The PVWMA is one of those governmental agencies you may never have heard about. If you have heard about it, you may not have paid much attention. The acronym stands for "Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency." The PVWMA is playing a critical role in helping to determine the future of the Pajaro Valley on both sides of the Pajaro River, which constitutes the Monterey County - Santa Cruz County borderline.

The PVWMA Board of Directors is planning to meet on Wednesday evening, December 19th. The meeting will be held at the Watsonville City Council Chambers. I have put a link to the full agenda in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report. If you do a quick review of the topics that the Board will confront on Wednesday, you will find that the most interesting item, as far as the public is concerned, is probably Agenda Item #12, a workshop to review the Draft 2012 Basin Management Plan. That agenda item is scheduled to begin at 7:30.

While most members of the public probably don’t pay much attention to what’s happening at the PVWMA, this agency is charged with stopping the groundwater overdraft that is putting the local agricultural economy in peril. You can find out about what is happening at the PVWMA by clicking the link below.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• PVWMA Agenda Packet – December

The Monterey City Council meets this afternoon at 4:00 o’clock. The agenda has a few interesting items, including some personnel and government operation-type items. One item relates to the benefits being paid to Executive Management. In another, the Council will be given a First Quarter Budget Review. There are also several interesting land use items. If you live in the City of Monterey, it might be good to scan the agenda, to see if one or more of these land use items might have some special relevance.

Where land use is concerned, the main discussion item on the afternoon agenda will probably be a discussion of the proposed "Guiding Principles" to be used in implementing policy options following the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan Reassessment. I mentioned this topic last week, since the FORA Board received a report on the proposed "Guiding Principles" at its meeting last Friday. The Agenda Report provided to the Monterey City Council has a rather good summary of what is going on, and explains why a Base Reuse Plan Reassessment is moving forward at this time.

Why is the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan being given a formal reassessment right now? It’s all because of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club in 1997, the settlement of which resulted in a commitment to review and reassess the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan by January 2013.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Monterey City Council Agenda – December 18, 2012

If you live in the City of Santa Cruz and care about historic preservation, be aware that the City’s Historic Preservation Commission will meet this evening at 7:30. Historic preservation has received some special recognition in state law, and the City of Santa Cruz has taken historic preservation very seriously. The City Zoning Administrator is also holding a meeting today, at 10:00 a.m. If you live in the City, it wouldn’t hurt to scan the agenda, to see if any of the items have special relevance to you.

The "Desalination Task Force," jointly established by the City of Santa Cruz and the Soquel Creek Water District, will also meet this evening. It convenes at 7:00 o’clock in the Santa Cruz Police Community Room. Whether or not the City of Santa Cruz should build an expensive desalination plant, as a way to provide some drought protection and to support the water demands of future growth, is quite controversial, and it turns out that the City’s Water Director is far from either impartial or open minded on this question. The Santa Cruz Good Times newspaper has revealed that he was a founding member and sits on the Executive Board of CalDesal, which describes itself as "the only advocacy group in California solely dedicated to advancing the use of desalination."

Check out their website! There are links below.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• Agenda – Desalination Task Force
• Agenda – Historic Preservation Commission
• Agenda – City Zoning Administrator Meeting
• Santa Cruz Good Times Article, "Ebb & Flow"
• CalDesal Website

Last week, thanks to the AMBAG Clearinghouse Newsletter, I found out that the County of Monterey is planning to issue a Use Permit to allow the installation of two wind turbines in an unincorporated area near Gonzales. The County is apparently going to have to amend the existing County Code in order to say, "yes" to the project as currently proposed.

The proposed wind turbines would each have three blades, and each of them would be mounted on a tubular steel tower with a height range between 327.5 to 396.5 feet to the rotor tip. In other words, these proposed wind turbines would be BIG! Each turbine would include a 16-foot diameter by 30-foot deep pier type foundation. The project would be constructed in two phases: Phase 1 is site preparation and foundation construction; Phase 2 involves the delivery and assembly of the tower, rotor, nacelle, transformer, and gravel access road of approximately 12 feet in width.

Wind power can help "green" our energy supplies, but there can be significant environmental impacts, including visual impacts, and impacts on bird populations. Monterey County is not, currently, planning to do an Environmental Impact Report. Comments are due by January 7th, and there will be a public hearing on January 9th before the Board of Supervisors.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• The public review period for the Notice of Intent ends Monday, January 7, 2013. Call David J.R. Mack in the County Planning Department for more information – 831-755-5096.

A recent press release had an eye-catching title: "Sea Otters Sue State Water Resources Control Board." As you probably know, the otters themselves aren’t qualified to litigate. Only human beings are allowed to access the judicial process. Oh, and corporations, too, of course!

There is a rather famous article that examines how, or if, our legal system should insure that the "rights" and the "interests" of the natural environment are protected by law. That article is titled, "Should Trees Have Standing?" "Standing," in this case, is a legal term of art, meaning that a prospective litigant has the right to bring a lawsuit. So far, neither trees nor otters have "standing," so the actual lawsuit in this case was brought by the Monterey Coastkeeper, a program of The Otter Project, and other nonprofit corporations dedicated to the protection of marine water quality. The Respondent is the State Water Resources Control Board.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board imposed some water quality regulations that would have the effect of changing what commercial agricultural interests do. The agricultural industry has sued, and the State Board essentially set any actual implementation of the new rules aside, during the pendency of the lawsuit brought by commercial agriculture against the Regional Board. The case will be heard in the Sacramento Superior Court, and it’s well worth watching.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Two Worlds Blog
• The Otter Project Website
• California Coastkeeper Alliance Press Statement
• Should Trees Have Standing?