Foothills Sentry May 2021

Foothills Sentry Page 2 May 2021 City and fill operator out of touch with state and resident reality By Tina Richards Chandler LLC wants to fill in an abandoned mine pit with 750,000 cubic yards of inert dirt and debris, filling the excavation up to street level. A small group of East Orange residents want to protect a natural riparian area, home to a unique ecosystem that includes a wet- land, native plants and animals, some of them endangered spe- cies. The conflict between those two seemingly reasonable goals is that the mine pit and wildlife refuge are one and the same. Located near the corner of Santiago Canyon Road and Cannon and hidden from view, it has been out of sight, out of mind, for 70 years. Over that time, nature reclaimed the acreage, turning land once scarred by mining into a lush habitat for birds, reptiles and fish. The property is adjacent to Santiago Creek and is part of the flood plain. The City of Orange calls it a "puddle." The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Board calls it "wetlands, waters of the State of California." The city’s assessment isbasedoninformation provided by Chandler’s attorney in a September 2018 letter. The wetlands designation came only after citizens gave up arguing with the city over the property’s fate and turned to the water quality agency for help. No fuss, no muss The city had been assured by Chandler’s legal counsel that its own regulations and zoning designations allowed the back- fill project to proceed with only a grading permit. Backfilling on property zoned as sand and gravel is considered “by right,” and doesn’t need a conditional use permit. Grading permits are issued as “ministerial” actions re- quiring no environmental review. As precedent, Chandler’s letter cited the grading permit the city issued for the Sully-Miller prop- erty in 2011. The letter also noted that the city’s General Plan designated a portion of the area as “open space,” and that “much, but not all, of the land includes steep hillsides or environmentally sensitive areas that should be preserved.” While the grading was not expected to impact those areas, the letter pointed out that the open space designation itself did not prohibit development. The city apparently agreed with that assessment because it undertook no further analysis of the project. It was prepared to issue the grading permit, pending Chandler’s request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that it redraw the boundaries of the flood plain that encompassed the project. FEMA later did. Digging deeper In the meantime, the public learned of the proposed backfilling that would bury the natural landscape tucked below the Blue Ribbon nursery. Citizens alerted the city about the site’s natural resources and implored it to conduct an environmental review before taking action. The city’s response was that the project could proceed with a grading permit. Period. In May 2019, the State of Cali- fornia introduced new regulations that made it harder to destroy a wetland and revised the definition of wetland to include “man-made, such as from mining.” Because the Chandler property fits the guidelines, citizens brought it to the attention of the regional water board. In August 2020, the board designated the two acres in ques- tion “waters of the state.” In February, the water board advised the county that “we will require an appropriate CEQA (California Environmental Qual- ity Act) analysis for the proposed project. Chandler stated that the proposed project is a ministerial project already approved by the city as part of their grading per- mit. We won’t accept that.” In March, the agency reject- ed Chandler’s application for a waste discharge permit, not- ing that the operator’s wetlands characterization was insufficient, aquatic resource information was missing, an alternative analysis was missing, no CEQA study had been done and the mitigation plan did not address loss of wetlands. Orange finally accepted the water board’s determination that CEQA was needed. Chandler had removed much of the vegetation on the slopes above the wetland and cut an access road along the top of it. By 2020, the hillside was eroding at an alarming rate. A citizen alerted the water board, noting that debris was going down the canyon and polluting waters of the state. Hillside slide When contacted by the water board about the erosion, a city engineer responded, “We have asked our public works department to look into the location. It was determined there is no further protection currently needed for the hillside.” Chandler’s position, as present- ed in its water agency application, is that the now-eroding hillside is a safety hazard, which, it claims, the backfill would remedy. The site has recently come to the attention of the Local Enforce- ment Agency (LEA), the county arm of CalRecycle that shut down the illegal Rio Santiago dumping operation on the Sully-Miller site last year. “What is this site? Where is it located?” an LEA official en- quired of the water agency. “If it’s another inert waste disposal facil- ity, they require a permit from us. I’d hate for this to be another Rio Santiago situation.” Much of the information herein was obtained through a public records request made by a private citizen. The regional water quality board responded; the City of Orange did not. The hillside above the California-designated wetland is, after being undisturbed for decades, now rapidly eroding. Photo by Tony Richards