Bobwhite-Manatee Project: Intro to GIS 11418 GIS5050 Final Project

Laying a Transmission Line in Southwest Florida

https://arcg.is/1rWWj0

Story Map located at link above

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1apwrzjN_4JMhQCrrX17Cd1S3pF6W4FT9/view?usp=sharing

Transcript for project located at the link above

https://arcg.is/1azbO41

Web-map located at the link above

A transmission line must be constructed and installed between the Manatee and Sarasota Counties, located in southwestern Florida. This project's objective is to provide electricity to the community east of I-75 for residential and commercial use. Depicted below is a cartographic model to solve this complex problem.

The Transmission Line product Deliverables

For the first part of this project, the homes that are within proximity of the preferred corridor were identified. A 400 Ft. buffer range outside of the transmission line corridor was used with the buffer tool. Aerial imagery was utilized to identify homes within the corridor or within the buffer ring, which are depicted below in red and orange. Spatial analysis was conducted with a clip tool to verify which land parcels fell within the proximity of the preferred corridor. The clipping feature used was the preferred corridor and the input layer was the Manatee County parcels and Sarasota County parcels that fell within the study area.

Step 2 identifies schools and daycares that would be affected by this project. Data was download from FGDL, in order to dispaly the point layer of schools and daycares located within the study area of the project. The the clip tool was used to section out the schools and daycares that fell within the study area, and the proximity of the preferred corridor. This includes a 400 Ft. buffer range. The closest daycare facility (Harvest United Methodist Church) located at 82°23'47"W 27°23'32"N is approximately 635 meters away from the preferred corridor. The closest school (Robert Willis Elementary School) is located at 82°23'35"W 27°23'54"N approximately 1,215 meters away from the preferred corridor. No schools or daycares fall within the proximity of the corridor. The intersect tool was used to determine if the schools layer or the daycares layer intersected the proximity 400 Ft. buffer around the corridor. The resulting feature classes had no data in their attribute table, meaning there are no schools or daycares that are located within proximity of the preferred corridor.

Multiple land types intersect the preferred corridor for the transmission line project. These land types consist of wetlands and uplands, including deciduous forests, evergreen forests, and shrubbery type areas. Certain wetlands include palustrine, lacustrine, and riverine areas within the 400-foot corridor for the project. This needs to be considered since we have wildlife, ecosystems, and natural resources in these land areas in which the transmission line could have a major affect on. Exposure from radiation and demolition to lay the steel pipes could greatly disrupt these environments affecting all wildlife and resources located within these areas. 

In order to build the static map below, the Overlay Layers tool was used with the intersect selection to intersect all polygon layers of wetlands, uplands, and conservation lands that fell within 400 Ft. of the preferred corridor. The 400 Ft. buffer range was utilized. After running this tool for the land acreages, the map below displays the land types that are affected by the transmission line. The affected acreage was divided by the total available land, which determined what percentage of wetlands, uplands, and conservation lands were being affected.

The average cost of a Single Circuit, Tubular Steel Pole Transmission Line is $1,100,000 at 230kV. Now we need to consider that the land is flat, the project area is in an urban setting, and we are using Tubular steel Poles for the installation. This would mean that our Urban factor equals 1.5, with a line length factor of 2. The total mileage calculated of the new transmission line is 25.4 miles. Therefore, the equation is the following:

   1,100,000 X 25.4 X 1.5 X 2 = Cost of Transmission Line

The polygon to centerline tool was used to calculate a polyline distance of length in miles of the preferred polygon corridor. The polyline is depicted in purple on the map below, and resulted in over 25 miles in length. When the tool ran, it exported a single feature class polyline with three rows of lien length to accurately mensuration the distance of the transmission line centerline.

Final Results Bobwhite Manatee Project

The number of homes affected by the Transmission Line: 53
The number of parcels (land owners) affected by the Transmission Line: 255
The number of schools affected by the Transmission Line: 0
The number of daycares affected by the Transmission Line: 0
The % of wetlands affected by the Transmission Line: 0.95%
The % of uplands affected by the Transmission Line: 5.64%
The % of environmentally protected conservation lands affected by the Transmission Line: 0.23%
The length of the Transmission Line: 25.4 miles
The overall costs of the Transition Line: $83,820,000

The affect of the transmission line on the community is considerable. The radiation caused from the power lines can cause sever health problems to kids, adults, and wildlife. The electric fields cause frequencies of radiation from the power lines which can lead to certain types of cancer (leukemia in particular) and other health related issues. Fortunately for this project, there are no schools or daycares located near the transmission line within a 400-foot proximity. This means that the chance of radiation affecting children and adults that work at these facilities is extremely low.

After analyzing these results, the preferred corridor is safe, efficient, and affects very few homeowners. Approximately 255 land parcels will be within the proximity of the preferred corridor. There are significant low percentages of total land being affected from the transmission line. Therefore, local ecosystems, wildlife, and Florida citizens should not be greatly influenced. The project should have a low risk to the environment, low risk to the population, low risk to the community, and preserve as much protected land as possible.