SBCT Final EIS - Govsupport.us

Chapter 5 – Environmental Consequencesnot compare directly with the 2004 FEIS, but the same impacts are analyzed. For example, thepreviously analyzed category of biological resources is now further subdivided and analyzed in fiveseparate categories. These five categories include vegetation, wetlands, noxious weeds, threatened orendangered species, and wildlife and habitats.Impacts from soil erosion are not mitigable to less than significant. The primary activity groupresponsible for immitigable soil erosion is maneuver training. Expansion of maneuver areas into thosenot currently used for maneuver would expose stable, vegetated soils to vehicle and foot traffic. Thiswould cause loss of vegetation, soil compaction, and alterations to drainage patterns that wouldincrease soil erosion from both wind and water. BMPs and mitigation measures would reduce soilloss, but not to a less than significant level.Impacts to threatened and endangered species would occur from continued use of Army lands butformal consultation with the USFWS has resulted in non-jeopardy Biological Opinions for the SBCTtraining. Construction and training activities would increase the potential to introduce or spreadnoxious weeds and increase the possibility of accidental ignition of a wildfire. Implementation of theIWFMP will greatly reduce the potential effects of a wildfire; however, the loss a sensitive species orits habitat would be a significant impact. Mitigation measures would not reduce these impacts to lessthan significant. General wildlife, habitats, and vegetation would sustain only less than significantimpacts. No impacts to wetlands would be expected.A minor increase in noise levels would occur at SBMR. Existing noise levels are already atsignificant thresholds, and though the increased noise from the proposed action would be minor, noiselevels from ordnance use at SBMR would continue to be a significant impact.Surveys and monitoring of cultural resources are ongoing and have been incorporated into project andtraining design. A programmatic agreement is in place, as well as an inadvertent discovery plan, toaddress unknown cultural resources. However, the proposed action could result in inadvertent impactsto unknown cultural resources, or restrict access to existing resources. Mitigation measures are inplace to minimize impacts to cultural and historical resources, but not to a less than significant level.Water resource impacts, primarily from training activities, would be significant without mitigation.The implementation of several administrative mitigation measures would reduce impacts to less thansignificant.Air quality impacts from training are mostly mitigable to less than significant. However, wind-blowndust from land disturbed by maneuver training is a potential significant impact at the KeamukuParcel.Impacts to land use, socioeconomics, and hazardous materials would be largely mitigable to less thansignificant. Traffic, airspace, energy, and facilities would all experience less than significant impactsat all affected areas.Table 2-4 of the 2004 FEIS lists the projects required for the SBCT stationing and Hawaiitransformation. Appendix D of the 2004 FEIS provides a detailed description of each project. Table2-13 of this document shows the updated status of projects as they have actually been executed since2004. For this supplemental analysis, the Army examined all of the projects from the 2004 FEIS(except the one that was cancelled as shown in Table 2-13). For each project, except as indicated insection 5.2, there were no changes in the anticipated impacts of the proposed projects; no differencebetween the predicted impacts in 2004 and those that actually occurred; no changes in the proposedactions that would cause additional impacts; and no changes to the affected environment.February 2008 5-4 2/25th SBCT Final EIS