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Proposed Costco Wholesale Redwood City GDF Expansion 7.A. - Page 150 <br /> Air Quality/Climate Change Analysis <br /> Page 16 <br /> Table 8. Toxic Air Contaminant Health Risk Significance Thresholds. <br /> Criteria Project Impact Cumulative Impact <br /> Qualified Community Risk Reduction Plan Non-compliance Non-compliance <br /> Excess Cancer Risk > 10/million > 100/million <br /> Chronic or acute non-cancer hazard index > 1.0 >10.0 <br /> > 0.3 �g/m3 annual > 0.8 �g/m3 annual <br /> Fine Particulate Matter (PM2,5) average average <br /> (">" means "greater than". "�g/m3" means "micrograms per cubic meter".) <br /> The Redwood City area does not currently have a qualified Community Risk Reduction Plan <br /> (BAAQMD, 2011c). Also, GDFs do not emit fine particulate matter. Therefore, thresholds <br /> related to Qualified Community Risk Reduction Plans and PM2,5 are not relevant to this <br /> assessment. <br /> Global Climate Change. <br /> Similar to criteria air pollutants, the Bay Area AQMD also considers impacts related to global <br /> climate change and GHG emissions to be cumulative in nature. GHG emissions contribute <br /> cumulatively to significant adverse environmental effects associated with global climate change. <br /> Cumulative climate change impacts could include increased extreme heat days, higher <br /> concentrations of criteria air pollutants, sea level rise, water supply and quality impacts, impacts <br /> to public health and natural ecosystems, impacts to agriculture, and other environmental <br /> impacts. No individual project could generate sufficient GHG emissions on its own to noticeably <br /> change average global temperatures. However, the combined GHG emissions from past, <br /> present, and future projects can contribute to global climate change and its associated <br /> environmental impacts. (BAAQMD, 2011 b, Section 2.) <br /> The Bay Area AQMD's approach to addressing project-level and cumulative impacts associated <br /> with climate change is to identify emissions levels below which an individual project would not <br /> be expected to substantially conflict with existing California legislation enacted to reduce <br /> statewide GHG emissions. If a project is anticipated to generate GHG emissions above the <br /> relevant threshold, the District considers that it would contribute substantially to cumulative <br /> impacts and therefore should be considered significant. For stationary source projects requiring <br /> a District Permit to Operate (as does the Costco Wholesale Redwood City GDF), the BAAQMD <br /> recommends a threshold of 10,000 metric tons per year carbon dioxide equivalents (COZe). <br /> (BAAQMD, 2011b, Section 2.2.) <br /> 7/30/2012 <br />