Contaminated Site Cleanup and Safety Act.

(1) Existing law requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to compile a list of specified information, including, but not limited to, hazardous waste facilities where the department took, or contracted for the taking of, corrective action to remedy or prevent, for example, an imminent substantial danger to public health. Existing law requires the State Department of Health Care Services to compile a list of all public drinking water wells that contain detectable levels of organic contaminants and that are subject to water analysis by local health officers. Existing law requires the State Water Resources Control Board to compile a list of specified information, including, but not limited to, all cease and desist orders and cleanup and abatement orders issued under the Water Code that concern the discharge of wastes that are hazardous materials. Existing law requires designated local enforcement agencies to compile and submit to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery a list of all solid waste disposal facilities from which there is a known migration of hazardous waste, and requires the department to compile these lists into a statewide list. Existing law requires these agencies to update the information as appropriate, but at least annually, and to submit the information to the Secretary for Environmental Protection. Under existing law, the Secretary for Environmental Protection is required to consolidate the information provided by these state agencies and distribute the information in a timely fashion to each city and county in which sites on the lists are located and to any other person upon request. This bill would repeal the requirement for the State Department of Health Care Services to compile a list of all public drinking water wells, as described above. The bill would repeal the requirement for the state agencies to provide their respective lists to the Secretary for Environmental Protection and instead require these agencies to post the lists on their respective internet websites. The bill would repeal the requirement for the Secretary for Environmental Protection to consolidate the information submitted by the state agencies and instead require the secretary to post the information, or links to the information, on the California Environmental Protection Agency's internet website. The bill would repeal the requirement for the Secretary for Environmental Protection to distribute the information to each city and county in which sites on the lists are located and to any other person upon request. The bill would make other nonsubstantive, conforming, and technical changes. (2) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA requires the Office of Planning and Research to prepare and adopt guidelines to implement CEQA, which guidelines shall include a list of classes of projects that have been determined not to have a significant effect on the environment and that shall be exempt from CEQA. Existing law provides that a project located on a site that is included on the consolidated list created and distributed by the Secretary for Environmental Protection shall not be exempted from CEQA under this provision. This bill would provide that a project located on a site that is included on any list compiled by the state agencies specified above and posted on the California Environmental Protection Agency's internet website is exempted from CEQA if the project meets specified conditions, including, but not limited to, that the project not involve excavation that would disturb soil contamination and groundwater contamination at or beneath the site, the use of the site proposed by the project complies with all applicable land use requirements for the site, and the project does not include construction on the site of new or expanded sensitive uses, as specified, or new or expanded use of the site as a park, golf course, or any other similar open-space area, as provided. The bill would provide that a project that is located on a site that is included on any of the aforementioned lists is exempted from CEQA if, through a review of the project by the lead agency pursuant to specified regulations, the project is determined not to have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment and the project is an action by a state agency or a local agency, as defined, for the protection of natural resources or the environment or an enforcement action by a state or local agency, among other specified projects. The bill would provide that this exemption does not apply to a project that includes construction on the site of new or expanded sensitive uses, as specified, or new or expanded use of the site as a park, golf course, or any other similar open-space area, as provided. Because a lead agency would be required to determine whether a project would be exempt under these provisions, and file a notice of exemption with the Office of Planning and Research and the county clerk of the county in which the project is located, as specified, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would also expressly provide that a project that is included on any of the aforementioned lists shall not be exempted from CEQA as a project where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment, commonly known as the "common-sense exemption." (3) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.