The Seven Dwarfs: Often Ignored Highway Project Issues
The highway planning process includes following all applicable laws and regulations. Over the last few years, over $200 million of highway projects crossing National Forest System lands on the Tonto National Forest in Arizona has given Terry J. Brennan, Highway Program Leader, lots of experience. He has identified seven major issues in highway projects that are frequently left out of the planning process. These issues may not be anticipated as part of the construction project and often impact areas well outside the right-of-way.
Brennan calls these issues the ‘Seven Dwarfs’ of highway project planning. While these ‘Seven Dwarfs’ need to be adequately analyzed, cleared, documented and mitigated, they are often forgotten until too late in the process to avoid delays, resource impacts, and non-compliance with laws and regulations
Several of these issues require separate clearances and documents in addition to the NEPA process prepared for the primary project. Awareness of the possibility that these issues may come up should help USDA Forest Service resource specialists to plan for a timely resolution to the potential impacts. Others outside of the USDA Forest Service may find this information useful as well, since the ‘Seven Dwarfs’ are not limited to projects on National Forest System lands.
Brennan’s ‘Seven Dwarfs’
1. Borrow and Waste Sites/Material Balance
High speed highway projects are typically not light on the land, and require large cuts and fills to provide the configuration needed for high speed lanes. These cuts and fills create a need for material balance. The tremendous volume of material requires a place for temporary or permanent storage. Borrow and waste sites may be needed to complete these material balance requirements, and need to be analyzed in the NEPA document.
2. Contractor’s Staging Areas
Large earth-moving equipment is needed during construction, often in large numbers. Contractors need large areas of relatively flat ground to stage these expensive vehicles safely. Many other supplies and materials require large areas as well. These include office trailers, culverts, gravel and aggregate, and other construction materials. These staging areas need to be chosen and analyzed with care, and have appropriate clearances.
3. Water for Construction
Large construction projects can consume tremendous quantities of water, using up to a million gallons each day. Surface water can be readily depleted at that rate, with serious consequences on aquatic resources particularly in arid regions. Construction water sites require careful analysis, with maximum withdrawal limits as appropriate. Consider seasons of use in determining maximum withdrawal limits, since avoiding spawning or breeding seasons for fish and wildlife are important seasonal considerations.
4. Access for Construction and Geotechnical Investigation
Crews associated with the highway project may need to access the location of a future highway or realignment over a far different route than the future highway. These access needs may be well outside the right-of-way limits. Geotechnical investigations can require roads capable of supporting large drilling equipment or other large vehicles.
A need to detour traffic around construction sites may affect areas that are not clearly delineated in the NEPA document. These sites may affect considerable acreage if the speed of the traffic is not reduced or if the construction is major.
Anticipate and analyze access management needs as part of the NEPA document, and determine mitigation for access routes no longer needed after construction is complete.
Access routes can open up previously unroaded areas, so barriers during construction or geotechnical investigations might be necessary to prevent establishment of public use. Access for projects through sensitive wildlife areas such as nesting territories or winter range may need seasonal restrictions. Consideration early in the planning process may avoid construction delays.
5. Utilities
Utilities are frequently collocated with highways, so when highways are reconstructed or realigned, the need to consider new locations for utilities becomes important. Utilities are often outside the right-of-way, so the analysis of the effect of a highway project on their location is often omitted from NEPA analysis. New highway alignments may necessitate new utility locations, and different utilities (power, telephone, cable, water lines) may need different routings.
Forest Service planners need to consider numerous aspects of these changes, including some or all of the following. Clearances may need to be obtained for pole placement or replacement. Sometimes highways are closed due to realignment but the utilities remain in place, so it must be determined whose responsibility it is to maintain the road and to what standard, particularly if the road closure is considered mitigation for the impacts of the construction. The type of road access restriction needs to be considered and agreed to by all parties, including all utilities, prior to the issuance of final clearances. An opportunity may arise to consider underground utilities at the time of reconstruction.
6. Mitigation Projects
Mitigation for highway project impacts also need NEPA consideration and appropriate clearances obtained. Mitigation projects may be well outside the right-of-way. It is important to determine and document who is responsible for planning, funding and implementation of mitigation projects, particularly if they are long-term projects and may involve a change of personnel. Since this is often an interagency agreement, a memorandum of understanding or agreement is recommended to avoid future misunderstandings. This memorandum could be used to document who would do the necessary environmental analysis and who will fund it if mitigation is not included in the highway project NEPA document.
Strongly consider monitoring in all highway projects; monitoring falls under the same funding and implementation concerns as mitigation. Monitoring is typically complex, so development of a plan prior to the issuance of a Letter of Consent ensures that it is clear who is responsible, and how the information will be collected and used.
7. Impact of Outside Agencies and Direction
The Forest Service is subject to many regulations and other direction that have major impacts on the completion of a highway project crossing National Forest System lands. These include such regulations as 4F, 401, 404, SWPP, Clean Water Act, US Fish and Wildlife Service consultation requirements, SHPPO, and other mitigation or local issues. Brennan notes that ‘the quickest way to get a ranger in jail is to violate the Clean Water Act,’ so it is important that all of these other regulations and requirements are met as well as internal policy requirements. Failure to plan for and obtain permits and clearances in a timely fashion will delay projects, and may lead to major resource damage as well.
State and federal highway projects function with a somewhat different interpretation of NEPA requirements, FWS consultation agreements, and other constraints, particularly because of the rapid planning and implementation schedule of most highway projects. Outside contractors are typically used for highway project planning, sometimes with minimal use of local Forest Service resource specialist knowledge.
It is the Forest Service’s responsibility to ensure all its applicable laws, regulations and policies are followed, and contractors may not be aware of all necessary procedures. The 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between the USDA Forest Service and the Federal Highway Administration directs the Forest Service, acting as an agent of the FHWA, to be responsible for monitoring and enforcement of all applicable environmental legislation for highways on NFS lands (Section I), tied to the issuance of the Letter of Consent to allow a highway as a reasonable use of NFS lands.
Sandra Jacobson, USDA Forest Service, August 4, 2002