Energy Archives

San Joaquin Cross Valley Transmission Project

The Cross Valley transmission line corridor traverses approximately 11 miles of agriculturally developed land and 12 miles of native foothill grassland habitat that potentially contained a diverse group of threatened, endangered, and protected species. Federal and State permits for the take of species and wetlands delineation were a necessity. Project-specific information on the abundance and distribution of species and wetlands had to be documented at a high degree of specificity and confidence. The high project scrutiny required that the implementation of avoidance and mitigation measures be conducted efficiently, effectively, and with a high degree of documentation.

QK completed initial biological resource surveys including protocol-level surveys for special-status species, nesting raptors, and other birds, conducted wetlands delineations, and provided that information in reports for the client to use in obtaining project permits from the regulatory agencies (United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). QK conducted follow-up studies to provide the current information as the project progressed, implemented all permit requirements, conducted pre-construction surveys, and performed construction monitoring for the construction of this 23-mile transmission line.

QK worked with the client to achieve a performance schedule that was reasonable and met the needs of the client while allowing sufficient time for the completion of seasonally dependent studies. Follow-up surveys were conducted to provide updated biological information as site conditions changed, project designs were modified, and coordination with the regulatory agencies progressed.

A long-term program was established to train construction workers on the implementation of avoidance and minimization measures, train a team of biological compliance monitors, and implement all mitigation measures.
The transmission line construction project was completed on-time with no major compliance issues, despite a large diversity of biological issues and a complex mitigation and reporting plan.

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Markets

Castle Rock & Sierra Roundabout

Visalia Road Improvements Phase I

South Farmersville Boulevard Safe Routes To Schools Project

Glaze Avenue

San Joaquin Bridge / State Route 99 BAT Surveys

Mulcahy Park

Maricopa Sun Solar Energy Complex

The proposed site for Maricopa Orchards’ solar energy complex was composed of 6,000-acres of undeveloped agricultural land which potentially harbored a wide variety of threatened, endangered, and protected species. The large project size, broadly separated configuration of the project, and close proximity of existing wildlife populations created the potential for taking of species and affect a wildlife dispersal corridor. Impacts of the project needed to be identified and documented, avoidance and minimization measures developed, compensatory lands acquired, and permits from regulatory agencies acquired. Of primary concern was that the landowner, Maricopa Orchards, was not envisioned to be the developer, but rather properties would be pre-permitted for solar development, and then sold or leased to solar developing interests.

QK worked with Maricopa Orchards to conduct all studies required for the development of a 700-MW solar project on private lands without federal subsidies. QK conducted all required studies, coordinated and consulted with resource agency staff, provided all applications and plans for all project permits, and created the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Plan (MMRP) for the project. QK also developed management plans for the compensatory lands, which were also owned by Maricopa Orchards. Several unique and never-before-attempted solutions to agency concerns were developed including a “springing” conservation easement that was applied to solar lands and a phased approach to compensation and mitigation.

All project permits were approved, the environmental process completed, one 160-acre solar facility has been constructed, and nearly 80-percent of the land entitled for solar has now been sold or is in escrow. An extremely low mitigation ratio was negotiated, based upon site-specific conditions, that resulted in a compensation ratio of approximately 0.5 acres preserved for each acre of solar developed, plus the conversion of solar lands to conservation lands once decommissioning of the solar sites is realized.