Initial Study MND - Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and ...

Taylor MountainINITIAL STUDY/MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATIONactivities. As such, the construction and operation of the Taylor Mountain Preserve would resultin a very small overall contribution to cumulative effects.As discussed in Sections B.3.1 through B.3.15, many of the potential impacts of the proposedproject are less than significant. The guidelines and standards that are part of the proposedMaster Plan would ensure that the proposed project’s contribution to cumulative impacts onspecies, their habitats, and their movement would be less than significant.Proposed project operations would involve additional traffic, which would combine with otherexisting and future traffic on local roadways and at local intersections. However, thetransportation analysis in Section B.3.14 includes analysis of cumulative traffic conditions withand without the proposed project. As described in Section B.3.14, level of service standards forintersections in the project area would not worsen significantly as a result of the proposedproject traffic. Therefore, the proposed project’s contribution to cumulative traffic impactswould be negligible. With regard to the remaining areas of analysis, individually andcumulatively, the proposed project would not result in any significant long-term impacts thatwould substantially combine with impacts of other current and probable future impacts.Consequently, implementation of the Master Plan would not contribute to impacts that arecumulatively considerable.c. Does the project have environmental effects, which would cause substantial adverseeffects on human beings, either directly or indirectly?LESS THAN SIGNIFICANT WITH MITIGATION INCORPORATED. There is a potential for air qualityand noise impacts during construction of the proposed project. As stated in Item (a), mitigationmeasures have been incorporated into the project to avoid or minimize impacts so that theresidual impact levels are less than significant.As a project that involves resource management and allowing public access to Taylor Mountainfor multi-use recreation and education, most of the impacts of the project are beneficial. Theproposed project would provide a park and open space preserve close to an urban center thatis accessible using non-motorized transportation. The Preserve would also have an importanteducation function. Implementation of the proposed project would result in no substantialadverse impacts on human beingsEach of the impacts with the potential to have substantial adverse effects on human beings hasbeen evaluated, and this Initial Study concludes that all of these potential impacts are eitherless than significant or can be mitigated to a less-than-significant level with implementation ofthe measures presented in this document that have been incorporated into the project.Final B-126 September 2012