Contracts with the firms that picked apart the technical studies on Granite Construction's proposed quarry have been extended by the city of Temecula, which has criticized the environmental impact report prepared by the county as inadequate.
Northern California-based Granite is looking to dig a quarry on county land at the southwestern edge of Temecula's borders, a swath that abuts an ecological reserve, estate homes in De Luz and the San Diego County community of Rainbow.
Last year, the county released a 7,000-page environmental report on the project, a document that took three years to produce.
The report is filled with reams of statistics and technical reports on the quarry's potential effects as related to air quality, traffic, vibration from blasting, noise and wildlife corridors.
It's called a draft report because a final report will be put together that includes the county planning department's responses to all of the comments that have been submitted by interested parties: a list that includes the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, the city, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and area health officials.
Once that final report is published, the project ---- the focus of protests, counterprotests of support and regional interest due to the 5 million tons of granite it could produce per year ---- can be considered by the county Planning Commission.
In its official comments on the draft report ---- which claimed the report contained defects and inadequacies ---- the city used information provided by three environmental consultants: Cato Geoscience of Temecula, Fehr and Peers of Walnut Creek and PCR Services of Santa Monica.
During a meeting earlier this month, the council voted to extend the contracts with those three firms in case they are needed to respond to new information released by the county in a final report or a new draft report.
"There's a potential that there might be additional work," said Patrick Richardson, the city's director of planning and redevelopment.
A county planning official has said the county will release a new draft report if there is a concern by county counsel that something is missing or something is incomplete according to state environmental law with the draft report released last year.
"We know that the county is reviewing the comments on the (draft report)," Richardson said. "They may just respond to our comments or respond and recirculate."
Recirculate in this context means that the county would publish a new draft report and make it available for review by the public and public agencies.
Explaining the action taken by the council, Richardson said the city has no idea whether the county will issue a final report or issue a new draft report.
"Once that decision is made, if we need the services of these consultants we don't have to create a new contract; we can just amend the existing contract," he said.
Cato Geoscience studied the existing and future aggregate resources in the Interstate 15 corridor between Corona and Temecula.
Both Fehr and Peers PCR Services reviewed the air quality studies included in the report, which claimed air quality in the Temecula region would be better with an operating quarry due to the removal of pollution-belching trucks from Interstate 15.
The premise undergirding that theory ---- put forth by firms paid by Granite as part of the assembly of the report ---- is that San Diego County builders won't buy aggregate from Corona-based mines when they can buy aggregate from Granite's quarry.
If those builders follow that script, the trucks that had been traveling back and forth from Corona would be removed from the freeway that dissects Temecula, Murrieta, Wildomar and Lake Elsinore.
Those air quality studies have been a touchstone for supporters of the project, who point to the report's claim that building a 135-acre quarry is "environmentally superior" to not digging a quarry, and opponents, who have ridiculed both the methodology of the studies and their conclusions.
Call staff writer Aaron Claverie at 951-676-4315, ext. 2624.
