Tonight, the City of Santa Cruz Water Commission will be meeting in the City Council Chambers at 7:00 p.m. The Commission is going to discuss what role it will play as the City begins formally to review the proposed construction of a $100 million dollar plus desalination plant. If you care about this issue, you should probably be at the Commission meeting tonight. In addition, the Commission is going to be hearing about plans to “intertie” the City’s water system with the Scotts Valley, Soquel Creek, and San Lorenzo Valley water systems. This is a proposal dating back decades, and could increase water supply reliability for the entire North County.

Speaking of water, a lot of the water we use ends up as “wastewater,” and is currently flushed out into the ocean. We may be missing a chance to reuse a resource that is ever more critical as we face climate change and increasing water supply demands. Besides, no matter how effective our wastewater treatment procedures are, putting our wastes into the ocean isn’t really good for our marine environment. If you would like to learn more about the City’s Waste Water Treatment Plant, please get in touch with the Coastal Watershed Council, which is sponsoring a free tour of the Plant on Wednesday, August 29th. I’ve put more information in today’s transcript. You can get a copy of today’s transcript, with lots of links to more information, at kusp.org/landuse.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• City of Santa Cruz Website
• Water Commission Website
• August 27, 2012 Water Commission Agenda
• Staff Report on Emergency Intertie Item
• Staff Report on Role of the Water Commission
• Coastal Watershed Council Website
  For the tour, contact Greg Pepping at 831-464-9200 or at gpepping@coastal-watershed.org

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors is back in action and will be meeting today, in Salinas. Agenda Item #14, scheduled for 1:30 p.m., is an item that I think will be quite interesting, in terms of land use policy. The Agenda describes Item #14 as “an oral presentation from the Resource Management Agency-Planning Department regarding the status and outcome of meetings with concerned citizens regarding the draft ordinances amending Titles 19 (coastal and non-coastal Subdivision Ordinances) and Titles 20 and 21 (coastal and non-coastal Zoning Ordinances), which propose to amend the process for consideration of applications for subdivisions and lot line adjustments in the unincorporated areas of the County of Monterey.”

In short, the County is thinking about changing the way that the Board will “divide up the territory,” both inside and outside the Coastal Zone, and allow property owners to create more developable parcels. The subdivision of existing parcels, to create new ones, is the driving engine of growth and development. The substantive and procedural requirements relating to subdivisions are critically important. If you are concerned about the future growth and development of Monterey County’s rural and agricultural areas, or if you are a landowner in rural Monterey County, you should be in attendance when this report is presented this afternoon.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Agenda Materials, Monterey County Board of Supervisors

Tomorrow, a local fight over rules governing the discharge of agricultural wastewater will be moving to Sacramento. If you track down today’s Land Use Report blog, you will find links to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel describing the fight in general terms. In addition, I have provided a link to the official Notice of Public Hearing, which gives more technical information.

Here is the basic situation: the Regional Water Quality Control Board with jurisdiction over the Monterey Bay Region has promulgated new rules that govern the discharge of agricultural wastewater. It took the Regional Board a long time to develop the new rules, which strengthened the previous rules, and the changes were extremely controversial. Those whose primary focus is on environmental protection, and especially on protecting the quality of our marine waters, wanted stronger rules. Farmers and agricultural interests didn’t want more stringent rules. The new rules actually adopted will require commercial agriculture to do more to reduce contaminants in their wastewater discharges. Agricultural interests have officially appealed the approval of the new rules. The hearing tomorrow, though, isn’t on the appeal proper, it is about the request of the agricultural interests to obtain a “stay” on the effectiveness of the rules while their appeal is pending.

There is a lot at stake for our region. Check out today’s Land Use Report blog.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Santa Cruz Sentinel Article on State Water Board Meeting
• Notice of Public Hearing

The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, is California’s most powerful and important environmental law. More than anything else, CEQA facilitates and empowers community participation in the governmental decision making process.

I’ve placed a link in today’s Land Use Report blog to Everyday Heroes, a publication of the Planning and Conservation League Foundation. Everyday Heroes provides story after story about how CEQA is being used to protect our natural environment, to prevent pollution, to accomplish environmental justice goals, and to support good community development and land use planning. I’ve also included links to some of my own recent writing about CEQA, and particularly about the attack on CEQA that is being mounted in the State Legislature.

I hate to say it, but it appears that Governor Jerry Brown has joined the attack on CEQA. His recent statement that “I’ve never seen a CEQA exemption that I don’t like,” has, at the very least, emboldened those business interests that would like to avoid CEQA requirements. Last week, as you may or may not know, we almost lost CEQA entirely in a last minute legislative play to “gut and amend” a completely unrelated bill that would essentially have made CEQA meaningless. I will talk about that more tomorrow. For right now, check out those links in today’s Report at kusp.org/landuse.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• CEQA And The 1%
• CEQA As We Know It
• Everyday Heroes
• PCLF CEQA Resources
• State CEQA Website
• Governor Jerry Brown’s Recent Remarks on CEQA

On August 13th, Brian Nestande, a Republican member of the California State Assembly, did something quite unusual. He voted for a bill, AB 1500, containing a tax increase. Nestande was promptly stripped of his Party prerogatives by other Republicans, but the fact that he voted for a bill with a tax increase, authored by the Democratic Speaker of the Assembly, was explained by the fact that the Speaker had apparently promised him that the Speaker would support legislation to eliminate all those horrible environmental provisions in the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, that the Republicans have loved to hate for the last twenty years or more. In other words, the leadership of the Democratic Party in the Assembly was rumored to be ready to eviscerate CEQA, in return for this pro-tax vote.

By last week, it was clear that Democratic State Senator Michael Rubio, from Bakersfield, was prepared to carry a bill to gut CEQA, put together by a business-based coalition. I saw a draft of the proposed legislation, and it would, in fact, have essentially repealed CEQA, without doing so upfront. Last Wednesday, the President pro Tem of the Senate, Darrell Steinberg, put an end to this “gut and amend” revolution for this session, but promised significant changes to CEQA next year. For all those who care about environmental protection, get prepared for a battle royal – and maybe even before next January.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• AB 1500
• CEQA And The 1%
• CEQA As We Know It
• Everyday Heroes
• PCLF CEQA Resources
• State CEQA Website
• Governor Jerry Brown’s Recent Remarks on CEQA
• Video of Darrell Steinberg Press Conference on CEQA