U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, called on EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to explain how the agency determined how his agency determined that the Redwood City salt plant site was not subject to federal permitting under the Clean Water Act despite an earlier draft that stated otherwise.
“As you know, EPA Region 9 drafted a jurisdictional determination in November 2016 finding that 1,270 acres of the 1,300 Redwood City salt plant site are ‘waters of the United States’ and therefore subject to federal permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act,” they wrote in a letter to Wheeler. “After considering both EPA Region 9’s November 2016 draft determination and EPA’s March 2019 final decision document, we have serious concerns regarding the discrepancies between the two determinations.”
The Environmental Protection Avency 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.”
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.
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.
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.
Redwood City Mayor Ian Bain previously said officials and residents remain opposed to housing at the site and would rather have it restored to wetlands. 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.
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