2015-004 - Santa Ana-Garden Grove Fixed Guideway Project

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Santa Ana — Garden Grove Fixed Guideway Project Findings and Facts in Support of Findings and Statement of Overriding Considerations Findings for Mitigation Measures Mitigation Measures for the proposed project have been identified in the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program. None of the recommended measures that are within the City of Santa Ana jurisdiction have been rejected. To the extent that these findings conclude that various proposed Mitigation Measures outlined in the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program are feasible and have not been modified, superseded or withdrawn, the City of Santa Ana hereby binds itself to implement or, as appropriate, require implementation of these measures. These findings, in other words, are not merely informational, but rather constitute a binding set of obligations that will come into effect when the City of Santa Ana adopts a resolution approving the proposed project. Environmentally Superior Alternative Section 15126.6(e)(2) of the CEQA Guidelines requires that an environmentally superior alternative be identified among the selected alternatives. If the No Build Alternative is identified as the environmentally superior alternative, the identification of the next best environmentally superior alternative must be identified. As described in the EA/DEIR and the REA/FEIR, the No Build Alternative has been found to have the least amount of environmental impacts and is the environmentally superior alternative. Of the remaining alternatives, the TSM Alternative is the CEQA environmentally superior alternative because no impacts were identified in the EA /DEIR. However, the City hereby finds that the TSM alternative would not achieve the project's basic objectives and thereby rejects this alternative. 9. STATEMENT OF OVERRIDING CONSIDERATIONS The REA/FEIR has identified and discussed significant environmental effects that will occur as a result of implementation of the proposed project. With implementation of feasible mitigation measures, standard conditions, and /or BMPs, as discussed in the REA/FEIR, these effects can be mitigated to levels considered less than significant except for the significant impacts related to regional construction emissions and localized construction emissions, as described above in Section 6 of this document. Specifically, implementation of the proposed project would result in the following significant impacts even after imposition of all feasible mitigation measures, standard conditions, and /or BMPs and would require adoption of a Statement of Overriding Considerations: • Construction emissions associated with the proposed project would result in exceedance of the SCAQMD's NOx threshold for construction activities for the years 2012 and 2013 and, as such, would result in a significant regional air quality impact. Implementation of Mitigation Measure AQ1 would reduce NOx emissions, although emissions would still exceed the SCAQMD significance threshold. • Construction emissions of PM1e were found to exceed the SCAQMD's Localized Significance Thresholds and would, therefore, result in a local air quality impact to sensitive receptors in the vicinity of the O & M Facility. The proposed project is subjected to SCAQMD Rule 403 (Fugitive Dust), which requires that dust control measures (i.e., watering, offsite dirt trackout, and haul truck freeboard clearance) be applied to minimize the generation of fugitive dust during construction activities. Despite the application of these 36 January 2015