Please email the Supervisors and demand a postponement (sample letter below):
1st District Supervisor Valerie Brown
2nd District Supervisor Mike Kerns
3rd District Supervisor Shirlee Zane
4th District Supervisor Paul Kelley
5th District Supervisor Efren Carrillo
Sample letter:
Oct. 6, 2010
Dear Chairman Valerie Brown
Sup. Zane, Sup. Kerns, Sup. Carrillo, Sup. Kelley:
Environmental reports on the Dutra Proposal (Revision II) are arriving piecemeal, incomplete and too late for the public to adequately review and respond to at the Tuesday, October 12th Hearing. Please consider re-scheduling the Dutra Hearing to allow the public reasonable time to receive and review the documents and all back-up data. There is no time for the public and decision makers to make an informed decision in public based on the merits and impacts of the project, as firmly required by CEQA law and case law. Email and printed versions of the documents should be mailed to all "persons of interest" who requested to be kept informed.
Respectfully,
Or click here for their phone, fax & address
The environmental reports and their back up data is late and incomplete. The public deserves better! We demand a continuance and that the hearing be rescheduled!
I just read PRMD Steve Padovan’s summary letter to the Board of Supervisors (OCT 4, 2010) reviewing Revision II, as they call the latest Dutra Asphalt Plant Proposal. In it he reviews for the Supervisors’ enlightenment, the two new options proposed by Dutra to replace their original plan to dock barges at their riverside parcel. Remember how green their plan pretended to be? They touted adding tonnage to the river to insure dredging by the Army Core of Engineers, and also taking trucks off the road. Not happening anymore. Now they are adding trucks (47,000+) and slipping in under Shamrock’s use permit for tonnage. No added tonnage. Definitely added traffic.
Dutra’s first plan to dock barges at Haystack Landing was based on falsified maps provided by Dutra to the County. Dutra’s version of the maps conveniently relocated the PG &E’s pipes to intersect with Shamrock’s riverside property and also drew the navigable channel beginning at the eastern bank of the river- not possible, too shallow. Both were lies engineered to make their proposal look possible. They wasted everybody’s time, five years of our time and the Supervisors’ time with a fake map. PG & E ‘s “No Mooring No Dredging” signs at the site indicate major 12-inch tandem high-pressure natural gas transmission pipes( Marin to Ukiah) that intersect Dutra’s originally proposed docking location. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the Dutras’ barging plan would never work, but Padovan’s team missed it. Or looked the other way?
The current proposal (Revision II), which will be the subject of TUESDAY OCTOBER 12TH 2 PM Supervisors’ Hearing in Santa Rosa, is summarized in Padovan’s memo. Dutra proposes two options to deliver 500,000 tons of aggregate from Shamrock‘s operation at Landing Way to Dutra’s Asphalt Factory at Haystack Landing (1/2mile south and part of the route is along our roads, Petaluma Blvd So):
OPTIONS:
1) To build a conveyor belt from Landing Way, across Shamrock’s mitigated wetlands (required by their Use Permit in 2004) across P G & E’s three safety and maintenance easements (Think San Bruno explosion) over the high pressure natural gas pipes, along the Petaluma River and into Dutra’s operational area (it will be elevated over the Smart Train right of way.)
OR
2) To truck the 500,000 tons of aggregate from Shamrock to Dutra :
“the trucking operation will result in 43,478 additional truck trips per year (500,000 tons/23 tons per truck x 2).” Steve Padovan
Or BOTH!
PRMD says Dutra would like the option to truck for several years until the conveyor option can be put in place or possibly use both means of transport ad infinitem. It’s unclear as Is the whole Project Description.
It is a confused and piecemeal description that does not meet CEQA’s requirements for the public to have a clear description of the project. Padovan’s letter, which is supposed to inform the Supervisors, so they can make an informed decision, refers to the Draft DEIR, “the first project revision”, Revision II, the various versions and computations of the BAAQMD and the OEHHA Health Risk Analyses and we are left knowing less, not more. He tries to conclude whether the new version (Revision II) is better or worse for our health than the old ones, and the answer is: Depends on whom you ask or what you include in the new description.
Padovan discusses diesel exhaust , NOx, ,particulate matter (PM 10 only, not PM 2.5), fugitive emissions, odors (Hydrogen Sulfide.). Whatever the number game, we know that all these toxic by-products are going to be added to our air. Whether or not they are above the legally acceptable limits, depends on which limits you apply.
In this case Dutra wants a “Get Out of Jail Free” card on emissions, because their project application predates the recently adopted by the BAAQMD in June 2010 CEQA standards. We are further confused by new DEIR air quality consultant Baseline, reviewing the previous BAAQMD analysis and including Environ’s analysis (Dutra’s private air quality consultant, which whined that original BAAQMD HRSA analysis was too conservative.)
Too conservative for whom? BAAQMD standards are dated 1999 and do not reflect current science on the link between disease and pollution. PM 2.5 is not analyzed at all and cumulative impacts of 101, Shamrock and other operations nearby are not included. However Padovan does state:
“NOx was previously significant.. and the truck option increases this.” Pg. 5
“As under the Original Project, the overall net increase in NOx from the operation of the revised project would continue to exceed BAAQMD’s 1999 CEQA Threshold of Significance of 80 per day (Note: The 80 pounds per day is an adopted threshold from the BAAQMD 1999 CEQA Guidelines. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) adopted revised CEQA thresholds by Resolution No. 2010-06 on June 2, 2010. Resolution No. 2010-06…” pg. 8
I will go through each section of the letter for you and give you highlights:
PLP04-0406 BOS Memo 10-12-10
First topic: Visual Impact:
Pg. 6
“Overall visual character of the site, with large aggregate stockpiles and an asphalt plant” will continue to dominate views.
Pg. 7
“The revised Project II would still result in significant and unavoidable impacts to scenic vistas and to the visual character of the project site and its surroundings.”
Stay tuned and mark your calendars: Attend the October 12 Meeting – take a personal day and protect our Shollenberger Park!
Joan Cooper
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