Those trying to keep track of all the different processes affecting the Delta face a special challenge this month, when THREE meetings of great interest to the people of the Delta all fall on the same day, March 20. Those listed below have been scheduled for months; the third – the BDCP public meeting – is a late addition. That’s the public meeting listed above in connection with release of Chapters 1-4 of the BDCP draft.
California Water Commission (CWC), 9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
State of California Resources Building, 1416 Ninth Street, First Floor Auditorium, Sacramento
Morning: Public Benefits Workshop: Strategies for Future State Investments in the Public Benefits of Water Projects
Speakers include Tim Quinn, Executive Director of the Association of California Water Agencies, and Dave Cogdill, Stanislaus County Assessor and the former state senator who fought hardest for inclusion of storage projects in the 2009 Water Bond.
Afternoon: Initial Consideration of Amendments to Resolutions of Necessity in Sacramento and Contra Costa counties; 18 Delta parcels will be considered. Actions filed on behalf of landowner defendants, reclamation districts and others by Stockton attorney Thomas Keeling and co-counsel Dante Nomellini, Jr. resulted earlier this year in legal rulings that require the Department of Water Resources to return to the CWC for new Resolutions of Necessity in order to do exploratory drilling on private land in the Delta to gather information to build the peripheral tunnels. (It is our understanding that the environmental documents for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan cannot be completed until DWR obtains this information. BDCP had planned to release the environmental documents early this Spring.)
State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), 9 a.m. (continuing March 21 and March 22 if necessary)
Public Hearing on Bay Delta Plan Draft Substitute Environmental Document (SED)
Coastal Hearing Room, Joe Serna Jr. Cal/EPA Building, 1001 “I” Street, Second Floor, Sacramento
Potential changes to the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay-Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta Estuary: San Joaquin River Flows and Southern Delta Water Quality. The proposed changes include revised water quality objectives for the protection of Southern Delta agricultural beneficial uses, San Joaquin River flow objectives for the protection of fish and wildlife beneficial uses, as well as a program of implementation for those objectives.