Abstract

Designating Energy Corridors on Federal Lands; Avoiding Sensitive Landscapes
Track: Environmental Management
Author(s): Brian Cantwell, Ihor Hlohowskyj, Robert Sullivan, James Kuiper, Matt Nesta, John Krummel, Robert Moore

To comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, federal agencies have been working over the past two years to designate energy corridors on federal lands in the West. Developing energy corridors in an 11 state region, while minimizing impacts to sensitive resources, presented significant siting and location challenges. To meet these challenges required the use of large spatial databases and GIS technology. This paper focuses on methods and approaches used to place corridors on federal lands with minimal impacts to sensitive resources and communicating these spatially important issues to decision-makers and the public. While federal lands in the West are managed by many agencies, each with unique missions and management requirements, a GIS-based approach provided a common template to evaluate sensitive resources across the entire region. While the GIS technology helped unify the project, issues of data availability, quality, and scale posed unique challenges for the project team.

Brian Cantwell
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Building 900
Argonne , Illinois 60439
United States
Phone: 630-252-6802
E-mail: bcantwell@anl.gov

Ihor Hlohowskyj
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Avenue
Building 900
Argonne , Illinois 60438
United States
Phone: 630-252-3478
E-mail: ihlohowskyj@anl.gov

Robert Sullivan
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Avenue
Building 900
Argonne , Illinois 60438
United States
Phone: 630-252-6182
E-mail: rsullivan@anl.gov

James Kuiper
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Avenue
Building 900
Argonne , Illinois 60438
United States
Phone: 630-252-6206
E-mail: jkuiper@anl.gov

Matt Nesta
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Avenue
Building 900
Argonne , Illinois 60438
United States
Phone: 630-252-7246
E-mail: mnesta@anl.gov

John Krummel
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Avenue
Building 900
Argonne , Illinois 60438
United States
Phone: 630-252-3269
E-mail: jkrummel@anl.gov

Robert Moore
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave
Lemont , Illinois 60439
United States
Phone: 303-986-1140
E-mail: BMoore@anl.gov