Opinion ID: 2586605
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Record Supports a Fair Argument the Diesel Project Will Have Significant Adverse Effects

Text: The Negative Declaration estimates the Diesel Project will result in increased NOx emissions of 201 to 420 additional pounds per day due to increased demand for steam from the boilers, and up to 456 pounds per day in total. As the District's established significance threshold for NOx is 55 pounds per day, these estimates constitute substantial evidence supporting a fair argument for a significant adverse impact. The District and ConocoPhillips emphasize that refinery operations are highly complex and that these operations, including the steam generation system, vary greatly with the season, crude oil supplies, market conditions, and other factors. ConocoPhillips objects to the Court of Appeal's mandate that annual averages be used to arrive at a baseline of daily emissions, arguing this fails to account for day-to-day fluctuations and neglects to consider the significance of peak production periods. (9) We do not attempt here to answer any technical questions as to how existing refinery operations should be measured for baseline purposes in this case or how similar baseline conditions should be measured in future cases. CEQA Guidelines section 15125 (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15125, subd. (a)) directs that the lead agency normally use a measure of physical conditions at the time the notice of preparation [of an EIR] is published, or if no notice of preparation is published, at the time environmental analysis is commenced. But, as one appellate court observed, the date for establishing baseline cannot be a rigid one. Environmental conditions may vary from year to year and in some cases it is necessary to consider conditions over a range of time periods. ( Save Our Peninsula Committee v. Monterey County Bd. of Supervisors, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th at p. 125.) In some circumstances, peak impacts or recurring periods of resource scarcity may be as important environmentally as average conditions. Where environmental conditions are expected to change quickly during the period of environmental review for reasons other than the proposed project, project effects might reasonably be compared to predicted conditions at the expected date of approval, rather than to conditions at the time analysis is begun. ( Id. at pp. 125-126.) A temporary lull or spike in operations that happens to occur at the time environmental review for a new project begins should not depress or elevate the baseline; overreliance on short-term activity averages might encourage companies to temporarily increase operations artificially, simply in order to establish a higher baseline. Neither CEQA nor the CEQA Guidelines mandates a uniform, inflexible rule for determination of the existing conditions baseline. Rather, an agency enjoys the discretion to decide, in the first instance, exactly how the existing physical conditions without the project can most realistically be measured, subject to review, as with all CEQA factual determinations, for support by substantial evidence. (See Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 435.) That refinery operations fluctuate over time, however, does not excuse the District from estimating the increase in NOx emissions, if any, the Diesel Project will create. Indeed, the District already made one such estimate in the Negative Declaration, finding the project would increase steam demand to a degree that would result in between 201 and 420 additional pounds per day of NOx emissions from the boilers. The Negative Declaration, though it does not explicitly employ an existing conditions baseline, implicitly uses a baselinean unstated onein estimating the increased rate at which the boilers will need to operate and the resulting increase in NOx emissions. The District is not necessarily required to use the same measurement method in the EIR as in the Negative Declaration. Whatever method the District uses, however, the comparison must be between existing physical conditions without the Diesel Project and the conditions expected to be produced by the project. Without such a comparison, the EIR will not inform decision makers and the public of the project's significant environmental impacts, as CEQA mandates. (§ 21100.)