Programmatic Environmental Impact Report for
Public Works Integrated Master Plan
Notice of Availability
Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City of Oxnard (City) has prepared a Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) on its Public Works Integrated Master Plan (PWIMP, Project, and/or Proposed Project).
The PEIR can viewed and/or downloaded here and the PWIMP can be viewed and/or downloaded here. The City is the lead agency under CEQA.
Project Location and Background
The City of Oxnard is located along the Pacific Ocean coastline in Southern California, just northwest of Los Angeles. Oxnard is the largest city in Ventura County and is at the center of a regional agricultural industry with a growing business center. The City has jurisdictional authority to provide potable water, wastewater, recycled water, and stormwater services to its nearly 200,000 citizens and numerous industrial and commercial users.
The City’s Public Works Department oversees the water, wastewater, recycled water, and stormwater utilities throughout the City and faces many challenges in managing these four utilities and its future water resources. These challenges include identifying the best response to drought conditions while planning for long-term water needs, reducing dependence on costly imported water, addressing aging infrastructure and reliability concerns, pursuing aggressive goals for energy efficiency and sustainable solutions, as well as maintaining compliance with changing regulatory requirements.
Given the City’s challenges and opportunities to meet them, the PWIMP develops long-term recommendations for policies, programs, and goals that successfully address the challenges and opportunities in a holistic and integrated way. Opportunities to meet these challenges range from institutional and non-structural approaches (policies and programs) to technical and structural approaches (capital projects). The PWIMP will help the City respond to planned population increase, challenges from new regulatory requirements, drought conditions, aging infrastructure, and reliability concerns. In addition, the PWIMP documents the policy decisions, goals, and objectives to help protect public health while balancing the environmental, social, and financial impacts of the City’s water resources department.
Project Description
The purpose of the PWIMP is to provide a central planning document to guide improvements to the City’s water infrastructure through the planning horizon (2040). Specifically, the PWIMP addresses future planning needs including infrastructure additions and upgrades for City’s water, wastewater, recycled water, and stormwater utilities. The PWIMP builds upon previous planning efforts using a coordinated methodology, which will allow the City to take full advantage of potential linkages and synergies between the four water utility systems. In addition, the PWIMP is also coordinated with a street plan in an attempt to allow timing of future street upgrades to be tied together with infrastructure upgrades.
Significant Environmental Impacts
Potentially significant environmental effects that were addressed in the Public Draft PEIR include, but not limited to aesthetics, agricultural resources, air quality, biological resources, cultural and tribal resources, hazards and hazardous waste, hydrology/water quality, land use, and traffic/transportation, among others. All of the potential significant environmental impacts were found to be avoided or result in less than significant impacts with the incorporation of mitigation measures. Reviewers should focus on the content and accuracy of the Draft PEIR in discussing potential impacts upon the environment and the mitigation measures.
Public Review Period
The Public Draft PEIR is being circulated for a 45-day public review period, starting from July 15, 2019. Due to the time limits mandated by state law, your written comments should be received by no later than 5:00 p.m. August 30, 2019. Please send your written or email comments to:
Kathleen Mallory
Planning & Sustainability Manager
Kathleen.Mallory@oxnard.org
City of Oxnard
214 South C Street
Oxnard, CA 93030
Please make sure that you provide your name, agency you are representing, title, as well as your address, email address, and phone number so that we can contact you and keep you informed throughout the PEIR/CEQA process. If you should have any questions or need additional information, please call Kathleen Mallory at (805) 385-8370.
Public Meeting
In addition, a public meeting will be conducted to secure public and agency comments on the PEIR. This meeting will be held on:
Date: August 15, 2019
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: City of Oxnard
Planning Commission
305 West Third Street
Oxnard, CA 93030
The PEIR is also available for review at the addresses below:
Downtown Main Library
251 S. A Street
Oxnard, CA 93030
South Oxnard Branch Library
4300 Saviers Road
Oxnard, CA 93030
View and/or download Public Draft PEIR (pdf).
Posted July 11, 2019