Environmental Review Guidelines

Board-adopted Environmental Review Guidelines

The District Board has adopted Environmental Review Guidelines pursuant to CEQA. These guidelines include definitions of common terms, procedures for environmental review, adopted thresholds of significance, time limits, fees, forms, and District-approved exemptions to CEQA review. 

On April 30, 2015 these guidelines were updated to include guidance for evaluating the significance of the impacts from greenhouse gas emissions from new or modified stationary sources. For more information on the threshold adoption process, see Greenhouse Gases and CEQA. See also September 6, 2016 Notice about CEQA Greenhouse Gas Thresholds.

Note: Air Quality Significance Thresholds used by the County of Santa Barbara for projects where the County is a lead agency under CEQA can be found at Santa Barbara County Environmental Review.

Guidance Document

The District maintains a guidance document, Scope and Content of Air Quality Sections in Environmental Documents, for assessing and mitigating air quality and greenhouse gas impacts. This document includes tools and methodologies to quantify air pollutant emissions and characterize impacts, and strategies to mitigate impacts. Staff are currently working on a comprehensive update to this document. It also includes discussion of the California Emission Estimator Model (CalEEMod version 2022). 

To request a print copy of either of these documents, contact [email protected].