| Draft Environmental Impact Statement Shorts School Road Am Antenna Structures 7 Second Project Revision On October 18, 2001, a Determination of Non-Significance (�DNS�) was issued by the County. Appeals of the DNS were filed by CPUSRV and the Pilchuck Audubon Society (�PAS�) acting as one group (hereafter collectively referred to as �CPUSRV�), and by Harvey Field acting as another group. Public hearings on the SEPA appeal and the conditional use permit required for the project were commenced on January 31, 2002. The hearings continued through February 13, 2002, with additional hearing days scheduled in April and May. During the public hearing proceedings and as the result of a settlement by the Applicant with Appellant Harvey, the Applicant voluntarily reduced the height of the main antenna by 76 feet, thus lowering the tallest proposed antenna to an overall height of 349 feet.6 The additional reduction in height included the removal of one set of side aviation marker lights, and two of the larger, top-mounted blinking aviation marker lights. The sub-200 foot antennas remained unlit. The Applicant also withdrew four of the sub-200 foot antennas (Phase II) from permit consideration, while acknowledging that Phase II should still be considered for the purposes of SEPA. As the result of this action, the Applicant must apply for additional permits before Phase II may be constructed. The public hearings on the SEPA appeal and the permit application for Phase I were concluded on May 15, 2002. A total of fifteen days of testimony were heard between January 31st and May 15, 2002. The County maintained an open record and accepted public comments on the project from 11/01/00 to 02/08/02, a time period totaling 464 calendar days. Testimony continued until 5/15/02, an additional 96 calendar days, for a total of 560 calendar days. The proposal in its current form is the result of the changes made by the Applicant during the public comment and hearing process. 6 This was the second project revision. For the applicant, this represented the minimum height required to maintain coverage, keep the antenna array in the same configuration, and still meet the spacing requirements to satisfy the FCC. |