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EIR Inadequacy |
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Copyright © 2001 by Dave Badtke |
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Two things biased me from the start against the Benicia Business Park draft Environmental Impact Report: It’s too thick, and I’m sure it’s not telling us what we need to know. The report is as big as the Chicago telephone book and probably just as heavy. The thought of reading it through, from front to back, is enough to make you drowsy even before you pick it up. And at 40 bucks, it’s way too pricey for most of us to buy and carry home, to read at our convenience, though you might consider it cheap if you’re a data junky who feeds on maps and charts, tables and tallies, who’s capable of consuming page upon page of numbers: gallons of water used, yards of dirt moved, megawatts of electricity consumed, thousands of commute miles driven, FARs (floor area ratios) and so on. If you’re not a data connoisseur, this EIR may make your brain gag. And then, after you’ve gone through the whole thing, what do you do with it? It’s too big for a doorstop and it’s not attractive enough to leave on your coffee table. No, better to get it from the library, if you’re lucky, since there are only three copies, two of which circulate. Admittedly I was at the library at the eleventh hour, deciding to glance through the EIR a couple hours before the Planning Commission meeting last Wednesday, so neither circulating copy was available. You might be luckier. The third copy is in reference and must remain in the library. When the librarian handed it to me, I was careful to keep my back straight, visualizing those do-and-don’t heavy-lifting pictures with the lightening bolts of pain radiating from the dummy doing it the don’t way. I carried the massive tome to an empty chair at the extreme west-end of the reading room, where the setting sun streamed through the window, and sat down with the warm sun at my back. I scanned the table of contents, turned the book sideways to read the impact and mitigation tables, looked at the before-and-after visual simulations, there to reassure those who might be concerned about visual impact that the development of 527.8 acres will have no discernible impact, never mind that the pictures used in the simulation were taken with a camera so far back from proposed developments that it was hard to even make out the buildings that would be built. But the sun warming the back of my neck and the lateness of the afternoon and the soft, comfortable chair, and the heavy book in my lap all conspired to …. Anyway, I didn’t get very far as I dozed off, knowing that this EIR could only be consumed sitting in a stiff, hard-bottomed chair armed with multiple cups of strong coffee. Though I did get as far as the environmental impacts on biological resources which included wetlands, white-tailed kites, special-status bats, burrowing owls, and nesting barn owls. “If a single owl is roosting, demolition or removal of the structure can proceed after the owl has been persuaded to move from the roost area. Non-invasive techniques include light shining into the roost space for one or two nights and days. If barn owls are found to be actively nesting in the barn, any work on the demolition of the structure will be postponed until … all owls have left the building.” As I read this, I visualized hulking construction workers, their huge earth-moving machines idle, as they yelled at the owls, telling them in no uncertain terms to get the heck off the site. And can you imagine the indignity of having a light shining on you all night? The poor little owls will feel as though they’re in prison. The next day, after the Planning Commission meeting, I went back and read parts of the EIR more carefully. The traffic section of the EIR was most distressing, filled with countless intersection traffic-flow inserts. I lived Bay Area traffic for the past quarter century. It was the bane of my daily existence. Wherever we lived in the past, traffic went from bad to worse to tortuous, as the more wily drivers, myself included, sought circuitous routes that, like Disneyland lines, at least kept us moving. When we lived in Palo Alto 25 years ago, traffic was already bad. Now it’s intolerable: Most times during the day you can probably walk University Avenue faster than you can drive it. When we moved to Danville 13 years ago, driving to Fremont was stop-and-go until 680 was widened. It was commuter heaven for a handful of years until the lanes inexorably filled with cars. The Sunol-grade commute was recently ranked one of the worst in the nation. During rush hour, which is increasingly most of the day, it takes so long to drive from Danville to San Jose that if you’re somewhat older than the average dot-com unemployed worker, you can’t get there without stopping along the way to go to the bathroom. (If sane public transportation isn’t possible, then grid-lock rest stops would at least relieve some of the pressure.) Unfortunately, I imagine an EIR was created for every new housing development and business park built from here to Morgan Hill during the past quarter century, and that each EIR said that there were mitigating actions that could be taken to improve traffic, those actions usually taking the form of more lanes for more cars—widened lanes, improved intersections and the like. This EIR is no exception, though it does ominously state that: “The project would contribute traffic to four freeway segments which are projected to exceed the available capacity in the future. On one of the segments (I-680 Northbound north of Lake Herman Road), the Project traffic would cause the over-capacity condition.” But the EIR looks 20 years into the future. Not to worry, it seems to say, which is also what John Bunch, Planning Department Director, said when I called him. I like talking to John. He is an informed, intelligent planner who makes me feel better. I like the way he logically explains situations. He knows his points and authorities. He’s a good guy. Which is why I’m sure this EIR is not telling us what we need to know about the impact of the proposed Seeno Project. No document can. Last week I wrote about James Madison. Without him and the other founding fathers, the constitution would have been stillborn, and we would be a very different nation today, probably a loose confederation of states more like a balkanized Europe than the democratic nation we are. Documents like the General Plan, the Seeno Project plan, and the EIR take on life and meaning only when there are people behind them with vision and insight who can tell us what they mean. And these people must relentlessly remind us of these visions and goals. Like the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the Planning Commission meeting, the vision and goals of these few people must become a regular part of meetings, shared with us so that their vision becomes ours. At one point during the discussion of the EIR, commissioner Brad MacLane asked pleadingly: “Who’s in charge?” John Bunch calmly explained to the commission the EIR process and how it fits into the overall project process. But we’re drowning in process. When I asked John if the commissioners would ever sit around a table and discuss the EIR, trying to understand it and create personal narratives of what the industrial park will mean to them and us, he said that the meeting I witnessed was as good as it gets. Could you imagine designing an airplane through the formal exchange of documents, by asking for public input without making the process a give-and-take exchange of ideas, without seeing the commissioners themselves arguing over alternatives? Chairman Gary Kalian stressed meeting efficiency, seemingly very concerned that the public or commissioners might take too much time, be too repetitious, be a nuisance. The discussion of this huge EIR, filled with information, hundreds of pages long, for a project that will be developed over the next 20 years and that may generate as many as 8,000 new jobs, took fewer than three hours. In contrast, the General Plan, which is similar in size, was discussed and argued over for years. But we’re not designing an airplane, you say. We’re designing a community. Is the process really all that different? Would you feel safe flying in an airplane if you knew that it had been designed and tested using a process like ours, that there had been no discussion, no real exchange of ideas, that the project manager, if he could even be identified, seemed to lack vision, that the plane seemed pilotless? We can paper and process ourselves to death. We can watch as the airplane which is our community crashes and burns time and time again, over many years. Or we can ask the leaders among our elected and appointed officials, among staff, among our active and concerned citizens, to find a way to work together, a way that transcends tightly controlled, formal meetings. Otto Guiliani has said that the Seeno Project will be our 20-year economic engine, and I believe him. But we need a vision of how the money will be used to preserve what we most value while allowing for improvements in what we most need. We need to know how this baby is going to fly. At one point, commissioner Alan Schwartzman suggested that the commission take a trip to the development area. There was highly formal and controlled discussion. A few concerns were expressed about logistics and timing, since all comments on the EIR need to be in by April 9. I felt like jumping up and yelling: “Take the trip. Walk the fields. Carry along the EIR and the preliminary project plan and the General Plan. Take food and wine. Loosen up a bit and have a real exchange of ideas. Forget the Brown act. Think of our founding fathers meeting secretly, developing a wonderful vision. Have a ball and come back and tell us what you think. Seek ratification of your ideas by writing the equivalent of the Federalist Papers. If you need more time than April 9, take it!” Of course I didn’t. I sat quietly. It was obviously not a meeting which encouraged spontaneity. I yawned. I fought off sleep. I waited for my turn to go to the podium and ramble on a little, realizing as I did so, that I’d never—not ever—ride in an airplane designed by this group. |
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- Dave Badtke can be contacted at: www.CarquinezReview.com; Dave@Badtke.com; PO Box 763, Benicia, CA 94510; or by calling 707-745-5540.
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