3 - The Bowery_PUBLIC COMMENT (SAFER)

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The Bowery Mixed-Use Project CEQA Comment May 11, 2020 Page 6 fiberboard, particleboard) for all interior finish systems that are made with CARB approved no- added formaldehyde (NAF) resins or ultra-low emitting formaldehyde (ULEF) resins in the buildings’ interiors. Id. at 12-13. Proposed mitigation also includes the installation of air filters and outdoor air ventilation. Id. The City has a duty to investigate issues relating to a project’s potential environmental impacts, especially those issues raised by an expert’s comments. See Cty. Sanitation Dist. No. 2 v. Cty. of Kern, (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 1544, 1597–98 (“under CEQA, the lead agency bears a burden to investigate potential environmental impacts”). In addition to assessing the Project’s potential health impacts to residents, Mr. Offermann identifies the investigatory path that the City should be following in developing an EIR to more precisely evaluate the Projects’ future formaldehyde emissions and establishing mitigation measures that reduce the cancer risk below the SCAQMD level. Id., pp. 5-10. Such an analysis would be similar in form to the air quality modeling and traffic modeling typically conducted as part of a CEQA review. The failure to address the project’s formaldehyde emissions is contrary to the California Supreme Court’s decision in California Building Industry Ass’n v. Bay Area Air Quality Mgmt. Dist. (2015) 62 Cal.4th 369, 386 (“CBIA”). At issue in CBIA was whether the Air District could enact CEQA guidelines that advised lead agencies that they must analyze the impacts of adjacent environmental conditions on a project. The Supreme Court held that CEQA does not generally require lead agencies to consider the environment’s effects on a project. CBIA, 62 Cal.4th at 800- 801. However, to the extent a project may exacerbate existing adverse environmental conditions at or near a project site, those would still have to be considered pursuant to CEQA. Id. at 801 (“CEQA calls upon an agency to evaluate existing conditions in order to assess whether a project could exacerbate hazards that are already present”). In so holding, the Court expressly held that CEQA’s statutory language required lead agencies to disclose and analyze “impacts on a project’s users or residents that arise from the project’s effects on the environment.” Id. at 800 (emphasis added). The carcinogenic formaldehyde emissions identified by Mr. Offermann are not an existing environmental condition. Those emissions to the air will be from the Project. Residents and workers will be users of the Project. Currently, there is presumably little if any formaldehyde emissions at the site. Once the project is built, emissions will begin at levels that pose significant health risks. Rather than excusing the City from addressing the impacts of carcinogens emitted into the indoor air from the project, the Supreme Court in CBIA expressly finds that this type of effect by the project on the environment and a “project’s users and residents” must be addressed in the CEQA process. The Supreme Court’s reasoning is well-grounded in CEQA’s statutory language. CEQA expressly includes a project’s effects on human beings as an effect on the environment that must be addressed in an environmental review. “Section 21083(b)(3)’s express language, for example, requires a finding of a ‘significant effect on the environment’ (§ 21083(b)) whenever the ‘environmental effects of a project will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly.’” CBIA, 62 Cal.4th at 800 (emphasis in original). Likewise, “the