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Vantage to Pomona Heights Chapter 3 230 kV Transmission Line Project FEIS Affected Environment PAGE 3-1 CHAPTER 3 AFFECTED ENVIRONMENT 3.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter describes the environment and resources that the alternatives described in Chapter 2 may potentially affect. Chapter 3 describes the current condition of each resource and relevant characteristics that may be subject to impacts from the proposed Vantage to Pomona Heights 230 kilovolt Transmission Line Project (Project). Environmental resource baseline information is presented comparing potential impacts from the Action Alternatives and the No Action Alternative which are analyzed in Chapter 4. Identified resources that may be affected by the Project have been carried forward for analysis and are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. These resources include: • Vegetation and Special Status Plant Species • Wildlife and Special Status Wildlife Species • Land Jurisdiction and Land Use • Recreation • Special Management Areas • Transportation • Visual Resources • Socioeconomics • Environmental Justice • Cultural Resources and Native American Concerns • Wildland Fire Ecology and Management • Climate and Air Quality • Water Resources • Geology and Soils Resource inventories were developed for the Project study area in sufficient detail to assess the potential impacts that could result from the proposed Project. The width of the Project study area along each alternative differs for each of the resource disciplines, depending on the area that potentially could be affected. The precise location of the centerline would be determined through engineering surveys of the selected alternative prior to construction. Land use, geology and soils, water, and cultural resources were inventoried within a two-mile wide Project study area (one mile on either side of the assumed centerlines of the alternative route segments). Biological resources were also inventoried within the two-mile wide Project study area. For Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), the Project study area is defined as an eight-mile wide corridor (four-mile buffer of the centerline). Visual resources were inventoried within a six-mile wide Project study area (three miles on either side of the assumed centerlines). Data and information for social and economic conditions in the Project study area are based on county and state-wide data and cannot be tailored to a specific corridor. Maps illustrating resource data within the Project area and Project study area are located in Appendix A. Resource data was documented along the alternatives. The resource discussions in this chapter reference the route segments shown on the resource maps, providing a geographic reference to the resource data.