Speier blasts Trump over Cargill decision

Speier, D-San Mateo, described the EPA’s determination, announced earlier this month, as a “180-degree political flip flop” from the agency’s 2016 determination on the site. That determination was made by EPA Region 9 and is outlined in a 66-page draft document that hasn’t been available to the public until Tuesday when Speier published it on her website.

“It’s clear that the Trump administration hijacked the jurisdictional process from local experts on the ground — putting politics ahead of science — because the 2016 determination didn’t suit the administration’s agenda,” Speier wrote in a statement.

The EPA concluded that the Clean Water Act does not apply to the 1,365-acre Bayside property because the “site was converted to [dry] land long before the CWA was enacted.”

“EPA reached this conclusion considering the combination of circumstances at the salt plant, including the separation of the salt plant over a century ago from the surrounding waters, the federally-authorized excavating, filling and industrial production and maintenance of activities that have taken place at the salt plant since that time, and the use of water at the plant as merely a component of a highly engineered industrial operation,” according to a letter written by Andrew Wheeler, the EPA’s acting administrator.

The EPA’s 2016 determination, on the other hand, states that just 95 acres on the property, including levees and building pads, were converted to dry land before the passage of the CWA. 

“The remaining 1,270 acres within the subject area are ‘waters of the United States’ as defined in the CWA,” according to the draft document. 

That’s because the tidal channels within the Redwood City salt ponds were part of the traditionally navigable waters of the San Francisco Bay, and could still be used for interstate or foreign commerce with reasonable improvements, among other reasons, according to the draft document.

David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay and a longtime opponent of developing the salt ponds, said the EPA’s 2016 determination was completed, but never officially issued because Cargill requested multiple delays and then EPA leadership changed when Trump was elected president.

Lewis has also made similar arguments as Speier in response to the latest EPA determination.

“In essence, the Trump administration has cherry-picked selectively from the earlier authoritative analysis to reach an opposite conclusion that favors a private landowner, overrides decades of legal precedent and guts the Clean Water Act’s protections for a vital part of the San Francisco Bay,” he said.

The site was once used to harvest commercial salt and has had different development proposal iterations over the years. The most recent proposal by developer DMB Ventures would have created about 12,000 homes amid some wetlands restoration but was dropped in 2012 after years of controversy.

Mayor Ian Bain last week said residents and officials remain opposed to a housing development on the site, adding that he’d like it to be restored to wetlands. Any development proposal there would require City Council approval, a rezone and general plan update, and other state and federal agencies would have to sign off on it as well.

That said, DMB is beginning to engage the public about potential future uses of the site. The project has been branded “Reimagine Saltworks” and David Smith, an attorney representing DMB, said a website will launch within weeks.

“We want everyone’s perspective on current needs and priorities,” Smith said in an email. “As for specific uses [for the salt ponds], nothing is off the table for purposes of the conversation.”

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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