CHEVRON ENERGY and HYDROGEN RENEWAL PROJECT Responses to Late-Received Comment Letters
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CHEVRON ENERGY AND HYDROGEN RENEWAL PROJECT Responses to Late-Received Comment Letters Prepared for March 2008 City of Richmond CHEVRON ENERGY AND HYDROGEN RENEWAL PROJECT Responses to Late-Received Comment Letters Prepared for March 2008 City of Richmond 225 Bush Street Suite 1700 San Francisco, CA 94104 415.896.5900 www.esassoc.com Los Angeles Oakland Olympia Petaluma Portland Sacramento San Diego Seattle Tampa Woodland Hills 205166 TABLE OF CONTENTS Responses to Late Received Comments Letters on the Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project 5.00 Introduction 5.01 Department of Justice (DOJ#2), Rose Fua, November 28, 2007 5.02 Department of Justice (DOJ#3), Rose Fua, December 13, 2007 5.03 Contra Costa Health Services (CCH), Wendel Brunner, December 4, 2007 5.04 Contra Costa Hazardous Materials Program (CCHM), Randall Sawyer, November 15, 2007 5.05 Adams, Broadwell Joseph and Cardozo (ABJC#2), Suma Peesapati, October 19, 2007 5.06 Adams, Broadwell Joseph and Cardozo (ABJC#2A), Phyllis Fox, October 19, 2007 5.07 Adams, Broadwell Joseph and Cardozo (ABJC#3), Suma Peesapati, November 20, 2007 5.08 Atchison Village Mutual Homes Association (AVMHA#2), Nick Jones & Ruth Gilmore, October 3, 2007 5.09 Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE#2), Greg Karras, November 15, 2007 5.10 Contra Costa Council (CCC), Linda Best, October 12, 2007 5.11 Scott Curtner, December 7, 2007 5.12 Jeff Shea, December 13, 2007 Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project i ESA / 205166 Responses to Late Received Comment Letters March2008 5. Responses to Late-Received Comment Letters 5.00 Introduction Responses to all comments on the Draft EIR that were received prior to the close of the formal comment period (July 9, 2007) were published, with supporting information, in the Final EIR, Volumes 3 through 5 (January 2008). This document includes comments on the Draft EIR that were received after the close of the public comment period. Although this document is not bound into the Final EIR volumes, to avoid confusion with other Response to Comments, the late-received letters are numbered 5.01 through 5.12, so that these response numbers are unique in context of the Final EIR. Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project 5.00-1 ESA / 205166 Responses to Late Received Comment Letters March 2008 Comment Letter 5.01 Comment Letter 5.01 Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 Attachment to Comment Letter 5.01 5. Responses to Late-Received Comment Letters 5.01 California Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General, Rosa B. Fua, November 28, 2007 Responses to Comments DOJ#2-1 Many projects, such as the Proposed Project, require approvals from “responsible agencies” as well as from the lead agency (in this case, the City). A responsible agency must consider the lead agency’s certified EIR when deciding whether to approve the project (or a component of the project). See CEQA Guidelines § 15096. Here, the California Energy Commission (“CEC”) is a responsible agency, with authority to approve, deny, or exempt the Power Plant Replacement component of the Proposed Project. CEQA does not require the lead agency to suspend its review and approval process until after the CEC has permitted the Power Plant, as the commenter has suggested. On the contrary, the approach called for in the CEQA Guidelines would be for the CEC to rely on the City’s EIR. See CEQA Guidelines § 15096. More importantly, after submitting its own information requests to Chevron throughout the preparation of the EIR, some of which were based on inquiries made by the public through the CEC process, the City has obtained sufficient information to complete a Final EIR that identifies the environmental effects of the Proposed Project, identifies alternatives, and identifies feasible mitigation measures. If the Power Plant changes substantially during the future CEC permitting process, CEQA would require subsequent or supplemental environmental review. See CEQA Guidelines §§ 15096(f), 1562, 1563. DOJ#2-2 Chevron has informed the City that it intends to build the Proposed Project’s single CoGen unit, as described and analyzed in the Draft EIR (and as considered in the Final EIR) for the Proposed Project. Chevron’s recent reply letter to the City (Chevron, 2008a) indicates that the Proposed Project considered in the Draft EIR, and described with minor text revisions in the Final EIR, is consistent with the description of the cogeneration plant that was submitted to the CEC. The Draft EIR described a cooling tower related to the LM6000 gas turbine, which was the originally proposed turbine equipment. After publication of the Draft EIR, Chevron revised the project design to replace the LM6000 gas turbine with a General Electric, Frame 6B gas turbine. This change rendered the cooling tower unnecessary and it was eliminated from the Proposed Project. See also Response to Comment DOJ#3-1. DOJ#2-3 While it is true that Chevron’s initial application to the City (and to BAAQMD) requested up to four CoGen units, as the CEQA review process moved forward, Chevron determined the Proposed Project would require only a single unit (Chevron, 2008a). The application to the CEC reflects this change. Similarly, the Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project 5.01-1 ESA / 205166 Responses to Late Received Comment Letters March 2008 5. Responses to Late-Received Comment Letters Draft EIR considered only one CoGen unit. The Draft EIR describes the Power Plant Replacement component on pages 3-5 and 3-31 to 3-32. This description remains accurate, except that the cooling tower associated with the gas turbine unit has been eliminated. This change is included in the text edits to the Final EIR (Vol. 3, Table 3-2, p. 4-40) and is expected to reduce environmental impacts. DOJ#2-4 The City is using revised air emission estimates reviewed by the BAAQMD for the Proposed Project’s air emission sources. BAAQMD provided these revised estimates of these data to the City in September 2007. The changes resulting from these revised data are discussed in the Final EIR, Vol. 3, Master Response 2.5. DOJ#2-5 Again, as discussed in Response to Comment DOJ#2-4, the City is using the most recently available air emission data from the BAAQMD for its analysis. Because important factors such as fuel types affect emissions, they are considered by the BAAQMD in evaluating the Chevron applications and in defining the air permit conditions. As discussed in response to BAAQMD’s comments on the Draft EIR (see Final EIR, Vol. 3, Section 3.4) and Master Response 2.5, the Final EIR presents the changes to the air emission estimates since publication of the Draft EIR. DOJ#2-6 See Response to Comment DOJ#2-1. The City is required by CEQA to continue the process of preparing the Final EIR. The City’s CEQA process is separate and distinct from the CEC Small Power Plant Exemption process. DOJ#2-7 See Final EIR, Vol. 3, Master Response 2.1 and Responses to Comments DOJ#2-1, 2, and 3 in this document. References Chevron 2008a, Letter from Tery Lizarraga of Chevron to Lamont Thompson of the City of Richmond (January 10, 2008). Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project 5.01-2 ESA / 205166 Responses to Late Received Comment Letters March 2008 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 Comment Letter 5.02 5. Responses to Late-Received Comments 5.02 California Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General, Rose B. Fua, December 13, 2007 Responses to Comments Many of the Deputy Attorney General’s comments on the adequacy and accuracy of the information relied upon in preparing the Draft EIR and on the City’s CEQA process were also made by Adams Broadwell Joseph & Cardozo (ABJC) and Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) in their timely comments on the Draft EIR. Responses to those previously submitted comments by ABJC and CBE are provided in Volume 3 of the Final EIR, which was published in January 2008. In particular, see the Responses to comment letters ABJC, ABJC-A, CBE, and CBE-A. See also Responses to late comment letters ABJC#3 and DOJ#2 in this document. DOJ#3-1 The Draft EIR relied on the permit information that was current at the time the document was published (May 2007) to assess the potential impacts of the Proposed Project.