It’s the impacts on the societal
realm that are still in contention."
Blaine County Commission chairperson Mary Ann Mix has said the CAT EX
study conducted by the ITD was the appropriate level of environmental analysis for the
Greenhorn project.
A meeting of the Highway 75 Improvement Advisory Council was scheduled to
beheld Tuesday night to discuss the design of the Greenhorn Bridge.
The group, made up of elected officials from throughout the Wood River
Valley, was formed following a Highway 75 town meeting held earlier this month in Hailey.
