By Jeff Carlson : timesheraldonline – excerpt
A review of documents and communications related to the VMT/Orcem proposal reveal that the principals submitted an application before developing a viable project. The draft Environmental Impact Report prepared at great expense and circulated for public comment can no longer fulfill the legal requirements for sufficiency under the California Environmental Quality Act. Information recognized only after circulating the draft EIR exposed the fact that three quarters of the described operations will not be approved by a regional permitting authority. The project has now been reduced to a marine terminal with a slag cement plant tenant using only a quarter of the terminal capacity, without even the pretense of financial viability.
The major Vallejo Marine Terminal component of the project was described in the application, in the EIR, and in the applicant’s economic analysis as a break bulk cargo-handling operation. According to the applicants, this would “establish a key site of multi-modal and intermodal transportation and logistics, thereby enhancing Vallejo’s role in the regional and international trade economy.” Why they would think so is something of a mystery, since the cargo reports show demand for break bulk shipping has dwindled away to nothing, with the last activity recorded at any Bay port in 2006. VMT was always a business plan decades behind the times, and as it turned out not something that would be permitted by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission… (more)
