Impositions for the Installation of the Transmission Line

The combination of factors coming together.

Daniel Gartin

December 12, 2019

Before the Beginning; There were Some Major Objectives

This project set out to highlight issues with the installation of a transmission line in the counties of Sarasota and Manatee. With this in mine, the Final Project had 4 major points set as objectives. These objectives focused majority on the specific impacts related to the installation of the transmission line in the preferred corridor of Manatee and Sarasota. Thus, the objectives were following:

The impositions which the transmission line will have on environmentally sensitive lands and wetlands.
Homes impacted due to proximity to the transmission line.
Impacted schools within the proximity of the transmission line.
The total estimated length of the transmission line.

Additionally, ArcGIS software was used due to its ability to provide accurate presentation of data associated with this issue. Due to the age of the data given, information will be processed with respects to the oldest data first.

It Began with a Base Map

Figure 1: Base Map containing the data layers all under the same projection.

Figure 2: List of data layers downloaded and created all under a single projection.

Data was downloaded first, sorted, and lastly added into ArcGIS Pro

Data was downloaded first, sorted, and lastly added into ArcGIS Pro
All data layers were projected into ArcGIS as Albers Conical Equal Area [FGDL]; GCS North American 1983 HARN
Map was then turn into a base map using the Convert tool under the View tab

The First Step Forward

Figure 3: A map of environmentally sensitive lands and wetland types impacted from the preferred corridor for a transmission line in Sarasota and Manatee County.

Base Map was first added, limited to data specifically relevant information, and clip down to mostly include information only within the study area
ArcGIS tools Intersect was used to find environmentally sensitive lands effected directly by the preferred corridor of the transmission line.
Using the Clip tool on Conservation Lands and the Preferred Corridor provided the acres total effected
The Intersect tool was then used for the NWI Study Area and the Preferred Corridor to obtain wetlands impacted by directly by the preferred corridor.

Table 1: Contains the information on specifics of impacted environmentally sensitive lands

Figure 4: This graph provides the the specific amount of wetlands impacted by the preferred corridor and the how much the type of wetlands are effected. Upland makes up 86% of the wetland type impacted while Wet Wetlands is 14% of the impacted area.

Forward with the Second Step

Figure 5: A map depicting the homes effected directly or within a 400 foot buffer from the preferred corridor.

Base Map was once again added first; limited to only the relevant information and clip down to mostly include information only within the study area
Feature class called Buffer Homes was created with two fields; within_pc and 400ft_pc
Homes within the corridor received a 1 in the within_pc field and if they were in the buffer a 2 for the 400ft_pc
Houses were determin off of physical observation with respects towards parcel information, driveways, and roofs observed from the aerial photographs.
Within the Edit tab, the Modify ArcGIS tool was used to physically add each home observed within the designated area of focus.

Figure 6: A graph which presents the amount of homes directly effected or within the proximity of the preferred corridor.

Third Step Forward

Figure 7: Contains the schools and daycare's associated within the area of study.

The FGDL website contain two shapefiles, SCHOOL FACILITIES (PUBLIC AND PRIVATE) IN FLORIDA - 2017; and REGISTERED DAYCARE FACILITIES IN FLORIDA - 2016
Base Map was once again added; limited to only the relevant information and clip down to mostly include information only within the study area
These shapefiles were then added to the map, and re-projected into the Albers Conical Equal Area [FGDL]; GCS North American 1983 HARN
These sets of data while much newer than some of the shapefiles, was used to accurately mark the location of schools within the Florida state, and clip down to to only include information from within the study area
With no schools or daycare's directly impacted in the 400 foot buffer region nor the preferred corridor itself, the nearest school and daycare was determine through the measure function.

Figure 8: Graph contains the nearest school (top) and daycare (bottom) distance from the 400 foot buffer.

Fourth and Final Step Forward

Figure 9: Map presents an estimated path for the transmission line and its roughly expected length. Additionally, this map contains the parcel intersect in the Sarasota and Manatee county.

Once again was the Base Map added; limited to only to the relevant information and clip down to mostly include information only within the study area
A new feature class was created called Transmission Line
This feature class then had the added field "Length" added to it as a Short Integer Data Type
With the Modify tool, ArcGIS was then applied to physically trace a transmission line through the center of the preferred corridor

Table 2: Contains the rough estimate length of the transmission line

Parcel counts was done with the Intersect tool with the preferred corridor and the Manatee and Sarasota Parcels
Any parcels directly effected by the corridor was counted for this section

Figure 10: A pie graph comparing the amount of parcels effected directly effected by the preferred corridor.

The Finish Line

Overall, the creation of the transmission line will have the following effects:

164 acres of environmentally sensitive lands impacted directly; Sarasota holding the greatest amount of environmentally sensitive lands impacted with 91 acres
While 6567 acres of wetlands with 86% being Upland and 14% being Wet Wetlands.

Homes impacted due to their proximity to the preferred corridor was 73 homes effected total
25 of the homes were directly in the preferred corridor while 48 were located within the 400 ft buffer region
Majority of the homes were observed in the Manatee County region

As for schools and daycare's, none were present within the preferred corridor nor the buffer region.
The nearest school, Hope Prebyteerian School, is 1630 ft away from the 400 ft buffer
While the nearest daycare, Sprouts Child Development Center, is 950 ft away from the 400 ft buffer
Both the school and daycare are located within Manatee County

The transmission line estimated length was 129964 feet (24.6 miles)
Installation of the transmission line within the preferred corridor will effect 164 parcels
32 of the parcels are located within Sarasota County, while the remaining 132 parcels is found in Manatee County

Honorable Mentions

Obtaining the data for this experiment would have not been possible without the support of:

The UWF ArcGIS information given,

Citizens Transmission. (2019, February 1). Retrieved December 11, 2019, from http://citizensenergy.com/business-initiatives/citizens-transmission.

and

University of Florida's GeoPlan Center. (n.d.). FGDL Metadata explorer: Search and Download Data. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.fgdl.org/metadataexplorer/explorer.jsp.