Rehabilitation of Highway 62 West, Crater Lake National Park, Klamath County, Oregon

 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES

ALTERNATIVE C: PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE

This section evaluates the potential impacts of alternative C, the preferred alternative.

Air Quality

Alternative C, the preferred alternative, would temporarily affect local air quality through increased dust and vehicle emissions. Fugitive dust plumes from construction equipment would intermittently increase airborne particulates in the area near the project site. Impacts associated with alternative C would be similar to the impacts described under alternative B, although the construction phase of the project would be slightly longer.

Cumulative Impacts. Air quality at Crater Lake National Park is near pristine with minimal internal and external emission sources. Past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions that would have an effect on air quality include trail rehabilitation and relocation, the reconstruction of the Rim parking lot, the waterline replacement from Munson Springs to Garfield, and the lagoon project at Munson Valley. The effects of these projects would be short term, adverse, and negligible parkwide. Alternative C would only contribute to these actions if they are occurring concurrently, resulting in a short-term, adverse, and negligible parkwide effect.

Conclusion. Overall, there would be negligible, short-term degradation of air quality from construction-generated dust and emissions from construction equipment along the project corridor. Cumulative effects would be negligible and adverse only if they are constructed concurrently.

Because there would be no major adverse impacts to a resource or value whose conservation is (1) necessary to fulfill specific purposes identified in the park’s establishing legislation, (2) key to the natural or cultural integrity of the park or to opportunities for enjoyment of the park, or (3) identified as a goal in the park’s General Management Plan or other relevant National Park Service planning documents, there would be no impairment of park resources or values related to air quality at Crater Lake National Park.

 

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