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LandWatch
wants full environmental review of a power plant proposed for the
Pajaro area. Read our letter to the County Planning Department below.
May
29, 2002
Thom
McCue
Planning and Building Inspection Department
2620 First Avenue
Marina, CA 93933
[Sent
By US Postal Mail and FAX – 831-755-6487]
RE:
Proposed Negative Declaration for the Pajaro Valley Energy Center
Dear
Thom McCue:
Thank you for making available your Notice of Intent to Adopt a
Negative Declaration for the above noted project, along with the
associated Initial Study.
This
letter is to object to the issuance of a Negative Declaration for
the proposed project. I also request that you promptly notify me
of any further decisions made in connection with the proposed project,
specifically including the issuance of a Negative Declaration.
As
you know, the California Environmental Quality Act requires a public
agency to prepare a full Environmental Impact Report prior to making
any decision that might have a substantial negative impact on the
environment. This proposed project certainly qualifies.
As
described in the materials I have reviewed, the proposed project
would:
- Convert
a property that has previously served the agricultural industry
into an energy facility, thus removing it from potential future
use for an agricultural business.
- Result
in the construction of an 80-foot high exhaust stack in an area
that Monterey County has designated in its Draft General Plan
Update (GPU), now under review, as an area for future residential
and associated urban development.
-
Directly impact a lower income community, and people of color,
who reside in the project area, and expose them to increased air
pollution.
- Preclude,
at least potentially, the conversion of the property on which
the project is proposed, and surrounding properties, to uses more
compatible with the urban growth designation contained in the
Draft GPU.
- Create
an aesthetically unattractive development on the property, again
potentially precluding the future development of surrounding properties
in the way generally designated in the Draft GPU.
- Locate
an energy facility in an area likely to suffer flooding.
- Create
a facility with significant potential to create noise conditions
that will make it difficult or impossible to use the surrounding
properties for the residential and urban growth purposes specified
in the Draft GPU.
- Potentially
affect agricultural operations, as new power lines are constructed
over commercially productive fields (Page 14 of Initial Study).
- Potentially
affect population and housing (contrary to the statement on Page
14 of the Initial Study) because it may preclude the urban redevelopment
of the site and surrounding properties.
- Create
visual impacts by requiring the erection of pole lines in places
where such lines do not exist.
- Result
in the continuous storage of extremely hazardous materials (aqueous
ammonia) on site, posing a potential danger to surrounding residential
areas, and possibly precluding, as a practical matter, the redevelopment
and urban reuse of the site and surrounding properties as currently
proposed in the Draft GPU.
- Require
up to 79,000 gallons of water per day from an underground aquifer
that is presently in a state of severe overdraft.
LandWatch
works on land use policy issues. Our concern is not only with the
direct impacts of the proposed project—which appear considerable—but
also in the possibly adverse impact of the proposed project on the
future redevelopment of the Pajaro area. This area is within a county
redevelopment agency, and a full "community plan" is scheduled
to be prepared for this area in the near future. In addition, the
Draft Monterey County General Plan Update designates the Pajaro
Area as one of only four areas in the unincorporated county where
new residential and other urban growth should be directed. The construction
of a power plant with an eighty-foot high exhaust stack on the site
could have a major impact on future uses of surrounding properties.
We
strongly believe that CEQA requires a full Environmental Impact
Report. Furthermore, as a matter of policy, LandWatch does not believe
that the County of Monterey should make a decision on a project
that could preclude many options for the future development of surrounding
properties unless and until a community plan is adopted for the
Pajaro Area, and it is clear, based on full environmental analysis,
that the proposed energy facility will not adversely affect the
achievement of this plan.
Thank
you for taking our views into consideration. Again, please promptly
notify me of any further decisions made in connection with the proposed
project, specifically including the issuance of a Negative Declaration.
cc:
Redevelopment Agency
Supervisor Lou Calcagno
Action Pajaro Valley
Planning and Conservation League
Bill Yeates, Attorney at Law
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