Environmental Review

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA, Public Resources Code Sections 21000, et seq.), applies to discretionary projects to be carried out or approved by public agencies. A basic purpose of CEQA is to inform governmental decision-makers and the public about the potential, significant environmental effects of the proposed activities.

Since the project is subject to CEQA and the Commission must issue a discretionary decision without which the project cannot proceed (i.e., the Commission must approve the property sale pursuant to Pub. Util. Code § 851), the Commission must act as either a Lead Agency or a Responsible Agency under CEQA. The Lead Agency is the public agency with the greatest responsibility for supervising or approving the project as a whole.¹⁰ Here, Santa Rosa is the Lead Agency for the Geysers Recharge Project under CEQA and the Commission is a Responsible Agency. CEQA requires that the Commission consider the environmental consequences of a project that is subject to its discretionary approval. In particular, the Commission must consider the Lead Agency's environmental documents and findings before acting upon or approving a project.¹¹ The specific activities which must be conducted by a Responsible Agency are contained in the CEQA Guidelines, Section 15096.

PG&E states that environmental review of the Project has already been conducted by Santa Rosa as the Lead Agency under CEQA and that the Commission's role should be that of a Responsible Agency under CEQA. In support of its position PG&E submitted with its application a copy of Santa Rosa's April 1999 Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) for the Geysers Recharge Project Northern Section, which includes review of the five parcels PG&E proposes to sell in the application.¹²

As a Responsible Agency under CEQA we have reviewed the SEIR as well as the Santa Rosa City Council resolutions certifying the Project and publicly available on Santa Rosa's website,¹³ and we find those documents adequate for our decision-making purposes.

Following certification of the Final EIR for the Project in June 1997 by Santa Rosa City Council Resolution No. 23168, further environmental analysis for the pipeline and associated pump stations was divided into three sections and SEIRs were prepared for each. The SEIR for the Northern Section involving Pine Flat Road was prepared including the PG&E parcels, and was reviewed for purposes of this application. The SEIR for the Northern Section was certified by the City Council in July 1999 by Resolution No. 24046. In March 2000, the City Council certified the Geysers Pipeline Construction Addendum - Upper and Lower Pine Flat Road, which evaluated various Project modifications. The Council certified the Modified Geysers Recharge Alternative with the Pine Flat Road Modified Alignment as previously studied in the SEIR. Both the original project and the adopted modifications were found to have significant and unavoidable environmental impacts. However, the modified Project reduced the number of significant unavoidable impacts from twenty-two to four. All other potentially significant environmental impacts identified in the EIR and SEIR were found to be either eliminated or reduced to less than significant levels through implementation of proposed mitigation measures. In approving the final Project modifications for the Northern Section, the Council adopted the SEIR Mitigation and Monitoring Plan, project update Addendums to the SEIR, and a Statement of Overriding Considerations finding that the overall benefits of the Project outweighed the significant and unavoidable environmental impacts.

Potential environmental impacts that could be reduced to less than significant levels were identified in the areas of land use (conversion of open space by Project components), geology (ground rupture and corrosive and expansive soil damage), wetland disruption (destruction of wetlands), biological resources (species disruption), air quality (dust), visual resources (view disruption), and cultural resources (disturbance of eligible or unknown resources). The Mitigation and Monitoring Plan called for replacement open space easements to mitigate land use impacts, use of specified engineering methods and an earthquake plan to mitigate geology impacts, construction limitations and a disturbance plan to mitigate wetland disruption, monitoring and a resource protection plan to mitigate biological impacts, a dust control plan to mitigate air quality impacts, construction limitations to mitigate visual impacts, and identification and avoidance to mitigate cultural resource impacts. Certain significant and unavoidable impacts remained in the areas of geology, transportation, noise and visual. Pursuant to the Statement of Overriding Considerations, the following benefits were determined to outweigh the Project's potentially significant unavoidable impacts: superior use of water resources; maximizing current reuse opportunities while minimizing potential future limitations; protecting beneficial uses by minimizing discharge to the Russian River; best degree of weather independence, meeting Regional Board requirements; and high level of reliability afforded by diversity of types of reuse.

With respect to the potential environmental impacts that could be mitigated in the areas of land use, geology, wetland disruption, biology, air quality, visual resources, and cultural resources, we find that Santa Rosa adopted feasible mitigation measures to eliminate or reduce those impacts to less than significant levels and we adopt Santa Rosa's findings and mitigations for purposes of our approval. With respect to the significant unavoidable impacts in the areas of geology, transportation, noise and visual resources, we find that Santa Rosa enumerated reasonable benefits to outweigh the environmental impacts and justify Project approval. Accordingly, we also adopt the determination of the Statement of Overriding Considerations.