Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutResolution 2009-202 N.C.S. 12/21/2009Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. of the City of Petaluma, California DIRECTING THE MAYOR TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE SONOMA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OBJECTING TO THE REVISED DUTRA MATERIALS ASPHALT BATCH PLANT PROJECT WHEREAS, a revised Dutra Materials Asphalt Batch Plant project ( "Project ") is scheduled to be considered by the Board of Supervisors at its January 12, 2010 meeting; and, WHEREAS, the previous Project was the subject of objections and opposition from many Petaluma citizens and groups, including two letters opposing the project submitted by the City Council; and, WHEREAS, according to the County staff report for the revised project, the revised Project reduces environmental impacts on aesthetics, air quality, hydrology and water quality, noise and transportation and traffic, but does not change the Project's impacts on biological resources, geology and soils, cultural resources, hazards and hazardous materials, and land use; and, WHEREAS, also according to the County staff report on the Project, aesthetic and air quality impacts remain significant despite the project revisions. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Petaluma City Council that the Mayor is hereby authorized and directed to submit to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on behalf of the City Council for consideration at the Board of Supervisors' January 12, 2010 meeting a letter presenting the City's objections to the revised Project, based on environmental impacts and other issues concerning the Project substantially in accordance with the draft letter attached to and made a part of this resolution as Exhibit A. Under the power and authority conferred upon this Council by the Charter of said City. REFERENCE: I hereby certify the foregoing Resolution was introduced and adopted by the App f Council of the City of Petaluma at a Regular meeting on the 21 day of December, f m: 2009 by the following vote: AYES: Vice Mayor Barrett, Glass, Harris, Healy, Rabbitt, Renee, Mayor Torliatt NOES: None ABSENT: None ABSTAIN: None ATTEST: t,- J City Clerk. City Attorney Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. Page 1 XHIBIT A CITY OF PETALU A POST OFFICE BOX 61 PETALUMA, CA 94953 -0061 Pamela Torliatt Mayor Teresa Barrett David Glass Mike Harris Mike Healy David.Rabbih Tiffany Renke Councibnembers City Manager's Office II English Street Petaluma, CA 94952 Phone (707).778 -4345 Fax (707) 778 -4419 E -A9ail ci1ytngr@cqm1a1utna.ca.us Housing Division Phone (707) 778 =4555 Fax (707) 778- 4586 E -Mail bgaebler @ci. petaluma. ca. us Human Resources Division Phone (767) 778 -4534 Fax (707) 778 -4539 E -Mail humanresources@ ci. petalimra. ca. Information Technologv Division Phone (707) 7784417 Fax (707) 776=3623 E -Mail it@ci.petaluma:nYus Risk Management Division Phone (707) 776 =3695 Fax (707) 776 -3697 E -Mail risking( @ci. pelaluma. ca. us EQUAL ROUSING OPPORTUNITY Via Facsimile:and US Mail Sonoma County Board of Supervisors 575 Administration Drive, Room 100A Santa Rosa, CA 95403 -2887 Re: Revised Dutra Asphalt Plant Project Dear Hon. Chair Kelley, Members of the Board of Supervisors, I am again writing on behalf of the entire Petaluma City Council to .submit further comments regarding the Dutra asphalt plant'( "Project') and the Environmental Impact Report (`'EIR ") for the Project currently pending before the County. Unfortunately, rather than directly addressing the comments in the previous two letters submitted by the City, the County has instead compounded the problems identified in our letters by contintlingto modify the Project and conducting further environmental analysis of the Project :without the benefit of public input. In addition to the violations of the California Environmental Quality Act ( "CEQA "), the Guidelines implementing CEQA, and the Planning and Zoning Laws (Gov't Code, § 65000 et seq.) identified in the City's previous letters, which we attach hereto and incorporate fully herein, in this letter. we address further CEQA violations set forth below. The City continues have numerous concerns with the Project and with the County's EIR, including,•the Project's significant impacts on the City's Shollenberger Park, which thousands of the City's residents use every year, and the impacts that placing this industrial facility at the gateway to the City will have for years to come. Neither the proposed reductions to the Project nor the placement of an "interpretive display "'directly across, from the Project's proposed barge loading operations mitigate the City's concerns. The `County Still Must Recirculate the EIR Prior to Certification Despite the substantial evidence submitted by the City and other commenters that recirculation. of the EIR is required, rather than recirculate, the County continues to attempt to'address the flaws in the environmental analysis in a Resolution No, 2009 -202 N.C.S. Page 2 Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Re: Dutra Plant EIR Page 2 piecemeal manner changing. and amending the EIR itself and adding substantial environmental review and analysis subsequent to the publication of both the draft EIR ( "DEIR ") and the Final EIR ( "FEIR "), all without the benefit of the required public review and comment. As the City previously explained, under CEQA, "[flf, subsequent to the period of public and interagency review., the lead agency adds significant new information to an EIR, the agency must issue new notice and must `recirculate' the revised EIR, or portions thereof, for additional commentary and .consultation. The revised environmental document must be subjected to the same critical evaluation that occurs.in the draft stage, so. that the public is not denied an opportunity to test, assess, and evaluate the data and make an informed judgment as to the validity of the conclusions to be drawn therefrom." (Save Our Peninsula Committee v. Monterey County Bd. Of Supervisors (2001) 87 Cal.AppAth 99, 131.; Guidelines, § 15088.5.) "Significant new information can include, for example, situations where: "(1) Anew significant.environmental impact would result from the project or from a new mitigation measure proposed to be` implemented. (2) A substantial increase in the severity of an environmental impact would result unless mitigation measures are adopted that reduce the impact to a level of insignificance. (3) A feasible project alternative or mitigation measure considerably different from others previously:analyzed would clearly lessen the significant environmental impacts of the project, but the project's proponents decline to adopt it. (4) The drafft. EIR was so. fundamentally and basically inadequate and conclusory in nature that meaningful public review and comment were precluded." (Guidelines, .§ .,1:5088.5.) B.y recirculation is not required where the new information "merely clarifies ;'or amplifies or snakes insignificant modifications in an adequate EIR." (Id.) The County did.,not rectify the error of failure to recirculate the EIR following the identification of significant ne w information in the City's previous letters. Now, the County has compounded this error by again revi`.s ngthe'Pro'ect and releasing further significant environmental analysis, which also requires ..recirculation. The County Staff report itself`contains significant new information and analysis of the Project. In addition, the Staff Report attaches several new reports, each of'which by itself would require recirculation. Specifically, the Staff Report: Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. I Pa�e 3 Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Re: Dutra Plant EIR Page 3 ® Attaches a letter from CSW /Stuber- Stroeh regarding the revised Project, which includes new photo simulations, a new site plan, new elevations, and new information regarding the proposed barge dock; ® Attaches 22 pages of new environmental analysis of the project by Christopher A. Joseph & Associates addressing the Aesthetic, Air Quality, Human Health Risk, Global Warming, Hydrology and Water Quality, Noise, Road Transportation, and Marine Transportation impacts of the Project; • Attaches a completely revised Human Health Risk Assessment ( "HRA ") by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (`BAAQMD ") which concludes that the previously prepared HRA used incorrect assumptions and underestimated the impacts of the Project; o Attaches a peer review of the BAAQMD analysis performed by the applicant's consultant Environ (it should be noted that the opportunity provided the applicant to peer review BAAQMD analysis has'not been provided to the public); ® Attaches new information regarding available water volume and a new water intake design; ® Attaches a new Noise Analysis performed by Rosen, Goldber, Der & Lewitz, Inc.; and ® Attaches new information from local tug operators regarding marine transportation impacts. In addition to all of this new information, the Staff Report also proposes the elimination or modification of several conditions of approval and notes that. the Project will. not be able to comply with a previously proposed condition of approval intended to mitigate the Project's impacts on marine transportation. For all of these reasons,.recirctilation is required. In addition, as set forth in the City's previous letters and as further set forth below, the County must also correct the flaws in the environmental ana. lysis in order'to comply with CEQA. After the County corrects these flaws, the County must also recirculate the corrected sections for review and comment. The County Should Determine the Significance of the Project's Greenhouse Gas Emissions. As noted previously, the OR has not proceeded in the manner required by CEQA'in the evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming impacts by failing to determine whether the Project's impacts are significant. The fact that the state has not formally adopted guidance dictating which threshold lead agencies must use for GHG analyses does not relieve the County from exercising its independent and analysis to determine the significance of the Project's impacts. (Pub. Res. Code §§ 2.1081, 21082.1, 21082.2; Exhibit 1, (OPR Technical Advisory on GHG emissions and CEQA)) Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. I Page 4 Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Re: Dutra Plant EIR Page 4 Moreover, while still in draft form, the proposed revisions to the Guidelines would allow local agencies to make significance findings based on a project's compliance with a local climate action plan. (Exhibit 2.) Since the County has already approved the Sonoma County Community Climate Action Plan, the County should, at the very least, determine whether the Project wIII comply with the County's own local climate action plan. (Exhibit 3.) The Staff Report, however, only notes that the Reduced Project will result in fewer GHG emissions than the unrevised project, but again fails to make a determination of significance, instead simply stating that "the Revised.Project's contribution to ... GHG emissions would not violate any adopted thresholds." (Staff .Report, p. 7.) Since no adopted thresholds exist, simply stating that the Revised Project would not violate any adopted thresholds is misleading. The GHG emissions evaluation done to date does not constitute a good faith effort to determine significance under CEQA. Should the County chose to approve the Project, the County must present.a more detailed evaluation of GHG emissions. The County Still Has Failed To Adequately Analyze the Impacts of a 500% increase in Barge Traffic. The City noted previously that the Project proposes to increase barge traffic from 25 yearly trips to 125 yearly trips, a 500% increase. The new information provided in the Staff Report does not rectify this problem. First, the Staff Report notes that staff and the applicant met with the U.S. Coast Guard, Waterways Management Division. The Staff Report goes on to note, however, that the Coast Guard doesn't regulate traffic on the River. It. is only concerned with obstructions into the navigable channel such as the Project's proposed barge dock. Thus, neither the letter from the Coast Guard, nor the letters from upstream River users noting that their operations would not likely be impaired by the proposed barge dock, addresses the, substantial increase in overall barge traffic on the River. As with GHG emissions, the County cannot ignore its duty to determine impact significance simply because there is not another regulatory authority dictating. to the County what the threshold of significance should be. The County is required under CEQA to exercise its independent judgment to analyze the impacts of the Project and determine the significance of those impacts. The County has done neither with respect to marine transportation impacts. Second, as previouslynoted in the City's letters, the County continues to fail to examine: Biological Resource impacts from a 500% increase in barge traffic along the length of the River; ® Water Quality impacts from a.500% increase in barge traffic along the length of the River; and Health Risk Assessment impacts from a 500% increase in barge traffic along the length of the River. All of these impacts must be addressed prior to certification of the EIR. Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. Page 5 Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Re: Dutra Plant EIR Page 5 The County Continues to Fail to Adequately Examine the Hydrology Impacts of Pumping Petaluma River Water The City previously commented that the EIR had failed to adequately examine the Project's impacts from water pumping. None of the riew information provided with the Staff Report directly addresses this impact except to note that the Revised Project will likely use less water than the Proposed Project. This does not answer the issues previously raised. The County Continues to Fail to Examine the Impacts Associated with Obtaining Water from Another Source The City previously commented that the County had failed to examine the potential impacts of trucking in water to the Project site from another location. The new CS'W report confirms that "water for dust suppression will be trucked in from an offsite source." (CS W Report, p. 3) Nowhere, however, has the County examined the impacts of obtaining this water or the impacts of trucking the water to the Project site. The County must examine these impacts prior to certification of the FEIR in order to comply with CEQA. The County Has Not Responded to The City's.Previous Comments Regarding Flaws in the County's Analysis and Procedure The City commented in the attached letters regarding inadequate mitigation measures, inadequate alteratives analysis, and inadequate responses to comments in the FEIR. The City will not reiterate these comments here except to note that these comments have not been addressed by the County and these flaws still remain in the EIR and in the County's CEQA process. The County,has. not Adequately Addresses the Project's Incompatibility with the County's General Plan In the City's previous comments; the City raised the Project's incompatibility with the County's General Plan. including: ® Horizontal inconsistencies created by re- designating the Project parcels from Limited. Commercial to Limited Industrial despite the fact that the majority of the Project site is in a mapped flood'hazard zone and has significant geotechnical hazards due to soil instability; ® Horizontal.inconsistencies created by re- designating the Project parcels from Limited Commercial jo LimiteUndush ial despite the fact that the General Plan only allows such re- designation to recognize an existing, permitted use, which use is not supported by substantial evidence: e Project inconsistencies with the General Plan created by conflicts with the General Plan's noise.policies; Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. I > age 6 Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Re: Dutra Plant EIR Page 6 ® Project inconsistencies with the General Plan created by placing these facilities in a flood plain; ® Project inconsistencies with the General Plan raised. by Staff's attempt to designate an asphalt batch plant as a "river dependent use;" and Project inconsistencies with the General Plan policies regarding "streamside conservation areas." Of these inconsistencies, the Staff Report has only attempted to deal with the Project's noise impacts on nearby residences. However, the Staff Report.merely notes that the Reduced Project will, to a.certain degree, reduce the General Plan Noise Policy violations. (Staff Report, pp. 8 — 10.) As the.S.taff Report itself concludes, the Revised Project will still violate the General Plan Noise:Policies an. d, thus the Pro1ectwould. still require a General Plan amendment for approval. (Id.) The remaining inconsistencies are unaddressed and continue to be an obstacle to the County's abilityto approve. the Project. Conclusion Though the City continues to recognize that this type of use is important to the infrastructure needs throughout the County, the Project, as proposed, is simply incompatible with the chosen location. For'the reasons articulated above, and in the City's previous letters, the City continues to urge the Countyto reject this Project altogether. If the County determines to go forward with the Project, however, the Countymust fully comply with CEQA and the State Planning and Zoning Laws before doing so. Further, as we indicated in our February 2, 2009 letter to the Board concerning this Project, the City is willing to work collaboratively with the applicant, the County and other stakeholders either to sufficiently improve the proposal for the proposed site or to identify a mutually satisfactory'alternative site. Best regards, Pamela:Torliatt Mayor Resolution No. 2009 -202 N.C.S. Pag�