Hermosa Beach Office 2200 Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 318 San Diego Office Phone: (310) 798-2400 Hermosa Beach, CA 90254 Phone: (858) 999-0070 Fax: (310) 798-2402 www.cbcearthlaw.com Phone: (619) 940-4522 September 25, 2015 City of San Diego Development Services Center Attention: Ms. Martha Blake, Environmental Planner 1222 First Avenue, MS 501 San Diego, CA 92101 Re: Stadium Reconstruction Project, Draft Environmental Impact Report Project No. 437916 / SCH No. 2015061061 Dear Ms. Blake: On behalf of the Endangered Habitats League, San Diego Audubon Society, and Save Our Heritage Organisation, we have reviewed the Draft Environmental Impact Report prepared by the City of San Diego Development Services Department for the “Stadium Reconstruction Project,” dated August 2015. Endangered Habitats League (EHL) is a regional conservation organization focused on biodiversity conservation and land use. EHL has been engaged on City of San Diego land use and MSCP issues since 1993. EHL submitted a comment letter on the Notice of Preparation dated July 19, 2015. San Diego Audubon previously provided comments on the Notice of Preparation, dated July 14, 2015. These comments were not addressed in the EIR. Therefore we attached them and incorporate them by reference as part of our comments on the EIR. San Diego Audubon works to protect birds, other wildlife, and their habitats. Therefore, Audubon is concerned with potential impacts of the Stadium Reconstruction Project that are not sufficiently addressed in the EIR. Audubon is particularly concerned with the biological resource, hydrology, and greenhouse gas emission impacts of the proposed Project. San Diego Audubon has no position regarding the stadium project itself, but seeks to ensure the EIR is adequate for public and decision maker use. Through education, advocacy, and stewardship the mission of Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) is to preserve, promote and support preservation of the architectural, cultural and historical links and landmarks that contribute to the community Ms. Martha Blake September 25, 2015 Page 2 identity, depth and character of our region. Since 1969, SOHO has led the community as a powerful catalyst for preservation by raising awareness and appreciation of our region's architectural and cultural heritage. Our clients advocate an alternative that would develop the River Park, including a trail, and implement the River Park Master Plan (RPMP) as a condition of redevelopment. They also advocate full compliance with the San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP). Our client SOHO supports and adaptive reuse of the stadium which would preserve its historical character. Our office also provided comments on the NOP in comments dated July 20, 2015. These comments were not addressed in the EIR. Therefore we attached them and incorporate them by reference as part of our comments on the EIR. INTRODUCTION We submit these comments to assist the City in preparing adequate environmental review in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. Our clients are very interested in working with the City to consider the Stadium Reconstruction Project, but the City must first slow down and complete the CEQA process correctly while incorporating public concerns. Unfortunately, based on our detailed review, the Draft EIR falls far short of CEQA’s rigorous procedural and substantive requirements. Areas of legal deficiency include: The Draft EIR fails to accurately identify and analyze the Project’s significant environmental impacts across a range of topics, including biological resources, health risks, greenhouse gases, air quality, noise, hazards, hydrology, land use, and traffic. We identified a number of new significant impacts and impacts that are substantially more severe than what was presented in the Draft EIR. The City mandated an unrealistic schedule for preparation for the EIR so that the City could approve the project in October 2015 and submit a bond measure for the voters to consider in January of 2016. The City Attorney advised the City in February 2015 that it would take 12 to 18 months to prepare a legally adequate EIR. Instead the City chose to ignore the City Attorney’s advice and delayed the preparation of the EIR for months and then artificially compressed the time frame to a few weeks to prepare the draft EIR to meet an election date in January that the City has now abandoned. This unrealistic schedule left virtually no time for the environmental consultants to prepare the necessary studies, reports and analysis as required by CEQA and, as a result, the EIR is wholly deficient. Ms. Martha Blake September 25, 2015 Page 3 The City failed to provide adequate notice to the public and other agencies, which is prejudicial. The City also failed to incorporate comments from expert agencies that commented on the Notice of Preparation, including detailed comments from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife expressing concern about impacts to the San Diego River and species relying on its important habitat and detailed comments from the California Department of Transportation. The City also failed to respond to the comments supplied by us on the Notice of Preparation. The Draft EIR is legally deficient because, for many topics, it lacks the basic information necessary to allow meaningful public review. Even though we are very experienced with CEQA, we often had to hunt for information buried in technical appendices to understand the nature of the Project’s impacts, and many times we were unable to find the data behind the Draft EIR’s conclusions despite an extensive search, rendering the Draft EIR more of a black box than an informational document for these topics. The Draft EIR analysis is fatally flawed because it is grounded upon an inaccurate baseline that does not reflect existing conditions at the Project site. Although the Draft EIR is rife with significant environmental impacts, it offers a paltry, insufficient set of mitigation measures, many of which are improperly vague or unenforceable. The Project Objectives are artificially narrow and legally flawed, reflecting the City’s predetermined focus on certifying the EIR and approving the proposal for a new stadium in Mission Valley, even going so far as to limit any other alternative sites or locations by selecting a 2019 opening date for the Stadium and stating, without any evidence, that no other site could meet this artificial deadline. The alternatives analysis falls far short of CEQA’s strict requirements to select alternatives that reduce or eliminate significant environmental impacts while meeting most of the Project Objectives and rejecting offsite alternatives for little reason except that they did not meet the City’s self- imposed timing constraints (which the City has now abandoned). Public agencies are obligated to ensure that the California Environmental Quality Act is scrupulously enforced and followed. The City of San Diego, in its role as land use regulator, knows this obligation well, and typically the City works hard to ensure that projects are fully and adequately analyzed under CEQA. Ms. Martha Blake September 25, 2015 Page 4 Unfortunately, here, the City, in its role as applicant, has disregarded its responsibilities under the law. The City has turned into an advocate, hastily racing to finish an EIR process in unprecedented time for which the City has already prejudged the outcome: complete and approve the EIR for the stadium project no matter the environmental impacts. The EIR only confirms that the City has already made up its mind to rush ahead regardless of the consequences to the public or the environment. Sadly, the City has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on an EIR that is nothing more than a post hoc rationalization of its publicly stated plan to approve a new stadium on this site in Mission Valley. The City’s EIR for a new and more impactful Mission Valley stadium is legally defective and falls far below CEQA’s high bar. The EIR fails on many fronts. The EIR Merely Identifies Significant Impacts Without Seeking Real Solutions. Although the EIR finds many significant and unmitigated impacts, a review of the EIR reveals that many more impacts were missed by the rushed analysis. The project will significantly affect air quality, public health, biological resources, historic resources, hydrology, water quality, public utilities, and visual impacts. These are not minor, technical impacts, but rather, major harms that will pollute the air, exacerbate fire risks, put the public at increased cancer risk, degrade traffic, worsen flooding, increase noise, and damage wildlife. CEQA requires more than identifying significant impacts. CEQA required the City to investigate mitigation and alternatives that would avoid or reduce these impacts to the maximum extent feasible. Yet, despite the burden imposed by this project, the EIR offers a paltry, insufficient set of alternatives and mitigation measures, ignoring many better solutions than the City’s thrown-together pre-ordained proposal. The City Failed To Notify Expert Agencies And Ignored Comments. CEQA establishes strict requirements to notify the public and expert agencies of projects that may affect the environment, an obligation the City botched. It failed to notify multiple expert agencies with jurisdiction over resources significantly impacted by the project. And where agencies did respond – including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, citing serious concerns about impacts to listed species and sensitive habitat – the City rushed ahead with a cursory analysis that brushed aside the comments. We specifically incorporate by reference each of the comment letters and request that all comments set forth in each NOP letter be responded to as part of the EIR process. The failure to have already done so makes the EIR legally defective and we respectfully request that a revised EIR be recirculated addressing the NOP comments and the comments set forth in this letter. Ms. Martha Blake September 25, 2015 Page 5 The EIR’s Impact Analysis Is Defective.