The Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center and Weed Concerned Citizens filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate on December 15, 2008 challenging Siskiyou County's approval of a Conditional Use Permit and certification of an EIR for Roseburg Forest Product's wood-fired power plant project in Weed.
PROJECT'S HISTORY OF ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLATIONS:
There is a lengthy history of County actions regarding this biomass power plant Project that violate the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and general plan requirements.
In 1994 Roseburg Forest Products installed an oversized boiler in anticipation of adding a future cogeneration power plant but without undergoing any environmental review. CEQA requires such review at the earliest opportunity to ensure that adequate mitigations are implemented, but the County failed to prepare such environmental review.
In 2006, the County abandoned its efforts to update its long-outdated General Plan Noise Element implemented some 30 years beforehand. The Noise Element contains regulations that provide various acoustic standards against which to evaluate whether a project is too noisy. California law prohibits the County from approving noisy projects like this power plant that requires a conditional use permit if they are not consistent with a valid, up-to-date General Plan.
In 2006, the County Planning Staff failed to evaluate this Project's potential noise and air pollution impacts, thus understating actual Project risks to the Planning Commission. As a result of Staff misdirection, in 2006 the Siskiyou County Planning Commission approved Roseburg's project with no environmental review. The County erroneously claimed this Project was exempt from CEQA. County planners even ignored the project's inconsistency with the County's General Plan Noise Element standards and those of the City of Weed.
In spite of a stop work order issued by the County building department, Roseburg continued installing its cooling tower and generator equipment before having any Project approvals. In so doing, it unduly limited the ability of County officials to relocate noisy project equipment elsewhere on the Project site where fewer neighbors would be harmed by increased noise levels and toxic air emissions.
An appeal filed in December, 2006 by the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center and Weed Concerned Citizens forced the County and Roseburg to withdraw the Project application and finally prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). But not to be stopped by such procedural formalities, the County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors in the fall of 2008, in spite of numerous public objections to this EIR that did not comply with CEQA, approved the Project and its EIR.
SUMMARY OF LAWSUIT:
Under CEQA, the County may not approve a project that may have a significant iimpact upon the environment without first subjecting it to an evaluation of its environmental impacts. CEQA requires the analysis, public disclosure and mitigation of such significant impacts. In this Project's case, County officials abused their discretion and approved an EIR that did not comply with CEQA in the following ways:
The EIR fails to adequately discuss and mitigate the Project's impacts on air quality. It fails to accurately describe the existing air quality in Weed and Roseburg's existing emissions. It fails to adequately analyze the increase in NOx and Toxic Air Contaminants resulting from the Project. It relies upon the wrong environmental baseline, thus significantly underestimating the Project's actual increases in air pollution. The Project will generate smoke emissions from burning the equivalent of 250 cords of wood per day, will increase fugitive dust emissions from large, exposed piles of wood chips, and will generate increased humidity in a nearby residential neighborhood from its massive cooling towers.
The EIR fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the Project's impacts on noise. The Project is not consistent with the County's noise standards. Its noise emissions will exceed those standards in neighborhoods either immediately adjacent or at a distance from the facility. The EIR does not include adequate noise mitigations. The EIR completely overlooked analyzing the significant levels of added noise from Project-related heavy trucking along already excessively loud roadways in the County, including those in McCloud and Mount Shasta. Our attorney Donald Mooney recently won an environmental lawsuit in part over a very similar truck traffic noise issue. (Gray v. County of Madera (2008) 167 Cal.App.4th 1099.) http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/F053661.PDF
The EIR fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the Project's impacts on water quality and water supply in Beaughton Creek, adversely impacting downstream water users and biological wildlife habitat.
The EIR fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the Project's impacts to human health and safety. It may cause life-threatening exposure to Legionnaire's Disease from its massive cooling tower emissions with potential airborne Legionella bacteria that can drift for miles. It will expose people who live or work along its heavy trucking routes needed for wood fuel deliveries to increased levels of deadly diesel exhaust fumes. The Project may expose people to toxics left behind by previous activities on the Project site that is designated as an EPA Superfund Toxic Cleanup Site.
The EIR fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the Project's greenhouse gas emissions and this Project's impact on global warming. The Project may generate adverse climate change impacts due to its large numbers of heavy truck shipments of wood fuel and from increased logging and decreased forest carbon sequestration.
The EIR fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the Project's impacts to aesthetics to a designated scenic highway along US 97 as a direct result of the Project's increase wood stove emissions and atmospheric haze contributions.
The EIR fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the Project's impacts to transportation and traffic circulation. The EIR places no limits on the number of Project-related truck trips per day or what routes they may take through neighboring communities. The Project therefore may have adverse impacts to roads included in the Project's haul routes, as well as also adversely impacting safety and result in hazards along these roadways.
The Final EIR fails to accurately respond to public comments that were raised about various environmental concerns. It fails to discuss a reasonable range of Project alternatives that could reduce the Project's environmental impacts. The findings that the County made in approving the Project are not based upon substantial evidence in the record.
County officials violated CEQA because they did not consider all of the substantial evidence submitted by the public prior to their approval of the Project. Holding a public hearing but not even considering significant evidence the public presents makes a mockery of the CEQA process.
In violation of state planning and zoning laws, the Project is also not consistent with the General Plan's noise standards. The General Plan itself is inadequate because it fails to comply with state law, and as a result, the approval of this Project must be set aside.
Accordingly, our legal challenge requests that the Court restrain the County and Roseburg from undertaking further Project operations until CEQA has been complied with. It also requests the Court to set aside the Project's approval and to order the County to prepare a new, legally adequate EIR for this Project.
