Title
Recommendation to Accept an Update on the Port of Oakland's Final Environmental Impact Report for the Terminal Modification and Development Project at the Oakland Airport. (City Manager 10021833)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Jennifer Ott, City Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On July 17, 2023, the Port of Oakland (Port) released a public review Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for its proposed Oakland Airport Terminal Modernization and Development Project (Project). At the direction of the City Council, staff submitted a comment letter on October 16, 2023, raising the community's concerns relating to the Project, including noise, air quality, safety and transportation issues (Exhibit 1).
On October 17, 2024, the Port released a Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR): (<https://www.iflyoak.com/business/terminal-modernization/eir/>). Port staff will ask the Board of Port Commissioners to consider certification of the FEIR on November 21, 2024. City staff is reviewing the FEIR and the Port’s responses to the City of Alameda’s (City) comments and preparing a comment letter to the Port Board. Staff plans to present a draft letter to the City Council for approval at the November 19, 2024 meeting. Staff further plans to schedule a closed session with City Council on November 19 to discuss potential litigation options.
BACKGROUND
The Port forecasts an increase in air travel over the next 20 years, in line with a projected rise in nationwide air travel, and the Port is proposing to modernize the passenger terminals at the Oakland Airport (OAK). The proposed Project will include demolition of the 1960’s-era Terminal 1 building and construction of a new terminal that will meet modern safety, seismic, and efficiency standards. The Project will build a new 25-gate terminal and reduce the number of gates at an existing terminal from 29 gates to 20 gates, resulting in a net addition of 16 gates at Project completion. The Project does not include additions or modifications to existing runways or the airfield, which the Port cites as the determining factors for flight capacity, and the Port states that adding 16 gates will not increase the number of flights projected to occur at OAK.
The Port previously prepared a DEIR to evaluate the potential environmental effects associated with the proposed project. The DEIR was released to the public for review and comment between July 17, 2023 and October 16, 2023. The City submitted a public comment letter on the DEIR on October 16, 2023. According to the Port, the DEIR generated more than 1,000 comments. With the release of the FEIR and responses to the public comments, Port staff will ask the Board of Port Commissioners to consider certification of the FEIR on November 21, 2024.
DISCUSSION
Timeline
From the release of the FEIR on October 17, 2024 to the publication of the City Council agenda on November 6, 2024, staff has had only one week to review the FEIR. Given this tight timeline, staff plans to continue working on a comment letter to the Port Board and present a draft at the November 19 City Council meeting. This will allow staff to engage outside experts for more in-depth review.
Following the November 21, 2024, Port Board meeting, should they decide to certify the FEIR and file a Notice of Determination (NOD) under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City or any member of the public may file a CEQA lawsuit within 30 days of posting of the NOD. Filing a lawsuit does not automatically stop the project. However, if a challenger is successful in such a lawsuit, the court would order the Port to halt construction until further environmental analysis could be conducted.
FEIR Summary
The following is a summary of the FEIR’s responses to the City’s comments on the DEIR (<https://www.iflyoak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Appendix-P_DEIR-Comments-and-Responses-1.pdf>) along with relevant responses to comments submitted by the air quality and noise experts retained by the City:
Project Description and Baseline Assumptions:
The City’s comments on the DEIR questioned the baseline assumptions used throughout the EIR’s analyses, specifically the use of pre-pandemic 2019 passenger data to drive robust forecasts for air travel demand over the next 20 years. The FEIR claims this methodology represents a “conservative approach” because using post-pandemic data would likely understate environmental impacts compared to forecasts in 2035-2038. The FEIR further explains that there is “no correlation between the construction of the passenger terminal building and an increase in annual enplanements...the passenger terminal building is not of significance in determining the operations capacity…the demand for air transportation is a function of the socioeconomic conditions…not the attractiveness of a new passenger terminal building.”
Staff Analysis: The assumption that market demand will drive increases in activity regardless of the Project is questionable, and this method might overlook unique impacts directly attributable to the Project. Such an approach fails to isolate and evaluate the Project’s specific contributions to environmental impacts, such as increased emissions, noise, and traffic congestion from the proposed increase of gates, which could lead to insufficient mitigation measures being proposed. This could result in an incomplete understanding of the Project’s true environmental impacts. In particular, had the EIR chosen the years 2020 or 2021 for its baseline, or had it averaged baseline conditions using actual 2019, 2020, and 2021 data, it likely would have more accurately illustrated Project-related increases in various areas of impact, instead of understating them by relying on conditions under year 2019 alone.
The FEIR also points to passenger enplanement data from other medium-hub airports that have recently opened new or expanded passenger terminal buildings to reiterate that there is no correlation between the development of such buildings and an increase in annual enplanements. The FEIR, however, only presents enplanement data for the three years that followed the construction and opening of those airports’ expanded passenger terminal buildings. A review of enplanement data beyond those three years indicates that each airport experienced significant increases in passenger enplanements over the following 5+ years. Therefore, the FEIR’s conclusion that there is “no correlation” between providing new passenger terminals and increased passenger enplanement is contradicted by other data.
Air Quality and Health Impacts
The FEIR responds to the City's concerns about air quality impacts by referencing its extensive technical documentation and modeling. The Port conducted a comprehensive Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) following guidelines from the FAA, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). While the analysis shows that overall particulate matter emissions may increase under the proposed Project scenarios, the FEIR argues that these increases would occur due to forecasted market demand regardless of whether the Project moves forward. The assessment also indicates that emissions from ground support equipment (GSE) and ground access vehicles (GAV) are expected to decrease relative to the 2019 baseline, primarily due to increasingly stringent mobile source emission regulations and the transition to cleaner technologies. Comments from the City’s air quality expert, however, indicated that there is no pending or currently available zero-emission technology that could accommodate the increase in aircraft and airport activity while actually reducing emissions.
The HHRA identifies diesel particulate matter as the primary driver of cancer and chronic non-cancer health risks. However, the FEIR contends that emission factors are decreasing at a rate that outpaces the increase in traffic volume and equipment activity, suggesting a net positive impact on air quality over time. The FEIR also notes that the Project includes plans to convert ground support equipment from diesel to alternative fuel sources such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity.
The City’s air quality expert also raised concerns about the EIR’s failure to include any substantive air quality emissions calculations, modeling, or mitigation measures. Appendix R to the FEIR, which contains the Project’s Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program (MMRP), appears to include two measures, which indicate the Port will: (i) install electrical infrastructure for airlines to use; and (ii) provide environmental awareness training for on-airport workers. The FEIR also incorporated additional aircraft emissions tables to its technical air quality analysis (Appendix F), which provide GSE and GAV emissions for the years 2019, 2028, and 2038.
Staff Analysis: The FEIR’s response to the City’s comments may underestimate the Project’s direct role in facilitating increased emissions. While market demand may drive growth, the construction of 16 new gates enables this growth by the ability to accommodate more planes and the impacts resulting from additional planes. The FEIR’s argument that emissions would occur regardless of the Project does not fully address its obligation to consider the cumulative impact of all pollution sources on human health. Additionally, the reliance on future technological improvements and regulations to reduce emissions is not guaranteed (i.e., will not be required or imposed via mandatory mitigation) and introduces uncertainty that may warrant more immediate and specific mitigation measures. To this end, the FEIR does not impose any other concrete mitigation measures, despite concluding that air quality impacts (NOx in 2028 and, in 2038, NOx and ROG) will be significant and unavoidable. The City, BAAQMD, CLASS, and several other interested parties recommended additional emissions reduction measures for the Port to adopt, but the FEIR declined to do so. For construction activities, the FEIR largely relies on best management practices (BMPs) but concedes that construction information is preliminary and subject to change. The lack of specificity about the Project’s anticipated construction activities, and, in turn, the absence of definitive mitigation measures, could constitute improper deferral of CEQA’s requirement to mitigate significant adverse impacts on the environment to the extent feasible.
Transportation/Traffic
In response to the City's traffic related concerns, the Port defended its methodology for assessing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). Rather than using total VMT, the FEIR elected to analyze VMT per enplanement as their significance metric. The Port cites legal precedent supporting their discretion to set significance thresholds and points to similar methodologies used in other airport EIRs, such as the San José Airport Master Plan. According to the FEIR, VMT per enplanement would decrease under the project, resulting in no significant transportation impact requiring mitigation, such as the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Program that the City proposed. Regarding trip generation on local Alameda streets, the FEIR discloses an increase of approximately 14 trips per day, leading the Port to conclude the impact to Alameda being negligible. The FEIR contends that the Port will use wayfinding and signage to direct vehicle traffic to access the Airport through primary access routes, such as 98th Avenue and Hegenberger Road.
Staff Analysis: Staff notes that the use of VMT per enplanement may mask the Project’s true traffic impact. Total VMT would provide a more comprehensive measure of actual traffic impacts on local communities and infrastructure. The per-enplanement metric could show improved efficiency while still allowing for substantial increases in overall traffic volume, which directly affects local air quality, road maintenance needs, and quality of life. This approach might understate the need for additional traffic mitigation measures and/or unforeseen cost to Alameda resulting from traffic on local roads, particularly in the absence of enforceable measures or a TDM Program.
Noise
The FEIR provides an expanded detailed explanation of the Port's approach analyzing the Project’s to noise impacts in response to the City's concerns about baseline conditions and future impacts. The FEIR explains that the Port’s decision to use modeled rather than monitored noise data provides a more accurate baseline for assessing Project noise impacts. The FEIR argues that noise monitoring data would actually overstate baseline noise levels because monitoring equipment captures all sources of noise, not just aircraft noise. The current approach, according to the FEIR, allows for a more precise evaluation of the Project’s specific contributions to noise levels in the surrounding community.
The City also asked the Port to consider and analyze the foreseeable cumulative impacts associated with combined construction noise and aircraft noise, particularly given the Project’s anticipated 5-to-10-year construction timeline. The FEIR declined to conduct this analysis, instead contending that the thresholds of significance for analyzing construction noise and aircraft noise use different metrics.
The FEIR amended its Noise Model Inputs (Appendix L) to include a new, detailed table that sets forth anticipated construction equipment noise levels at receptors by year and construction phase between 2025 to 2030. The FEIR also added a supplemental Sleep Disturbance Study (Appendix M), which relies on a different methodology (the 1997 Federal Interagency Committee on Aviation Noise [FICAN] curve) from that used in the DEIR’s June 2023 study (average number of aircraft noise-induced awakenings [NAWR]), to analyze whether there will be a substantial increase in sleep disturbance in the years 2028 and 2038. The supplement study concludes that the greatest increase in nightly events at or above 85 dB SEL for the years 2028 and 2038 would be 2.3 events, and therefore would not cause a substantial increase in awakenings due to aircraft noise based on the threshold specified in the Port’s 2003 Supplemental EIR for its Airport Development Program (ADP SEIR).
The FEIR also adds Appendix Q, which contains a Sound Exposure Level (SEL) Analysis. The technical memorandum analyzes the increases and decreases of sound levels from individual aircraft noise events (i.e., arrivals and departures) based on their distances from various noise contours. The analysis does not draw any definitive conclusions about the Project’s SEL impacts, but instead explains that departures tend to expose a larger geographic area to noise at or above specified levels than arrivals due to various factors such as higher engine power and how noise spreads to the sides of the aircraft.
Staff Analysis: A significant counterargument to this approach is that the public experience cumulative noise impacts of all sound-generative events, not just aircraft noise in isolation. The use of modeled noise data, while theoretically more precise for aircraft impacts, may understate the real-world conditions that residents experience on Bay Farm Island. Actual noise monitoring data could provide a more accurate picture of the total noise environment and how additional aircraft operations would affect already impacted communities. Moreover, the City still believes that the EIR should analyze the reasonably foreseeable cumulative impacts associated with the Project’s simultaneous construction and aircraft noises, as their combined impact could adversely affect nearby communities. As the City’s noise expert explained, this analysis can likely be conducted notwithstanding the differing thresholds of significance by relying on alternative, comparable noise metrics. Staff is still considering whether the inclusion of the additional new information in the FEIR triggers the need for the Port to recirculate the noise analysis for public review and comment under CEQA.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) & Climate Change
The FEIR reiterates that GHGs from future aircraft emissions will likely increase and result in a potentially significant impact; however, any such increase would occur with or without implementation of the Proposed Project. The FEIR explains that the Port could reduce impacts associated with increased GHG emissions through its continued implementation of the Port’s ongoing environmental initiatives and by designing and implementing a Project layout that supports operational efficiency. For example, the Port contends that it is committed to installing gate electrification systems and ground support equipment charging infrastructure for airline tenants to use at their respective gates. However, the FEIR further indicates that the Port does not plan to purchase carbon offsets.
The FEIR also explains that, since the DEIR was published, the Port has prepared a Carbon Management Plan as part of its participation in the Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) Program. This Plan includes various initiatives for the Port to further reduce its carbon footprint; however, even if the Port implements these initiatives over time, impacts associated with GHG emissions from the Project will still be significant and unavoidable.
Staff Analysis: The Port’s newly prepared Carbon Management Plan was not included in the FEIR or the DEIR, therefore, it remains to be seen whether and how its various carbon-reduction initiatives will be implemented, particularly during Project construction and operation. Moreover, these initiatives are not included in the FEIR’s MMRP, therefore, they do not constitute binding mitigation measures that provide the public with any assurance that they will reduce the Project’s significant and unavoidable GHG emissions impacts. This is particularly troubling given that the MMRP likewise does not incorporate any of BAAQMD’s BMPs for GHG emissions reductions as binding mitigation, despite the EIR’s discussion of them. The City asked the Port to incorporate a suite of mitigation measures that could potentially mitigate direct and indirect GHG impacts from the Project. The FEIR declined to do so. For these reasons, this remains an area of concern for the City because GHGs from aircraft emissions may increase by approximately 60.5% as a result of the Project, but the FEIR provides no assurances that the Port will impose any enforceable emissions reduction measures.
Project Alternatives
In response to the City’s concerns that the DEIR failed to analyze a reasonable range of Project Alternatives, including an “environmentally superior alternative” and “reduced Project alternative,” the FEIR maintains that it appropriately analyzed only those alternatives that could feasibly attain most of the Project’s basic objectives. Of the eight alternatives initially identified, the FEIR explains that its “three-factor screening framework” ultimately eliminated all but two from consideration-the Proposed Project and the “No Project Alternative.” The FEIR contends that none of the other six Project alternatives met the Project’s objectives or were considered reasonable to implement, given that they contemplated fewer gates and passenger processing facilities, which in turn would not meet the level of service criteria required to meet industry standards.
Staff Analysis: The Port’s response overlooks many of the City’s specific concerns about the EIR’s inadequate Project alternatives analysis. In particular, the City reiterated the need to identify an “environmentally superior alternative” that differed from the Proposed Project. The City also pointed to several Project alternatives that would feasibly obtain most of the Project’s basic objectives, including a reduced Project alternative with a smaller footprint or fewer gates that could reduce or eliminate some of the aforementioned impacts. The EIR’s failure to meaningfully consider these alternatives, or respond to the City’s specific contentions in support thereof, undermines the adequacy of the FEIR as an informational document.
Mitigation Measures and Alternatives
The FEIR claims that passenger flights will increase regardless of terminal conditions. As such, the FEIR largely avoids imposing any concrete mitigation measures to reduce anticipated impacts, including those related to increased air quality and GHG emissions, noise, and transportation-related VMT. For impacts associated with Project construction, the FEIR either relies on the uncertainty of the Project’s “final design” to justify the current lack of mitigation measures to address construction-related impacts, or simply contends the Project will rely on BMPs, even though those BMPs have not be included as enforceable measures in the FEIR’s MMRP.
Staff Analysis: By making this assumption, the FEIR sidesteps the need to analyze and mitigate community concerns about how increased flights will affect noise, air quality, and traffic in nearby neighborhoods. While the FEIR does address some of the City's technical concerns, it fails to properly examine the relationship between terminal improvements and flight volume growth. As a result, the mitigation measures proposed are limited to mostly standard measures that address environmental impacts during construction and none of the long-term impacts that the City and community are concerned with. This is a fundamental difference in how the Port and the City view the relationship between infrastructure improvements and growth in aviation activity, and staff believe it undermines the FEIR’s effectiveness in addressing the community's core environmental concerns. The community’s concerns are described in Exhibit 2 - Citizens League for Airport Safety and Serenity (CLASS) Comment Letter.
Staff believes that the few mitigation measures that the FEIR does propose will not adequately mitigate the reasonably foreseeable significant adverse noise, air quality, GHG, and traffic impacts. As outlined in the City’s comment letters, staff maintains that the Port should either incorporate the following measures into its MMRP to provide the public with assurance that impacts will be mitigated to the greatest extent feasible, or explain, based on substantial evidence, why the suggested mitigation measures are not feasible:
• To help mitigate the Project’s significant and unavoidable air quality and health impacts, the Port should impose additional mitigation measures to reduce air quality impacts from the sources within the Port’s control, including auxiliary power units, ground support equipment (GSE), and ground access vehicles (GAV). To do so, the Port should specify the locations of the Project’s proposed electric infrastructure and require zero-emission off-road equipment where available, while also requiring commitments to use zero-emission equipment in applicable bid documents, purchase orders, and contracts. The Port should also provide electrical hookups to the power grid for GSEs and GAVs and ensure all new gates are equipped with electrical hookups. The Port should similarly commit to using carbon-free electricity from East Bay Community Energy, while also encouraging airlines to use alternative, unleaded fuel sources.
• To help mitigate the Project’s significant noise impacts, the Port should first analyze noise levels from all sources to provide a more accurate baseline. Once completed, the Port should impose as mitigation the Noise Abatement Procedures (NAPs) set forth in the Settlement Agreement between the Port, CLASS, and the City. In particular, compliance with these NAPs will ensure that aircraft departures and operations at the North and South Field runways do not result in additional, excessive noise impacts. Similarly, the Port, in collaboration with the FAA, should explore using Satellite Based Navigation Technology to mitigate departure noise. For construction noise, the Port should impose mitigation that requires all construction activities be sequenced to avoid noise-sensitive times of days, including between the hours of 9:00PM-7:00AM on Mondays through Fridays, 6:00PM-8:00AM on Saturdays, and anytime on Sundays and holidays.
• To help mitigate the Project’s potentially significant transportation/traffic impacts, the Port should commit to mitigation that requires preparation of and adherence to a Traffic Demand Management (TDM) Program. The TDM Program should be designed to reduce VMT and encourage alternative modes of transportation to and from the airport. In particular, the Program should encourage options such as carpooling, vanpooling, public transit, cycling, and walking, as opposed to reliance on single-occupancy vehicles.
• To help mitigate the Project’s significant and unavoidable impacts from increased GHG emissions, the Port should impose mitigation requiring a commitment to a permanent shift to unleaded fuels, use of Tier-4 off-road construction equipment, TDM measures for employees and passengers, emissions-free transportation to and from satellite parking lots, and other electrification and decarbonization commitments that can be concretely enforced on a Project-level basis, as opposed to the broader and longer-term initiatives contemplated by the Port’s draft Carbon Management Plan. The Port should also explore pursuing carbon offset credits, with particular priority given to projects occurring in Alameda County.
ALTERNATIVES
The purpose of this report is to provide the City Council a summary of the responses to the City’s comments contained in the FEIR. City Council may choose to review and comment on the FEIR and/or provide other direction related to the City’s response to the Project and the FEIR.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
Planning staff time for review and comment on the EIR, estimated not to exceed $10,000, will be charged to the General Fund. In addition, the City has spent at least $43,000 for City Attorney and outside expert review of the EIR thus far.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
The General Plan provides guidance on City actions related to noise, air quality, safety and transportation, among other topics. Specifically, the Health and Safety Element identifies airport noise and air pollution as concerns, and it sets forth policies related to airport expansion. The FEIR concludes that no significant noise impacts would occur because of the Project, but that significant unavoidable air quality and greenhouse gas emissions would occur.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Reviewing and commenting on the Port of Oakland’s EIR is not itself a project subject to CEQA.
CLIMATE IMPACT
Reviewing and commenting on the FEIR does not have a direct effect on the environment.
RECOMMENDATION
Accept an update on the Final EIR for the Oakland Airport Terminal Modernization and Development Project.
Respectfully submitted,
Allen Tai, Planning, Building and Transportation Director
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Margaret O’Brien, Finance Director
Exhibits:
1. October 16, 2023 City of Alameda Comment Letter
2. October 16, 2023 CLASS Comment Letter