Cadiz Land Co., Inc. v. Rail Cycle, L.P.

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Gaut
• Citation: Cadiz Land Co., Inc. v. Rail Cycle, L.P., 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 378, 83 Cal.App.4th 74 (Cal. App. 2000)
• Decision Date: 18 August 2000
• Docket Number: No. E024373.,No. E024532.,E024373.,E024532.
• Parties: CADIZ LAND COMPANY, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. RAIL CYCLE, L.P., et al., Defendants and Respondents. Cadiz Land Company, Inc., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. County of San Bernardino et al., Defendants and Appellants.

99 Cal.Rptr.2d 378

83 Cal.App.4th 74

CADIZ LAND COMPANY, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. RAIL CYCLE, L.P., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Cadiz Land Company, Inc., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. County of San Bernardino et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. E024373.

No. E024532.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 2.

August 18, 2000.

Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, Benjamin M. Reznik, John M. Bowman, Los Angeles, John E. Mackel, San Francisco, and Lynne Todd Edgerton, Sacramento, for Plaintiff and Appellant and for Plaintiff and Respondent.

LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, Richard R. Terzian, Stephen P. Pfahler and Robert J. Tyson, Los Angeles, for Defendants and Appellants.

Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro, Nabil L. Abu-Assal, Tonie M. Franzese, Los Angeles, David J. Altman and Clare Bronowski, Los Angeles, for Defendants and Respondents.

OPINION

GAUT, J.

Appellant Cadiz Land Company, Inc. (Cadiz)¹ challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)² the County of San Bernardino's certification of an environmental impact report and related approval of Rail Cycle, L.P.'s proposed landfill project (landfill).³ The proposed landfill site is located in the Mojave Desert region of San Bernardino County (County). Cadiz owns agricultural land within the near vicinity of the proposed landfill site, and asserts that the landfill will have significant adverse impacts on its agricultural operations and will contaminate the groundwater.

We conclude the failure to discuss in the EIR the volume of groundwater subject to contamination renders the EIR inadequate under CEQA. Because the EIR is deficient, a revised and recirculated EIR is necessary.

With regard to Cadiz's other contentions, we conclude they are either without merit or moot. The County's consolidated appeal of the trial court's ruling denying the County's motion for attorneys' fees is also moot.⁴

I. Statement of Facts and Procedural Background

We reserve a detailed account of the facts for the discussion portion of this opinion. A basic outline of the facts is nevertheless provided to frame the issues. Also provided are maps, attached as appendices A and B, which show the landfill site in relation to Cadiz's property and the approximate area of the underlying aquifer.

The landfill site, which is the subject of this matter, consists of approximately 4,870 acres of land located in an area known as Bolo Station, adjacent to Bristol Dry Lake and a rail line between the towns of Amboy and Cadiz, in the southeastern Mojave Desert region of San Bernardino County. The site is three miles across, east to west, and four miles across, north to south, at its greatest dimensions, and is relatively flat. On this site, Rail Cycle, L.P. (Rail)⁵ proposes to build a Class III nonhazardous municipal solid waste disposal facility, with a service life of 60 to 100 years. Twenty-one hundred acres of the landfill site are to be allocated to the landfill, with 300 acres for support facilities, and the remaining 2,470 acres to be a buffer area. When fully operating, the landfill will receive up to 21,000 tons of garbage per day, contained in closed containers and transported primarily by train from Southern California counties. At completion, the landfill will rise an estimated 370 to 380 feet above the original ground level.

Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company, Inc. owns the majority of the landfill site land. The federal government owns, and the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages, 1,600 acres of the landfill site property. The project thus requires a land exchange, an amendment to the California Desert Conservation Area Plan, and both county and federal government approval.

Nearby, approximately one mile east of the landfill site, Cadiz owns 26,000 acres of agricultural land. Of this land, 1,440 acres contains vineyards and citrus orchards, which are approximately four to five miles east of the landfill site. In 1993, the County certified an EIR and approved a general plan amendment reclassifying 9,600 acres of Cadiz's land as agricultural land, thus allowing for expansion of Cadiz's existing agricultural operations. The newly designated agricultural land is approximately two miles east of the proposed landfill site.

Cadiz uses the groundwater in an aquifer underlying the landfill and Cadiz's land for its agricultural operations, and also intends to extract the groundwater and sell it to the Mojave Water Agency (MWA). In January 1994, Cadiz and MWA entered into a memorandum of understanding in which Cadiz and MWA agreed that Cadiz "is willing to sell a portion of such surplus water to MWA on a long-term basis, provided mutually satisfactory terms and conditions for a sale can be reached...." Cadiz and MWA further agreed "to work together in good faith and without delay during the next six months to engage in preliminary planning studies for a proposed contract for the purchase by MWA from [Cadiz] of a minimum of 30,000 acre-feet per year of water" at a price to be agreed upon, and that a final contract would be entered into following compliance with CEQA.

Meanwhile, in 1991 Rail applied for a conditional use permit and related amendments to the County's general plan for the purpose of constructing the landfill. An EIR and environmental impact statement (EIS) were prepared⁶ pursuant to CEQA and the National Environmental Policy Act.⁷ The County was designated the lead agency in preparing the EIR/EIS. In August 1991 the County Planning Department issued a notice of preparation of a joint EIR/EIS.⁸

In November 1992, the draft EIR/EIS (DEIR) was circulated to the public and governmental agencies for review and comment. During the 90-day review and comment period, BLM held three public hearings. The County and BLM decided to prepare a supplement to the DEIR (SEIR), responding to issues not fully addressed in the DEIR. In December 1993, the County distributed to the public and governmental agencies the SEIR for review and commentary. Rail submitted various technical reports considered in preparation of the SEIR. A final EIR/EIS (FEIR) was circulated in July 1994. It included the DEIR, SEIR, and responses to public comments on the DEIR and SEIR. A mitigation monitoring and compliance program was also prepared. After a series of public hearings, the County Planning Commission (CPC), on November 21, 1994, recommended board approval of Rail's landfill project and certification of the EIR.⁹

Cadiz appealed the CPC's decision to the County Board of Supervisors (Board), and in May 1995 the Board held public hearings on Rail's landfill applications and Cadiz's appeal. Additional technical reports were submitted to the Board and expert testimony was provided during the Board's hearings on Cadiz's appeal.

On November 21, 1995, the Board denied Cadiz's appeal and certified the EIR. On November 28, 1995, the Board approved, by a 3-2 vote, Rail's application for a conditional use permit (CUP) to build the landfill; approved general plan amendments to designate a portion of the dump site as "resource conservation" land and to identify the site as a landfill on the infrastructure overlay map of the general plan; and approved a County "business agreement" with Rail, whereby Rail agreed to pay a "business license tax" to the County, subject to voter approval of the tax. The tax was estimated to generate $24 to $30 million annually in County revenues.

In December 1995, Cadiz filed a petition for writ of mandate and a complaint against Rail, the County, the Board, Board Supervisors Marsha Turoci, Barbara Riordan and Jerry Eaves, and County employee, Philip Smith (County defendants), for declaratory relief, taking of property without just compensation, and deprivation of civil rights under Title 42 United States Code section 1983. The first, second, third and fourth causes of action sought mandamus relief to reverse the Board's action approving the landfill. The trial court severed these causes of actions from the remaining damages claims, and set a hearing on the writ claims.

Following a four-day hearing on Cadiz's writ of mandamus claims, the trial court issued a detailed statement of decision and supplemental statement of findings, denying Cadiz's petition for writ of mandamus relief.

The County defendants and Rail then brought summary judgment motions as to the remaining damages claims. The trial court granted the motions, and entered judgment in favor of Rail and the County defendants. The court found that Cadiz's procedural due process claims were not ripe because Cadiz had not suffered any immediate, concrete injury since there had not been voter approval of the business license tax. An election for voter approval of the business license tax was held in March 1996. The voters rejected the tax, and as of the date of the trial court's ruling on the County and Rail's summary judgment motions, the business license tax had not been approved.¹⁰ The trial court denied County's request for attorneys' fees.

II. EIR Standard of Review

Cadiz challenges the adequacy of the EIR under CEQA. In considering whether the EIR is in compliance with CEQA, we are reminded that "`The foremost principle under CEQA is that the Legislature intended the act "to be interpreted in such manner as to afford the fullest possible protection to the environment within the reasonable scope of the statutory language."' [Citations.] [¶] The EIR has been aptly described as the `heart of CEQA.' ([Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14,] Guidelines, § 15003, subd. (a)....)" (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990) 52 Cal.3d 553, 563-564, 276 Cal.Rptr. 410, 801 P.2d 1161, fn. omitted.) CEQA's purpose is to inform the public and its governmental officials of the environmental consequences of their decisions before they are made. (Id. at p. 564, 276 Cal.Rptr. 410, 801 P.2d 1161.) "Thus, the EIR `protects not only the environment...