Tag: Air Quality Impacts

THIRD DISTRICT FINDS EIR FOR OLYMPIC VALLEY RESORT PROJECT FAILED TO ADEQUATELY CONSIDER IMPACTS TO LAKE TAHOE’S UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

In Sierra Watch v. County of Placer (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 86, the Third District Court of Appeal found that the EIR for a resort development project in Olympic Valley violated CEQA because it contained an inadequate description of the environmental setting and failed to adequately consider the project’s potential air quality, water quality, and noise impacts on Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Basin.

FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 1983, Placer County adopted the Squaw Valley General Plan and Land Use Ordinance to guide development and growth within the Olympic Valley (formerly Squaw Valley) area. The 4,700-acre area lies a few miles northwest of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

In 2011, Real Party in Interest Squaw Valley Real Estate LLC proposed the first project under the general plan and ordinance—the Village at Squaw Valley Specific Plan—which included two components to be built over a 25-year timeframe: (1) an 85-acre parcel that included 850 lodging units, approximately 300,000 square feet of commercial space, and 3,000 parking spaces (“the Village”); and (2) an 8.8-acre parcel that included housing for up to 300 employees (“the East Parcel”).

The County approved the project and certified its associated EIR in 2016. Following the County’s approval, Sierra Watch filed a petition for writ of mandate, alleging the County violated CEQA in numerous ways. The trial court rejected Sierra Watch’s claims. Sierra Watch appealed.

COURT OF APPEAL’S DECISION

In the published portion of the opinion, the Third District considered whether the EIR sufficiently described the project’s environmental setting and adequately considered water quality, air quality, and noise impacts.

EIR’s Description of the Environmental Setting

The court first considered whether the EIR’s discussion of the environmental setting adequately addressed Lake Tahoe and the Lake Tahoe Basin, particularly with respect to the settings for water and air quality.

Water Quality Setting

As to water quality, the Court of Appeal agreed with Sierra Watch’s assertion that the EIR’s hydrology and water quality analysis failed to adequately describe the regional setting specific to Lake Tahoe. Though the Draft EIR explained that the project would be “located within the low elevation portion of the approximately eight square mile Squaw Creek watershed, a tributary to the middle reach of the Truckee River (downstream of Lake Tahoe),” it concluded that VMT generated by the project would not exceed TRPA’s cumulative VMT threshold, and thus, would not affect the Lake’s water quality. The court rejected this rationale by noting that the EIR’s description failed to discuss the importance of the Lake’s current condition or the relationship between VMT and the Lake’s water clarity and quality, thereby depriving the public of an ability to evaluate and assess impacts on the Lake.

Air Quality Setting

As to air quality, the court found that the EIR’s description of the air quality setting and baseline was more substantial, and thus, adequate. The EIR properly explained the applicable air quality standards and presented data on the current concentrations and sources of criteria air pollutants in the area.

EIR’s Analysis of Impacts

Air Quality Impacts

The court agreed with Sierra Watch’s assertion that the EIR failed to meaningfully assess the project’s traffic impacts on Lake Tahoe’s air quality. The EIR concluded the project would not exceed TRPA’s cumulative VMT threshold but acknowledged it would likely exceed TRPA’s project-level VMT threshold for basin traffic. Nevertheless, the EIR ultimately concluded that TRPA’s VMT significance thresholds did not apply because the project was not located in the Tahoe Basin. The court found this rationale “provided mixed messages.” Rather than summarizing and declaring TRPA’s VMT thresholds as inapplicable, the court held that the EIR should have determined whether the Project’s impacts on Lake Tahoe and the Basin were potentially significant.

The court also agreed that the EIR underestimated the Project’s expected cumulative VMT in the Basin by failing to consider expected VMT from other anticipated projects. Even though the County addressed this issue in post-FEIR responses to comments, the court held that the public was denied an opportunity to “test, assess, and evaluate the newly revealed information and make an informed judgment as to the validity of the conclusions to be drawn therefrom.”

Construction Noise Impacts

The court rejected Sierra Watch’s initial assertion that the EIR failed to adequately disclose the duration of construction noise at any specific location, particularly at the Village parcel. The EIR properly explained that that portion of the Project would be constructed over 25 years based on market conditions, and thus, it would be too speculative to identify specific noise levels for every single receptor.

The court agreed, however, with Sierra Watch’s assertion that the EIR failed to analyze the project’s full geographic range of noises by ignoring activities occurring farther than 50 feet from sensitive receptors. The court reasoned that a “lead agency cannot ignore a project’s expected impacts merely because they occur…’outside an arbitrary radius.’” The EIR only considered impacts to sensitive receptors within 50 feet of construction—yet, according to the court, “ignore[d] potential impacts to a receptor sitting an inch more distant[,] even though the noise levels at these two distances would presumably be the same.” Though the County explained this analysis was standard practice, the court contended that an agency “cannot employ a methodological approach in a manner that entirely forecloses consideration of evidence showing impacts to the neighboring region [and] beyond a project’s boundaries.”

Finally, the court agreed that mitigation requiring “operations and techniques … be replaced with quieter procedures where feasible and consistent with building codes and other applicable laws and regulations” was too vague because “in effect, [it] only tells construction contractors to be quieter than normal when they can.” The court concluded that the measure improperly deferred which construction procedures can later be modified to be quiet but did not explain how these determinations are to be made.

– Bridget McDonald

*RMM Attorneys Whit Manley, Andee Leisy, Chip Wilkins, and Nathan George represented Real Party in Interest Squaw Valley Real Estate LLC in this litigation. 

On Remand First District Holds BAAQMD’s Significance Thresholds Valid in Specific Instances

In California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District (2016) 2 Cal.App.5th 1067, on remand from the California Supreme Court (California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Quality Management District (2015) 62 Cal.4th 369), the First District found BAAQMD’s CEQA thresholds of significance for “new receptors” valid for specific purposes.

The First District was directed to re-analyze BAAQMD’s thresholds of significance for “new receptors” consisting of residents and workers who will be brought to an area of existing emissions as a result of a proposed project, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. The Supreme Court held that CEQA generally does not require an analysis of how existing environmental conditions will impact future residents or users of a proposed project. In applying this principle, the Court of Appeal held that the receptor thresholds may be valid in the following instances—when voluntarily used on BAAQMD’s own projects; in analyzing whether a project exacerbates an existing environmental conditions; during CEQA review of school projects; and when analyzing housing development projects under CEQA exemption statutes. The court did not rule specifically on the propriety of the receptor thresholds with respect to determining a project’s consistency with general plans because it was not presented with a concrete example of their use in this context—but ruled that the receptor thresholds were not invalid on their face. While not facially invalid, the court held—consistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling—that the receptor thresholds could not be used for their primary purpose, which was to assess the effect of existing environmental conditions to future users of a project.

Fifth District Court of Appeal Rejects Claims that Active Adult Housing Project Conflicts with Fresno County’s General Plan, but Concludes EIR for the Project Failed to Provide Sufficient Detail Regarding Air Quality Impacts on Human Health

On May 27, 2014, the Fifth District Court of Appeal issued its decision in Sierra Club et al. v. County of Fresno et al. (Case No. F066798). The case involves the County of Fresno’s approval of the Friant Ranch project, a master-planned retirement community for “active adults” (age 55 and older) on an approximately 942-acre site in north central Fresno County.

In the trial court, petitioners Sierra Club, Revive the San Joaquin, and League of Women Voters of Fresno (collectively, the Sierra Club), argued that: (1) the Friant Ranch project was inconsistent with the county’s general plan policies regarding agricultural land use and traffic levels of service; (2) the EIR’s analysis of the project’s air quality impacts was inadequate; and (3) the EIR’s analysis of water quality impacts associated with the project’s wastewater treatment plant was inadequate. The trial court denied the Sierra Club’s petition for writ of mandate. The Sierra Club appealed.

On appeal, the Sierra Club argued that the general plan policy to “maintain agriculturally designated areas for agricultural use” prohibits the county from redesignating land designated as agriculture to other uses. Because the Friant Ranch project included a general plan amendment redesignating the project site from agriculture to residential and commercial designations, the Sierra Club argued the county’s approval of the project violated the agricultural policy. Respondent County of Fresno, and Real Party in Interest, Friant Ranch, LP, represented by RMM attorneys Jim Moose, Tiffany Wright, and Laura Harris, contended that the general plan does not require the county to maintain land currently designated agriculture in that designation in perpetuity. The court agreed that the general plan allows the county to amend land use designations. And, because the project site is no longer designated agriculture, the project is not inconsistent with the requirement to maintain agriculturally designated areas in agricultural use. The court also held that the Sierra Club had failed to exhaust its arguments concerning the county’s transportation policies.

The Sierra Club also argued that the EIR lacked sufficient detail about the amount and location of wastewater discharge from the project’s proposed wastewater treatment plant. Although the Sierra Club did not make this argument in the trial court (and therefore would ordinarily be deemed to have forfeited the argument), the Court of Appeal exercised its discretion to consider the argument because matters involving the disposal of wastewater affect the public interest and the argument raised a question of law. Although not directly stated, the Court of Appeal appeared to believe that CEQA requires detailed information regarding the water balance to be included in the project’s CEQA documents. The court explained that the fact that the county’s experts opined that sufficient storage was available was irrelevant because, according to the court, the existence of substantial evidence in the record does not mean that sufficient information was disclosed in the EIR. The court therefore undertook an exhaustive review of various statements in the EIR and its supporting appendices about the amount of wastewater anticipated to be generated by the project and the size of the storage pond. Based on this review, the court determined that sufficient information was included in the CEQA documents regarding the amount and location of wastewater disposal.

The Sierra Club further claimed that the EIR’s discussion of air quality impacts was inadequate because the EIR: (1) did not explain what it meant to exceed the thresholds of significance by tens of tons per year; and (2) provided no meaningful analysis of the adverse health effects that would be associated with the project’s estimated emissions, which were above the thresholds. Although the EIR disclosed the types of health impacts associated with unsafe levels of the pollutants, quantified the project’s emissions, and concluded that the project would exceed the thresholds of significance set by the local air district, which are based on standards necessary for public health, the court held that this was not enough.

The court concluded that although the EIR had identified the adverse health impacts that could result from the project’s effect on air quality, it did not sufficiently analyze this effect. For example, the information disclosed in the EIR did not enable the reader to determine whether the 100-plus tons per year of coarse particulate matter, reactive organic gases, and mono-nitrogen oxides would require people with respiratory difficulties to wear filtering devices when they go outdoors in the project area or nonattainment basin. Nor did the information provided in the EIR make it possible to know how many additional days the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin would be in nonattainment due to the project. The court noted that answers to these examples are not necessarily required in a revised EIR, but that the EIR must contain some analysis of the correlation between the project’s emissions and human health.

The court also concluded that the county’s mitigation measures adopted for the project’s significant and unavoidable operational air quality impacts violated CEQA because, in the court’s opinion, the mitigation measures were too vague and unenforceable. The court reasoned that the mitigation measures needed to be more specific about who would implement the measures, and when. As an example, the court noted that the mitigation measure that trees “shall be carefully selected and located” to protect buildings from energy consuming environmental conditions uses the passive voice to hide the identity of the actor—that is, the person or entity selecting and locating the trees.

The court also concluded that the mitigation measures were impermissibly deferred. Although the Sierra Club had not raised this argument in the trial court, the court decided to consider the issue because it raised an important issue of policy. The mitigation measures stated that the county and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District may substitute different air pollution control measures that are “equally effective or superior” to those set forth in the EIR, as better technology becomes available. The court found that this possibility of substitution rendered the mitigation measures deferred because the contents of the substituted provisions are unknown at present. Therefore, the court looked to whether the mitigation measures contained adequate performance standards to determine what types of measures would be “equally effective or superior” and concluded that many did not. For example, one mitigation measure required nonresidential projects to have bike lockers, which the court held failed to specify any performance standard to determine how to substitute the measure for an equally or more effective measure.

Furthermore, the court held that the statement in the EIR that the mitigation measures would “substantially” reduce air quality impacts was not supported by a discussion in the EIR and therefore violated CEQA.

Lastly, the court rejected Sierra Club’s claim that the county had not responded in good faith to comments suggesting that the county consider off-site emission reduction programs, such as the air district’s “Voluntary Emission Reduction Agreement” program. The court found that the county’s response to such comments, which explained that VERAs are voluntary and would be considered in connection with future project approvals was reasoned and met an objective good faith standard.