By Frank Landis, CNPS-San Diego Conservation Committee Chair
But first the news. Otay Ranch Village 13, which was rescheduled to be heard by the Supervisors on August 5, was put off until September, maybe October. The reasons? At this point, I’m speculating. It could be that County Planners are trying to figure out what to do with the greenhouse gas issues now that there isn’t a County Climate Action Plan. It’s possible that between COVID-19 and the incredible shrinking budget, passing this development just doesn’t rate high enough to take up hours of hearing time. It’s conceivable that Supervisor Gaspar, who as you may have heard is up for re-election,doesn’t want to get stuck in a no-win vote as she was on Lilac Hills Ranch, at least before the election. Probably it is the first two, but we’re still waiting for developments.
The last few weeks I’ve been working on the Otay Hills Aggregate Quarry, hence my lament about planning and the lack thereof. Unfortunately, it’s an example of how to do aproject wrong, at least in my humble opinion. The project’s general idea is to dig a deep hole in the ground, grind up the suitable rock therein, mix it with asphalt onsite, and use it to pave roads. Then, as parts of the hole are worked out, to fill it full of construction debris. We need to keep rebuilding our roads and to rebuild for climate change, what could be wrong with this?
First, there’s the timescale. The proposed project would finish around 2114. And, even though there’s a 1,000 gallon gasoline tank and a large asphalt tank system proposed for the site, this is not supposed to emit enough greenhouse gases to be a problem. Really? The people doing the EIR (accidentally?) didn’t reference Governor Brown’s executive order calling on the state to become carbon neutral before 2045 and carbon negative thereafter. So this project depends on materials, like gasoline and asphalt that largely won’t be available for most of its duration, assuming we do the smart thing and decarbonize. Apparently, the idea is to grandfather the project in to post-petrochemical California, then make the rest of us deal with its carbon emissions, and also keep up the petroleum-based infrastructure it would need to keep its current business model.
The sane alternative would be to permit it for 10 to 20 years, then require a new permit, with a new business model, before allowing extended operation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t part of the EIR.
Then there is the location (yes, I know you in the Sierra Clubwere fuming that I wouldn’t get there). It’s at the edge of the MSCP, in an area with rare plants and the federally listed endangered Quino checkerspot butterfly. So, in addition to blasting a big hole in the ground (literally: explosions and extractions planned from 5 am to 10 pm daily), they want to move the MSCP boundary back juuuuust a little bit to make this work. The noise won’t impact the adjacent wildlife because it never does in an EIR.
We’ve been here before, and getting road base is not on my list of reasons why any species should be nudged towards extinction. Crappy site for a mine, really. Crappy site for anything but native plants and animals.
While I’m at it, I should point out that we desperately need to find alternatives to landfilling for managing our trash. I know how difficult this is, but digging new holes designated for the kind of trash we discard now doesn’t help us generate the necessary will to do better things with our wastes.
And then there’s the EIR itself. The botany surveys used for the EIR stretch from 2001 to 2010, basically. The numbers of sensitive plants they found are kind of added together across these years, and the sum is stated as if it’s what is there now.For annual plants that die every year (Otay Tarplant, in this case), even though those plants weren’t there at the same time. But that’s how many they plan to take care of. Worse, the entire site burned in 2003, and they’re still using the pre-fire vegetation maps. The worst thing was that they never checked to see if the list of sensitive species they used for surveying had been updated in the 19 years since the project started. The bad news for them is it has been, so they didn’t survey for everything that’s currently endangered and likely on the site. This is basic bad science and even bad faith. An EIR is supposed to describe what’s currently there, not what was there a long time ago when someone was willing to pay for a survey.
I already mentioned that, allegedly, this project won’t emit enough greenhouse gases to be worth regulating. I had pointed comments about that notion, and others commenting on it were rather more savage.
Then there are the fire issues. Because they are just reusing an old EIR, they entirely missed the recent upgrades to the CEQA guidelines wildfire questions, so they didn’t do a complete job. Rather more annoyingly, the project buildings (which among other things, hold that 1,000 gallon tank of gasoline and ammonium nitrate when it’s on site) were deemed temporary, so the EIR claims they don’t have to do all the wildfire workup that they would do for a housing development. Since I happen to know that the design life on most homes is 50 years (that’s why you need to do upkeep, remodels and replacements), the notion that the buildings in a 90 year project are “temporary” is laughable.
The saddest part is that, apparently, this went through the County of San Diego Planning & Development Services. What I hope to see from our planners is that they catch the obvious lapses, know enough about state and local regulations to correct problems when applicants make mistakes, and have a vision of the county going carbon neutral that’s more than politely mouthing words that go on pages on websites.
And this is where you come in. This column isn’t just a rant, it’s a call to action. We’ve been tolerating these kinds of projects for far too long in San Diego County. Fortunately for us, this is a really critical election where we can make a difference. If the Third Supervisorial District changes parties, the balance on the Board of Supervisors changes toward democratic, and we (hopefully!) will get planners who do a proper job with problematic projects like these.
Even if you’re not in the Third District, I think you probably realize that this is the most important election in decades, possibly in your lifetime. The choices we make in November will be long-lasting and irreversible. CNPS does not advocate for a particular party, but we do advocate for native plants, for the ecosystems they need, for a climate that supports them, and for human safety. I hope these are values you will work and fight for.
What I ask you to do between now and November is:
Get politically active.
Vote.
If things get weird after the vote, insist on the rule of law by every means you can.
Political activity isn’t just registering to vote, it’s knowing the issues, donating money, phone banking, writing get-out-the-vote letters, all that stuff we shy plant lovers hate to do. But right now it has to be done. We don’t need more projects like Otay Village 13, Otay Hills Quarry, or certainly Otay Village 14. We need a working County Climate Action Plan and a County that puts life ahead of money. You can help disempower the groups that are pushing these bad ideas, if you get active this fall and follow through.
Thanks.