COMPLIANCE INFO_FINAL INITIAL STUDY/MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATION 5/25

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Memorandum 25 March 2025 Page 2 would add one more hour to the Noth County Landfill’s daily operations between 6:00 am and 7:00 am to allow the acceptance of commercial waste during this time period. The project would not change the North County Landfill’s capacity and would not involve new construction. At current operational levels, the projected closure year of the landfill is 2046. With the implementation of the project, the projected closure date would move up three years to 2043. In 2006, the North County Landfill installed a landfill gas (LFG) collection system, including a flare, vertical wells, and connecting piping. Additional LFG collectors, primarily horizontal collection trenches, will continue to be installed in the refuse and connected to the LFG collection system as the landfill is constructed. Collected LFG is combusted in a temperature- controlled flare in accordance with the existing San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (Valley Air District) Title V Permit (N-119-1-12). A new 1,200 standard cubic feet per minute low nitrogen oxides (NOx) flare was installed in October 2024 and is currently used as the primary flare. The previous flare will be used as back-up. ENVIRONMENTAL SETTING Climate Change and GHG Emissions Climate change refers to change in the Earth’s weather patterns, including the rise in temperature because of an increase in heat-trapping GHGs in the atmosphere. Existing GHGs allow about two-thirds of the visible and ultraviolet light from the sun to pass through the atmosphere and be absorbed by the Earth’s surface. To balance the absorbed incoming energy, the surface radiates thermal energy back to space at longer wavelengths, primarily in the infrared part of the spectrum. Much of the thermal radiation emitted from the surface is absorbed by the GHGs in the atmosphere and is re-radiated in all directions. Because part of the re-radiation is back toward the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere, the global surface temperatures are elevated above what they would be in the absence of GHGs. This process of trapping heat in the lower atmosphere is known as the greenhouse effect. An increase of GHGs in the atmosphere affects the energy balance of the Earth and results in a global warming trend. Increases in global average temperatures have been observed since the mid-20th century and have been linked to observed increases in GHG emissions from anthropogenic sources. The primary GHG emissions of concern are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Each GHG has a different global warming potential. For instance, methane traps about 25 times more heat per molecule than CO2.1 Therefore, emissions of GHGs are reported in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), wherein each GHG is weighted by its global warming potential relative to CO2. 1 California Air Resources Board (CARB), 2022. 2022 Scoping Plan for Achieving Carbon Neutrality. December