In an unpublished opinion, City of Jurupa Valley v. City of Riverside, 2015 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 7978 the Second Appellate District affirmed the trial court’s decision to deny the City of Jarupa Valley’s mandamus petition.  The project involved the creation of a transmission line, two substations, and several subtransmission lines to deliver power throughout Riverside.  Riverside had prepared and adopted an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the project. On appeal, the issues were whether Riverside violated CEQA by (1) failing to recirculate the Final EIR despite adding new information, (2) not fairly and in good faith analyzing Project alternatives, and (3) pre-committing to the Project.

First, the Court considered Riverside’s decision not to recirculating the Final EIR for public comment after minor alterations to transmission line routes. The Court held that substantial evidence supported Riverside’s decision not the recirculate, as the changes did not result in new or substantially increased environmental impacts. Rather, these changes resulted in reduced environmental impacts because they involved moving the transmission lines behind a store rather than cutting through the parking lot to avoid aesthetic and roadway impacts and burying the lines underground near the airport to avoid air traffic safety impacts.

Second, the Court upheld Riverside’s decision to reject underground transmission lines and an alternative routing option as infeasible because the decision was based on substantial evidence. The Court held that neither option had to be extensively analyzed as a project alternative because both options failed to satisfy the project objectives at the outset. Specifically, the high cost of underground transmission lines would not meet the project’s “cost effective” goal and the proposed alternative route would have greater environmental impacts than the chosen route and therefore failed the project’s objective of “minimizing environmental impacts.”

Third, the Court found Riverside did not impermissibly “pre-commit” to the project by including obtaining CAISO approval, pre-selecting a preferred route, committing funds to the project, and signing an Interconnection Facilities Agreement  with Southern California Edison.  The Court held that none of these steps obligated Riverside to approve the project, nor did they effectively precluded any alternatives or mitigation measures that CEQA would otherwise require to be considered. The Court also noted that modifications to the project in response to public comment showed that Riverside did not pre-commit.