September 22, 2014 Delinda Robinson Monterey County Resource Management Agency Planning Department 168 W. Alisal Street, 2nd Floor Salinas, CA 93901
[email protected] Re: California Flats Solar Project – PLN120294; SCH#2013041031 Draft Environmental Impact Report Dear Ms. Robinson: California Flats Solar, LLC (Applicant), a wholly owned subsidiary of First Solar, Inc., hereby provides to the County of Monterey (County) its written comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the California Flats Solar Project (Project), issued by the County on August 6, 2014. Our written comments consist of both this letter and the documents contained in the attachments, each of which is incorporated herein by reference. At the outset, we thank County staff and the County’s consultant, Rincon Consultants, Inc. (Rincon), for their hard work in compiling and preparing this Draft EIR in support of the Project. We also appreciate the significant public outreach efforts and agency consultation that has been conducted for the Draft EIR by the County under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). We have provided our comments in the two attached tables, which are organized by chapter and section in the Draft EIR. The first table, “Table 1 – Comments,” contains substantive comments on specific issues in the Draft EIR for the County’s consideration. Please note that we have included three (3) figures as part of our comments that relate to certain comments in Table 1. The second table, “Table 2 – Errata,” contains factual and typographical revisions that should be incorporated in the Final EIR. We have also attached two golden eagle survey reports for 2014 which provide nest surveys and on- going survey data for golden eagle within a ten mile radius of the Project site, and a 2013 scent dog survey report assessing the presence of San Joaquin kit fox on the Project site.