A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) followed by the Final Environmental Impact and Record of Decision is required by the National Environmental Policy Act for large, federally-funded projects such as I-69 Ohio River Crossing (I-69-ORX). The detailed document included a full description of the affected environment, a range of reasonable alternatives and an analysis of the benefits and impacts of each alternative. The project area for the I-69 Ohio River Crossing (ORX) project extends from I-69 in Indiana on the south side of Evansville across the Ohio River to I-69 at the KY 425 interchange southeast of Henderson, KY. The project’s purpose is to: provide cross-river system linkage and connectivity between I-69 in Indiana and I-69 in Kentucky that is compatible with the national I-69 corridor, develop a solution to address long-term cross-river mobility, provide a cross-river connection that reduces traffic congestion and delay, and improve safety for cross-river traffic. Based on these needs, a range of alternatives was developed, evaluated and screened.

As part of the evaluation process, Taylor Siefker Williams Design Group led the creation of the Visual Impact Assessment (VIA), which helps federal agencies evaluate the reasonably foreseeable environmental effects, including the visual impacts, of their proposed actions prior to making decisions. The VIA establishes the visual environment for each alternative and how it is affected. It assesses the visual resources of the project area and identifies viewer response to those resources from both resource and user perspectives. Most importantly, it analyzes the visual impacts to the environment resulting from prosed development and investigates the means available to mitigate the effects of such proposals prior to implementation.