A second request to rehear a case regarding the scope of an environmental study prepared for a 15-year growth plan for the University of California, Davis, will be filed Jan. 15 by the university, campus officials announced today. "We believe our growth plan and associated environmental documents were thoughtfully and responsibly prepared and are being challenged only because some people wish to halt campus growth," said Jerry Hallee, executive assistant to the executive vice chancellor and provost. "The appeals court decision contains errors that indicate the court has misunderstood certain information, and that information should be clarified," he said. The lawsuit challenging the campus's Long-Range Development Plan (LRDP) was filed in 1989 by Davis residents Larry Bidinian and Bruce Maeda of the West Davis Community Association. They questioned the plan on aspects such as a proposed football stadium on the west side of campus and the university's plan for addressing increased traffic and the preservation of air quality. In 1990, the suit was amended, substituting as the sole issue of contention the Laboratory for Energy-Related Health Research (LEHR) -- a former low-level radiation research site currently undergoing environmental assessment and cleanup a mile south of the main campus. An Alameda Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the university in September 1990 and denied the amended challenge to the lawsuit. The appeals court, however, ruled Nov. 1 that the LRDP should be set aside because its environmental impact report should have included the LEHR site. The same court upheld this ruling Dec. 31 after rehearing the case at the university's request. According to Hallee, the university decided to request a second rehearing for several reasons: • the university believes the campus LRDP and associated environmental impact report are "thoughtful, quality documents" prepared in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); • since there is no proposed change for the use of the LEHR site, it can be handled in a separate, project-specific environmental process, which has been under way and actively publicized for several years. Environmental assessment and cleanup is taking place in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy, which supported LEHR research for more than 30 years; • the university is concerned that the lawsuit may encourage the wrongful use of CEQA lawsuits in the future to block campus growth and hamper its vitality; and • the appeals court decision contains a number of errors that the university believes indicate a misunderstanding of facts. Of particular concern are several points in the appeals court decision that appear to the university to be based on misunderstanding. The decision implies, for instance, that the LEHR site is an active dumping ground for campus hazardous materials when, in fact, the sanitary landfill on the site was closed in 1966 and LEHR's low-level radioactive waste burial sites were closed in 1974. In another example from the appeals court decision, a 1989 city of Davis discussion about a possible research park or shopping center south of Interstate 80 and west of Old Davis Road is linked inexplicably to the LEHR site east of Old Davis Road, although the comments were unrelated. The court decision also indicates some possible confusion about who performed research at the LEHR site (UC Davis scientists) and whether the situation would change when the U.S. Department of Energy completes its cleanup of the site. (The campus plans to continue its research there.) "The university's very concerned about the cost of this lawsuit, but we're also concerned about the substantial expenses we would incur because of delays and having to unnecessarily duplicate environmental efforts at LEHR," said Hallee. The estimated cost of the appeal is $3,000. "Mr. Bidinian and Mr. Maeda don't want UC Davis to grow," he said. "That fact is best illustrated by their own comments in a letter to the UC Davis campus written in May 1989. They say, 'We contend that the mission of the UC system is better served by the growth, development and academic improvement of other institutions or by new UC campuses.'"