CX-100569 Categorical Exclusion Determination

Enabling  Sustainable Landscape Design for Continual Improvement of Operating Bioenergy  Supply Systems
Award Number: DE-EE0007088
CX(s) Applied: A9, B3.1, B3.16, B5.15
Bioenergy Technologies Office
Date: 03/08/2016
Location(s): MD
Office(s): Golden Field Office

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to provide funding to ANTARES Group, Inc. to design and demonstrate advanced bioenergy sustainable landscape design practices. The project would develop sustainable landscape designs for the growth of bioenergy feedstocks through agronomic and sustainability analysis. The project’s objective would also demonstrate improved water quality through the implementation of landscape design practices in those areas and improve the health of the wetland.

The proposed project would harvest a yearly maximum of 50,000 acres of corn stover, 3,000 acres of perennial grass, and 500 acres of cover crops. The following locations have been identified, and additional locations would be added as the project progresses:

• Near Emmetsburg, IA - 12,943 acres (grain production)

• Near Oskaloosa, IA - 1,396 acres (grain production and conservation habitat)

• Near Burkeville, VA – 333 acres (conservation habitat and energy feedstocks)

• Near Elkton, VA – 441 acres (conservation habitat and energy feedstocks)

• Marion, Madison, and Tickaway Counties, OH - 1,200 acres (conservation habitat)

The project would conduct harvesting activities on acres which are currently being farmed and have a cropping history and would not convert native natural grasslands or native natural forests into agricultural production systems - this would include all future harvesting locations that have yet to be identified, including locations in Kansas. Low-lying areas may be taken out of traditional row-crop production and planted with a perennial grass to act as a nutrient runoff filter in the landscape.