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Dear Interested Parties,
The Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco District has received numerous submissions of a letter requesting an extension to the existing comment period, an additional public meeting, and that we prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Oakland Harbor Turning Basins Study. We recognize that the community of West Oakland has been disproportionately impacted by poor air quality. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has carefully considered the environmental effects of proposed alternatives and to date, with consideration of the proposed avoidance and minimization measures, we have not identified the need for preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
In recognition of the multiple requests for extension of the public comment period for this re-release of the Integrated Feasibility Report and Environmental Assessment (IFR/EA), USACE will extend the comment period to Friday June 16, 2023. Please recognize that we are unable to provide the requested addition of 60 days to the comment period.
This is a re-release of the original December 2021 IFR/EA. There was a 45-day comment period plus 14 day extension on the original draft, and we received many comments from the public. In recognition of the public interest in this project, we opted to initially provide another 45-day comment period on this re-released report instead of the standard 30 days. With the extension, the comment period for this re-released document will now be a total of 49 days.
Further, not all sections of the document have been revised. To facilitate public review of the draft report, an outline of changes that have been made since the initial draft report was released, has been provided on page 6 of the Executive Summary. In this rerelease, Appendices A10-a, A10-b, and A10-c are dedicated to the comments received on the previous Draft Report. The appendices provide detailed responses and where in the document they are addressed.
In response to the emailed requests to host another public meeting during the comment period, a second virtual meeting is being scheduled for Wednesday, June 7, 2023 at 6:00 pm.
Kind regards,
The Oakland Harbor Turning Basins Study Project Delivery Team
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