The Emperor Dutra Has No Clothes

For some unknown reason, the Board of Supervisors has given Dutra yet another gift of time to paper over these latest fatal problems with their Asphalt Plant proposal, and postponed the public hearing to March 16th. Isn't it time for an up or down vote on Dutra's seriously flawed project, and spare us more months of having to get through the Dutra Fog?

Now that Dutra spent the past year convincing the County to rely on their word and to ask the USCG to confirm Dutra's assertion that their barge and tug mooring plan was safe and didn't block the River's other commercial and recreational traffic, Dutra doesn't like the answer the USCG came up with after making a thorough review. Dutra submitted maps that moved the notations for the Navigable Channel location so that their barge and tug appeared miraculously out of the navigable channel, but USCG found out that Dutra's maps were "inappropriately" wrong, and got to the truth of the problems of Dutra's proposal. Now, Dutra is still are lobbying USCG to reverse this latest letter, claiming that the USCG is wrong. What will Dutra invent next?

Following is the documentation in this case:

Letter submitted to USCG on 12/30/09 in response to USCG's letter advising navigational safety and interference issues on the Petaluma River for Dutra's proposed barge and tug landing site.

The Dec. 29th USCG Final Determination Letter

2 photomaps submitted by Dutra to USCG with the erroneous location for the Navigational Channel: One & Two

The Site Plan submitted to the County with the correct Navigational Channel location

The above photo is of a Dutra barge and tug going past the Shollenberger Fishing/Observation pier showing just how narrow this portion of the river is, and why the federal narrow channel rules against mooring or anchoring in the Navigable Channel apply in this location.