Identifying Project-Location for Natural Heritage Review

Requirements:

The Department of Conservation reviews sites for Natural Heritage issues visually, normally on a USGS topographic map background.   

► We prefer to see a clear topographic map showing each project site, identifying the quadrangle name and identifying either Section/ Township/ Range(S/T/R) or identifying a reference point with UTM or Latitude/ Longitude coordinates. [In most cases, projects can determine these parameters using free sites available on the internet.]

► Street addresses are acceptable if the requestor also identifies a public website (e.g. Mapquest or Terraserver) that maps accurately to them. Some rural and recently established addresses do not map properly on some sites.   

► Some sites do not have Section/ Township/ Range descriptions because land-ownership was established based on Spanish and French systems predating the Public Land Survey System. This is common along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. and in Missour's historic lead belt.

► Large or ongoing projects (e.g. petroleum pipelines, road projects or wind farms) should provide a GIS shapefile (based on UTM Zone 15N NAD 1983) if possible.

Tips

► Several public websites can identify or help you identify location coordinates, or to print or save maps.  These include Terraserver, CARES, the National Map Viewer, etc.

► Since animals, plant communities and water all move around, we routinely look at all natural heritage records within a mile of project boundaries. This makes precision in drawing project site boundaries less important. Unless the project involves multiple locations or a long, thin project site, a rectangle or circle containing it works just as well as a detailed drawing of boundaries.   

► It is often adequate to mark a reference point and describe the project site in reference to it (e.g. "within 200 feet of the point," "within ¼ mile SE along the SW side of the road and within 200 feet of the road," or "within a rectangle extending east by X-feet and south by Y-feet").   

► Defining a project by section often produces more records of concern than defining with more precision. Sections are typically about 1-mile square, but most projects are much smaller. For example, for a project to build new curbs at an intersection where range and township lines meet, location based on S/T/R will mean we look for heritage records near any of the four sections when we may need to consider only those near a circle within 200 feet of the center of the intersection.   

► Be sure to state if grant or permit requirements require investigation of some specific zone, e.g. all issues within 5 miles, or effects 15 miles downstream.