Environmental Assessment: Rehabilitate Mud Canyon / Daylight Pass Road

engineering-environmental Management, Inc.

The National Park Service is considering rehabilitating, restoring, and resurfacing approximately 17.2 miles of Mud Canyon / Daylight Pass Road from its southwest terminus in Death Valley National Park, Inyo County California, northeasterly to the park boundary in Nye County, Nevada; and chip sealing previously rehabilitated road sections and parking areas along a 16.5 mile segment of Badwater Road between Furnace Creek and Badwater. The road rehabilitation, restoration, and resurfacing is needed to address extensive raveling (i.e., loosening) of the road surface along the edge of the road and areas of rutting and cracking of the road surface, improve visitor and employee safety, and provide better parking accommodations for tour buses and larger vehicles. The chip sealing is needed to prolong the life of the recently rehabilitated road surfaces. This environmental assessment examines in detail two alternatives: no-action and the National Park Service preferred alternative. The preferred alternative includes paving and repairing raveling edges and soft shoulders; widening the road to meet standard road width requirements; changes to the parking area at the park entrance; improving sight distance at the top of Daylight Pass; improvements to the parking area at the top of Daylight Pass; and improvements in signage and the parking area at Hells Gate (the intersection of Mud Canyon / Daylight Pass Road and the Beatty Cutoff). The preferred alternative would have no impacts on floodplains and wetlands; designated critical habitat, ecologically critical areas, wild and scenic rivers, and other natural areas; geology and geologic hazards; water quality; prime and unique farmland; park operations; socioeconomics and land use; environmental justice; cultural resources (archeological resources, historic structures, ethnographic resources, cultural landscapes); museum objects; Indian trust resources; visual resources; or soundscapes. The preferred alternative would contribute short-term, negligible, adverse impacts to vegetation; short-term, negligible to minor, adverse impacts to wildlife and threatened and endangered species; short-term, minor, adverse impacts to air quality; and short-term, minor to moderate, adverse impacts to visitor use and experience. There would also be long-term, negligible, adverse impacts to soils and threatened and endangered species. Beneficial effects of the preferred alternative are as follows: long-term negligible effects on vegetation and wildlife, short- and long-term, negligible to minor effects on threatened and endangered species, long-term minor effects on visitor use and experience, and long-term moderate effects on health and safety.

Environmental Assessment: Rehabilitate Mud Canyon / Daylight Pass Road

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