Draft Environmental Impact Report - East Bay Municipal Utility District

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Estates Reservoir Replacement Draft Environmental Impact ReportGreenhouse GasesAt present, no enforceable rules or regulations have been promulgated by the ARB orother state agency which defines a significant source of GHG emissions. In addition,there are no applicable facility-specific emission limitations or caps for GHG emissions,either statewide or at the local Air Pollution Control District (APCD) or Air QualityManagement District (AQMD) level. Thus, there is no present state or local regulatory orguidance mechanism for determining whether a project advances or hinders California’sgreenhouse gas reduction goals, and no standards of significance for GHG impacts havebeen established under CEQA. (CAPCOA 2008)Senate Bill 1368 - California Senate Bill 1368 (SB 1368) adds sections 8340 and 8341 tothe Public Utilities Code (effective January 1, 2007) with the intent “to prevent long-terminvestments in power plants with GHG emissions in excess of those produced by acombined-cycle natural gas power plant” with the aim of “reducing emissions ofgreenhouse gases from the state's electricity consumption, not just the state's electricityproduction.” The bill provides a mechanism for reducing the GHG emissions ofelectricity providers, both in-state and out-of-state, thereby assisting the Air ResourceBoard in meeting its mandate under AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.SB 1368 prohibits California utilities (i.e., load serving entities, LSE) from entering intolong-term (5 years or longer) power contracts with generators unless base load generation(i.e., 60 percent annual capacity factor or greater) complies with stringent GHG emissionstandards. In 2007 the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) established anoutput-based emission performance standard (EPS) for investor-owned utilities’ baseload generation. The EPS requires that base load generation GHG emission rates in unitsof pounds per net megawatt-hour (lb/net MW-hr CO 2 equivalent) cannot exceed that of anew base load combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant. The 2007 interim EPS is 1,100lb/net MW-hr of CO2 (PUC Decision No. 07-01-039).Senate Bill 97 - California Senate Bill 97 (SB 97) directs the Office of Planning andResearch (OPR) to prepare, develop, and transmit to the Resources Agency CEQAguidelines for the feasible mitigation of GHG emissions or their effects by July 1, 2009.The Resources Agency is required to certify or adopt those guidelines by January 1,2010. This bill also protects, for a short time, certain projects funded by the HighwaySafety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, or theDisaster Preparedness and Flood Protection Bond Act of 2006 (Proposition 1B or 1E)from claims of inadequate analysis of greenhouse gas as a legitimate cause of action.This latter provision will be repealed on January 1, 2010.Executive Order S-3-05 - On June 1, 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signedExecutive Order S-3-05 (Order) which established GHG emission reduction targets: by2010, reduce GHG emissions to 2000 levels; by 2020, reduce GHG emissions to 1990levels; by 2050, reduce GHG emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels.sb09_001.doc 3-8.8 7/22/2009
3.8.3 Impacts and Mitigation MeasuresSignificance CriteriaEstates Reservoir Replacement Draft Environmental Impact ReportGreenhouse GasesCEQA requires public agencies to identify the potentially significant effects on theenvironment of projects they intend to carry out or approve, and to mitigate significanteffects whenever it is feasible to do so. While AB 32 does not amend CEQA to requirenew analytic processes to account for the environmental impacts of GHG emissions fromprojects subject to CEQA, it does acknowledge that such emissions cause significantadverse impacts to the environment. (OPR 2008)Although Appendix G of the CEQA Guidelines provides a checklist of suggested issuesthat should be addressed in an EIR, neither the CEQA statutes (Public Resources Code21000–21177) nor the CEQA Guidelines, (California Code of Regulations, Title 14,Division 6, Chapter 3, Sections 15000–15387) prescribe thresholds of significance orparticular methodologies for performing an impact analysis. This is left to lead agencyjudgment and discretion, based upon factual data and guidance from regulatory agenciesand other sources where available and applicable. A threshold of significance isessentially a regulatory standard or set of criteria that represent the level at which a leadagency finds a particular environmental effect of a project to be significant. Compliancewith a given threshold means the effect normally will be considered less than significant.The OPR has encouraged, but not required, public agencies to adopt thresholds ofsignificance for environmental impacts. Even in the absence of clearly definedthresholds for GHG emissions, the CEQA statute requires that GHG emissions fromprojects must be disclosed and mitigated to the extent feasible whenever the lead agencydetermines that the Project contributes to a significant, cumulative climate changeimpact. (OPR 2008)The California Air Pollution Control Officers Association (CAPCOA) published its whitepaper CEQA and Climate Change in January 2008. The white paper proposes three basicoptions that APCDs, AQMDs, and other lead agencies can pursue when contemplatingthe issues of CEQA thresholds for greenhouse gas emissions. The three proposed optionsare:1. No significance threshold for GHG emissions;2. GHG emissions threshold set at zero; or3. GHG threshold set at a nonzero level.These three options are presented and described in Section 3.2 of the Greenhouse Gasesand Climate Change Technical Report (ENTRIX 2009). A tiered approach with aquantitative threshold based on market capture was selected for the Estates ReservoirReplacement Project Analysis.sb09_001.doc 3-8.9 7/22/2009
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Estates Reservoir ReplacementDraft
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TABLE OF CONTENTSEstates Reservoir
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Estates Reservoir Replacement Draft
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ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONSABABAGAPC
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SUMMARYS.1 IntroductionThis Draft E
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Estates Reservoir Improvements Draf
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Chapter 2Project Description2.1 Ove
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Chapter 3Environmental Setting, Imp
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3.5 Cultural Resources3.5.1 Approac
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CHAPTER 6Report Preparers6.1 Lead A
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APPENDIX APublic InvolvementPublic
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APPENDIX BNotice of PreparationAUGU
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Dingee Pressure Zone Improvement Pr
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FIGURESDingee Pressure Zone Improve
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