Baseline Determination

The DEIR assumes that the Amended Quarrying Permit (AQP) proposes relatively little or no increase over 1982 production levels. A significant reason that the DEIR overstates the 1982 production baseline is that it ignores important information contained in a 1984 Merrill Lynch Capital Markets report and, instead, uses an estimate personally made by an employee within the County’s Planning Department.

The Merrill report (which is reproduced in the Coalition’s April 14, 2008 response to the DEIR) was prepared and used as a prospectus, which makes it fairly likely that it was prepared with far more consideration and attention to accuracy than a mere personal estimate by a County employee. This personal estimate is simply inadequate as the principal source of the 1982 production baseline determination (and thus the scope of the entire EIR), considering that far more documentable information is readily available.

The County determined not to use the most pertinent information contained in the Merrill report because, the County claims, it contains proprietary information. The Merrill report, however, cannot be proprietary since the San Rafael Rock Quarry neither owned the Quarry facility in 1984 nor owned the Merrill report. In any event, if the Quarry insists that the Merrill report is proprietary or otherwise confidential, the Quarry should be asked to waive any objection to using the report. If it refuses, the burden should be on the Quarry to demonstrate, in court, why information that is so important to the outcome of the final EIR, yet so old, is unsuitable for determining the conditions of their own permit.