Saticoy & Wells Community Plan & Development ... - City Of Ventura

Saticoy & Wells Community Plan and Code EIRSection 4.7 Hazards and Hazardous Materialshazardous waste, public complaints, and stormwater illicit discharge inspections. The VenturaCity Fire Department has been designated as the administering agency for CUPA. Accordingly,the City Fire Department compiles and maintains a list of businesses that meet the thresholdcriteria for use, storage, or disposal of hazardous materials, compressed gases and/orhazardous waste. Threshold quantities are defined as hazardous materials equal to orexceeding 55 gallons or 500 pounds, 200 cubic feet of compressed gas, and/or hazardous wastein any amount.Soil Contamination. Regulatory agencies such as the United States EnvironmentalProtection Agency (USEPA) set forth guidelines that list at what point concentrations of certaincontaminants pose a risk to human health. The USEPA combines current toxicity values ofcontaminants with exposure factors to estimate what the maximum concentration of acontaminant can be in environmental media before it is a risk to human health. Theseconcentrations set forth by the EPA are termed Preliminary Remediation Goals (PRGs) forvarious pollutants in soil, air, and tap water (USEPA Region IX, Preliminary Remediation GoalsTables, 2002). PRG concentrations can be used to screen pollutants in environmental media,trigger further investigation, and provide an initial cleanup goal.The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) has developed an interimguidance document that contains numerical site screening levels to determine the need forremediation of gasoline and volatile organic compound (VOC) contaminated soils (Los AngelesRWQCB, 1996). The guidance document has been used to determine when a site may requireremedial action or to establish an acceptable clean up standard for a particular constituent.Groundwater Contamination. Both the EPA and the California Department of HealthServices (DHS) regulate the concentration of various chemicals in drinking water. The DHSthresholds are generally stricter than the EPA thresholds. Primary maximum contaminantlevels (MCLs) are established for a number of chemical and radioactive contaminants (Title 22,Division 4, Chapter 15, California Code of Regulations). MCLs are often used by regulatoryagencies to determine cleanup standards when groundwater is affected with contaminants.Large-Scale Hazardous Material Upset. The Ventura City Fire Department has devisedand maintains a comprehensive Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS)Multihazard Functional Response Plan (1999) that addresses the City’s planned response toextraordinary emergency situations associated with natural disasters, technological incidents, ornational security emergencies, including incidents involving major hazardous material upset.The plan provides operational concepts, identifies sources of outside support that would beprovided through mutual aid agreements, State and Federal agencies, and the private sector.Hazardous material incidents differ from other emergency response situations because of thewide diversity of causative factors and the pervasiveness of the potential threat. Circumstancessuch as the prevailing wind and geographic features in the vicinity of emergency incidents arerelevant factors that may greatly increase the hazardous chemical dangers. Incidents may occurat fixed facilities within the Project Area such as the Saticoy Industrial District, where, mostlikely, the occupants have filed site-specific emergency response contingency and evacuationplans. However, incidents may also occur at any place along any land, water, or air4.7-2City of Ventura