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- 007j DANIEL L. CARDOZO

THOMAS A. ENSLOW
PAMELA N. EPST EIN

TANYA A. GULESSERIAN

MARC D. JOSEPH

ELIZABETH KLEBANER

RACHAEL E. KOSS

ROBYN C. PURCHIA
ELLEN L. TRESCOTT

OF COUNSEL

THOMAS R. ADAMS

ANN BROADWELL SO. SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE

601 GATEWAY BLVD., SUITE 1000
SO. SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94080

TEL: (650) 589

- 1660 FAX: (650) 589

- 5062 

### ADAMS BROADWELL JOSE PH & CARDOZO

A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION

ATTORNEYS AT LAW

520 CAPITOL MALL, SUITE 350

SACRAMENTO, CA 95814

- 4721

___________

TEL: (916) 444

- 6201 FAX: (916) 444

- 6209

tenslow@adamsbroadwell.com

April 2, 2012

VIA EMAIL & OVERNIGHT DELIVERY

Lio Salazar
Associate Planner Planning Division Shasta County Department of Resource Management 1855 Placer Street, Suite 103 Redding, CA 96001

lsalazar @co.shasta.ca.us

Re: Comments on the Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Sierra Pacific Industries Cogeneration Power Project

Dear Mr. Salazar:

We are writing on behalf of Citizens for Responsible Industry to comment on
the Second Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report (“RDEIR”) for the Sierra Pacific Cogeneration Power Project, State Clearinghouse No. 2009072011 (“Project”). The Project consists of the construction and operation of a new cogeneration power facility, includ ing a new fuel shed, boiler building, turbine building, cooling tower, electrostatic precipitator, ash silo and electric substation. The boiler associated with the plant will burn biomass fuel consisting of sawmill wood waste, agricultural surplus and woo dy biomass waste and residue from forest harvesting and thinning operations. The Project applicant is Sierra Pacific Industries. The Project is located on the Sierra Pacific Industries Anderson sawmill

site on a 121.39

- acre parcel in Shasta County (“Coun ty”), immediately northwest of the city limits of Anderson.

Citizens for Responsible Industry is an unincorporated association of individuals and labor unions that are concerned about public and worker health and safety risks and environmental and publ ic service impacts from industrial development. The members of Citizens for Responsible Industry include PlumbersApril 2, 2012 Page 2

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- 007j and Pipefitters Local 228, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 340, Boilermakers Local 549 and their members and their fami lies, and other individuals who live and work in Shasta County. The members of Citizens for Responsible Industry also include individuals who build, maintain and operate industrial facilities in Shasta County, such as those proposed by the Project.

Indivi dual members of Citizens for Responsible Industry work in industrial facilities and other areas impacted by the health and safety risks from industrial development. Citizens for Responsible Industry members also live in and use areas
that will suffer the public service and environmental impacts related to industrial development, including polluted air, water quality degradation, soil contamination, water supply limitations, traffic congestion, destruction of wildlife areas and exposure to hazardous materia ls.

On September 20, 2010, Citizens for Responsible Industry submitted comments to the County on the August 2010 Draft Environmental Impact Report (“DEIR”) prepared for the Project. The se comments identified a number of legal inadequacies and errors i n the document, including its failure to identify mitigation measures to address the Project’s global warming impacts.

In September 2011, a Revised DEIR (“RDEIR”) was prepared that revised Chapter 2 (Project Description) and Chapter 3.2.4 (Greenhouse Ga ses and Climate Change) of the DEIR, but left the rest of the DEIR unchanged. 1 On October 14, 2011, Citizens for Responsible Industry submitted comments identifying the lack of legal and factual support for the RDEIR’s new greenhouse gas (“GHG”) analysis. In order to avoid having to mitigate the Project’s global warming impacts, the RDEIR arbitrarily changed the DEIR’s threshold of significance for global warming impacts to a new, more limited and narrow threshold of significance. The RDEIR applied a

thre shold of significance that looked only at the Project’s consistency with the State’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (“RPS”). The RDEIR’s reliance on this threshold of significance was arbitrary and without foundation because eligibility as a renewable energ y facility under the RPS does not require, or mean, that the energy facility will have a less than significant impact on global warming. In addition, the RDEIR failed to evaluate substantial evidence that the GHG emissions emitted from the Project would, in fact, cumulatively contribute to

1 The RDEIR failed to address or correct the vast majority of deficiencies identified in our prior letter on the August 2010 DEIR.April 2, 2012 Page 3

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- 007j significant global warming impacts notwithstanding its eligibility as a renewable energy facility under the RPS.

Apparently recognizing that the threshold of significance that they adopted in

the RDEIR was not legall y or factually defensible, the County has now issued a new
Second RDEIR that again radically changes its GHG emission analysis in order to avoid requiring any mitigation. This new analysis throws out the calculations of net Project GHG emissions made in t he prior two documents and replaces it with a broad (and discredited) assumption that biomass projects are carbon neutral. By arbitrarily and repeatedly changing its GHG analysis in order to meet a pre

determined outcome, the lead agency has engaged in pr ecisely the sort of post hoc rationalization of agency actions that has been repeatedly condemned in decisions construing the California Envir o nmental Quality Act (“ CEQA ”)

. 2

The 2 nd RDEIR is legally deficient because it relies upon an outdated and

discred ited assumption that all biomass combustion is “carbon neutral.” Moreover, this new assumption is entirely contrary to the project

- specific net GHG emission

calculations made in the prior DEIR and RDEIR. This change in methodology is arbitrary and result s driven.

The 2 nd RDEIR fails to evaluate other, more up

- to

- date studies that demonstrate that GHG emissions from the “waste” and “residuals” proposed to be
used for biofuel will create short term GHG increases that will contribute to serious global wa rming impacts long before the Project’s GHG emissions become “carbon
neutral.” 3 Short

- term contributions to GHG emissions are significant to global warming impacts because recent studies have indicated that GHG emissions must drop sharply within the next few years or else serious global warming impacts may

be inevitable. Because impacts from the Project’s GHG emissions may occur despite the carbon neutrality assumptions made by the 2 nd RDEIR, the conclusion that the

2 See, e.g., Laurel Heights Improvemen t Association v. Regents of the University of California (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376, 395; Sundstrom v. County of Mendocino (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 296, 307.

3 Jon McKechnie, et al., Forest Bioenergy or Forest Carbon? Assessing Trade

- Offs in Greenhouse Gas Mitigati on with Wood

- Based Fuels , 45 E NVIRON

. S CI

. T ECHNOL

. 789 (2011); Anna Repo, et al., Indirect Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Producing Bioenergy from Forest Harvest Residues,
G LOBAL C HANGE B IOLOGY B IOENERGY (2010), doi: 10.1111/j.1757

- 1707.2010.01065.x; Steph en R. Mitchell, et al., Forest Fuel Reduction Alters Fire Severity and Long

- Term Carbon Storage in Three Pacific Northwest Ecosystems , 19 Ecological Applications 643, 652 (2009).April 2, 2012 Page 4

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- 007j Project will not result in any signifi cant cumulative GHG impacts is not supported by substantial evidence.

The Second RDEIR’s claim that the Project will only use forest “waste” and
residuals” does not address this concern. Studies released in 2010 and 2011 have
found that even these materi als cannot be considered “carbon neutral” in the

critical near term. 4

Furthermore , the Second RDEIR fails to provide any substantial evidence, analysis or calculations to demonstrate that the particular feedstock it will use is

carbon neutral and will n ot result in short term increases of GHG. In the 2009 Searchinger study cited in the RDEIR, Searchinger concluded that, while certain residues or biowastes may be able to demonstrate carbon neutrality, demonstration of such carbon neutrality requires care ful tracing of carbon flows, and calculation of net changes in carbon stocks, non CO2 GHG emissions and leakage emissions. 5 Other studies have shown that lag times in emissions also have to be taken into

account. 6 Because the Second RDEIR fails to provid e such a project

- specific analysis, its assumption that the Project will not result in any significant cumulative GHG impacts is speculative at best.

Furthermore, the 2 nd RDEIR contains no enforceable assurances that non

carbon

- neutral wast e s and residual s would not be used as biofuel. T he Second RDEIR does not sufficiently define the scope of acceptable waste and residuals in a manner that permits evaluation of their actual carbon neutrality. Fu r thermore, t he September 2011 RDEIR states that sawmill res iduals may account for up to 100% of the fuel mixture for the biomass power plant, depending on market conditions

. 7
This as sertion is supported by the Project’s air permit application. Since sawmill residuals have other commercial uses, there is no evid ence in the record that use of such residuals would be carbon neutral. Under such a scenario, no offset of GHG

4 Jon McKechnie, et al., Forest Bioenergy or Forest Carbon? Assessing Trade

- O ffs in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Wood

- Based Fuels , 45 E NVIRON

. S CI

. T ECHNOL

. 789 (2011); Anna Repo, et al., Indirect Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Producing Bioenergy from Forest Harvest Residues,
G LOBAL C HANGE B IOLOGY B IOENERGY (2010), doi: 10.1111/j .1757

- 1707.2010.01065.x.

5 Timothy Searchinger, et al., Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error , 326 S CIENCE 527 (2009) at p. 528.

6 Gregory Morris, Subcontractor Report, Biomass Energy Production in California: The Case for a Biomass Policy Initiative

, NREL Report No. NREL/SR

- 570

- 28805 (Nov. 2000) at 39.

7 RDEIR at p. 2.0

- 9; see also RDEIR at p. 2.0

- 5.April 2, 2012 Page 5

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- 007j emissions would occur from the use of urban wood waste, agricultural woody waste or forest thinnings and slash.

In addition to the deficienc ies of the RDEIR discussed above, the un

- revised portions of the August 2010 DEIR remains legally inadequate due to the following
deficiencies discussed in detail in our September 20, 2010 comment letter:

• Inconsistencies between the DEIR and the Project’ s application for Authority to Construct/Permit to Operate submitted to the Shasta County Air Quality Management District;

• Failure to adequately disclose, evaluate and mitigate the Project’s construction and operational air quality impacts;

• Failure to di sclose, evaluate and mitigate potential hazardous material impacts from the Project’s use of anhydrous ammonia; and

• Failure to adequately evaluate and mitigate railroad crossing safety impacts.

The DEIR and Revised DEIRs must be withdrawn and revised to address
these errors and deficiencies. Because of the substantial omissions in the information disclosed in the DEIR and Revised DEIRs, revisions necessary to comply with CEQA will be, by definition, significant. Because these revisions are sig nificant, a third revised D EIR will need to be recirculated for additional public

comment.

Citizens for Responsible Industry and its individual members urge the County to comply with its obligations under CEQA and ensure that the Project’s impacts are fully disclo sed, evaluated and mitigated before the Project is allowed toApril 2, 2012 Page 7

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- 007j bcc: Mark Mulliner, Plumbers & Pipefitt ers Local 228 A.C. Steelman, IBEW Local 340 Dale Bilyeu, Boilermakers Local 549