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Mr. Scott Walker, January 22, 1990 fo 0 Q.E.G. Page 2 In addition to submitting the RWD to the Regional Board, Cove will submit a Periodic Site Review report on the facility to the San Joaquin County Public Health Services (11PHS11), in order to initiate the standard five-year solid waste facility permit review process. Again, as with the Regional Board, closure and post - closure maintenance plans will not be submitted to the County or to the Waste Board until the facility approaches the time for closure, in compliance with the deadlines imposed by Public Resources Code Section 43503. Our approach of continuing fill operations, before submitting a closure plan, accords with our conversation with Mr. William Orr of the Waste Board. Mr. Orr indicated that, in his view, continuing to accept waste at the site is the continued operation of a landfill, and could not be considered as part of closure activities. Thus, it makes sense to stop accepting waste at the landfill before submitting closure and post -closure maintenance plans. Mr. Orr also explained that, in the view of the Waste Board, approval of closure and post -closure plans for a solid waste disposal facility, in and of itself, would be a project subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, Public Resources Code Section 21000 et se . (a view with which, for the record, we do not concur). He said that the Waste Board does not believe that the "existing facility" exemption of CEQA applies to the Waste Board's approval of closure and post -closure plans, contrary to our views on this issue. See CEQA Guideline Section 15301. He said that some landfills have been successful in using negative declarations to comply with CEQA for approval of their closure and post -closure plans, but that the City of Sacramento has prepared an environmental impact report (11EIR11) that included closure and post -closure plans for its landfill. Following our conversation with Mr. Orr, we contacted Mr. David Pilser of the City of Sacramento Public Works Department to obtain a copy of the EIR. Mr. Pilser indicated that this EIR was initiated pursuant to an expansion and included closure plans. Mr. Orr further stated that the Waste Board is in the process of applying for CEQA equivalency for its regulatory program dealing with closure and post -closure plans. As you probably know, CEQA equivalency constitutes an exemption from CEQA itself. Mr. Orr estimates that it will take at least six months for the Waste Board to obtain approval for CEQA equivalency. In contrast to Waste Board action on closure and post -closure plans, Mr. Orr also said that CEQA does not apply to the continuing operation of a landfill.