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Altenatlve 3 - Road Section D to Claim Group II

Alternative 3 requires construction of Road Section D going south from Claim Group II and then west

to meet with Road Section A. This was originally planned as Road Section B in 1989. The alignment
of Road Section D has a greater haul distance (6.S miles) from Claim Group II to the plant compared
to the Road Section B distance of 3.4 miles, which is part of the proposed action.

Alternative 4 - No Action Alternative

The no action alternative disapproves the proposed action presented in the preliminary Plan of
Opera/ions by P.W. Gillibrand Company. The affected environment sections of this document
describe the conditions that would prevail if no action is taken.

ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED BUT ELIMINATED FROM DETAILED STUDY

Five additional alternatives were initially considered but were eliminated from detailed study because

they were found to be infeasible for technical, cost, environment effects, or operational reasons.
These include:

• Alternative S - Moving the mill site to the mineral source;

• Alternative 6 - Reducing the scope of the project;
• Alternative 7 - Using the conveyor transport only;
• Alternative 8 - Using helicopter transport; and
• Alternative 9 - Conducting underground mining.

SCOPING PROCE~

The Forest Service initiated a public scoping process with the publication of a Notice of Intent in the

Federal Register on October 13, 1989, and conducted a public scoping meeting in Canyon Country,
California, on November 13, 1989. As a result of the scoping meeting, letters and comments received
from agencies and individuals, and based on past experience with programs of similar types, 12 issue
categories were identified for evaluation of environmental consequences of the proposed project.

These issue categories are: (1) air quality, (2) soils, (3) water resources, (4) biological resources,
(5) cultural and paleontological resources, (6) transportation, (7) visual/scenic resources, (8) noise,
(9) recreational resources, (10) land use, (11) property values, and (12) public health and safety.

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