2011

July 2011 – Air Quality
The air quality section of the Draft EIS will discuss air pollutant emissions from construction activities, as well as from cars and trucks that would drive on the project roadways. The analysis is guided by the Clean Air Act, which regulates air quality and sets standards for the amount of pollutants allowed in the air. The air quality section of the Draft EIS addresses the following questions for each alternative:

• How will construction impact air quality (usually temporary changes)?
• How will vehicle operations (trucks and cars) impact air quality (usually long-term changes)?
• Does the alternative meet regional standards for carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulate matter?

June 2011 – Construction
A discussion of construction methods, activities, and impacts will be included in the Draft EIS document. This section will describe in general terms how constructing each of the project alternatives would affect nearby roads, buildings, and the natural environment. The construction report answers the following questions for each alternative:

• What changes would be made to the existing roads?
• How could current traffic be handled during construction?
• How difficult would it be to build a connection between a new or improved bridge and the existing roads?
• How much space would be needed for temporary storage of construction materials and equipment?
• How would river traffic (boats) be impacted during construction?
• About how long would construction take?

May 2011 – Energy Analysis
The preliminary Draft Environmental Impact Statement is currently being reviewed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and is expected to be published in late summer 2011. See the project schedule for more information about upcoming milestones.

Project construction activities and the operation of vehicles within the study area would consume energy resources, primarily in the form of petroleum. The Draft EIS will provide an estimate of the amount of energy that would be consumed by vehicle operations (automobiles and trucks) for each of the Salem River Crossing Alternatives, as well as the amount of energy that would be consumed to construct each alternative. The energy analysis uses information from the traffic and transportation report to estimate the total vehicle miles traveled and average vehicle speeds for each alternative. Key questions about energy that are answered in the report include the following:

• How much energy would be consumed by the operation of automobiles and trucks for each alternative?
• How much energy would be consumed to construct each alternative?
• What are the cumulative impacts of each alternative on energy resources with respect to past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions
  within the study area?

April 2011 – Socioeconomic Analysis
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement will discuss potential community impacts that could result from each of the Salem River Crossing alternatives. The analysis identifies the differences among the various alternatives, including the no-build alternative. To avoid duplication with other portions of the Draft EIS analyses, the socioeconomics technical report focused on answering the following questions:

• How much is community character and cohesion affected by each alternative?
• How many community facilities are impacted?
• What are the impacts to businesses and established business districts?
• What are the impacts to social groups including the elderly, disabled, and linguistically-isolated persons?

March 2011 – Noise Analysis
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement will include a report that looks at the noise impacts of each of the Salem River Crossing alternatives. Changes in noise as a result of the project could be related to changes in the number of vehicles on the roads and where the roads are located. To assess the noise impacts, estimated future noise levels are compared to current noise levels. The noise analysis will answer the following questions:

• What are the current noise levels in residential, park and commercial areas in the project area?
• For each alternative, will the noise levels change during construction or in the long-term after the project is constructed? If so, by how much?
• For each alternative, what steps might need to be taken to address noise impacts? Could any of these steps result in indirect impacts to a residential, park or commercial area?

February 2011 – Environmental Justice Analysis
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement includes a report that looks at the construction and long-term effects of the project to low-income and minority populations. This report also describes whether such impacts are disproportionate compared to other populations (for example, does an alternative affect low-income and/or minority populations more than the rest of the population?). This report, called the Environmental Justice report, is required for all federally funded transportation projects that have the potential to cause adverse affects.

Effects can come in the form of benefits (such as easier access to employment centers for those living in the area) or negative impacts (such as creating a barrier that isolates all or a portion of a community). The report brings together information from many other Draft EIS reports (including economics, social impacts, right-of-way, land use, air quality, and noise) to assess the impacts on low-income and minority communities. Minority communities are considered to be residential or business areas that have large concentrations of African American, Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian, and Hispanic groups. The Environmental Justice report answers the following questions:

• Would the project result in negative effects that mostly affect low-income or minority populations?
• Are there ways to reduce the negative impacts on these populations?
• Does the project affect a resource (social, religious, parks, etc.) that is important to the low-income or minority population?

The Draft EIS Environmental Justice report is meant to give a first impression of the impacts to these communities and represents the analysts’ best professional opinion. Once the Draft EIS is published, targeted outreach will be conducted to confirm the findings with these groups. Verifying the Environmental Justice report findings is an important part of the process, because data in reports does not tell the whole story. Community members will be able to provide information that will complete the description of potential impacts. This outreach will also provide an opportunity to verify the data included in the report.

January 2011 – Land Use Analysis
When the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) is released later this year, it will discuss potential impacts to land use. The land use discussion in the Draft EIS focuses on how the proposed project would affect how land in the area is used today and how it is planned to be developed and used in the future. The land use analysis describes the differences among the alternatives, including the no-build alternative, and focuses on the following questions:

• How much land would be impacted by each alternative?
• How much of the affected land is vacant and how much is developed?
• What uses currently exist on the affected developed land?
• What is the difference between the alternatives in terms of the type of land that would be impacted? Will the alternatives result in changes or pressures to change the pattern, location, or timing of land uses assumed in local plans?
• What is the difference between the alternatives in terms of impacts to special planning districts (such as overlay districts or urban renewal areas)?
• How much of the displaced land would be urban (inside the urban growth boundary or UGB) and how much would be rural (outside the UGB)?
• Could the alternatives result in ubanization pressures on agricultural lands or pressures to expand the UGB?