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.