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DANIEL L. CARDOZO

THOMAS A. ENSLOW

PAMELA N. EPSTEIN

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 JOSEPH & 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, including 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 woody 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 (“County”), 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 public service impacts from industrial 

development. The members of Citizens for Responsible Industry include Plumbers 
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and Pipefitters Local 228, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 

340, Boilermakers Local 549 and their members and their families, 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. 

Individual 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 materials. 

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. These comments identified a number of legal 

inadequacies and errors in 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 Gases 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 

threshold 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 energy 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. 
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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 legally 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 the 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 predetermined outcome, the lead agency has engaged in precisely the sort of post hoc 

rationalization of agency actions that has been repeatedly condemned in decisions 

construing the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”).2

The 2nd RDEIR is legally deficient because it relies upon an outdated and 

discredited 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 results driven. 

The 2nd 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 warming 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 2nd RDEIR, the conclusion that the 

 2 See, e.g., Laurel Heights Improvement 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 

Mitigation with Wood-Based Fuels, 45 ENVIRON. SCI. TECHNOL. 789 (2011); Anna Repo, et al., 

Indirect Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Producing Bioenergy from Forest Harvest Residues, 

GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY BIOENERGY (2010), doi: 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2010.01065.x; Stephen 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).
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Project will not result in any significant 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 materials 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 not 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 careful 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 provide 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 2nd RDEIR contains no enforceable assurances that noncarbon-neutral wastes and residuals would not be used as biofuel. The Second 

RDEIR does not sufficiently define the scope of acceptable waste and residuals in a 

manner that permits evaluation of their actual carbon neutrality. Furthermore, the 

September 2011 RDEIR states that sawmill residuals may account for up to 100% of 

the fuel mixture for the biomass power plant, depending on market conditions.7 

This assertion is supported by the Project’s air permit application. Since sawmill 

residuals have other commercial uses, there is no evidence 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-Offs in Greenhouse Gas 

Mitigation with Wood-Based Fuels, 45 ENVIRON. SCI. TECHNOL. 789 (2011); Anna Repo, et al., 

Indirect Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Producing Bioenergy from Forest Harvest Residues, 

GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY BIOENERGY (2010), doi: 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2010.01065.x.

5 Timothy Searchinger, et al., Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error, 326 SCIENCE 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.
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emissions would occur from the use of urban wood waste, agricultural woody waste 

or forest thinnings and slash. 

In addition to the deficiencies 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 disclose, 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 

significant, a third revised DEIR 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 disclosed, evaluated and mitigated before the Project is allowed to 

April 2, 2012

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bcc: Mark Mulliner, Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 228

A.C. Steelman, IBEW Local 340

Dale Bilyeu, Boilermakers Local 549