Palomar Airport:The County CPA Dilemma, Blog 62

We learned last week that the County is processing a one-year permit for 2014 California Pacific Airlines [CPA] Palomar operations.  The County has a dilemma.  Here’s why.

CPA’s Claim Against the County

As reported in July 2013 in Blog 39, CPA filed a $100 million claim at the end of 2012 against the County related to CPA’s desire to use Palomar Airport.  CPA said that the County had “misrepresented, concealed, and failed to disclose” Carlsbad Conditional Use Permit  [CUP] limitations related to Palomar Airport development.

CPA’s CUP claim reference was to the comments that Carlsbad filed with the FAA in  2012 when the FAA circulated environmental documents related to CPA’s proposed new commercial service at Palomar.

In part, the initial Carlsbad letter to the FAA expressed concern that increased commercial flights at Palomar would take Palomar Airport out of the category of “general aviation basic transport” airport – one of the conditions of Carlsbad Conditional Use Permit 172 that allows Palomar Airport to operate. 

Mysteriously – without discussing CPA requirements or the Carlsbad conditional use permit in an open Carlsbad Council meeting – the Carlsbad City Manager in 2013 notified the FAA that certain Carlsbad concerns were misplaced.  [See Blogs 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40.]   The Carlsbad Council failed to disclose or discuss the CUP 172 issues in public session and failed to give the public an opportunity to comment.

California Environmental Quality Act [CEQA] Requirements

Before the County can grant CPA a Palomar permit to operate, the County must prepare a proper environmental analysis.  CEQA requires the County to prepare an environmental impact report [EIR] if there is a fair argument that CPA operations may significantly impact the environment.

The County has not prepared a Palomar EIR for forty years.  The County avoided EIRs by splitting large projects into small ones so that project impacts were individually small but cumulatively hidden.  The practice is well known among governmental entities and is commonly referred to as “piecemealing.”

What is one way to piecemeal a project?   Grant a permit for one year and for CEQA purposes analyze only one year of impacts.  Then quietly later extend the permit to a long- term permit.

The County CPA Dilemma

Will the County fully analyze the impacts of the proposed California Pacific Airlines operations, as CEQA requires?  Or will the County – fearful of a CPA suit– prepare a short CEQA environmental document and sidestep serious analysis?

Curiously, the County has already set a timetable for processing the CPA CEQA documents.  The County 2014 preliminary CPA schedule is called “McClellan-Palomar Airport MND Schedule for CPA Airport Use Permit.”  In CEQA terms, an “MND” is a “mitigated negative declaration.” 

In other words, the County already knows in January 2014 that no CPA EIR is needed.  According to the County processing chart, the MND will be released on Friday, February 7, 2014 for a 30-day public review.  County will prepare responsive comments within 5 weeks. The CPA permit will go to the Board of Supervisors in May.  The targeted permit commencement date is June 1, 2014.

Moreover, the County chart refers to the County performing certain ramp striping in December 2013.  Does it strike anyone as odd that the County:

• Schedules CPA-related ramp striping before the CEQA document has been prepared, and

• Has already concluded no EIR is necessary?

Shouldn’t the County prepare the CEQA documents first, fairly consider public comments, and then act?

Postscript: Fun Fact: Yesterday, Southwest Airlines Flight 4013, a Boeing 737 with 124 passengers, mistakenly landed at M. Graham Clark Airport.   The Clark Airport runway length is 3,738 feet.  [AOL.com, “Southwest flight lands at wrong Missouri airport, Jan. 13, 2014.] The Palomar Airport runway is 4897 feet and the County wants to expand it to 5800 feet