34 SOURCE winter 2017
have a detrimental effect on the Lead Agency being able to include
such changes into a CEQA document. Suppose, for example, that
a proposed project is intended to allow a facility to operate at a
specific design capacity based on limits established from equipment
design criteria such as influent rates or chemical loading. However,
during permitting and equipment procurement, the design basis is
revised because of more refined modeling of the treatment systems,
with the result that additional or modified control equipment such
as a larger biofilter or a thermal oxidizer is required. Unless the
changes become part of the project’s assessment record, the Lead
Agency may be vulnerable under CEQA to public disclosure and
assessment of air quality or odor impacts. To avoid reopening
CEQA, project proponents should evaluate alternatives identified
in the design phase so that impacts can be presented and covered
in the initial document.
Changes to Assessment Methods
Another common variable that can undermine document prepa-ration
occurs when an agency’s analysis guidelines change during
or late in the CEQA review process. In 2015, for example, Califor-nia’s
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Analysis (OEHHA)
and the California Air Resources Board (ARB) changed the guide-lines
for Health Risk Assessments (HRAs). The new guidelines in-creased
the health risk (carcinogenic or non-carcinogenic) potency
and child breathing rates dramatically such that in some cases, the
modeled impacts to public health increased by more than six-fold.
In one case, the draft EIR had been released for public comment
before the new guidelines were finalized. Previously insignificant
impacts became significant under the new guidelines, requiring
substantial changes to the project to reduce the impacts back below
the significance thresholds.
Under the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (USEPA) must review and potentially update ambient
air quality standards (AAQS) every three years. In October 2015,
the agency reduced the federal primary and secondary eight-hour
ozone AAQS from 0.75 parts per million (ppm) to 0.70 ppm.
Although most of California is already non-attainment for ozone
standards and these new standards may not have a substantial
effect on projects in the state, they have the potential to influence
an agency’s thinking on the severity of the project’s potential to
impact air quality. An example is a power plant project where
addressing newly promulgated 1-hour nitrogen dioxide (NO2)
AAQS (in April 2010) delayed permitting to the extent that it then
had to incorporate requirements related to GHG emissions, which
resulted in the first permit issued by the EPA that contained GHG
Best Available Control Technology (BACT) requirements. The final
permit was issued the day before a requirement that new fine
particulate matter (PM2.5) increments would have needed to be
addressed.
A similar example was a Subsequent EIR for a material recov-ery
facility at a landfill which also involved addressing the new
1-hour NO2 AAQS. This change was followed by a subsequent
update to incorporate new federal global warming potentials into
the GHG impact analysis as well as a later change to the agency’s
GHG significance criteria. Other issues added further delays and
threatened to forestall EIR approval until after the time when the
project could have been required to implement the new OEHHA
HRA guidelines.
The best solution is to keep in close contact with applicable
MANAGER’S CORNER
Continued on page 36