GENERAL30229 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

CHAPTERTHREE Affected Environment ' Viewing locations include the Piceance Creek Road and the Yellow Creek Jeep Trail. From both roads the landscape is natural appearing with little sign of development, except for the existing exploration facilities located in a small unnamed drainage north of Horse Draw, and a telephone line. Travelers on the Piceance Creek Road, when looking to the west as they pass by the Piceance Site see the level valley floor, often with irrigated hayfields, the sagebrush covered lower hillsides, the tan colored barren slopes leading up to the ridgetops covered in pinyon- juniper. Travelers on the Yellow Creek Jeep Trail have a much different view. The road (which receives much of its use in the fall by hunters) is located on top of the ridgetops in the westem- central portion of the Piceance Site, and passes through a landscape covered in pinyon juniper and sagebrush. View distances aze more limited in azeas due to the surrounding vegetation. However, there aze many azeas where an observer has extensive views of the surrounding landscape with view distances extending past the background view distance (greater than five ' miles). The chazacteristic landscape viewed from these locations is one of a rolling plateau covered in pinyon juniper mostly free from human modifications. With cleaz atmospheric conditions the viewer can see the Flattop Mountains located in the White River National Forest ' east of the Project Area. ' 3.13.3 Pipeline The pipeline starts at the processing plant facilities in the Piceance Site and extends southwazd for approximately 43.4 miles to the Pazachute Site facilities. The Piceance Site is described above. As the pipeline exits the Piceance Site at Horse Draw the landscape is relatively flat and covered in sagebrush and greasewood. The line heads east across a cultivated hayfield, crosses the Piceance Creek Road, and runs in a southeast direction up Hatch Gulch. This azea of the pipeline would be visible to travelers on the Piceance Creek Road. The pipeline stays in the sagebrush covered bottom of Hatch Gulch until about MP 6.4 where it joins existing pipeline ROWS and turns east into the Greasewood Compressor Station. This is an upland azea chazacterized as an open landscape covered with scattered pinyon-juniper and shrubs, with long distance views of the surrounding azea. The existing pipeline ROWS have left a visible lineaz ' contrast in the landscape caused by the difference in vegetation between the ROW (grasses and shrubs) and the surrounding woodlands (pinyon juniper). The contrast is less visible where the existing pipeline ROWS pass through non-forested azeas (grassy azeas, barren land, shrubs). ' Afrer turning south at the compressor station, the pipeline continues to pazallel the existing ROWS as it drops into Collins Gulch and eventually crosses the Piceance Creek Road at MP 13.8. Scenic quality along Piceance Creek is high in this azea with irrigated hay meadows surrounded by wooded slopes. The existing ROWS aze very visible on the south side of the creek as the pipelines ascend the pinyon juniper covered slope. Continuing south, the pipeline traverses an azea between Piceance Creek and Pazachute Creek where access by the general public is not convenient, and is not seen by many people except by local ranchers, utility workers, oil exploration workers, and hunters. The pipeline would parallel existing pipeline ROWS in this azea which have caused a very visible lineaz contrast across the landscape. The pipeline is located mostly on ridges where the vegetation is a mixture of pinyon- juniper woodland and open azeas with agrassy/shrub groundcover. On Barnes Ridge there aze Visual Resources 3-53