55A - SAN LORENZO SEWER LIFT STATION

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EXHIBIT "A" To: Raul Godinez II, P.E., Executive Director, Public Works Agency From: Steve Worrall, Senior Civil Engineer, Public Works Agency/Water Resources Division RE: Response to January 13, 2012 Comment Letter from Silverstein Law Firm On January 17, 2012, an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the San Lorenzo Lift Station Project (Project No. 06 -3510; "proposed project ") was scheduled for consideration by the Santa Ana City Council. On the morning of January 17, our office received a 15 -page letter (plus seven attachments) from The Silverstein Law Firm addressing the content of the FIR and the merits of the proposed project. In order to allow adequate time to respond to the comments that were provided, City Council continued the matter. The purpose of this memo is to address and respond to the comments that were provided in the letter and associated attachments. In summary, the comments do not require any substantive changes to the proposed project or the EIR. A discussion and rationale for this conclusion is provided below. These responses correspond to the organization of the January 13, 2012 letter. Section II. The attached memorandum from Tom Epperson, P.E. of TetraTech, the City's expert engineer, explains the City's need for the upgrades. The commenter's suggestion that clarifications in the Recirculated FIR somehow undermine the stability of the Project Description is baseless. An accurate, stable and finite project description is indeed the "sine qua non" of an adequate EIR (County of Inyo v. City ofLos Angeles (1977) 71 Ca1.App.3d 185, 192 -193), and that is precisely what has been provided in this FIR. Prior to recirculation, the prior draft FIR mistakenly contained some ambiguous information on the capacity issues referenced in the comment letter. Specifically, it accurately stated that the new lift station "would not increase capacity" but also indicated that "needed redundancies associated with the existing lift station are inadequate in that two pumps are frequently operated near capacity without a third standby pump." In its February 7, 2011 letter to Council, The Silverstein Law Group identified this issue. While the prior draft FIR was correct in characterizing the existing lift station as being prone to frequent failure, the discussion, as drafted, could have been interpreted to mean that the frequent failures at the existing facility are attributed to the failure of stand -by pumps or lack of capacity. For clarification, the statement was intended to refer to the fact that if a pump were to fail during dry weather conditions at the existing Segerstrom Lift Station facility, then the second pump would 55A -121