Environmental group sues Napa County town over warehouse project

There was quite a clatter on Green Valley Road, in the lower reaches of Napa County, late Tuesday afternoon. Semi trucks heaved over railroad crossings and delivery trucks sped along their routes, joined by a steady steam of cars in an area caught halfway between industrial development and open space.

Just north of the road was a sweeping oasis of grasses and reeds. The metallic squawks of red-winged blackbirds could be heard during lulls in the traffic. An osprey drifted overhead, looking for an afternoon snack.

On March 21, the American Canyon City Council approved a massive warehouse project that would bring much of the 208-acre green expanse in line with the development surrounding it. But now the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity is suing the city of American Canyon, seeking to delay construction.

The center alleges that the environmental impact report filed for the Giovannoni Logistics Center project fails to adequately address potential ecological damage. The logistics center — south of Napa County Airport, between the Napa River and Highway 29 — would add up to 2.4 million square feet of warehouse space, constructed in two phases.

“It’s alarming that the city is willing to let an industrial development of this scale take over a biodiversity hot spot without carefully considering the consequences,” Frances Tinney, an attorney for the organization, said in a news release. “If this warehouse project moves forward, imperiled wildlife will suffer, and so will people. Residents will be dealing with truck traffic and breathing dirtier air for decades to come.”

The complaint, filed in Napa County Superior Court on April 21, asks the court to vacate certification of the environmental impact report, which was prepared by the Walnut Creek office of FirstCarbon Solutions, and to stay the project pending compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act.

The developer, Sacramento-based Buzz Oates LLC, is listed as a co-defendant.

“They are welcome to build a warehouse there,” Tinney told The Press Democrat. “They just have to do a better job of environmental review, and more fully examine the potential harm. So a better warehouse project may be possible.”

Potential impact around North Bay

With its focus on diminishing habitat for protected species, the case could have ramifications for other North Bay locations with sprawling warehouse complexes, like the area around Sonoma County airport and, to a lesser extent, the Schellville community south of Sonoma.

American Canyon Mayor Leon Garcia referred questions to City Manager Jason Holley, who said in an email that the city would have no comment on the lawsuit. Buzz Oates also declined comment through a representative. Attempts to reach someone at FirstCarbon Solutions were unsuccessful.

FirstCarbon’s environmental impact report cites several benefits to the project, including the promotion of economic growth in American Canyon, positive tax revenue for the city and job creation. The proposed warehouses would employ an estimated 1,200 workers during construction and 3,643 at build out.

The document also touts the preservation of approximately 45 acres of seasonal wetlands, and extension of the Napa Valley Vine Trail, a walk-and-bike path, along the project frontage.

The surrounding area has already staked a claim as a regional distribution hub. Napa Logistics Park, at the northern boundary of the project site, has more than 2 million square feet of existing distribution warehouses, plus a planned PG&E operations and maintenance center. Other industrial and commercial businesses surround the parcel in practically every direction.

But that doesn’t mean the site, which was annexed by American Canyon in 2005 and pre-zoned for industrial use, is a lost cause for local wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity insists.

“It’s true, that area is now pretty well covered by a lot of similar projects,” Tinney said. “One reason this caught our attention is the cumulative impacts. For example, if you look at Swainson’s hawk habitat. We’d be less worried about that if so much surrounding habitat hadn’t been affected recently.

“As they develop more and more of these, they need to take into account the cumulative impacts. We think in this EIR, they didn’t thoroughly do that.”

Survey of the property

In conducting surveys at the Giovannoni property for the environmental impact report in April-May, 2021, Huffman-Broadway Group researchers saw both a Swainson’s hawk and a fully protected golden eagle, but no nest structures.

Still, the Center for Biological Diversity calls the property “crucial foraging habitat” for the hawk, a medium-sized raptor defined by the state as threatened. And they are not alone.

Erin Chappell, manager of the Bay Delta Region for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, sent a letter to American Canyon Economic Development Director Brent Cooper on Dec. 2, suggesting that the proposed 45 acres of preserved wetlands would be insufficient. Those wetlands would help sustain Swainson’s hawks, Chappell argued, only if they remain adjacent to undeveloped grasslands.

“As the project would remove the majority of grasslands on the property, the suitability of the wetland preserve area as Swainson’s hawk foraging habitat would likely be greatly reduced,” he wrote.

In total, the EIR identifies 43 special-status wildlife species that occur at or near the project site, including the northern harrier, vernal pool fairy shrimp, California red-legged frog and burrowing owl; and 37 special-status plants, for example yellow owl’s clover, hayfield tarplant and coastal tarweed.

More issues

Greenhouse gas emissions are another major bone of contention.

“We need to be on track to meeting California’s goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2045,” Tinney said. “The way they’ve done the greenhouse gas analysis, they haven’t been transparent about the impact of heavy-duty trucks if that project were to move forward, and what that would mean.”

If both phases of construction are completed, they will result in close to 200,000 heavy-duty truck trips per year, covering about 6 million miles, according to the environmental impact report. But in analyzing the significance of projected greenhouse emissions at the Giovannoni site, FirstCarbon used a threshold for office projects that counts only the daily commutes of on-site workers, Tinney said.

“This sets a dangerous precedent for other warehouse projects in the area, since heavy trucks are typically the largest source of greenhouse gases from warehouse development,” she said.

American Canyon residents suffer more exposure to pollutants than 73% of the state, with exposures from traffic at the 83rd percentile, according to data from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. The city’s residents face the highest pollution burden in Napa County.

There may be water issues at the site, too. The city of Vallejo submitted its own comments to the American Canyon City Council regarding the Buzz Oates project, noting that American Canyon has no legal, indefinite right to the portion of its treated water it currently gets from the Solano County city to its south.

The Center for Ecological Diversity also takes exception with the impact report’s failure to disclose the developers’ plan to put a utility easement access road down the middle of the land set aside as wetland preserve, a fact the center didn’t learn until it was raised by a community member at a Nov. 17 meeting of the American Canyon Planning Commission.

“This is just one example of the lack of transparency that has plagued the city’s environmental review process from the start,” Tinney said.

The property has been in the Giavannoni family for more than 60 years. In 2019, they transferred the land, in the form of a $13.28 million donation, from a family trust to the nonprofit foundation they incorporated in 1999, Right From the Start. The foundation provides educational material to Catholic schools.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.