Articles Posted in Water

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State Water  Board Announces Intent to Enforce 2019 Procedures for Discharges of Dredged or Fill Material as “State Policy”

By Kerry Shapiro, Martin Stratte, and Daniel Quinley

On February 3, 2021, the State Water Resources Control Board (“SWRCB”) issued a “Notice of Opportunity to Comment and Notice of Public Hearing and Consideration of Adoption” (“Notice”) of a resolution “to confirm that the State Wetland Definition and Procedures for Discharges of Dredged or Fill Material to Waters of the State (Procedures) are in effect as state policy for water quality control.”  The Notice states that SWRCB will consider the resolution at a public video/teleconference meeting on April 6, 2021.

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By Kerry Shapiro, Martin Stratte and Daniel Quinley

On December 18, 2020, the Sacramento County Superior Court prohibited the State Water Resources Control Board (“SWRCB”) from implementing California’s new wetlands and “waters of the state” protection program, and limited SWRCB’s application of the regulatory program to only waters already protected under the federal Clean Water Act. The court’s ruling essentially invalidates SWRCB’s nearly two-decade-long effort to fill the gap left by the shrinking scope of regulation under the federal Clean Water Act following the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“SWANCC”).

In January 2019, SWRCB hastened its adoption of its new regulations – the “Procedures for Discharges of Dredged or Fill Material to Waters of the State” (“Procedures”) – after the Trump Administration introduced the new “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” to regulate pollutant discharges to Waters of the United States (“New WOTUS Rule”).  The New WOTUS Rule limits the reach of the federal Clean Water Act and is presently in effect as of June 22, 2020.

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An Overview of CalCIMA’s Current Judicial, Legislative, and Regulatory Activities

by Kerry Shapiro, General Counsel to CalCIMA and Chair of JMBM’s Natural Resources and Mining Group
and
Martin Stratte

This article was first published in the Summer 2019 issue of The Conveyor, a publication of the 
California Construction and Industrial Materials Association (CalCIMA), and is published with permission.

2019 has been an active year for CalCIMA, as its members remain busy supplying the materials necessary to build our homes, roads, and critical public infrastructure projects.  To ensure its members may continue to do so successfully, CalCIMA has stepped forward in response to a number of legal, legislative and regulatory developments that threaten to increase the challenges facing its members doing business in California.

Below is an overview, from the perspective of CalCIMA’s legal counsel, of some of CalCIMA’s most important legal activities undertaken in 2019.  They include the following:

  • Ventura County Habitat Connectivity and Wildlife Corridor Litigation
  • John D. Sweeney v. State Water Resources Control Board and San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board Amicus Brief
  • Waters of the State Rulemaking Proceedings
  • Pending Amendments to Riverside County Mining Ordinance
  • Point San Pedro Road Coalition v. County of Marin (San Rafael Rock Quarry, Inc.) Amicus Letter of Support
  • Various Legislative Activities

Litigation Challenging Ventura County Habitat Connectivity and Wildlife Corridor

At the top of the list is CalCIMA’s efforts to protect regionally significant mineral resources through proactive litigation.  In March 2019, Ventura County adopted its Habitat Connectivity and Wildlife Corridor Project, which amends its general plan and zoning code and imposes new land use restrictions, including restrictions on land located within 200 feet of “surface water features”.  The reported purpose of the Project is to protect wildlife, namely mountain lions, by restricting land use and development on public and private lands that have been included within the Project’s overlay zone.  In total, the Project includes more than 160,000 acres of land.

The Project also overlaps onto more than 13,000 acres of mineral resources that were previously classified and/or designated by the California Geological Survey (CGS) and State Mining and Geology Board (SMGB), respectively.  Notably, the SMGB designation process was subject to environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and therefore, required the preparation of an environmental impact report and related studies.

Despite the Project’s inclusion of 13,000+ acres of classified and/or designated mineral resources, which are a natural resource protected under CEQA (like air, water, and wildlife), the County approved the Project without (i) consulting with either CGS or SMGB in accordance with sections 2762 and 2763 of the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMARA), or (ii) undertaking a CEQA analysis of the Project’s environmental impacts, including the impacts to mineral resources.

In approving the Project without environmental review, the County invoked the class 7 and 8 CEQA exemptions for projects intended to protect natural resources and the environment.  (14 CCR §§ 15307, 15308.)  The County also rejected multiple written requests from CGS to discuss the Project and its potential impacts to important mineral resources prior to approval.

During the public hearing process in early 2019, CalCIMA submitted two detailed comment letters outlining its concerns with the County’s lack of compliance with SMARA and CEQA.  However, the County maintained its position that the Project was exempt from CEQA and that consultation with CGS regarding the potential impacts to the 13,000+ acres of classified and/or designated mineral resources was not required. Continue reading

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On May 1, 2019, Petitioner San Joaquin Tributaries Authority, a Joint Powers Authority (Petitioner/Authority) filed a petition for writ of mandate in Sacramento County Superior Court against the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB).  The Authority includes the City and County of San Francisco as petitioners.  The petition challenges SWRCB’s approval of the “State Wetland Definition and Procedures for Discharges of Dredged or Fill Material to Waters of the State” (Procedures) on April 2, 2019.

SWRCB released the Procedures in January 2019, shortly after President Trump announced his plan to rescind and replace the Obama Administration’s 2015 definition of “Waters of the U.S.”  President Trump’s proposed definition of Waters of the U.S. is more narrow, and would reduce the scope of waters subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act, including activities within those waters, such as the discharge of dredge and fill material.

The SWRCB’s Procedures are intended to, among other things, codify California’s regulatory authority over the discharge of dredge and fill material into waters being proposed for exclusion from federal regulation through Trump’s proposed definition.  The Procedures also seek to regulate dredge and fill activities within all “Waters of the State”, which is broadly defined to include “any surface water or groundwater, including saline waters, within the boundaries of the state.”  This broad definition includes all natural wetlands, modified wetlands, and even some artificial wetlands.

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