ENVIRONMENTAL

In support of National Guard Army Compatible Use Buffer (ACUB) program efforts, CarVaTech USA has conducted Environmental Assessments (EA) and Baseline Documentation Reports (BDR) covering thousands of acres surrounding Fort Pickett VA and Fort Indiantown Gap PA.   The ACUB program is a tool for protecting an installation's accessibility, capability, and capacity for training and testing by sustaining natural habitats, open space, and working lands near the installation. The EA’s and BDR’s were for Conservation Easements and Deed Restrictions on private lands. These parcels of land perpetually preserve the rural character of Southside Virginia and Pennsylvania and help protect drinking water, scenic views, fish and wildlife habitat, and working farms and forests. Most importantly, they help prevent encroachment on the training mission of military installations by limiting cell phone towers, urban sprawl, light pollution, and other impacts associated with unplanned development.

Environmental Assessment: The goals for the EA were to ensure each property is suitable for conservation easement accordance to the Fort Pickett ACUB program protocol.  Three primary areas of focus included; hazards associated with military training, hazardous waste and contamination and conditions that pose a detriment to the natural and/or cultural resources that the Conservation Easement is intended to protect.  Major tasks included environmental online research, site surveys, field data collection, GPS, GIS to include map production & proximity and buffer analysis, interviews, meetings and report generation. 

Baseline Documentation Report:  The BDR describes conditions of the property at the time of easement recordation. This includes physical property features, as well as property owner information, property descriptions and boundaries, a summary of conservation values, and any other critical items that describe the property to be put under easement.  General tasks included;

• Online data collection and research to learn historical and current property status
• Interview with property owners
• Property boundary research with county GIS, courthouse plats and surveys
• Download GIS data layers to research area conservation and environmental values
• Site survey documenting the physical and environmental conditions including detailed photography and collection of GPS points
• Map Creation using GIS layers and GPS points and field data descriptions
• Report generation

Above and Beyond:  To expedite onsite surveys and data compilation for the EA’s and BDR’s, CarVaTech USA used iPhones and Android tablets equipped with ESRI ArcGIS Online & Collector to capture all field data and seamlessly import into ArcMap for analysis, map production and customized data tables and reports.