Transmission Line Corridor Assessment in Sarasota-Manatee County Border

 For my final I had the pleasure to assess the reasoning behind the placement of a corridor that would be used to place a transmission line by FPL to serve surrounding communities. When taking on such a big project, there are always various factors that go into the decision making of choosing a corridor. 

The first factor is that of environmental sensitivity. What wildlife will be impacted? Are there any protected species or sensitive land areas that will require a permit? In the case of this project, only wetlands and conservation areas were investigated. In ArcGIS Pro, I was able to clip these features down to the preferred corridor and conclude the acreage of wetlands (uplands as well) and conservation areas that would be impacted by the corridor. It's always ideal to attempt to save as many sensitive areas since they're crucial habitats for many animals. 

The second is the number of homes directly impacted and customers worrying about living near a transmission line. I believe the decision makers of the corridor did well in avoiding the denser communities nearby, but there are still a few homes inside of the corridor. I believe a GIS map like the one I produced could give a worried resident a better image of how they might be impacted. Past that, I think FPL should do their best to reassure nearby homeowners of any worries that they might present. By digitizing points onto the suspected homes, I realized that most of them were on the edges of the corridor. This means that they were taken into consideration when deciding the path of the transmission line and it might be placed closer to roadways instead. 

The third factor was the presence of schools. It would be unwise to build near a school and potentially cause a disruption to the learning of students. None seemed to be within the corridor after I located schools outside of the corridor's 400 ft. buffer I created. Thanks to the Sarasota and Manatee County GIS Departments, I was able to access shapefiles of schools in the counties. If the corridor happens to be reassessed in the future, I hope that the schools are still avoided by FPL. 

The big question always involves money. How much will this cost? After measuring a line layer I created down the middle of the corridor, it came out to be around 25 miles long. After taking into account other factors affecting price, the overall cost to build the transmission line is about $52,875,000. A huge amount at first glance, but this will be crucial for the developing communities in the area. There is no doubt that finding the ideal corridor is crucial if that much is going into building the transmission line. 

Overall, I believe the proposed corridor was chosen wisely. Environmental disturbance seems to be inevitable now since communities around the country begin to grow, so very minimal disturbance is ideal and that's what it seems the decision makers of the corridor acknowledged. Especially since there are sensitive areas past the corridor. 

My detailed presentation along with maps can be found here: https://arcg.is/0SiLyr0

The short transcript to the presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OxwregOpqV--4cENO-OFq3cOGgal0NY0/view?usp=sharing