EcoScience Corporation (ESC) assisted Triangle Transit Authority (TTA) with environmental planning and permitting for a regional high-speed rail project.  The TTA plans to construct this Regional Rail Project extending from downtown Durham, through Research Triangle Park, Morrisville, and Cary, and ending in downtown Raleigh.  The project corridor is approximately 28.1 miles in length and incorporates 12 stations and an operations facility.  The project is proposed to be built on existing railroad corridors.

ESC responsibilities included environmental investigations which led to a determination of proposed environmental impacts that will result from implementation of this regionally important project.  An Individual Section 404 permit and major Section 401 certification requests were prepared and submitted to environmental regulatory agencies for impacts to waters of the U.S.  ESC successfully permitted impacts to 11 individual wetland areas and 34 individual stream segments.  A separate certification was obtained for impacts to riparian buffers that are protected by the Neuse River Riparian Area Rules. 

After determining the extent of environmental impacts, ESC personnel coordinated with local municipalities and the environmental regulatory agencies and developed a mitigation strategy that offset the environmental degradation resulting from the unavoidable impacts of this important and innovative transportation infrastructure improvement to one of the most productive urban areas in the State of North Carolina.