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Native American perceptions of cultural landscapes are often informed by shared concepts that envision large-scale cultural geographies. As a result, scales for cultural landscape assessments can range from the relatively local to regional. The appropriate scale of assessment in any given situation is sometimes not readily apparent to rights-of-way managers, to land-managing agencies, or to cultural resource professionals. This uncertainty can be a particular problem for linear projects, which can traverse a variety of potential cultural landscapes of differing magnitudes. This paper focuses on a very large cultural landscape associated with the Xam Kwatcan trail system in the desert southwest. In all, this landscape...
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Receiving Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or state utility commission authorizations that convey the power of eminent domain has historically provided utility companies in the United States with some assurance that natural gas pipelines could be built in a timely and financially predictable manner. Recent projects have called this concept into question. In implementing their environmental regulations, other federal and state agencies, possessing limited authority over natural gas pipelines, have delayed projects that have already been determined to be in the public interest and received certificates of public convenience and necessity. As a result of conflicting or overlapping agency objectives and priorities,...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
GSX Pipeline Project,
Islander East,
Pipeline Project,
ROW, All tags...
State Utility Commissions,
We Energies Pipeline Project,
agency coordination,
eminent domain,
pre-filing process,
public convenience,
routing alternatives, Fewer tags
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The electric transmission system is often discussed in the popular press as a topic of great concern, particularly in regard to the need for additional transmission lines over the next decade. The objective of this project was to gather information from energy company professionals who are charged with carrying out the task of developing utility rights-of-way (ROW), both for routing new transmission lines and upgrading existing ones. We asked them about current industry practices, technical issues, public involvement, and regulatory conditions affecting routing and upgrading transmission facilities, and about the changes they expect over the next five years. A total of 48 surveys related to electrical transmission...
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We completed nine focus groups on perceptions of powerline right-of-way (ROW) management issues. In these groups we interviewed eastern Tennessee residents to determine the nature and range of knowledge and views regarding vegetation management, ROWs as wildlife habitat, and ROW aesthetics. We also conducted an extensive literature review to adduce other pertinent data. Participants in focus groups exhibited a wide range of attitudes and beliefs about the interview topics. Some associated wildlife habitat with areas devoid of humans ("wilderness" or "sanctuary"), whereas others thought of habitat as close as "my backyard." A majority referred to habitat in relatively objective terms such as "food, water, and cover"...
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The utility right-of-way (ROW) has been used as a green corridor, or "greenway," for beautifying the community, for enhancing recreational and educational opportunities, for wildlife habitat and biologically connecting ecosystem fragments. These forms of nature conservation have been considered as an effective method to expand utility profiles and improve public relations. At the same time, collaborative approaches to natural resource management, including ROW co-management, are being broadly promoted as promising ways to deal with complex and contentious public issues. This study examined the collaborative decision-making potential for a nature conservation corridor to be established in an existing multiple ROW...
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