PROCEEDINGS of the Second National Symposium
on Environmental Concerns in Rights-of-Way Management

October 16-18, 1979
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Prepared by:
Dale H. Arner
Mississippi State University
P.O. Drawer LW Mississippi State
Mississippi 39762, USA

Edited by:
Robert Tillman, New York Botanical Garden, Cary Arboretum

• Abstract
• Foreword
• Contents

ABSTRACT

These proceedings are a collection of the papers presented at the Second Symposium on Environmental Concerns in Rights-of-Way Management held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 16-18, 1979. It includes the keynote address and 67 manuscripts covering planning, design, maintenance, construction, and research on rights-of-way (ROW) corridors.

The purpose of the conference was to provide a forum for individuals involved in the management of ROW corridors to share their relevant experiences and benefit from each others' studies. The Symposium was an attempt to present a balanced view of ROW management, including a reconciliation of economic and ecological realities. Over 300 people attended the Symposium and there have been numerous requests for this publication as a result of the interest generated at the meeting.

FOREWORD

John W. Huckabee, Project Manager
Energy Analysis and Environment Division

The purpose of this conference was to provide a forum for those individuals involved in the management of rights-of-way (ROW) corridors to share their relevant experiences for mutual benefit, including the benefit of their domains.

The management of ROWs has been at issue for at least 40 or 50 years. Almost every utility company has a stake in this issue because a significant portion of its budget is expended on keeping the corridors clear. In addition, agencies charged with the protection or enhancement of the environment likewise have considerable stake in the ROW management issue because of the immense amounts of land involved: millions of acres, including large swatches of prime wildlife habitat.

These two groups--utilities and environmental agencies--would seem to be at cross-purposes in the ROW domain. But are they? The co-sponsors of this conference think not; proper management of ROWs can accomplish the objectives of both groups. What is proper ROW management? ROWs are the designs of engineers, but nature, invoking precedence, seeks relentlessly to impose its own designs. The issue thus becomes not if, but how best, to manage nature: fight or finesse. The papers presented herein do not, as a corpus, provide a definitive answer. They are far too disparate to reveal a common thread or theme (beyond involving ROWs), perhaps indicating that we have yet to develop a management consensus; some of us are fighting, some are finessing.

Nonetheless, the reader can come to grips with this material by realizing that the required management tools have been available for many years, as shown by the open scientific literature. The evidence is already in hand showing that a wise and balanced use of these tools, including herbicides, can result in an esthetically pleasing, almost maintenance-free ROW that also provides excellent cover for indigenous wildlife. This certainly constitutes proper management: reconciling the economic and ecological realities.

The extent to which current ROW management programs involve little more than broadcast spraying of herbicides (fighting) indicates the extent of our failure to reconcile these realities (finessing). It is our hope that the works presented here will provide a significant advance in our understanding of the need, not just the means, for such reconciliation and thereby equip us to make better collective decisions on the fate of a vast resource: the ROW domain.

CONTENTS

• Keynote Address - R/W Management and Herbicides:
  An Iatrogenic Disease of the Technologic Age, 1949-1979
  Frank E. Egler

Part 1: Routing Considerations

• Ecosystem Response Simulation as an Aid in Computer Assisted Utility Corridor Siting
  William O. Rasmussen and Peter F. Ffolliott
  
  
• Geographic Information Systems in Right-of-Way Management: The Status and Uses of Current Computer Technology
  Peter H. Astor and Kevin P. Twine
  
  
• Probability and the Assessment of Impact Risk in Utility Corridor Siting
  Larry S. Thompson
  
  
• Ecological Value Ranking and Utility Corridor Selection
  Walter R. Odening, Stephen D. Kellogg, and Alan Sicherman
  
  
• Land Use Planning Issues and Future Rights-of-Way From a Researcher's Perspective
  Frank S. Young and J. Sherman Feher
  
  
• Scoping the Environmental Study
  Michael A. Fielek and Michael G. Morris
  
  
• Overview of Corridor Selection and Routing Methodologies
  Arlen D. White
  
  
• Public Issues and Regulatory Change: A Minnesota Experience
  Lawrence B. Hartman and Terry Simmons
  
  
• Framework for Transmission Siting
  Valerie Mellerop
  
  
• The Economic Impact of High Voltage Transmission Towers on Agricultural Lands
  John A. Henderson and William S. Scott
  
  
• Farms and Wires
  James J. de Waal Malefyt
  
  
• Assessment of Potential Socioeconomic Impacts of Transmission Corridor Development
  Charles J. Bennett
  
  
• The Effect of Transmission Lines on Residential Property Values
  Calvin L. Blinder
  
  
• Public Participation in Routing Transmission Lines: What It Means and Why Bother?
  Dan McConnon
  
  
• Deciding the Level of Public Involvement in Right-of-Way Selection and Approval
  J. K. Nickerson, D. F. Perry, and F. L. Brown
  
  
• Public Participation in Transmission Right-of-Way Selection: A Case Study
  Bruce E. Howlett
  
  
• A Visual Approach To Utility Planning
  Jay G. Roundy
  
  
• Selecting Designs, Materials and Colors for Transmission Structures in Different Environments
  Bruce E. Howlett
  
  
• The Natural Beauty Road Act: Preserving Rights-of-Way Through Legislation
  William M. McEntee
  
  
• Mitigation of Pipeline and Transmission Line Impacts
  Allen F. Crabtree and Jim Roseberry
  
  
• Cultural Resource Management
  Barbara Mead
  
  
• Pipeline Rights-of-Way on the Pigeon River
  Donald L. Inman
  
  
• Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Transmission EIS Project
  Timothy J. Murray, Larry L. Wilkerson, and Kenneth A. Barnhart
  
  
• Policy Changes To Lessen Construction Impact on Transmission Line Right-of-Way:
  A Case History
  John S. Wenger, Jerome E. Knight, and Robert J. Broad

Part 2: ROW Management, Concepts and Guidelines

• Continuing Evaluation of New Herbicides for Vegetation Control on Utility Rights-of-Way
  William A. Jeffers
  
  
• Utilization of Volunteer Vegetation in Ground Cover Restoration Operations on New Transmission Line Rights-of-Way
  D. K. Fowler, L. J. Turner, and L. F. Adkisson
  
  
• Use of Hand-Held Torches in Managing Woody Vegetation on Rights-of-Way
  David P. Olson, Socrates Macrigeanis, and Weston J. Davis
  
  
• A Summary of the Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife Highway Right-of-Way Planting Program
  Wayne J. Machan
  
  
• Highway Roadside Planting and Spraying Study
  Dean Zimmerman
  
  
• The Effect of Utility Right-of-Way Maintenance Upon Game Food Plants
  Jimmy C. Huntley and Dale H. Arner
  
  
• Environmental Monitoring of the Construction of an EHV Transmission Line Through a Wooded Swamp
  David W. Belyea
  
  
• The Southern Tier Interconnection: A Five-Year Post-Construction Evaluation
  R. E. Tillman and Roger H. Metzger
  
  
• Property Damage on Rights-of-Way
  Richard H. Powell
  
  
• Environmental and Economic Aspects of Contemporaneous Electric Transmission Rights-of-Way Management Techniques
  Dennis E. Holewinski
  
  
• Experience With Environmental Supervision of Pipeline Construction in Ontario
  Dean F. Mutrie and Robert S. Dorney
  
  
• The Problems of a Successful Roadside Protection Program
  Brian L. Blaesing and Scott Ouellette
  
  
• Right-of-Way Management Program
  Agnes M. Dykes
  
  
• Stream Protection During Transmission Line Construction and Maintenance
  K. McLoughlin
  
  
• A Conceptual Model for Conducting Integrated Research of Right-of-Way Management Problems
  Lawrence W. Jackson
  
  
• Use of 2,4,5-T for Vegetation Management on Rights-of-Way
  T. R. Wiltrout and H. A. Holt
  
  
• Natural Revegetation of Tidal Freshwater Marshes Disturbed by Natural Gas Pipeline Construction in Savannah, Georgia
  Edward G. Farnworth
  
  
• Comparison of Vegetation Cover and Composition on Utility Rights-of-Way of Various Ages
  Walter R. Odening, James R. Beley, Joe M. Merino, and Nancy L. Aitkenhead
  
  
• Vegetation Distribution Associated With Right-of-Way Habitats in New York
  Paul A. Johnston and William C. Bramble

Part 3: Wildlife Research and Management

• A Method for Monitoring the Terrestrial Animal Community of a Powerline Right-of-Way
  Richard N. Bramwell and J. Roger Bider
  
  
• Biological Monitoring on Rights-of-Way
  Robert L. Burgess and Elaine E. Huber
  
  
• A Transmission Corridor Planning Approach to Threatened and Endangered Species
  G. T. St. Clair and B. S. McFarlane
  
  
• A Wildlife Habitat Improvement Plan for a Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project
  James R. Holeman and Edward W. Colson
  
  
• Railroad Rights-of-Way as Wildlife Habitat in Iowa
  Lynn Braband and Erwin E. Klaas
  
  
• Use of Different Highway Cover Plantings by Wildlife
  Edwin D. Michael and Charles J. Kosten
  
  
• Developing Wildlife Management Strategies for Transmission Line Rights-of-Way
  Kenneth D. Hoover and Michael T. Galvin
  
  
• Characterization of the Ecological Effects of Overhead Transmission Line Rights-of-Way
  Robert D. Cupit
  
  
• Responses of Animals to Transmission-Line Corridor Management Practices
  Anthony G. Ladino and J. Edward Gates
  
  
• Roads and Roadside Habitat in Relation to Small Mammal Distribution and Abundance
  Lowell W. Adams and Aelred D. Geis
  
  
• The Effects of Mowing of Highway Rights-of-Way on Small Mammals
  Kenneth T. Wilkins and David J. Schmidly
  
  
• Population Levels of Cottontail Rabbits Along a Powerline Right-of-Way Before and After a Modification of Management Procedures
  Carl W. Betsill, William S. McTeer, and Lloyd G. Webb
  
  
• Effect of an Electric Transmission Right-of-Way on Forest Wildlife Habitat
  William C. Bramble and William R. Byrnes
  
  
• Transmission-Line Rights-of-Way Management and White-Tailed Deer Habitat: A Review
  Robert H. Eaton and J. Edward Gates
  
  
• The Effect of a Utility Right-of-Way on White-Tailed Deer in a Northern Deer Yard
  G. Jean Doucet, Robert W. Stewart, and Ken A. Morrison
  
  
• Bird Population Responses to a Forest-Grassland and Shrub Ecotone on a Transmission Line Corridor
  Joseph M. Meyers and Ernest E. Provost
  
  
• Nesting Platforms for Use With Transmission or Distribution Structures
  John M. Bridges and Dan McConnon
  
  
• Effects of Transmission Lines on Flight Behavior of Waterfowl and Other Birds
  James R. Meyer and Jack M. Lee, Jr.
  
  
• Roadside Management for Pheasants and Songbirds in East-Central Illinois
  Larry M. David and Richard E. Warner
  
  
• Use of Rights-of-Way by Nesting Wild Turkeys in North Alabama
  Daniel D. Everett, Daniel W. Speake and William K. Maddox
  
  
• Rights-of-Way as Habitat for the Endangered Attwater's Prairie Chicken
  John D. Horkel, R. Scott Lutz, and Nova J. Silvy
  
  
• Right-of-Way Utilization by Forest - and Corridor-Breeding Bird Populations
  J. Edward Gates and Kenneth R. Dixon
  
  
• Habitat-Niche Discrimination of Passerines Along a Transmission-Line Corridor
  Bruce A. Lawson and J. Edward Gates
  
  
• Avian Breeding Success in Relation to Grassland and Shrubland Habitats Within a 138 kV Transmission Line Corridor
  Gregory G. Chasko and Edward Gates