Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
Table 70. Visual Management System Visual Quality Objectives
Preservation Allows ecological changes only, only low impact recreation facilities are allowed.
Retention Allows management activities which are not visually evident. Activities may only repeat form,
line, color, and texture which are frequently found in the characteristic landscape.
Partial
Retention
Allows management activities that remain visually subordinate to the characteristic landscape.
Activities may repeat form, line, color, or texture common to the characteristic landscape but
changes in their qualities of size, amount, intensity, direction, pattern, etc., remain visually
subordinate to the characteristic land. Activities may also introduce form, line, color, or texture
which are found infrequently or not at all in the characteristic landscape, but they should remain
subordinate to the visual strength of the characteristic landscape.
Modification Allows management activities that visually dominate the original characteristic landscape.
Activities which are predominately introduction of facilities such as buildings, signs, roads, etc.,
should borrow naturally established form, line, color, and texture so completely and at such
scale that its visual characteristics are compatible with the natural surroundings.
Maximum
Modification
Allows management activities of vegetative and landform alterations may dominate the
characteristic landscape. However, when viewed as background, the visual characteristics must
be those of natural occurrences within the surrounding area or character type. When viewed as
foreground or middle ground, they may not appear to completely borrow from naturally
established form, line, color, or texture. Alterations may also be out of scale or contain detail
which is incongruent with natural occurrences as seen in foreground or middle ground.
Visual Setting
The proposed permit area for the Roca Honda Mine is approximately 1,920 acres in size which is
based on 640 acres for each of Sections 9, 10, and 16 as described in chapter 2. The total
disturbed acreage within the permit area is significantly smaller, approximately 12 acres in
Section 9, 71 acres in Section 10, and 100 acres in Section 16. This section will describe the
visual resources or aesthetics for each of those three sections. This is done by describing the
characterized landforms, vegetation, human modifications, and the VMS Visual Quality
Objectives within each section.
The entire permit area is within the Arizona-New Mexico Mountains Semidesert—Open
Woodland—Coniferous Forest—Alpine Meadow Province, characterized by steep foothills and
plateaus. Elevations range from 4,500 to 10,000 feet (USFS, 2008). Areas such as these with high
relief in the landscape often allow for large and far viewsheds. The vegetation cover in the area
consists of desert grass/shrubland, and open woodland (figures 64, 65, and 66).
In Section 9 the landscape consists of mostly very open piñon-juniper woodland. It includes Jesus
Mesa with an elevation of 7,839 feet, and most of the remaining section area sits about 300–500
feet below the mesa (USGS, 2009). There are three unpaved roads in this section; however, as
described earlier, these roads are not open to public use. There are no residences or human
development in this section. Therefore, the number of viewers of this landscape is low. The Forest
Service visual inventory in the section gives the area a VQO for modification (figure 67) (USFS,
1991).
362 DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest