Assessing Potential Biological Impacts from Pipeline Construction on Hanford Sites   

• To reduce fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions, DOE has proposed to make natural gas available to Hanford Site facilities.
• In support of a biological assessment, the EAS team conducted botanical and wildlife surveys to identify and quantify potential environmental impacts of constructing, operating and maintaining a natural gas transmission line on DOE and non-DOE lands.
• Surveys also were conducted to verify and update baseline information included in the Biological Resources Management Plan (BRMP).
•  EAS team botanists focused on locating and documenting occurrences of BRMP-defined priority species and habitats in the study area.
• Wildlife teams documented locations of burrowing owl nests and ground squirrel colonies along the proposed 30-mile-long corridor.
• Specialists also documented significant aggregations of special-status butterflies and invertebrates and a relative abundance of sagebrush lizards in the study area using GPS points or polygons.