Starting at 7 p.m., Friday, March 19 and continuing around the clock until Monday morning, weekend work on the J Church light rail line will be required at the intersections of Church and 18th streets and San Jose Avenue and 30th Street. The work will continue at San Jose Avenue and 30th Street only over two additional weekends that have yet to be determined.

Throughout all three construction weekends, the work will require the use of Muni bus shuttles on the J Church Line from Church Street Station to Balboa Park. Traffic diversions off of Church Street, 18th Street, 30th Street and San Jose Avenue will be required during construction hours.

Worn pavement and rails in these heavily traveled intersections require the replacement of rail and repaving of the intersections to keep the tracks in good operating condition. In addition to replacing and repairing aging Muni tracks and components, the project includes collaboration with other City departments to provide long-overdue enhancements to the surrounding area such as street repaving and re-striping, sidewalk improvements and upgraded water lines.

Muni Service Impacts
· Over all three construction weekends, beginning March 19, regular J Church light rail service will end at Church Street Station.
· From there, Muni bus shuttles will substitute for rail service to serve Muni customers to the end of the line at Balboa Park Station.
· Outbound J Church trains traveling in the subway will not exit at Duboce but instead will continue in the tunnel to Church Station for customers to transfer to bus shuttles on Church Street south of Market.
· The J trains will then continue to Castro Station.
· Inbound J shuttles will stop on Church Street just south of Market for transfers to the subway.
· Customers can get on and off the J shuttle bus at all regular J Line stops except stops near the construction sites as well as Randall Street and Glen Park Station.
· Alternate J shuttle service for Randall Street and Glen Park customers can be accessed on 30th Street (via 36 Teresita) and at San Jose and Santa Rosa avenues.
· BART service to Glen Park Station will not be affected.

Traffic Impacts
· Over the weekend of March 19 only, Church Street will be closed to through traffic in both directions between 17th Street and Hancock Street.
· 18th Street will be closed to through traffic in both directions between Church and Dolores streets.
· During all three construction weekends, San Jose Avenue will be closed to through traffic in the southbound direction between Day Street and Dolores Street.
· One lane of northbound San Jose Avenue will remain open; the rest will be closed during construction.
· During construction hours, 30th Street between San Jose Avenue and Dolores Street will be closed to through traffic in both directions.
· Local access to businesses and residences will be provided for all closures. Detour signs will guide drivers to alternate routes. Police officers will detour traffic onto parallel streets.
· Some street parking will not be available in or near the construction sites.
· Slow traffic is expected in the area. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes when possible.

Traffic Detour/Construction Schedule (weather permitting)
Church and 18th streets and San Jose Avenue and 30th Street
· 7 p.m., Friday, March 19 - 5 a.m., Monday, March 22

Muni Bus Shuttle Schedule
· 8 p.m., Friday - 1 a.m., Saturday
· 6 a.m., Saturday - 1 a.m., Sunday
· 8 a.m., Sunday - 1 a.m., Monday

Additional Muni routes affected
· 24 Divisadero
· 24 Owl
· 33 Stanyan
· 36 Teresita

The ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Eric Mar, will ban smoking in outdoor restaurant dining areas and several other locations, and was unanimously approved after a second and final vote by the board this afternoon. A lengthy campaign pushing for the new regulations required several amendments that were concessions to business owners.

Mar and anti-tobacco groups have touted the new law as a means to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke.

Mayor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign it, according to his office. His spokesman Tony Winnicker noted "a collaborative process" in forging the legislation between board members, the mayor and the business community.

In addition to outdoor restaurant dining areas, the law will ban smoking in enclosed common areas of multi-unit housing, and at farmers markets, homeless shelters and charity bingo games.

It also prohibits smoking in service waiting areas, such as lines for ATMs, concerts, movie theaters, sporting events, taxis and bus stop shelters, and within 15 feet of business doorways.

Current city law already prohibits smoking in city buildings, businesses, schools, hospitals and public transit. Smoking is still allowed in private homes and on city streets and in existing bars that have semi-enclosed outdoor smoking areas.

State law already prohibits smoking inside bars, but there is an exception for owner-operated bars.

Once signed into law, smoking in owner-operated San Francisco bars that have residential units upstairs will no longer be allowed.

According to Mar's office, those bars will have two years to move to a commercial building if they want to continue to allow smoking inside.

The outdoor dining area prohibition goes into effect in six months. Every other provision becomes law in 30 days.

Monday, 3/15/10

6:30 PM: In an incident the SFPD is calling "Terrorist Threats," some jackass allegedly called the JCC and said a bunch of stupid shit, including a reported threat to come shoot up the place. More on the story here, no arrests have been made.

8:30 PM: What a crazy time on the 1000 block of Polk Street! Two men in their mid 20s reportedly argued with their roommate, punching him and setting a fire in their apartment's kitchen. One of the suspects then reportedly cut himself on the arm when the victim threatened to call the police, allegedly assaulted the victim again. then fled on foot. No one's been arrested.

Tuesday, 3/16/10

1:06 AM: 4 men reportedly were in the process of stealing a car from the 400 block of Stoneridge when the car's owner confronted them. The alleged would be car thieves reportedly took off in a green vehicle (the color, not the environmental value judgment), then came back and shot at the almost-stolen car's owner, then drove off. No one's been arrested.

View SF Appeal Crime Blotter Tuesday March 16 in a larger map

Breaking up these days isn't as easy as it looks. Sure, you've got more media to send the message: email, text, Facebook, or Twitter if you're really cruel. But how do you get over your ex when they keep popping up all over YouFace and you've got 32 mutual friends to keep your online bubbles connected?

At some point, regardless of how beautiful and thought-provoking and dove-releasing the breakup was, you just have to delete. You realize this somewhere in the middle of checking their (now activated) OKCupid profile for the tenth time that day, after you've rediscovered Google Buzz (because you rightfully blocked it) and find all the other people they were dating during your open relationship phase, after you've stared at their name in GChat for seven minutes, willing them to IM you so that you can turn up your nose at them. Through an emoticon, of course.

You shouldn't worry about hurting their feelings. They won't (immediately) notice that you've unfollowed or defriended them. You broke up, they'll get over it, and maybe down the road you can re-extend that digital handshake of friendship. Besides, you broke up. That should be pain enough, unless they've got their priorities way out of wack. In that case, you're doing the right thing.

But what to do about all those e-mementos? You know, the pictures on your phone, the pictures on your computer, the archived emails, the thousands of lines of chat stored in your email, the RSS feed of their blog, etc. You've read over those conversations three times each now, wondering where things went wrong. Do you delete those too? If you like saving happy things from your relationships, you can download your conversations and pictures to a flash drive that you'll eventually lose and find months later when you're moving apartments. Or you can archive everything, move everything to a hidden or buried folder. Or, you know, you can drink a bottle of wine by yourself and go on a massive deleting spree that's never quite as satisfying as a real burn session, complete with fire and glossy photos.

When you deliberately limit your access to someone you once talked to everyday, you can get obsessive. At a certain point, you need to not just delete the person but block them as well. If your ex is all over the internet, it's almost a necessity to block their blogs, their tumblrs, their profiles, and basically any other website they've touched or associate with. This is when you call in reinforcements, like an add-on for Firefox and the help of Google. When you start feeling that void in your stalker heart, just think of how your productivity has soared!

Eventually, you won't need your online training wheels, but the internet and the Web 2.0 make it too easy to become glued to your ex's every move, every published thought, every friend or potential new partner. You don't need that, and it's not healthy. Go ahead and crumple into a little ball on the floor of your shower, sobbing "dear God, why?! Why me? Why now?" Just don't tweet about it to make your ex feel like a horrible person (and your friends cringe). Please.

Image from djking.

The Sexual Manifesto is Christine Borden's weekly column on sex in the city, sex and culture, and, well, sex. Got a tip for Christine (and it's not in your pants)? Email her at christine@sfappeal.com.

Last week at the National Bike Summit, the surprise appearance of Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood was big news. But the possibly bigger news was Google's unveiling of bike directions for Google Maps. Just to give you a sense of Google priorities, it first introduced driving and pedestrian directions, then public transportation, and now, finally, bikes. Way to put the car before the horse human, Google!

I kid because I love (and fear) Google, which had been testing the new bike maps internally for a while before asking for data and input late last year and then releasing it last week. (The company so fetishizes the college campus experience at places like the founders' alma mater Stanford, where bikes are used regularly to get around, that it maintains its own bicycle sharing program.)

The first thing I noticed is that the color scheme -- green bike-friendly paths overlaid over the regular street grid -- was instantly recognizable from the maps issued by the San Francisco and East Bay Bicycle Coalitions. What it lacks that those maps have is easy grade indicators, such as inline arrows, that easily describe the direction and difficulty of the grade, though Google has this data as Cycleicious determined by plotting a round-trip in Santa Cruz that went uphill and then downhill. The estimated time for the uphill trip was calculate at a lower average speed than the downhill trip, which makes perfect sense for students of cycling physics.

It's not the first application to help cyclists navigate -- an independent MetaFilter Project by one Amar used Yahoo maps to accomplish the same goal, though obviously with fewer resources. Of course, cyclists being the utopian idealists that we are, the suggestions didn't stop at better aping the style of existing maps from local bike clubs.

For instance, where's the application for mobile devices? I've said that mobile computing is one of the best things to happen for cyclists in the last ten years, and it's not as if there's a shortage of iPhone applications that cater to the needs of cyclists (I recommend Flashlight at least for night rides, especially if you have an on-bike iPhone charger). And not only did it not recognize the Wiggle on rides between the eastern and western neighborhoods in San Francisco, it didn't recognize the alternative McAllister climb, either.

My suggestions? While it's decent at recognizing low-traffic routes and bike paths, and shows landmarks, those landmarks don't include bike rental and repair shops where you might be able to fix a flat. Also, bike directions and transit directions aren't integrated, meaning you'll still have to do quite a bit of planning if you want to use public transit with bike storage and racks to take trips farther afield, such as car-free camping.

But give them time. Like everything Google, it's in beta for the foreseeable future. And just like a new bike, it needs to broken in and tuned up some. Still, it is progress, and might help those who don't know the best bike lanes and paths find their way into every day riding. And to send Google feedback directly, you can report a problem by clicking the link in the lower-right of the map view, just to the left of the zoomed-out inset view.

I still think that the Daft Logic tool for calculating distances using Google Maps that I mentioned in my inaugural column is quite handy, especially if you want to know how far an unplanned ride took you, and not just for bikes but for runners and pedestrians as well. Any sites or applications you recommend? Please do send an email or post a comment!

Jackson West has ridden a bike around the San Juan Islands, up and down the Cascades, in Vancouver, Seattle, Brooklyn, Austin and all over the Bay Area. He admits to being online more than on a bike the last few weeks. Have any bike-related questions? Send an email!

According to police, an unknown caller phoned the center, located at 3200 California St., Monday evening and threatened to shoot Jewish people. No arrests were made and an investigation is ongoing.

JCC spokesman Nathaniel Bergson-Michelson this morning confirmed a threatening call was received, but said it was not believed to have been serious.

"The nature of the call really suggests that it was a prank call," Bergson-Michelson said. "At this time we do not believe that there is a likely security risk, however we are taking heightened security measures, as a precautionary measure."

According to police spokeswoman Lt. Lyn Tomioka, a female JCC employee answered the phone at about 6:30 p.m. and was asked by a male caller about purchasing a gym membership.

"He told her that his ancestry was German, and asked if he would be welcome there because of that," Tomioka said.

The woman responded that all were welcome at the community center, and the caller said he had a brother who was also interested, Tomioka said.

A second male caller got on the phone, asked the same question and received the same answer.

"And then he made an inappropriate sexual comment" to the woman, who did not know how to respond, Tomioka said. "He went on and made threatening comments about coming in with guns and shooting Jewish people, and then hung up the phone," she said.

"We get people calling in and saying strange things every now and then," Bergson-Michelson said.

The JCC of San Francisco has about 4,500 visitors each day, according to Bergson-Michelson.

"We take it seriously, because threats were made," said Tomioka. "You can't threaten people's lives and assume that we're not going to do anything."

Trains headed to San Francisco and the Peninsula were on time as of 8:30 a.m., BART spokesman Jim Allison said.

A nine-car train was headed through the tube when it separated into two pieces shortly after 6:20 a.m.

A five-car section of the train was removed first with the operator on board, Allison said. Another operator then boarded the second, four-car portion, and moved it out of the way as well.

The tracks were inspected and determined to be safe, and normal service through the tube resumed at about 7:25 a.m.

The three 253-foot-tall cranes arrived from Shanghai, China, and had to be folded over to pass cleanly under the bridges. The maneuvers had to be coordinated with local transportation agencies and were based upon tides and other safety factors.

Port spokeswoman Marilyn Sandifur said there was more room than expected at both bridges.

"We actually thought it could be as tight as 4 feet, so it went very smoothly," Sandifur said. "We're very pleased about that."

The vessel carrying the cranes, the Zhen Hua 15, passed under the Golden Gate Bridge at 8:30 a.m. with about 14 feet of clearance and the Bay Bridge at about 9:15 a.m. with about 9 feet of space.

The California Highway Patrol ran traffic breaks on the Bay Bridge for about 15 to 20 minutes as the cranes approached that bridge.

With the three new cranes, the Port of Oakland will have a total of 22 Super-Post Panamax cranes, according to port officials. Evergreen Marine Corporation, one of the port's tenants, purchased the new cranes, Sandifur said.

The cranes weigh 1,500 tons each and are large enough to accommodate container ships that are too wide to pass through the Panama Canal.

They are anchored to the docks and have booms large enough to reach across a 24-container vessel, Sandifur said. Containers are about 8 feet wide, she said.

The cranes will likely translate to new jobs because they increase the amount of cargo the port can move, Sandifur said.

Cargo is unloaded by longshore workers before being transported by truck or rail. It might go through a distribution warehouse or be taken out of its container and repacked for local distribution.

The cranes, which can cost up to $10 million each, were ordered about a year ago.

The Oakland seaport is the fifth busiest in the United States, according to port officials. Sandifur said it moves the equivalent of 2 million 20-foot containers each year.

8:45 AM: A ship carrying three new container cranes is passing under the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge this morning on its way to the Port of Oakland.

The 253-foot-tall cranes are arriving from Shanghai, China. The ship went under the Golden Gate Bridge at about 8:30 a.m. It was set to pass under the Bay Bridge at about 9:15 a.m.

Crews had to fold the cranes so they could fit under the bridges, and their arrival time was determined by the tide and other safety considerations.

The CHP responded to southbound Highway 280 near Alemany Boulevard at around 5 a.m., where a Muni coach 8X-Bayshore Express was seen on the highway with smoke coming out of its engine, Muni spokesman Judson True said.

The malfunction was later determined to be an exhaust leak in the engine, True said, not a fire.

The coach was not in service at the time, and the bus was towed from the highway without injury.

Jacob Schildgen, 42, is alleged to have targeted five shops since Feb. 22, including the same Mission District coffee shop three separate times, police said.

That shop was robbed on Feb. 22 at about 6 p.m., on March 8 at about 8 a.m., and most recently on Sunday at about 4 p.m.

A suspect vehicle description led police to Schildgen's home in a residential hotel in the 2000 block of Mission Street, where he was arrested, police said.

According to police, Schildgen is also a suspect in the robberies of a coffee shop on Divisadero Street at noon on Thursday and coffee shops in the Castro and Mission districts on Friday afternoon.

He is also believed to have tried to rob a juice bar on upper Market Street just minutes after the Friday coffee shop robberies, but left after an employee told him he didn't have the key to the register, police said.

In all the incidents, Schildgen reportedly claimed he had a gun but did not show it, according to police.

A police spokeswoman said investigators did not want to disclose the exact shops that were robbed in order not to taint the ongoing investigation.

Schildgen was charged with multiple counts of robbery and remains in custody, according to police.

Joshua Bey, 21, said he participated in the incident at the direction of Yusuf Bey IV, who told him that the Oakland-based bakery, which was founded in 1968, was in serious trouble and was in danger of being shut down if it didn't come up with some money.

Dressed in a red and white jail jumpsuit, wearing glasses and sporting short hair, Joshua Bey was on the witness stand for a second day in the trial of Richard Lewis, a 25-year-old former football star at Mission High School in San Francisco who's accused of being one of several Your Black Muslim Bakery members who allegedly kidnapped and tortured two women in Oakland on May 17, 2007.

Lewis is the first bakery member to stand trial in the case.

Yusuf Bey IV and Tamon Halfin, another member, are slated to be prosecuted together at a later date.

Lewis, Bey IV and Halfin are charged with kidnapping and torture and face life in prison if they're convicted.

Joshua Bey and another half-brother, Yusuf Bey V, were also charged in connection with the alleged kidnapping and torture case, but they both pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for their testimony against Lewis, Halfin and Bey IV.

One of the alleged victims testified last week that that the men who abducted her and her mother after they left a bingo parlor in East Oakland about 10:30 p.m. on May 17, 2007, brutally beat her and threatened her, and she thought they would kill her.

But Joshua Bey said today, "I didn't think they were going to kill her. I still don't feel she was going to die."

Asked by prosecutor Chris Lamiero how he felt about participating in the crime, Bey said, "It happened so fast I just did it. I wasn't really thinking about it."

Bey said he didn't want to say no to Yusuf Bey IV because, "I didn't want it to be my fault if it didn't go the right way."

When Lamiero asked what he meant, Bey paused for a long time and said, "If it went wrong as in not getting the money."

Bey said Lewis, Yusuf Bey IV, Yusuf Bey V and Halfin all joined him in participating in the crime, which involved using a decommissioned police cruiser to stop the two women on the freeway and then taking them to an East Oakland home, where one of the women was beaten while being asked where a drug dealer acquaintance kept his money.

Joshua Bey said Yusuf Bey IV told him before the incident that the decommissioned police cruiser, which had been bought at an auction in Antioch, "looked like an undercover police car."

Bey said Yusuf Bey IV said, "We could take advantage of it to benefit the bakery."

Bey said his half-brother told him, "We could run up on people on the street and act like the police and take their money."

Before Bey IV stands trial in the kidnapping and torture trial, he is first scheduled to stand trial in May on three counts of murder for allegedly ordering the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in Oakland in July and August of 2007.
The bakery went bankrupt and closed its doors in late 2007.

Love Aaj Kal screened as part of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) at the Castro Theatre last night. I was a little alarmed when the man in front of me announced that since this was a Bollywood movie, it was sure to be at least two and a half hours long. At 9:00 pm?! On a Sunday night?! Luckily Love Aaj Kal clocked in at a demure two hours and 10 minutes and it was a toe-tapping, hip-thrusting, rollicking good time.

The movie follows Jai and Meera, a modern-day couple living in London with a philosophy of love that is either realistic or jaded, depending on your point of view. They're deeply connected but focused on their careers and intend to squeeze love into the margins of their modern lives. Jai's dream career move leads him to San Francisco and Meera, who restores frescoes, moves back to India where she becomes involved with her boss.

Jai's romantic mentor, an older man named Veer, advocates for the romantic notion of soul mates. Veer's love-at-first-sight pursuit of a woman named Harleen back in the olden days is told in parallel to Jai and Meera's contemporary story. I was a bit confused, because the SFIAAFF literature and the festival director who introduced the movie and said that the stars portray the modern couple as well as the old-timey couple but the women didn't look the same, but both men had bodies like Mario Lopez from "Saved by the Bell" so... maybe?

A Google search reveals that each character is actually played by different actors and that there seems to be some grumblings in the Bollywood world that Harleen is played by a Brazilian actress. Personally, I can't get over the fact that there's more than one Indian actor who resembles Mario Lopez, but I digress. What ever the case, Love Aaj Kal is an entirely lively movie and I wondered why these types of Bollywood films don't have a wider audience when comparatively dopey movies like Mama Mia do so well in the US?

The biggest laugh for the San Francisco audience, who clearly have been following the tussle over Obama's health care initiative, was when Jai is savagely beaten by muggers in San Francisco and the bystander who runs to help him says he'll be okay as long as he has health insurance. This prompted loud guffaws from this Castro Theatre audience.

Although Love Aaj Kal only screened one night, I was pleased to overhear an audience member tell the man in front of me that she had just seen the SFIAAFF centerpiece movie, The People I Slept With. She declared it hilarious and sexy. I'm going to see The People I Slept With tomorrow at the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley. It also plays on Saturday at the Camera Cinemas in San Jose.

An outside audit into the activities of the San Francisco Police Department's crime lab began today, a police spokeswoman said.

The lab's drug testing has come under fire with recent revelations about a criminal investigation into a former supervisor and a civilian employee of the lab, Deborah Madden, who is accused of tampering with evidence.

Police Chief George Gascon, who last week ordered the lab's drug testing temporarily halted, said the 60-year-old San Mateo woman told investigators she removed small amounts of cocaine from evidence for her personal use beginning in October of last year. She also made allegations about unprofessional practices by others at the lab, but Gascon said he believed the activities were isolated to Madden.

Madden, who went on leave on Dec. 8 and officially retired March 1, has not yet been charged in connection with the investigation.

Lt. Lyn Tomioka said today that the California Department of Justice's bureau of forensic services and the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office's laboratory of forensic services began an audit of the lab today.

It's uncertain how long the audit will take, but Gascon has pledged not to resume drug testing until the audit is complete.

The stoppage has produced a significant backup of drug cases in San Francisco Superior Court. More than 100 have already been discharged, dismissed or postponed.

The Police Department has outsourced drug testing to labs in neighboring counties, but the results will not be available as quickly.

About 30 cases a day are being discharged or dismissed, and others set for trial are being postponed, according to district attorney's office spokesman Brian Buckelew, "solely because the crime lab's closed, and not because of any suggestion that these cases were tainted in any way," he said.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi has said that because Madden has appeared as a witness in many prior cases, and has handled or supervised testing for years, the evidence in all those cases may now be in question.

The Police Department is also continuing its investigation of Madden and activities at the lab.

"There's a thorough internal investigation ... so they'll be looking at everything," Tomioka said.

It was not immediately clear whether that would include possible delays in beginning the investigation, or reporting Madden's behavior to Gascon. Madden's sister is believed to have reported the alleged stealing of evidence to police in December.

"We did have discussions with the sister in December," Tomioka said.

According to Gascon, he did not become aware of the missing drugs until late February, and an investigation commenced then. Police delivered a search warrant to Madden's San Mateo home on March 3, and found a gun and what appeared to be cocaine, he said.

Madden was arrested by San Mateo County authorities because, with a prior misdemeanor conviction in 2008 for domestic violence, she was prohibited from possessing a firearm.

Adachi has said defense attorneys should have been notified by police and prosecutors of the criminal background of a witness but were not.

Tomioka said she couldn't discuss specifics of an ongoing investigation.

It seems like the 38 has had this problem for a while. A few months ago a woman on crutches was exiting in the back and the bus started to take off with her only halfway out. It was pretty terrifying.

So, is this a usual thing on the 38, and we're demonstrating NY Timesesque cluelessness? That would be so embarrassing!

We've asked the SF MTA if they're aware of an incident like the one reported by this SFist reader, and when we hear back from them we'll update this piece. Update: SF MTA spokesperson Judson True informs us that, regretfully, there's not enough information in the SFist commenter's account for them to follow up.

Until then, have you, yourself heard of or witnessed any driving with the door open issues on the 38? Let's hear it.

The state high court unanimously ordered the South Coast Air Quality Management District to prepare a full environmental impact report on changes to a ConcocoPhillips Co. refinery.

Richard Drury, a lawyer for Communities for a Better Environment, said the changes have already been made, but said the forthcoming environmental study may result in new requirements for reduction in the pollution emitted by four 1950s-era steam boilers.

"This ruling is one of the most significant decisions from the state Supreme Court on the California Environmental Quality Act in a long time," Drury said.

"It means that old dirty facilities that were built before the act was passed are not exempt from the law," he said.

The refinery occupies 400 acres in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles and produces gasoline and diesel fuel.

The changes, including increased use of the four steam boilers used to power the plant, were made to produce ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel in compliance with a state law ordering reductions in the sulfur content of vehicle fuel.

Communities for a Better Environment, two union groups and neighborhood residents claimed the increased use of the boilers could boost daily emissions of nitrous oxide by 455 pounds per day.

Nitrous oxide contributes to smog formation and can cause asthma and other serious respiratory problems.

The air district and Houston-based ConocoPhillips argued that a full environmental study wasn't needed because the increased use of the boilers was within the maximum capacity previously allowed, even though the maximum capacity hadn't been used.

But the state high court said the district should compare the new use of the boilers with the actual use at the time just before the changes were made.

Justice Kathryn Werdegar, quoting from an earlier court ruling, wrote that using hypothetical maximum use as a baseline "can only mislead the public as to the reality of the impacts and subvert full consideration of the actual environmental impacts."

A spokesperson for ConocoPhillips was not immediately available for comment.