COYOTE POINT: CRITICAL

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Date: Mon Apr 19 1999 - 23:42:40 PDT


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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 02:42:40 EDT
Subject: COYOTE POINT: CRITICAL
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1) The consultant for the City of Burlingame has released a new document
which claims in the face of all public comment by windsurfers and the SFBA
that there will be no impact to windsurfing from the buildings proposed for
301 Airport Boulevard.

2) The City is intending to send the environmental impact report (EIR) to the
Planning Commission for finalization in just seven day - Monday, April 26th
even though the new 279 page document was just released and contains some
very technical arguments. The report was supposedly available last Friday,
but the City of Burlingame phone lines were disabled for almost all of last
Friday and today. As of this morning the libraries copies of the document
were not yet ready for public access.

The concerns of the windsurfing community have been almost completely
discounted and it looks like the City may be able to minimize reaction by
finalizing the EIR before most of the community can get a good look at the
Response document.

I have obtained the 279 page Response to Comments Document thanks to Matt
Chapman who picked it up today. I have just had a few minutes to look at it,
but here are quick impressions.

The consultant made no change to their standard for impact as proposed in the
EIR- based on changes in wind velocity only. They discounted all requests to
consider turbulence, gustiness, etc. In some instances it looks like they are
claiming that there standard prevails because we did not provide a specific
standard as a substitute. It looks like a case of you are guilty until proven
innocent. There are no PHDs of windsurfing who have conducted a detailed
study on what specific % of turbulence intensity is too much for the average
windsurfer.

Every letter sent to the City of Burlingame is included and is responded to.
In many cases, the response(s) read "comment noted" and nothing more. There
are some more technical aerodynamic and weather related arguments that would
be best considered by someone with an aerodynamic/meteorological background.

Just before the close of public comment, the consultant released turbulence
intensity (TI) data generated by the wind tunnel tests. The charts of TI
looked to show serious areas of iuncreased TI. The response to my letter
expressing concern about the TI data held that areas of decreased wind
velocity (R value) and increased TI were closely correlated and then went on
to argue that on the wind velocity changes should be considered:

"Because there is a correlation between the values of R and TI, use of the
R-value plots alone appears to be a more sensitive tool for distinquishing
changes in wind condition and thus appears to provide a reasonable basis for
evaluating the wind effects on the project."

This completely ignores the point many made about turbulence being a primary
factor impacting windsurfing and it ignores the fact that the reduced wind
and increased turbulence BOTH impact windsurfing in a compounding manner.
They want to just consider what they call a small decrease in wind when you
will be sailing in wind which is on average lighter but which is also more
turbulent than it would have been.

It seems like it will be impossible to distribute the Response Document
widely in one week. I will get it to Bob Indig, the SFBA webmaster tomorrow,
but it won't be practical to put the whole thing on the web. Hopefully the
full copy will be available at the Burlingame library tomorrow (call the
reference desk). I will make every effort to convince the City Planner and
Commissioners to put off their consideration of finalizing the EIR. If anyone
has knowledge of State Laws or Regulations regarding fair notice and review
periods which may apply, let me know ASAP. If we don't get time to review the
Response document, we will have to make whatever comments we can on April
26th. Maybe there is interest in holding a review session regarding the
Response Document over the weekend... we could meet at Coyote or vicinity in
the a.m.?

Peter Thorner
Coyote Point Chair, SFBA



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