Water Resources Development & Impact Evaluation
Surface Water and Water Supply Projects, Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced Counties, CA
JJ&A has assisted several clients with consultation regarding major proposed water resources or supply projects on regulations that could adversely affect their water supplies. For example, we led a team of consultants, attorneys, and local officials from Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced Counties to compile comments to the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) on its CEQA-equivalent environmental review of proposed amendments to the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan that require 40 to 60 percent of unimpaired flows on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced Rivers. These requirements would have far reaching water supply and management impacts throughout the region, including more limited municipal and agricultural water supply availability, and would pose major challenges to the region’s
ability to comply with the requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). We led the team in preparing comments regarding potential impacts to groundwater resources and supplies, and compiled a single document with comments that also considered potential impacts to agriculture, water utilities, disadvantaged communities and schools.
For the City of Marina, JJ&A reviewed and commented to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on the Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) for the proposed Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project, a major proposed desalination project. We reviewed project data, hydrogeologic studies and geophysical investigations of the subsurface water quality and stratigraphy of the region, and prepared several expert reports. Our reports demonstrated the project would exacerbate seawater intrusion into the City’s water supply aquifers, and that the EIS/EIR for the proposed project had not adequately considered all of the available information, addressed potential cumulative effects, or considered potential project effects on local water supply protection or compliance with the SGMA. In addition, the percentage of freshwater that would be withdrawn from local aquifers for desalination plant makeup water was greatly underestimated.