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Environmental Checklist Air Quality Draft Initial Study – Mitigated Negative Declaration 27 of CalEPA. CARB is the agency responsible for coordination and oversight of State and local air pollution control programs in California, and for implementing the requirements of the California CAA. CARB overseas local district compliance with federal and California laws, approves local air quality plans, submits the State implementation plans to the U.S. EPA, monitors air quality, determines and updates area designations and maps, and sets emissions standards for new mobile sources, consumer products, small utility engines, off-road vehicles, and fuels. Air Quality Standards and Attainment The project site is located in the San Francisco Bay Area Air Basin (SFBAAB), which is under the jurisdiction of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). BAAQMD has jurisdiction over much of the nine-county Bay Area, including Alameda County. As the local air quality management agency, BAAQMD is required to monitor air pollutant levels to ensure that the NAAQS and CAAQS are met and, if they are not met, to develop strategies to meet the standards. Depending on whether the standards are met or exceeded, the SFBAAB is classified as being in “attainment” or “nonattainment.” In areas designated as non-attainment for one or more air pollutants, a cumulative air quality impact exists for those air pollutants, and the human health impacts associated with these criteria pollutants, presented in Table 6, are already occurring in that area as part of the environmental baseline condition. Under state law, air districts are required to prepare a plan for air quality improvement for pollutants for which the district is in non-compliance. The SFBAAB is designated a nonattainment area for the federal 8-hour ozone standard, federal PM2.5 annual and 24-hour standards, state 8- hour and 1-hour ozone standards, state PM10 annual and 24-hour standards, and the state PM2.5 annual standard (BAAQMD 2022). This nonattainment status is a result of several factors, such as mobile sources, wood burning, industrial combustion, and dust, in the SFBAAB. Table 6 Health Effects Associated with Non-Attainment Criteria Pollutants Pollutant Adverse Effects Ozone (1) Short-term exposures: (a) pulmonary function decrements and localized lung edema in humans and animals and (b) risk to public health implied by alterations in pulmonary morphology and host defense in animals; (2) long-term exposures: risk to public health implied by altered connective tissue metabolism and altered pulmonary morphology in animals after long-term exposures and pulmonary function decrements in chronically exposed humans; (3) vegetation damage; and (4) property damage. Suspended particulate matter (PM10) (1) Excess deaths from short-term and long-term exposures; (2) excess seasonal declines in pulmonary function, especially in children; (3) asthma exacerbation and possibly induction; (4) adverse birth outcomes including low birth weight; (5) increased infant mortality; (6) increased respiratory symptoms in children such as cough and bronchitis; and (7) increased hospitalization for both cardiovascular and respiratory disease (including asthma).1 Suspended particulate matter (PM2.5) (1) Excess deaths from short- and long-term exposures; (2) excess seasonal declines in pulmonary function, especially in children; (3) asthma exacerbation and possibly induction; (4) adverse birth outcomes, including low birth weight; (5) increased infant mortality; (6) increased respiratory symptoms in children, such as cough and bronchitis; and (7) increased hospitalization for both cardiovascular and respiratory disease, including asthma. Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency 2021