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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) expressed apprehension last Wednesday that the “fast track” process for siting transmission lines across the Hill Country is not giving that federal agency adequate time to determine potential impacts to endangered species.

Allison Arnold, with USFWS, told a gathering of landowners in Junction that one of the concerns her agency is having with the CREZ projects is that the Public Utility Commission (PUC) has put a pretty tight deadline on it.

CREZ stands for Competitive Renewable Energy Zones and the CREZ projects refer to the proposed transmission lines to bring wind energy from wind farms in west Texas to population centers along Interstate 35. PUC has set a deadline of October 29, 2009 for final and alternative routes to be announced.

This tight deadline does not give biologists adequate time to collect comprehensive data and assess impacts to endangered species, noted Arnold. “We like to be respectful of mandated timelines set by states, but our priority is mandated by federal statute. If we don’t have the information we need to make our assessment, we can’t make our determination.”

The LCRA-TSC (Transmission Services Corporation) is one of the service providers selected by PUC to construct the transmission lines. LCRA spokeswoman Krista Umscheid-Ramirez commented that LCRA-TSC must comply with the Endangered Species Act. “We typically conduct on-ground natural resource assessments after the PUC makes its route selection and then coordinate with the USFWS…However, because of the compressed time frame for CREZ projects, our discussions with the USFWS will begin prior to filing our applications in October,” Umscheid-Ramirez said.

Arnold told the Junction gathering that Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act requires non-federal projects that may harm endangered species to obtain an Incidental Take Permit. A Habitat Conservation Plan must accompany the permit application.

The purpose of the Habitat Conservation Plan is to develop mitigation strategies that offset impacts to species. “This (the development of a Habitat Conservation Plan) is probably what is going to happen on most of the CREZ projects,” Arnold offered.

The USFWS website lists several endangered species in the Hill Country including the Golden Cheek Warbler and Black-Capped Vireo. The Whooping Crane is also listed as an endangered species in the area because the cranes’ migration corridor passes through parts of the Hill Country.

Issuing a federal permit, such as an Incidental Take Permit, could trigger the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), requiring the private entity to conduct either an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement to submit to USFWS for approval, said Dr. Tom Arsuffi, Director of the Texas Tech University Llano River Field Station in Junction.

While such a process could result in delays, studies have shown that these delays have been rewarded in millions of dollars in cost savings, Arsuffi continued. “NEPA is all about common sense before major significant projects are enacted”. It requires alternatives to be carefully considered and mitigation factors to be adequately assessed.

Julie Wicker with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department told meeting participants that one of the problems with determining the impact of transmission lines on species is lack of adequate data. Although Parks and Wildlife maintains the Natural Diversity Database for the state, Wicker explained, “There are big gaps where we don’t have any data because we don’t have access to the lands; it has never been surveyed.” Wicker said, “While there may be endangered species out there, we don’t have any information about them.”

The meeting was sponsored by the Clear View Alliance, an organization recently formed to influence decisions regarding alternatives of routes and towers of the proposed CREZ lines from Tom Green County to Kendall County.