New CEQA Guidance on Water Supply

by Robert T. Yamachika The Third District Court of Appeal recently decided a case addressing the interplay of water supply analysis and land use planning. As many readers of aklandlaw working papers already know, the California Legislature adopted Senate Bill 610 (Chapter 643, Statutes of 2001) and Senate Bill 221 (Chapter 642, Statutes of 2001) in 2002 to improve the link between information on water supply availability and certain land use decisions made by cities and counties. SB 610 and SB 221 are companion measures which seek to promote more collaborative planning between local water suppliers and cities and counties. Both statutes require detailed information regarding water availability to be provided to the city and county decision-makers prior to approval of specified large development projects. Both statutes also require this detailed information be included in the administrative record that serves as the evidentiary basis for an approval action by the city or county on such projects. For more on SB 610/221, see Abbott & Kindermann’s November 2004 article on the legislation. In Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 490, the Third District Court of Appeal upheld an EIR prepared for the Sunrise Douglas Community Plan and the SunRidge Specific Plan (collectively “Project”). The Project is a 6,015 acre mixed use development which includes up to 22,000 dwelling units in eastern Sacramento County now within the City of Rancho Cordova. The heart of the proceeding revolved around the Project’s undeniable environmental impacts and in particular “still-vexing water supply issues.” The petitioners argued that the Project should not have been approved because the County did not ensure the existence of an adequate water supply. The proposed long-term water supply for the Project area included a mix of existing groundwater entitlements (the North Vineyard Well Field) and unconfirmed, but planned, future surface water deliveries. Much of the Project EIR’s analysis of the proposed future surface water supply was based on the Water Forum Plan (“WFP”), a water policy project that evaluates water resources and future water supply needs of the Sacramento region, and the WFP EIR.The petitioners argued that because there was no firm source of surface water for the later phases of the project, there had been no analysis of the environmental impacts of supplying the substantial amount of water the project would need. In support of this argument the petitioners relied on Stanislaus Natural Heritage Project v. County of Stanislaus (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 182, which struck down an EIR for a twenty-five year phased project because the project had not identified water supplies beyond the first five years. In Stanislaus, because the County knew neither the source of the water the project would use beyond the first five years, nor what significant environmental effects might be...