County of Amador v. El Dorado County Water Agency
Opinion
Opinion
Hull, J.
Under the best of circumstances, cases involving the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) are complicated. Legal questions resist easy resolution, and records are voluminous. That is particularly true when cases involve crucial matters such as population growth, increased demands for water, and the threatened degradation of natural resources. If a case also involves procedural anomalies, matters become that much more difficult.
This is such a case. Defendants El Dorado County Water Agency (Water Agency) and El Dorado Irrigation District (Irrigation District) embarked on an ambitious project to provide water to a burgeoning population. The need for new water supplies was predicated on projections contained in a draft, unadopted general plan.
The plan to increase water supplies had two distinct aspects. The first involved the Water Agency’s water program and the proposed El Dorado project, which was designed to take approximately 17,000 acre feet of water per year (af/yr) for consumptive use from three high Sierra lakes. The Water Agency and the Irrigation District prepared an environmental impact report (EIR) and certified it as complying with CEQA.