{"id":3276,"date":"2014-09-17T20:42:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T03:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/?p=3276"},"modified":"2014-09-17T20:42:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T03:42:06","slug":"cpi-risk-assessment-report-available-and-upcoming-public-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/cpi-risk-assessment-report-available-and-upcoming-public-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"CPI Risk Assessment Report Available – and Upcoming Public Meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"
CPI : \u00a0Risk Assessment Report & Possible Zoning\u00a0Strategies\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>\n

October 6:<\/strong> The Palo Alto City Council will review\u00a0and discuss the the AECOM consultant’s Risk Assessment for Storing and Handling Hazardous\u00a0Materials at Communications & Power Industries, LLC (CPI), 607\u2010811 Hansen Way,\u00a0and supplemental materials, including an analysis of possible zoning strategies to\u00a0establish adequate separation between plating shop uses and residences.<\/p>\n

Staff Report:<\/strong> \u2022 CPI Risk Assessment Report and Zoning Direction <\/a><\/p>\n

Consultant Report and other Attachments<\/strong>:\u2022 Consultant Report and Attachment<\/a><\/p>\n

From the Staff Report: Recommended Motion\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDirect staff to prepare a draft ordinance for review by the Planning and Transportation \u00a0Commission (PTC) and consideration by the City Council in early 2015. The ordinance should \u00a0amend the list of uses in the zoning code to explicitly identify plating shops, prohibit plating \u00a0shop uses within a specific distance of residential uses and residential zoning districts, and incorporate an amortization schedule based on updated information on the value of affected \u00a0investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

October 2<\/strong>: \u00a0City staff and consultants will be available to answer questions about the Risk\u00a0Assessment and the staff report at a pre\u2010meeting scheduled for October 2, 2014\u00a0from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Barron Park Elementary School, Multipurpose\u00a0Room, 800 Barron Avenue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Commentary from Art Liberman<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The consultant\u2019s report should answer the questions that the City Council raised in 2012 when it delayed acting on a proposal to amortize the hazardous material operation of CPI and instead asked Staff to conduct an independent review and determine whether there was a risk to residents from CPI\u2019s extremely hazardous materials.<\/p>\n

The consultant agrees with nearby residents who have maintained that the use and storage and delivery of the extremely hazardous materials at CPI do pose a risk to their health and safety and that the amortization of the CPI facility should move ahead. The consultant has shown that an accident at the CPI plating shop, a mistake during delivery or a catastrophic natural disaster can cause spills, worse than those in 2006 and 2008, that would release dangerous amounts of toxic fumes. These events can happen despite the status of CPI\u2019s chemical safety procedures and employee training, which the consultant has pointed out has some deficiencies, and despite the Fire Department\u2019s ability to oversee the storage locations of the hazardous materials.<\/p>\n

In 2004\/05, CPI completely rebuilt their plating shop \u2013 at that time, they had a choice. They could have repositioned the hazardous material operation, placing it on another part of their property, closer to Hansen Way and further from the Barron Park residences. Unfortunately, the management of CPI decided not to do that, and instead decided to put their own financial and business interests over the health and safety of residents in Barron Park. That was a serious error of judgment.<\/p>\n

It is now up to the Council to act. This facility is incompatible with the adjacent residential zoning and CPI should never have been allowed to rebuild its facility in 2004.<\/p>\n

Palo Alto\u2019s Office of Emergency Services (OES), in conjunction with Dewberry consultants, prepared and reported earlier this week on the Threat Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA). The report includes the following statement: \u00a0\u201dPast land use decisions in Palo Alto have not always taken hazards into consideration.\u201d The CPI plating shop is an unfortunate example of this; previous Planning Department officials routinely approved these sorts of projects, once Fire Department signed off on the hazardous material usage forms, without examining or evaluating their compatibility with other nearby zoning uses. There was no public review of the CPI plating shop rebuilding project with the residents when it happened\u2013 residents never received any notification of what was being planned, the hazardous materials involved and where it would be located. \u00a0I am pleased to see that the current Planning Department, along with the City Manager, is taking a very different approach, recognizing the increasing concern by the public about serious consequences of chemical accidents and their own and their community\u2019s safety, and recommending that the Council support an ordinance that would amortize this facility.<\/p>\n

Land use decisions and the siting of chemical facilities have traditionally been the exclusive purview of local governments. In recent years, however, with the spate of serious chemical facility accidents that have impacted adjacent residential areas \u2013 a number involving nitric acid and other materials used by CPI and others involving storage of other hazardous materials – the federal government (President Obama August 2013 Executive Order 13650: \u201cImproving Chemical Facility Safety and Security\u201d) \u00a0has charged the EPA to strengthen its regulations, and is suggesting that, for the first time, chemical facility siting be included in federal Risk Management regulations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CPI : \u00a0Risk Assessment Report & Possible Zoning\u00a0Strategies\u00a0 October 6: The Palo Alto City Council will review\u00a0and discuss the the AECOM consultant’s Risk Assessment for Storing and Handling Hazardous\u00a0Materials at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-city-of-palo-alto","category-cpi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bpapaloalto.org\/newbpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}