STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD PUBLIC HEARING 1998 BAY-DELTA WATER RIGHTS HEARING HELD AT PAUL J. BONDERSON BUILDING 901 P STREET SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1998 9:00 A.M. Reported by: MARY GALLAGHER, CSR #10749 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 1 APPEARANCES ---oOo--- 2 3 BOARD MEMBERS: 4 JOHN CAFFREY, CO-HEARING OFFICER JAMES STUBCHAER, CO-HEARING OFFICER 5 MARC DEL PIERO MARY JANE FORSTER 6 JOHN W. BROWN 7 STAFF MEMBERS: 8 THOMAS HOWARD - Supervising Engineer 9 VICTORIA A. WHITNEY - Senior Engineer 10 COUNSEL: 11 WILLIAM R. ATTWATER - Chief Counsel 12 WALTER PETTIT - Executive Director BARBARA LEIDIGH - Senior Staff Counsel 13 14 ---oOo--- 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6977 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 PRINCETON CODORA GLENN IRRIGATION DISTRICT, et al. 3 FROST, DRUP & ATLAS 4 134 West Sycamore STreet Willows, California 95988 5 BY: J. MARK ATLAS, ESQ. 6 JOINT WATER DISTRICTS: 7 MINASIAN, SPRUANCE, BABER, MEITH, SOARES & SEXTON P.O. Box 1679 8 Oroville, California 95965 BY: WILLIAM H. BABER, III, ESQ. 9 CALIFORNIA SPORTFISHING PROTECTION ALLIANCE: 10 ROBERT J. BAIOCCHI 11 P.O. Box 357 Quincy, California 95971 12 BELLA VISTA WATER DISTRICT: 13 BRUCE L. BELTON, ESQ. 14 2525 Park Marina Drive, Suite 102 Redding, California 96001 15 WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT: 16 KRONICK, MOSKOVITZ, TIEDEMANN & GIRARD 17 400 Capitol Mall, 27th Floor Sacramento, California 95814 18 BY: THOMAS W. BIRMINGHAM, ESQ. AMELIA MINABERRIGARAI, ESQ. 19 THE BAY INSTITUTE OF SAN FRANCISCO: 20 GRAY BOBKER 21 55 Shaver Street, Suite 330 San Rafael, California 94901 22 CITY OF ANTIOCH, et al.: 23 FREDERICK BOLD, JR., ESQ. 24 1201 California Street, Suite 1303 San Francisco, California 94109 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6978 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS: 3 ROBERTA BORGONOVO 4 2480 Union Street San Francisco, California 94123 5 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR: 6 OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR 7 2800 Cottage Way, Roon E1712 Sacramento, California 95825 8 BY: ALF W. BRANDT, ESQ. 9 CALIFORNIA URBAN WATER AGENCIES: 10 BYRON M. BUCK 455 Capitol Mall, Suite 705 11 Sacramento, California 95814 12 RANCHO MURIETA COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT: 13 MCDONOUGH, HOLLAND & ALLEN 555 Capitol Mall, 9th Floor 14 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: VIRGINIA A. CAHILL, ESQ. 15 CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME: 16 OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL 17 1300 I Street, Suite 1101 Sacramento, California 95814 18 BY: MATTHEW CAMPBELL, ESQ. 19 NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: 20 HAMILTON CANDEE, ESQ. 71 Stevenson Street 21 San Francisco, California 94105 22 ARVIN-EDISON WATER STORAGE DISTRICT, et al.: 23 DOOLEY HERR & WILLIAMS 3500 West Mineral King Avenue, Suite C 24 Visalia, California 93191 BY: DANIEL M. DOOLEY, ESQ. 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6979 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 SACRAMENTO MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT: 3 LESLIE A. DUNSWORTH, ESQ. 4 6201 S Street Sacramento, California 95817 5 SOUTH SAN JOAQUIN IRRIGATION DISTRICT, et al.: 6 BRAY, GEIGER, RUDQUIST & NUSS 7 311 East Main Street, 4th Floor Stockton, California 95202 8 BY: STEVEN P. EMRICK, ESQ. 9 EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT: 10 EBMUD OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL 375 Eleventh Street 11 Oakland, California 94623 BY: FRED ETHERIDGE, ESQ. 12 GOLDEN GATE AUDUBON SOCIETY: 13 ARTHUR FEINSTEIN 14 2530 San Pablo Avenue, Suite G Berkeley, California 94702 15 CONAWAY CONSERVANCY GROUP: 16 UREMOVIC & FELGER 17 P.O. Box 5654 Fresno, California 93755 18 BY: WARREN P. FELGER, ESQ. 19 THOMES CREEK WATER ASSOCIATION: 20 THOMES CREEK WATERSHED ASSOCIATION P.O. Box 2365 21 Flournoy, California 96029 BY: LOIS FLYNNE 22 COURT APPOINTED REPS OF WESTLANDS WD AREA 1, et al.: 23 LAW OFFICES OF SMILAND & KHACHIGIAN 24 601 West Fifth Street, Seventh Floor Los Angeles, California 90075 25 BY: CHRISTOPHER G. FOSTER, ESQ. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6980 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: 3 OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY 4 1390 Market Street, Sixth Floor San Francisco, California 94102 5 BY: DONN W. FURMAN, ESQ. 6 CAMP FAR WEST IRRIGATION DISTRICT, et al.: 7 DANIEL F. GALLERY, ESQ. 926 J Street, Suite 505 8 Sacramento, California 95814 9 BOSTON RANCH COMPANY, et al.: 10 J.B. BOSWELL COMPANY 101 West Walnut Street 11 Pasadena, California 91103 BY: EDWARD G. GIERMANN 12 SAN JOAQUIN RIVER GROUP AUTHORITY, et al.: 13 GRIFFIN, MASUDA & GODWIN 14 517 East Olive Street Turlock, California 95381 15 BY: ARTHUR F. GODWIN, ESQ. 16 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER ASSOCIATION: 17 RICHARD GOLB 455 Capitol Mall, Suite 335 18 Sacramento, California 95814 19 PLACER COUNTY WATER AGENCY, et al.: 20 KRONICK, MOSKOVITZ, TIEDEMANN & GIRARD 400 Capitol Mall, 27th Floor 21 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: JANET GOLDSMITH, ESQ. 22 ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND: 23 THOMAS J. GRAFF, ESQ. 24 5655 College Avenue, Suite 304 Oakland, California 94618 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6981 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 CALAVERAS COUNTY WATER DISTRICT: 3 SIMON GRANVILLE 4 P.O. Box 846 San Andreas, California 95249 5 CHOWCHILLA WATER DISTRICT, et al.: 6 GREEN, GREEN & RIGBY 7 P.O. Box 1019 Madera, California 93639 8 BY: DENSLOW GREEN, ESQ. 9 CALIFORNIA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION: 10 DAVID J. GUY, ESQ. 2300 River Plaza Drive 11 Sacramento, California 95833 12 SANTA CLARA VALLEY WATER DISTRICT: 13 MORRISON & FORESTER 755 Page Mill Road 14 Palo Alto, California 94303 BY: KEVIN T. HAROFF, ESQ. 15 CITY OF SHASTA LAKE: 16 ALAN N. HARVEY 17 P.O. Box 777 Shasta Lake, California 96019 18 COUNTY OF STANISLAUS: 19 MICHAEL G. HEATON, ESQ. 20 926 J Street Sacramento, California 95814 21 GORRILL LAND COMPANY: 22 GORRILL LAND COMPANY 23 P.O. Box 427 Durham, California 95938 24 BY: DON HEFFREN 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6982 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 SOUTH DELTA WATER AGENCY: 3 JOHN HERRICK, ESQ. 4 3031 West March Lane, Suite 332 East Stockton, California 95267 5 COUNTY OF GLENN: 6 NORMAN Y. HERRING 7 525 West Sycamore Street Willows, California 95988 8 REGIONAL COUNCIL OF RURAL COUNTIES: 9 MICHAEL B. JACKSON 10 1020 Twelfth Street, Suite 400 Sacramento, California 95814 11 DEER CREEK WATERSHED CONSERVANCY: 12 JULIE KELLY 13 P.O. Box 307 Vina, California 96092 14 DELTA TRIBUTARY AGENCIES COMMITTEE: 15 MODESTO IRRIGATION DISTRICT 16 P.O. Box 4060 Modesto, California 95352 17 BY: BILL KETSCHER 18 SAVE THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY ASSOCIATION: 19 SAVE THE BAY 1736 Franklin Street 20 Oakland, California 94612 BY: CYNTHIA L. KOEHLER, ESQ. 21 BATTLE CREEK WATERSHED LANDOWNERS: 22 BATTLE CREEK WATERSHED CONSERVANCY 23 P.O. Box 606 Manton, California 96059 24 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6983 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 BUTTE SINK WATERFOWL ASSOCIATION, et al.: 3 MARTHA H. LENNIHAN, ESQ. 4 455 Capitol Mall, Suite 300 Sacramento, California 95814 5 CITY OF YUBA CITY: 6 WILLIAM P. LEWIS 7 1201 Civic Center Drive Yuba City, California 95993 8 BROWNS VALLEY IRRIGTAION DISTRICT, et al.: 9 BARTKIEWICZ, KRONICK & SHANAHAN 10 1011 22nd Street, Suite 100 Sacramento, California 95816 11 BY: ALAN B. LILLY, ESQ. 12 CONTRA COSTA WATER DISTRICT: 13 BOLD, POLISNER, MADDOW, NELSON & JUDSON 500 Ygnacio Valley Road, Suite 325 14 Walnut Creek, California 94596 BY: ROBERT B. MADDOW, ESQ. 15 GRASSLAND WATER DISTRICT: 16 DON MARCIOCHI 17 22759 South Mercey Springs Road Los Banos, California 93635 18 SAN LUIS CANAL COMPANY: 19 FLANAGAN, MASON, ROBBINS & GNASS 20 3351 North M Street, Suite 100 Merced, California 95344 21 BY: MIICHAEL L. MASON, ESQ. 22 STONY CREEK BUSINESS AND LAND OWNERS COALITION: 23 R.W. MCCOMAS 4150 County Road K 24 Orland, California 95963 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6984 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 TRI-DAM POWER AUTHORITY: 3 TUOLUMNE UTILITIES DISTRICT 4 P.O. Box 3728 Sonora, California 95730 5 BY: TIM MCCULLOUGH 6 DELANO-EARLIMART IRRIGATION DISTRICT, et al.: 7 MINASIAN, SPRUANCE, BABER, MEITH, SOARES & SEXTON P.O. Box 1679 8 Oroville, California 95965 BY: JEFFREY A. MEITH, ESQ. 9 HUMANE FARMING ASSOCIATION: 10 BRADLEY S. MILLER. 11 1550 California Street, Suite 6 San Francisco, California 94109 12 CORDUA IRRIGATION DISTRICT, et al.: 13 MINASIAN, SPRUANCE, BABER, MEITH, SOARES & SEXTON 14 P.O. Box 1679 Oroville, California 95965 15 BY: PAUL R. MINASIAN, ESQ. 16 EL DORADO COUNTY WATER AGENCY: 17 DE CUIR & SOMACH 400 Capitol Mall, Suite 1900 18 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: DONALD B. MOONEY, ESQ. 19 GLENN COUNTY FARM BUREAU: 20 STEVE MORA 21 501 Walker Street Orland, California 95963 22 MODESTO IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 23 JOEL MOSKOWITZ 24 P.O. Box 4060 Modesto, California 95352 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6985 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC: 3 RICHARD H. MOSS, ESQ. 4 P.O. Box 7442 San Francisco, California 94120 5 CENTRAL DELTA WATER AGENCY, et al.: 6 NOMELLINI, GRILLI & MCDANIEL 7 P.O. Box 1461 Stockton, California 95201 8 BY: DANTE JOHN NOMELLINI, ESQ. and 9 DANTE JOHN NOMELLINI, JR., ESQ. 10 TULARE LAKE BASIN WATER STORAGE UNIT: 11 MICHAEL NORDSTROM 1100 Whitney Avenue 12 Corcoran, California 93212 13 AKIN RANCH, et al.: 14 DOWNEY, BRAND, SEYMOUR & ROHWER 555 Capitol Mall, 10th Floor 15 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: KEVIN M. O'BRIEN, ESQ. 16 OAKDALE IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 17 O'LAUGHLIN & PARIS 18 870 Manzanita Court, Suite B Chico, California 95926 19 BY: TIM O'LAUGHLIN, ESQ. 20 SIERRA CLUB: 21 JENNA OLSEN 85 Second Street, 2nd Floor 22 San Francisco, California 94105 23 YOLO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: 24 LYNNEL POLLOCK 625 Court Street 25 Woodland, California 95695 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6986 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 PATRICK PORGENS & ASSOCIATES: 3 PATRICK PORGENS 4 P.O. Box 60940 Sacramento, California 95860 5 BROADVIEW WATER DISTRICT, et al.: 6 DIANE RATHMANN 7 P.O. Box 156 Dos Palos, California 93620 8 FRIENDS OF THE RIVER: 9 BETSY REIFSNIDER 10 128 J Street, 2nd Floor Sacramento, California 95814 11 MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 12 FLANAGAN, MASON, ROBBINS & GNASS 13 P.O. Box 2067 Merced, California 95344 14 BY: KENNETH M. ROBBINS, ESQ. 15 CENTRAL SAN JOAQUIN WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT: 16 REID W. ROBERTS, ESQ. 311 East Main Street, Suite 202 17 Stockton, California 95202 18 METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: 19 JAMES F. ROBERTS P.O. Box 54153 20 Los Angeles, California 90054 21 SACRAMENTO AREA WATER FORUM: 22 CITY OF SACRAMENTO 980 9th Street, 10th Floor 23 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: JOSEPH ROBINSON, ESQ. 24 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6987 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 TUOLUMNE RIVER PRESERVATION TRUST: 3 NATURAL HERITAGE INSTITUTE 4 114 Sansome Street, Suite 1200 San Francisco, California 94194 5 BY: RICHARD ROOS-COLLINS, ESQ. 6 CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES: 7 DAVID A. SANDINO, ESQ. P.O. Box 942836 8 Sacramento, California 94236 9 FRIANT WATER USERS AUTHORITY: 10 GARY W. SAWYERS, ESQ. 575 East Alluvial, Suite 101 11 Fresno, California 93720 12 KERN COUNTY WATER AGENCY: 13 KRONICK, MOSKOVITZ, TIEDEMANN & GIRARD 400 Captiol Mall, 27th Floor 14 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: CLIFFORD W. SCHULZ, ESQ. 15 SAN JOAQUIN RIVER EXCHANGE CONTRACTORS: 16 MINASIAN, SPRUANCE, BABER, MEITH, SOARES & SEXTON 17 P.O. Box 1679 Oroville, California 95965 18 BY: MICHAEL V. SEXTON, ESQ. 19 SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY: 20 NEUMILLER & BEARDSLEE P.O. Box 20 21 Stockton, California 95203 BY: THOMAS J. SHEPHARD, SR., ESQ. 22 CITY OF STOCKTON: 23 DE CUIR & SOMACH 24 400 Capitol Mall, Suite 1900 Sacramento, California 95814 25 BY: PAUL S. SIMMONS, ESQ. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6988 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 ORLAND UNIT WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION: 3 MINASIAN, SPRUANCE, BABER, MEITH, SOARES & SEXTON 4 P.O. Box 1679 Oroville, California 95965 5 BY: M. ANTHONY SOARES, ESQ. 6 GLENN-COLUSA IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 7 DE CUIR & SOMACH 400 Capitol Mall, Suite 1900 8 Sacramento, California 95814 BY: STUART L. SOMACH, ESQ. 9 NORTH SAN JOAQUIN WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT: 10 JAMES F. SORENSEN CONSULTING CIVIL ENGINEER, INC.: 11 209 South Locust Street Visalia, California 93279 12 BY: JAMES F. SORENSEN 13 PARADISE IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 14 MINASIAN, SPRUANCE, BABER, MEITH, SOARES & SEXTON P.O. Box 1679 15 Oroville, California 95965 BY: WILLIAM H. SPRUANCE, ESQ. 16 COUNTY OF COLUSA: 17 DONALD F. STANTON, ESQ. 18 1213 Market Street Colusa, California 95932 19 COUNTY OF TRINITY: 20 COUNTY OF TRINITY - NATURAL RESOURCES 21 P.O. Box 156 Hayfork, California 96041 22 BY: TOM STOKELY 23 CITY OF REDDING: 24 JEFFERY J. SWANSON, ESQ. 2515 Park Marina Drive, Suite 102 25 Redding, California 96001 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6989 1 REPRESENTATIVES 2 TULARE IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 3 TEHEMA COUNTY RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT 4 2 Sutter Street, Suite D Red Bluff, California 96080 5 BY: ERNEST E. WHITE 6 STATE WATER CONTRACTORS: 7 BEST BEST & KREIGER P.O. Box 1028 8 Riverside, California 92502 BY: CHARLES H. WILLARD 9 COUTNY OF TEHEMA, et al.: 10 COUNTY OF TEHEMA BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 11 P.O. Box 250 Red Bluff, California 96080 12 BY: CHARLES H. WILLARD 13 MOUNTAIN COUNTIES WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION: 14 CHRISTOPHER D. WILLIAMS P.O. Box 667 15 San Andreas, California 95249 16 JACKSON VALLEY IRRIGATION DISTRICT: 17 HENRY WILLY 6755 Lake Amador Drive 18 Ione, California 95640 19 SOLANO COUNTY WATER AGENCY, et al.: 20 HERUM, CRABTREE, DYER, ZOLEZZI & TERPSTRA 2291 West March Lane, S.B. 100 21 Stockton, California 95207 BY: JEANNE M. ZOLEZZI, ESQ. 22 23 ---oOo--- 24 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6990 1 I N D E X 2 ---oOo--- 3 4 PAGE 5 OPENING OF HEARING 6992 6 AFTERNOON SESSION 7087 7 END OF PROCEEDINGS 7139 8 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STOCKTON EAST WATER DISTRICT: 9 PAUL MINASIAN 6992 10 THE BOARD 7020 TIM O'LAUGHLIN 7032 11 DANTE JOHN NOMELLINI 7047 12 DIRECT EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY AND FLOOD CONTROL: 13 PANEL: 14 JOHN PULVER 7064 15 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY: 16 DAN GALLERY 7070 17 PAUL MINASIAN 7078 VIRGINIA CAHILL 7087 18 THOMAS BIRMINGHAM 7091 19 REDIRECT EXAMINATION: 20 SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 7117 21 RECROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY: 22 THOMAS BIRMINGHAM 7120 PAUL MINASIAN 7122 23 THE BOARD 7125 24 ---oOo--- 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6991 1 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1998, 9:00 A.M. 2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 3 ---oOo--- 4 C.O. CAFFREY: Good morning to all. This is the 5 continuation of the Bay-Delta Water Rights proceeding. We 6 are in Phase V. And Stockton East was in the process of 7 their case in chief. And we were cross-examining 8 Mr. Steffani. And my records show that the remaining 9 cross-examiners were Mr. Minasian, Mr. Godwin, Mr. 10 Nomellini, 11 Mr. Shephard and Mr. Birmingham. Have we left anybody out? 12 Mr. Godwin. 13 MR. GODWIN: Yeah, I'd like to pass my spot on to 14 Mr. O'Laughlin, if I could, please. 15 C.O. CAFFREY: All right, Mr. O'Laughlin. 16 MR. GODWIN: Thank you. 17 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Godwin. We made that 18 change. So we'll first hear from Mr. Minasian. 19 Good morning, sir, welcome. 20 ---oOo--- 21 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STOCKTON EAST WATER DISTRICT 22 BY THE EXCHANGE CONTRACTORS 23 BY PAUL MINASIAN 24 MR. MINASIAN: Good morning. Paul Minasian appearing 25 for the Exchange Contractors. Mr. Steffani, is Stockton CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6992 1 East Water District governed by seven Board Members? 2 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 3 MR. MINASIAN: And you've been with the district 4 since what year? 5 MR. STEFFANI: '83. 6 MR. MINASIAN: The water system and supply of water 7 to the Stockton area is done today by a combination of 8 efforts of Stockton East and the City of Stockton. Could 9 you describe that cooperative effort for us? 10 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Stockton East wholesales treated 11 water from New Hogan Reservoir and New Melones to the urban 12 area. There are three urban contractors that we wholesale 13 to. The City of Stockton with about 35 percent of the 14 customers in the urban area, Cal Water with 40-some-odd 15 percent and then the remainder is the county, county 16 service areas. 17 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And could you give us the 18 approximate population of the area served by those entities 19 excluding the agricultural residents? 20 MR. STEFFANI: About 300,000. 21 MR. MINASIAN: All right. Were you present when the 22 Board of Stockton East Water District determined to go 23 forward with the interim contract with the Bureau of 24 Reclamation for a water supply? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6993 1 MR. MINASIAN: And prior to entering into that 2 agreement, did the Board of Stockton East Water District 3 have available to it the final EIR and the Secretary's 4 decision about what lands would be within the watershed 5 served by the New Melones Project on a permanent basis and 6 what lands would be outside of that watershed? 7 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, the Board did. 8 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Is it a correct statement that 9 the Board understood when it entered into the contract for 10 water from New Melones that, in fact, it was an interim 11 supply and that it would terminate under certain 12 conditions? 13 MR. STEFFANI: The Board understood it was an interim 14 supply and that it would disappear upon development of the 15 basin. 16 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Was there also a term and 17 condition in the 1983 contract with the Bureau that the 18 water supply would also terminate, that is, the interim 19 character of it would be exercised by the Bureau if there 20 was a need to supply water to the South Delta Water Agency? 21 MR. STEFFANI: There is a provision for supply to the 22 South Delta Water Agency, but only upon the South Delta 23 Water Agent paying for the water. 24 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Were you part of the 25 discussions, outside the presence of an attorney now, of CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6994 1 the seven Board Members in deciding to go forward and build 2 the Goodwin Tunnel Project and fund it in approximately 3 1990? 4 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, I was. 5 MR. MINASIAN: Did the Board Members of the Stockton 6 East Water District and the representatives of the City of 7 Stockton perform the authority that financed this, did they 8 have it in their mind that the water supply from New 9 Melones was, in fact, an interim supply under the Stockton 10 East contract? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Yes. 12 MR. MINASIAN: Now, the condition that's included in 13 your contract in regard to supply of South Delta Water 14 Agency does not say that South Delta Water Agency has to 15 use the water, does it? 16 MR. STEFFANI: I don't remember the exact language. 17 MR. MINASIAN: I think it's attached to your 18 testimony, and I have an overhead. 19 Karna, could you give us the exhibit number to the 20 attachment to A? 21 MS. HARRIGFELD: Stockton East Water District Number 22 7. 23 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And looking at Article 3-A of 24 Stockton East Water District Number 7, do you recollect 25 that it starts off with a sentence: CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6995 1 (Reading): 2 "Contractor understands and agrees that the 3 water supply provided pursuant to this contract 4 is an interim water supply." 5 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 6 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And down towards the bottom 7 there's a sentence that refers to the South Delta Water 8 Agency and the provision of water to the South Delta Water 9 Agency in dry and critically dry water years. 10 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 11 MR. MINASIAN: Is it the current view of the Stockton 12 East Water District if water is supplied to the South Delta 13 Water Agency area for water quality and not charged by the 14 Bureau of Reclamation that this condition that is described 15 in your contract in this last sentence doesn't occur? 16 MR. STEFFANI: I believe so. It's pretty clear that 17 the Bureau can only supply the water to South Delta for any 18 purpose after there's a contract. 19 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And prior to building the 20 Goodwin Tunnel structure in the period of 1990 to 1993, did 21 Stockton East Water District seek to have that issue firmed 22 up with the Bureau, that is, that the Bureau had to charge 23 and collect in order to treat your supplies and interim 24 supply? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Did we seek to? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6996 1 MR. MINASIAN: Yes. 2 MR. STEFFANI: No. 3 MR. MINASIAN: Did you try to firm that 4 interpretation up? 5 MR. STEFFANI: No. 6 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Now, am I correct in 7 understanding that -- Strike that. Let me rephrase it. 8 In fact, the Goodwin Tunnel financing authority 9 lead by Stockton East Water District built the Goodwin 10 Tunnel and the conveyance to the service area of the 11 Stockton East Water District, did it not? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 13 MR. MINASIAN: And that allowed the New Hogan water 14 to be utilized for the urban purposes through the 15 treatment? 16 MR. STEFFANI: I'm not sure I -- 17 MR. MINASIAN: Why don't you describe to us how 18 you're operating today. 19 MR. STEFFANI: You used "New Hogan" and that's what 20 threw me. Would you restate the question? 21 MR. MINASIAN: Yes. How are you supplying domestic 22 water to urban customers of the City of Stockton, Cal Water 23 and Stockton East Water District today compared to before 24 the time that New Melones water was brought into the area? 25 MR. STEFFANI: All right. Prior to New Melones our CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6997 1 only source of surface water to treat the urban area was 2 New Hogan. After we built the conveyance system that gave 3 us the opportunity to treat New Melones water also. So now 4 we have those two sources of surface supply. 5 MR. MINASIAN: And in dry years when New Melones 6 water is not available, was a provision made for a 7 substitute supply? 8 MR. STEFFANI: The contract with the Bureau provides 9 for deficiency in dry years where we would receive 10 two-thirds of our contract amount. That two-thirds plus 11 what would be available from New Hogan would be sufficient. 12 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And so is it a correct 13 statement that the Stockton East Water District even though 14 the contract said it was an interim supply and terminable 15 is planning on getting some water from New Melones on a 16 frequent basis in order to supply households? 17 MR. STEFFANI: On a frequent basis as long as that 18 interim supply is available, yes. 19 MR. MINASIAN: What was the plan when the interim 20 supply was no longer available? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Well, we were going to spend the next 22 20 to 30 years to make sure that the American River water 23 that has been promised to the Eastern San Joaquin County 24 for 30 or 40 years becomes a reality. 25 MR. MINASIAN: So would it be correct to say that the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6998 1 judgment by the Board of Directors of Stockton East Water 2 District to proceed forward with the project was based upon 3 an estimate that interim water would be available from New 4 Melones for a longer period than the Bureau had predicted? 5 MR. STEFFANI: No. We assumed that it would be 6 available until 2020. The Bureau's planning documents that 7 estimated levels of development within the basin showed 8 that the interim supply would be there at least until 2020. 9 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. 10 MR. STEFFANI: And our contract with the Bureau I 11 think goes to the year 2024, something like that. 12 MR. MINASIAN: Mr. Steffani, I've had some trouble 13 identifying a document. Could you take a look at this 14 document, which several pages have been labeled as Exchange 15 Contractors's Number 2. And, particularly, I'd ask you to 16 look at pages B-24 and B-35. 17 MR. STEFFANI: B-24 and -- you know, there's so many 18 of these green covered books with "New Melones" written on 19 them, that it's tough to know which one you're -- okay, I'm 20 looking at B-24. 21 MR. GALLERY: Mr. Chairman? 22 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Gallery? 23 MR. GALLERY: Could we identify the title of this 24 green-covered document? 25 C.O. CAFFREY: Yes. Could you read the title of it, CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 6999 1 Mr. Minasian. 2 MR. MINASIAN: Yes, let me put it on the board. 3 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, sir. Everybody see that? 4 MR. MINASIAN: "New Melones/Lake Stanislaus River 5 Supplement to Final Environmental Impact Statement." 6 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, sir. 7 MS. LEIDIGH: You might add it's Volume I. 8 MR. MINASIAN: Volume I. Thank you. 9 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you. 10 MEMBER BROWN: What's the date on that? 11 MR. MINASIAN: Yes. We'll get to that, Mr. Brown, 12 that's a good question. 13 Right on the inside of the front cover, do you see 14 the date, Mr. Steffani? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Date filed with EPA September 12th, 16 1980. 17 MR. MINASIAN: Now, you weren't with the district in 18 1980, were you? 19 MR. STEFFANI: No, I wasn't. 20 MR. MINASIAN: But do you recognize this as a 21 document that was available to the Board of Stockton East 22 Water District when they made their decision to enter into 23 the Bureau contract in 1983? 24 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, I do. 25 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Now, let's look at some CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7000 1 selected provisions. And does Exchange Contractor Number 2 2 appear to be a correct copy of pages B-24, D-34 and D-35? 3 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 4 MR. MINASIAN: Let's start with B-24, "B" like boy, 5 24. You see at the top of the page the sentence 6 underlined, 7 (Reading): 8 "Interim water supply and decreasing quantities 9 should be available for a significant number of 10 years possibly beyond 2010"? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, I see it. 12 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And do you see the underlying 13 sentence about halfway down that paragraph, 14 (Reading): 15 "This interim supply would need to be contracted 16 to subareas which could make immediate and 17 effective use of relatively short-term varying 18 decreasing types of supply for possibly 10 19 to 20 years"? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Now, when the Stockton East 22 Water District determined to go forward with building the 23 tunnel and the diversion canal to the New Melones source at 24 Goodwin Dam, did the Board of Directors have it in their 25 mind that this was an interim supply that possibly could be CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7001 1 reduced before 2010, but possibly could go beyond 2010? 2 MR. STEFFANI: They realized that the supply was 3 there until the basin developed. And they had before them 4 not only this document, but the Bureau's planning documents 5 that estimated future development. 6 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. But they also had the contract 7 before them that said that if the Bureau supplied water to 8 the South Delta Water Agency area, that that would also be 9 a source of reduction of supply, did they not? 10 MR. STEFFANI: They had the contract that says that 11 that would happen, but only in the event that there was a 12 contract with the South Delta Water Agency. 13 MR. MINASIAN: And do I understand also payment? 14 MR. STEFFANI: And payment by South Delta, yes. 15 MR. MINASIAN: Now, based upon the interpretation and 16 your observation of what the state of mind of the Board 17 was, between 1983 and 1990 when the Goodwin Tunnel Project 18 really proceeded forward, did the Board of Stockton East 19 Water District and the City Council of the City of Stockton 20 do anything to provide alternate water supplies? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Do anything to provide alternate 22 supplies? 23 MR. MINASIAN: Yes, other than New Melones. 24 MR. STEFFANI: Well, we have been continually working 25 for American River water. We have continually worked on CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7002 1 recharge using wet-year supply from the other local 2 streams. It's been a continuous effort, yes. 3 MR. MINASIAN: And, in fact, there was quite a 4 planning effort that went on in regard to the groundwater 5 conditions within the Stockton area, was there not? 6 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 7 MR. MINASIAN: And did that result in the preparation 8 and development of a groundwater model? 9 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 10 MR. MINASIAN: And did it result in a final report 11 from Brown and Coldwell which was supervised by a technical 12 advisory committee including yourself? 13 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 14 MR. MINASIAN: I'd like to have marked as Exchange 15 Contractors' next in order. While we're handing out the 16 document -- 17 MR. HOWARD: That will be Exchange Contractors' 18 Exhibit 3. 19 MR. MINASIAN: Thank you. There is a significant 20 saline water intrusion water problem in the area of 21 Stockton, is there not? 22 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 23 MR. MINASIAN: And that is described in terms of a 24 300-part chloride line, is it not? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7003 1 MR. MINASIAN: Could you describe to us, 2 Mr. Steffani, generally what has happened to that line over 3 the years? 4 MR. STEFFANI: The line has been moving easterly, 5 presumably from the Delta moving easterly. I've forgotten 6 the rate of movement, but it is now in some places, you 7 know, out east of Wilson Way, between Wilson Way and 8 Highway 99. It is moving easterly because the overdrafted 9 basin, it's like a large bowl with the deeper part of the 10 bowl out in the eastern part of the ag area east of 11 Stockton. 12 So groundwater moves toward that low spot. So 13 this saline water, which originates under the Delta, is 14 moving to the east. As it moves to the east it destroys 15 existing wells. 16 MR. MINASIAN: And the 300-part chloride, is that a 17 line utilized to kind of reflect when water becomes 18 unusable for urban consumption purposes? 19 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. The 250-part per million is 20 normally accepted as the maximum. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. This movement has been going on 22 for decades, has it not? 23 MR. STEFFANI: Presumably, yes. 24 MR. MINASIAN: And as the line moves inland towards 25 Highway 99, was it necessary for the various water CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7004 1 purveyors to urban uses to abandon wells, basically give 2 those wells up? 3 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 4 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Do you remember the -- I've not 5 given you a copy. I'm sorry. This is Exchange 6 Contractors' 3 for identification. Do you recognize -- 7 MR. STEFFANI: Oh, do I remember this report? 8 MR. MINASIAN: Yes. 9 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, I certainly do. How could I 10 forget it? 11 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And the model that was prepared 12 and is described? 13 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 14 MR. MINASIAN: And is that model still used today? 15 MR. STEFFANI: I believe it is with some 16 modification. It's been updated and improved. 17 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Let's first, if we could, look 18 at Figure 5-11 just to orient the Board Members as to the 19 chloride line. 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Does Figure 5-11 show with the dark 22 line, not the broad dark line, but the dark line which is 23 closer to the Delta and bears the label "1980," does that 24 show the approximate location of the 300-part chloride 25 line? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7005 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 2 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. In fact, the chlorides don't 3 just stop at a certain point with 300. It's a blended area 4 that provides for mixing of groundwater with saline waters 5 that are underground and the 300-part line is just an 6 approximation, is it not? 7 MR. STEFFANI: That's correct. 8 MR. MINASIAN: Now, is the dark line basically the 9 projection of where the 300-part chloride line will go if 10 there is no remedy to the groundwater recharge problem in 11 the Stockton area? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. If -- that's the base case. If 13 we continue to operate with New Hogan as our only supply, 14 that's where the chloride front would be by the year 2020. 15 MR. MINASIAN: And that area, actually, crosses 16 Highway 99 in certain areas, does it not? 17 MR. STEFFANI: It gets very close to 99, yes. 18 MR. MINASIAN: Do you remember what the Brown and 19 Coldwell report estimated the groundwater overdraft to be 20 quantitatively -- 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 22 MR. MINASIAN: -- over the period of 1963 to 1984? 23 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 24 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And is that basically found on 25 Page 412? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7006 1 MR. STEFFANI: You have given me Page 412? Yes. 2 MR. MINASIAN: The total quantitative overdraft from 3 1963 on was estimated at 1.5 million acre-feet; is that 4 correct? 5 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 6 MR. MINASIAN: And an average over that period was 7 70,000 acre-feet, was it not? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 9 MR. MINASIAN: Now, based upon your work with the 10 model and the report, 70,000 acre-feet was the average. 11 Was the actual overdraft greater than 70,000 acre-feet per 12 annum in the period of the middle 1980's and later 1980's? 13 MR. STEFFANI: May I answer it this way, Paul? The 14 70,000 was a very rough average, a very approximate number 15 based on a water balance that Brown and Coldwell put 16 together. Using the model that Brown and Coldwell prepared 17 it was possible to determine how much additional supply, 18 how much additional surface water supply you would need by 19 the year 2020 to slow down, you can't stop completely, but 20 to slow down the advance of the saline front. 21 And those numbers ranged up to, I believe, 270,000 22 acre-feet of new surface water that we would need by the 23 year 2020 to stop this movement. 24 MR. MINASIAN: The -- a part of the Brown and 25 Coldwell study in 1985, which pages have been extracted CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7007 1 from Exchange Contractors' Number 3, was designed to look 2 at various alternatives, was it not? 3 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 4 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And there was an alternative 5 for taking interim water from New Melones, an alternative 6 from getting water from Folsom South Canal? 7 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 8 MR. MINASIAN: There was no alternative to stop 9 growing in terms of urban developments considered at that 10 time, was there? 11 MR. STEFFANI: No. But may I say this, Paul? The 12 overdraft will continue whether the urban area expands or 13 not. San Joaquin County and the eastern part of the county 14 is fully developed. It's recognized as being fully 15 developed for either ag or urban purposes. 16 What is happening is that some of the ag areas 17 converted to urban use. We have found that, generally, the 18 use for urban development is about the same per acre as its 19 prior ag activity. So there is no increase in demand. The 20 numbers, if I remember the numbers, Eastern San Joaquin 21 County uses a little less than a million acre-feet a year 22 now and will be using about a million acre-feet 20 or 30 23 years in the future. The makeup will be different, there 24 will be more urban and less ag, but the total water use is 25 constant. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7008 1 MR. MINASIAN: So the alternatives that were 2 considered in 1985 didn't need to consider whether it was 3 urban-type use or ag-type use because the quantitative use 4 will be approximately the same in the basin? 5 MR. STEFFANI: Basically, yes. 6 MR. MINASIAN: Now, among the alternatives, and there 7 was a combination, a total of 12 alternatives, there was no 8 alternative for recharge of wastewater from the City of 9 Stockton's treatment plant, was there? 10 MR. STEFFANI: I think you're right. I don't 11 remember -- 12 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. 13 MR. STEFFANI: -- the wastewater alternative. 14 MR. MINASIAN: And in the time that you've been with 15 Stockton East Water District and interacted with the City 16 of Stockton and County of San Joaquin, have you seen 17 efforts to try to direct the attention of parties towards 18 taking the roughly 70 to 80,000 acre-feet of wastewater and 19 recharging the aquifer to overcome this overdraft that was 20 estimated to average 70,000 acre-feet? 21 MR. STEFFANI: I have seen efforts. 22 MR. MINASIAN: Would you describe to us what in your 23 professional opinion has gone wrong with those efforts, if 24 any? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Okay. First, the number isn't right. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7009 1 The current wastewater disposal is around 30, 32,000 2 acre-feet a year. It was projected to grow to that 70,000 3 that you're talking about some day in the future. 4 One of the problems with trying to take Stockton's 5 reclaimed water and recharge the basin to the east is that 6 it is too high in TDS. For some reason the Stockton urban 7 areas' treated wastewater has an abnormally high total 8 dissolved solids level. And there is concern that we will 9 ruin the basin, ruin the eastern basin with this highly 10 salty water. And as you know, there is no reasonable 11 treatment process to remove TDS. 12 MR. MINASIAN: Do you have a figure in your mind as 13 to the average TDS of the wastewater that was found 14 objectionable as far as using that water for recharge? 15 MR. STEFFANI: You know, I'm going to guess -- that's 16 not a good idea, is it? 17 MR. MINASIAN: If you don't know, guess. 18 MR. STEFFANI: I just don't remember. It's high. 19 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. We were provided a rough figure 20 of 700 TDS for a witness by the Stockton East. 21 MR. STEFFANI: That was going to be my guess. 22 MR. MINASIAN: And would that be in the range? 23 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 24 MR. MINASIAN: And is one of the reasons that the TDS 25 is at that level is because of the water system of Cal CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7010 1 Water, the City of Stockton, it must continue to pump some 2 wells that were affected by this chloride intrusion of deep 3 salinity water? 4 MR. STEFFANI: Well, neither Cal Water nor the City 5 of Stockton pump groundwater with that high of TDS. It is 6 concentrated somehow and we believe that -- it's my 7 opinion, that there is quite a bit of industrial use of 8 high TDS groundwater that partly -- at least partly 9 contributes to this problem. 10 MR. MINASIAN: The City of Stockton and the County of 11 San Joaquin have also taken a position not to favor the 12 building of a peripheral canal to bring freshwater from 13 the Sacramento system into that area, have they not? 14 MR. STEFFANI: The people within San Joaquin County 15 have opposed the peripheral canal, yes. 16 MR. MINASIAN: Yes. In the course of building the 17 project, the Goodwin Tunnel Project, is it correct that 18 roughly 55 to 60 million dollars were expended? 19 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 20 MR. MINASIAN: Does that work out to about $230 a 21 person in capital cost using the population figure of 22 300,000 to 400,000? 23 MR. STEFFANI: Let's see $3 per -- okay, sounds about 24 right. 25 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Do you have any idea what it CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7011 1 would cost to utilize the wastewater and put that 2 wastewater in the underground? 3 MR. STEFFANI: Well, we've heard numbers like $1,000 4 an acre foot to treat the TDS. And then, of course, you've 5 got the infrastructure, the pumps, the pipelines and so on. 6 And then, finally, Paul, you're talking about a relatively 7 small amount of water when you look at the ultimate need of 8 something like 270,000 for the eastern part of the county. 9 Why do I worry about 270 for the eastern part of 10 the county, rather than what do we need just for the 11 Stockton East area? You can't solve the problem. This 12 overdraft doesn't recognize political boundaries. And we 13 can't close our minds to what's happening around us and 14 worry only about Stockton East, you've got to worry about 15 the whole basin. 16 MR. MINASIAN: So that estimate of 70,000 on an 17 average is, in your view, way low in terms of the amount of 18 the overdraft? 19 MR. STEFFANI: It is way low. And may I remind you 20 that the Bureau's fairly recent American River Water Needs 21 Study determined that it would take 70,000 acre-feet of 22 surface water to slow down the saline front, but an 23 additional 130-plus thousand acre-feet to take care of the 24 overdraft to the east. 25 MR. MINASIAN: Now, when the decision was made to CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7012 1 move forward with the project to divert water out of the 2 Stanislaus at Goodwin Dam, was there an alternative in the 3 Environmental Impact Report of use of the wastewater and 4 recharge of the wastewater on a regular basis, annually? 5 MR. STEFFANI: Again, I don't remember. 6 MR. MINASIAN: And since the time of the building of 7 the Goodwin Tunnel, has the County of San Joaquin and the 8 City of Stockton to your knowledge reconsidered its 9 position in terms of bringing Sacramento River water in 10 through a peripheral canal to improve the water quality and 11 the quantity available to the urban residents? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Reconsidered a possible peripheral 13 canal? 14 MR. MINASIAN: Yeah. 15 MR. STEFFANI: No, I don't believe so. 16 MR. MINASIAN: That would, in fact, improve the TDS 17 of the wastewater, would it not? 18 MR. STEFFANI: Yeah. If you supply the wastewater, 19 should be better also, yes. 20 MR. MINASIAN: Now, originally when the Goodwin 21 Tunnel financing authority developed its project it did not 22 fund groundwater recharge elements at the time of the 23 initial financing, did it? 24 MR. STEFFANI: That's correct. 25 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And was it planned to, in fact, CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7013 1 fund groundwater recharge at some point in time? 2 MR. STEFFANI: I'm not sure it was officially 3 planned, we certainly talked about it enough. 4 MR. MINASIAN: The groundwater recharge capability of 5 the basin, which is described as overdrafted in the Brown 6 and Coldwell report, Exhibit 3, is, in fact, excellent, is 7 it not? 8 MR. STEFFANI: We believe it is. Recent testing that 9 we've been doing confirms that, yes. 10 MR. MINASIAN: And so if another 65 million dollars 11 or another 200 to $300 per person were spent on groundwater 12 recharge, in fact, a very reliable groundwater mechanism 13 for reducing the overdraft could be provided in the area 14 using wet weather flows, could it not? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Yes. 16 MR. MINASIAN: And those flows are flows both in the 17 Stanislaus River and in the creeks that come through the 18 Stockton area? 19 MR. STEFFANI: Available from the Stanislaus, the 20 Farmington watershed, which includes Little John's Creek, 21 the Calaveras River and Mokelumne River, yes. 22 MR. MINASIAN: Have you observed any effort on the 23 part of City of Stockton or the County of San Joaquin to 24 curtail urban growth until this overdraft problem is 25 addressed in a fashion that there is some certainty that it CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7014 1 can be greatly reduced? 2 MR. STEFFANI: I haven't noticed any such effort. 3 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And although the amount of 4 water used by urban residents tends to be about the same as 5 agricultural uses, the urbanization is actually all 6 occurring in an area that could be impacted by the chloride 7 migration line, isn't it? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Pretty much so, yes. 9 MR. MINASIAN: That is that the City of Stockton is 10 trying to centralize urban growth so it doesn't intrude in 11 the agricultural area? 12 MR. STEFFANI: That is correct. 13 MR. MINASIAN: And by that it's putting urban 14 residents right in the zone of risk that the wells that 15 supply most directly will be unavailable because of 16 quality? 17 MR. STEFFANI: I'd suppose you could conclude that. 18 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And if, in fact, a project was 19 put together to reuse the wastewater, do you have an 20 opinion as to whether or not the developers who are 21 developing new homes in that area could afford to pay out 22 of the market value of the homes a fee for the development 23 of a groundwater recharge program with wastewater? 24 MR. STEFFANI: I doubt it. We understand that the 25 New Melones Project, those costs have impacted the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7015 1 development community severely. And I don't believe you 2 could convince those people to go out and spend another 65 3 million dollars for another project. It's probably 4 economically unfeasible. 5 MR. MINASIAN: Would it be fair and accurate to say, 6 then, that unless this Board tells the people in the City 7 of Stockton what it believes the best solution to this 8 problem, that it's unlikely that any decisive decisions 9 will be made about whether urban growth should be allowed 10 in a circumstance where we have accumulative overdraft of 11 this size? 12 MR. STEFFANI: The overdraft isn't impacting the 13 urban area today as much as it is impacting the ag area. 14 The urban area -- we've raised the groundwater levels in 15 the urban areas substantially in the last ten years, 16 because of doubling the size of the treatment plan and then 17 using this extra water that has been available from New 18 Melones. 19 So the groundwater condition under the urban area 20 is better today than it has been for probably 40 years. 21 The real problem is out to the east, a very serious problem 22 that can't be solved alone by the ag area to the east. 23 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. So as you see the issue, 24 Mr. Steffani, is the issue that we should dry up some of 25 the ag ground in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley so CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7016 1 we can preserve the use of ag ground in the eastern portion 2 of San Joaquin County? 3 MR. STEFFANI: No, not a bit. 4 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. What is the issue? 5 MR. STEFFANI: This is going to start me on my 6 speech. 7 MR. MINASIAN: As long as it's responsive, what is 8 the issue? 9 MR. STEFFANI: All right. I think it is. The issue 10 is there's not enough water to go around for all of us. 11 Instead of attending these hearings and trying to find ways 12 of taking someone else's water of this limited supply, we 13 ought all to be working to maximize the natural supply that 14 we have. 15 And one way to do that, of course, is with 16 groundwater recharge using this wet year water that's 17 available in years like this, putting it underground, 18 increasing the supply. If we had spent half of the effort 19 that has been expended here in CalFed and everywhere else 20 for the last how many years and, in my opinion, gotten 21 nowhere, if we spent half that effort we'd be on our way to 22 really solving the water supply problem. 23 MEMBER DEL PIERO: But we've been having so much fun. 24 MR. STEFFANI: Yeah, I know you are. 25 MR. MINASIAN: Mr. Steffani, you have gray hair and CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7017 1 you're about to retire, so you're allowed some license 2 here. 3 MR. STEFFANI: I probably would have said that and 4 some other things, too, Paul. 5 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Let's talk about, then, what 6 you understand the position of your Board to be. Is the 7 Board's position that those people that drain in the west 8 side of the San Joaquin Valley should not drain, or not 9 farm so that the groundwater overdraft in the Stockton area 10 can be better taken care of more often by New Melones? 11 MR. STEFFANI: No, absolutely not. 12 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Is it your position that the 13 South Delta Water Agency should not be able to get water 14 for water quality? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Absolutely not. 16 MR. MINASIAN: What is the solution? 17 MR. STEFFANI: All right. The solution has a lot of 18 pieces to it. The first piece that comes to my mind is the 19 drain, a drain. The drain doesn't have to discharge into 20 the Delta. It doesn't have to discharge near Antioch or 21 Pittsburg. The drain has got to go to the ocean. And 22 we've got to start planning that. It's the ultimate 23 answer. So that's the first piece. 24 The second piece is to make use of the wet year 25 water that is running by us these days with groundwater CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7018 1 recharge and with off-stream storage. We've got to get the 2 environmental community to sit down and recognize that it's 3 better for all of us to work together to increase the 4 supply. I say that knowing that there are some 5 environmental groups who don't want growth, period. And 6 they are using these proceedings to try to somehow bring 7 growth to a halt. But there are a lot of very responsible 8 environmental organizations that I think would sit down at 9 the table with us to try to find good ways to maximize the 10 existing and natural supply. 11 MR. MINASIAN: And do you have an estimate for us as 12 to whether or not meeting the fishery flows, the water 13 quality flows from New Melones, in fact, we could make a 14 substantial dent in this overdraft just by conjunctive use 15 of the flood flows on the Stanislaus within your area? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, absolutely. 17 MR. MINASIAN: What's lacking, then? Is it the will 18 to finance those facilities in San Joaquin County? 19 MR. STEFFANI: That's one of the problems, yes, 20 money. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And so this concern about not 22 being able to get enough money out of developers to finance 23 these facilities and the concern is to keep the cost low so 24 people come to Stockton and build homes, is that correct? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Well, you've got to meet the market CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7019 1 whatever it is. 2 MR. MINASIAN: Nothing further. Thank you. 3 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, Mr. Minasian. 4 MEMBER BROWN: Mr. Chairman? 5 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Brown? 6 MEMBER BROWN: I have some questions. 7 C.O. CAFFREY: If it's cross-examination, can it wait 8 or do you need to do it now, because we have a number of 9 cross-examiners? 10 MEMBER DEL PIERO: I'd like to take care of it now. 11 C.O. CAFFREY: Okay. Then we have Mr. Brown and 12 Mr. Del Piero. 13 Okay. Mr. Del Piero. 14 ---oOo--- 15 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STOCKTON EAST WATER DISTRICT 16 BY THE BOARD 17 MEMBER DEL PIERO: If you'll forgive me, but I didn't 18 understand one of the answers that you provided to one of 19 the questions. And if you could clarify it for me, I'd 20 appreciate it. 21 What did you mean by the 65 million dollar New 22 Melones cost the developers are now resistant to? 23 MR. STEFFANI: The cost of the project was 65 million 24 dollars. About 35 million dollars of that 65 is a 25 new-development burden. New development finances that 35 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7020 1 plus or minus a million dollars with a development fee, a 2 connection charge. 3 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Okay. 4 MR. STEFFANI: They pay so many $1,000 per 5 single-family equivalent. 6 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Do you know how many thousands of 7 dollars per single-family house connection fee it is? I 8 didn't know it was several thousands of dollars. 9 MR. STEFFANI: Well, it isn't several thousand today. 10 MEMBER DEL PIERO: It's not? 11 MR. STEFFANI: It's approaching $2,000 today. 12 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Okay. $2,000 for -- 13 MR. STEFFANI: Per single-family dwelling. 14 MEMBER DEL PIERO: And your comment was, at least 15 your perception is that they would be resistant to a 16 duplicate project for that purpose? 17 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 18 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Average cost of a house in 19 Stockton, even a low-income house is running about 20 $110,000? 21 MR. STEFFANI: I believe so. 22 MEMBER DEL PIERO: They're resistant to a two-percent 23 variation in the market? 24 MR. STEFFANI: They are very resistant. 25 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Are they -- I mean this in all CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7021 1 sincerity. Would they be less resistant if somebody told 2 them they couldn't build houses at all? 3 MR. STEFFANI: Probably. I should point out that 4 this development fee escalates tremendously with time. 5 MEMBER DEL PIERO: As does a home loan. 6 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 7 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Development fee is paid for by the 8 home purchaser, it's not paid for by the developer. The 9 developer deals with it only from the standpoint of 10 marketing the property. 11 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 12 MEMBER DEL PIERO: So hearing the developers are 13 resistant to a fee that is ultimately paid for by someone 14 else, you know -- 15 MR. STEFFANI: I understand what you're saying. I'm 16 just recording that. 17 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Somebody might be impressed by 18 that argument. And I understand you aren't putting it 19 forward, you are just articulating what you have heard. 20 But having known a lot of developers and having approved a 21 lot of subdivisions during the course of my life, that 22 really was never a motivating factor when the alternative 23 was unemployment for the developer. 24 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 25 C.O. CAFFREY: Don't you agree, so we can make that a CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7022 1 question? Thank you. 2 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Don't you agree? 3 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you. 4 MEMBER DEL PIERO: I'm sorry. I wouldn't be a good 5 Jeopardy player, I apologize. 6 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Brown? 7 MEMBER BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I'll wait until the 8 others are through. I have some questions, but they can 9 hold. 10 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, sir. We're 11 just going to the Board Member questioning now since nobody 12 wanted to wait until the usual time. I thought you meant 13 at the end of 2. I'm sorry, Mr. Brown, I appreciate that, 14 we'll wait until then. 15 Ms. Forster. 16 MEMBER FORSTER: I'm not going to wait. My question, 17 Mr. Steffani, has to do with something that you were just 18 relating on conjunctive use and the cost of conjunctive 19 use. Has anybody in your area had a study done on what the 20 cost that it would take to do conjunctive use is? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, we have some preliminary numbers. 22 To do a project including these east side streams that I 23 mentioned earlier and buying land for spreading basins, 24 building the distribution system, all those things we're 25 looking at 100 to 150 million dollars. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7023 1 MEMBER FORSTER: Is it your understanding that some 2 of that might be able to be funded through 204 dollars, or 3 CalFed projects? I mean you are a part of the Delta 4 watershed. 5 MR. STEFFANI: It is my understanding that some money 6 might be available, but nothing that large. We have been 7 proposing that this kind of project be funded with 40-years 8 zero-percent interest federal loan. Most of the CVP was 9 built with zero-percent 40-year loans. 10 We think we can make a very good argument that 11 this large recharge project should be funded in that manner 12 with some federal assistance, because of what has happened 13 to us, not entirely, but partly because of what has 14 happened to us on the Stanislaus. We proceeded in good 15 faith, spent the money to build this project and then the 16 CVPIA came along and changed the rules. 17 So we think there may be some sympathy in 18 Washington to help us build this kind of a recharge project 19 that would increase the supply for all of us. It wouldn't 20 just benefit us, it would benefit others. 21 MEMBER FORSTER: Thank you. 22 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you. 23 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Mr. Chairman? 24 C.O. CAFFREY: Yes. 25 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Can I ask one last question? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7024 1 C.O. CAFFREY: Go ahead, Mr. Del Piero. 2 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Mr. Steffani, how does the City 3 Council deal with CEQA findings when you demonstrate that 4 there's been an Environmental Impact Report that there's a 5 70,000 acre-foot overdraft annually? What do they make, a 6 finding of overriding consideration as sort of, like, walk 7 in the door and we're going to declare a finding of 8 overriding consideration, because that's the only way we 9 can build houses if we have an overdraft? 10 MR. STEFFANI: Well, may I answer your question with 11 a question: How do all of the city councils and board of 12 supervisors south of the Tehachapies make that finding? 13 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Oh, I can tell you how. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: Don't tell him because that's 15 testifying. 16 MEMBER DEL PIERO: I can tell you how they do it, but 17 that doesn't get to the point that I was trying to make. 18 C.O. CAFFREY: Don't you agree, Mr. Steffani? 19 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Do they make a finding of 20 overriding consideration, or is that sort of passed over 21 during the course of the CEQA hearing? 22 MR. STEFFANI: I don't follow those city council 23 activities. I don't know. 24 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Thanks. 25 MEMBER BROWN: Mr. Chairman? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7025 1 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Brown. 2 MEMBER BROWN: On second thought, I do need to ask 3 some questions. 4 C.O. CAFFREY: Go right ahead, sir, and we'll make 5 this the cross-examination for the Board. 6 MEMBER BROWN: Mr. Steffani, is the basin in your 7 Stockton East area homogeneous with other basins in the 8 neighborhood, or is it a confined basin? 9 MR. STEFFANI: It is not confined basin. 10 MEMBER BROWN: So water that is recharged in your 11 basin disburses throughout the general area and visa versa? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 13 MEMBER BROWN: So is the mining in the Stockton East 14 area solely the responsibility in your mind of the people 15 who work and live there, or is it in the whole 16 neighborhood? 17 MR. STEFFANI: I think it's broader than just those. 18 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Steffani. 19 Couple more quick ones, Mr. Chairman, if I may. 20 C.O. CAFFREY: Go ahead, please, Mr. Brown. 21 MEMBER BROWN: Where's your treatment plant located 22 for your water? 23 MR. STEFFANI: The treatment plant is about two miles 24 east of Highway 99 on Main Street or Copperopolis Road. 25 It's adjacent to the diverting canal that -- you know where CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7026 1 the diverting canal is. 2 MEMBER BROWN: Does it take water directly from New 3 Hogan? 4 MR. STEFFANI: We put New Hogan water into a pipeline 5 at a place called Bellota, about 15 miles to the east of 6 the treatment plant to pick it up before there's any 7 possibility for contamination from ag drainage. 8 MEMBER BROWN: Who owns New Hogan Reservoir? 9 MR. STEFFANI: It's either the Corps or the Bureau 10 own New Hogan. I think the Bureau owns it, the Corps 11 operates it. 12 MEMBER BROWN: The distribution system that you have 13 from the treatment plant goes throughout the city and the 14 county and what's the other, the Cal Water? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 16 MEMBER BROWN: So if you have a well that's pumping 17 water from a saline area, is it necessarily supplying water 18 to a general area, or does it go into the distribution 19 system for distribution throughout the system? 20 MR. STEFFANI: The wells discharge into the 21 distribution system. So there is some -- 22 MEMBER BROWN: There's a mixing? 23 MR. STEFFANI: Mixing, yes. 24 MEMBER BROWN: So concluding that, to use your 25 quotes, the developing areas or the saline areas might be CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7027 1 getting higher salinity water to those developed areas, is 2 that necessarily true? 3 MR. STEFFANI: No. No, it isn't. 4 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. What would you do with the 5 brine if you had reverse osmosis? 6 MR. STEFFANI: That's a good question. I don't know 7 what we'd do with the brine if we had reverse osmosis. 8 MEMBER BROWN: Your program, do you use in lieu of 9 consideration as a good conjunctive use program as opposed 10 to recharge? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, absolutely. 12 MEMBER BROWN: You said the treated water from the 13 reservoirs, or from the City of Stockton, is about 700 14 parts per million? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 16 MEMBER BROWN: What's the supply water, urban supply 17 water? 18 MR. STEFFANI: Right now when we're treating New 19 Melones water about 60, 60 parts per million. 20 MEMBER BROWN: You think that's an unusually high 21 increment due to treatment? 22 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 23 MEMBER BROWN: Do you have water softeners in your 24 area? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. And that is one of the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7028 1 possibilities. Before we started providing surface water 2 to the urban area, everyone was on a water softener, and I 3 believe many of them are still in place. And that may be 4 contributing. 5 MEMBER BROWN: Have you had studies to try to 6 determine where the unusual increment in TDS is coming 7 from? 8 MR. STEFFANI: It is my understanding that the City 9 is going to undertake such a study. 10 MEMBER BROWN: So if the City does undertake such a 11 study and you can reverse the increase in salinity, then 12 Reclamation reuse is an option maybe? 13 MR. STEFFANI: Certainly. 14 MEMBER BROWN: 40,000 acre-feet approximately is 15 what's being generated today and going to 70, did you say? 16 MR. STEFFANI: I think it's in the low 30's, will go 17 to the 70. 18 MEMBER BROWN: The water as it's discharged into the 19 Sacramento, is it used to meet some of the water 20 requirements in the South Delta? 21 MR. STEFFANI: I'm glad you asked that question. 22 Yes, the City of Stockton does discharge to the San Joaquin 23 River and that is part of the Delta inflow. If you took 24 that water away and recharged with it, then, of course, 25 you'd reduce the inflow and outflow of the Delta. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7029 1 MEMBER BROWN: Have you run an analysis to determine 2 what the true conserved water might be of the 40,000 that 3 you're talking about today, or 37,000 acre-feet? 4 MR. STEFFANI: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the first 5 part. 6 MEMBER BROWN: Have you run an analysis to determine 7 what the true conserved water might be as opposed to taking 8 it for recharge -- excuse me, as opposed to letting it 9 continue into the South Delta? Obviously, some of the 10 water is being used in the South Delta, you said? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 12 MEMBER BROWN: So it's helping meet water quality and 13 water quality requirements? 14 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 15 MEMBER BROWN: So if you took that water out of the 16 San Joaquin and recharged with it -- 17 MR. STEFFANI: Then you have to make up that same 18 amount from some other place. 19 MEMBER BROWN: Do you have an idea of what the 20 percent of true-conserved water would be? 21 MR. STEFFANI: I don't. 22 MEMBER BROWN: It wouldn't be the whole 40,000, would 23 it? 24 MR. STEFFANI: Oh, no, much less. 25 MEMBER BROWN: Would you estimate maybe half of it? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7030 1 MR. STEFFANI: I would guess less than half. 2 MEMBER BROWN: Less than half. Thank you, 3 Mr. Chairman. 4 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Brown. 5 MEMBER FORSTER: I have one more question. 6 C.O. CAFFREY: Ms. Forster. 7 MEMBER FORSTER: I have one more question, 8 Mr. Steffani. Last year when the legislature was 9 considering a water bond and Costa Majatoe (phonetic) was 10 the leadership on that, did your area ask for funding for 11 conjunctive use? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, we did. We asked for money to do 13 a large-scale demonstration recharge project. And we were 14 pulling for that bill, but, of course, as you know it 15 didn't make it. 16 MEMBER FORSTER: And was the amount the same as what 17 you estimated, like 150 million? 18 MR. STEFFANI: We had attempted to put a specific 19 amount in the bill, but we were advised not to put a 20 specific amount. So we went with generic language. 21 MEMBER FORSTER: Thank you. 22 C.O. CAFFREY: Anything else from the Board? All 23 right. 24 Mr. O'Laughlin, good morning, sir, and welcome. 25 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Good morning. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7031 1 MR. STEFFANI: Do you need some help, Tim? You did 2 all right. 3 ---oOo--- 4 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STOCKTON EAST WATER DISTRICT 5 BY THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER GROUP AUTHORITY 6 BY TIM O'LAUGHLIN 7 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Good morning, Mr. Steffani. Tim 8 O'Laughlin representing the San Joaquin River Group 9 Authority. I have some questions today that are going to 10 kind of go all over the field of your testimony. And I'll 11 try to keep it organized, but given the scope of your 12 testimony, that might be somewhat difficult. 13 I'd like to talk first about the Stanislaus 14 stakeholders process. Stockton East Water District 15 participated in that process; is that correct? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 17 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And, in fact, your district was kind 18 enough to host the meetings, weren't they? 19 MR. STEFFANI: And to provide lunch, yes. 20 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Never forget those lunches. Now, 21 several years ago an Interim New Melones Plan was entered 22 into by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Do you 23 remember that? 24 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 25 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And Stockton East supported CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7032 1 that Interim Operations Plan; is that correct? 2 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 3 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. Now, originally what was 4 being looked at was a plan wherein 100,000 acre-feet of 5 water would have been delivered to Stockton East in 1997. 6 And then anywhere from 0 to 50,000 would have been 7 delivered to Stockton East in 1998; is that correct? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 9 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And then, subsequently, what 10 we all figured out a better way to do, since Stockton East 11 couldn't use 100,000 acre-feet of water, was to find a 12 mechanism to deliver 50,000 acre-feet of water to Stockton 13 East in each year; is that correct? 14 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 15 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And then that way Stockton East 16 could use that full amount of water each and every year, 17 correct? 18 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 19 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And, in fact, that is what has 20 happened; is that correct? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 22 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: So the Interim Operations Plan came 23 up with a mechanism to do that. Now, is there -- I 24 unfortunately was not present on your first day of 25 testimony prior to the Thanksgiving vacation, but my CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7033 1 understanding is that presently you could not use 150,000 2 acre-feet of water within Central and Stockton East at this 3 present time; is that correct? 4 MR. STEFFANI: We couldn't use it today, that's 5 correct. 6 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. So there's an amount of water 7 that Stockton East could take and use as we go into 1999 8 and into the future at some point in time building it up; 9 is that correct? 10 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. And may I explain why we can't 11 use -- 12 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Well, that -- 13 MR. STEFFANI: -- the full amount from the get-go? 14 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Good, because that was going to be 15 my next question. Go ahead, please, explain, Mr. Steffani. 16 MR. STEFFANI: And I think I did talk about this my 17 first day that -- 18 C.O. CAFFREY: Before you answer that question, 19 Mr. Steffani, hold your thought, don't let me stifle you, 20 but we're going to go off the record for just a minute for 21 a consultation. 22 MR. STEFFANI: Sure. 23 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you. 24 (Off the record from 10:07 a.m. to 10:09 a.m.) 25 C.O. CAFFREY: We're back. And do you remember the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7034 1 question, Mr. O'Laughlin? 2 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: I was going to ask Mr. Steffani to 3 explain to us why they presently cannot use 150,000 4 acre-feet of water within Central and within Stockton East. 5 He was going to supply an answer. 6 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Most of this water would be used 7 by ag. And ag will not go to the expense of building a 8 surface water distribution system until ag has some 9 assurance that that water will be there consistently. And 10 that's the problem, that that consistency isn't there yet. 11 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Am I correct in understanding that 12 one of the ways that Stockton East is looking at addressing 13 making sure that payments could be put into place in order 14 to support a surface-water distribution system is raise the 15 groundwater tax within its boundaries? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 17 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And where is that legislation 18 to allow Stockton East to increase its taxing on the 19 groundwater basin, on the groundwater pumping? 20 MR. STEFFANI: It's nowhere at the moment. As the 21 Board knows, we are I believe -- 22 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: You can explain that. Why don't we 23 go through it? 24 MR. STEFFANI: Okay. Stockton East I believe is the 25 only district in the world that has a cap on what it may CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7035 1 charge its ag customers for groundwater and surface water. 2 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Oh, no there are others. 3 MR. STEFFANI: Are there some others? All right. 4 Good, I'm glad to know we're not alone. This cap was 5 placed in 1979 legislation that broadened the district and 6 broadened its powers. It allowed these ag groundwater 7 surface water rates to increase as fast as the CPI. The 8 current groundwater assessment is $3.37 an acre-feet, 9 that's as high as we can take that. The surface water is 10 right at 15 -- we could go to 18 or so. 11 The problem with increasing the surface water rate 12 is that you discourage the use of surface water. What we 13 ought to be doing is increasing the rate of groundwater, 14 but we can't do that because of this legislative cap. 15 We have talked about legislation that would, at least, 16 modify the cap, but as can be expected we run into 17 opposition from the ag community. And our local 18 legislators have refused to carry this kind of legislation 19 until we have some kind of local consensus. We're trying 20 to find that consensus now. 21 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: So a fair summation of that would be 22 that the farmers in Eastern San Joaquin County are pumping 23 groundwater, contributing to the overdrafted basin and, 24 yet, when it comes to looking for a cost mechanism to 25 ensure a safe, reliable supply of water, are unwilling to CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7036 1 step up to the table and pay that cost? 2 MR. STEFFANI: That's basically it. 3 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: All right. 4 MR. STEFFANI: They are telling us they will support 5 an increase if they knew exactly what that increase is 6 going to pay for. 7 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Now, in regards to -- I'm sorry, I 8 knew this was going to happen. I'll try to go back to the 9 Stanislaus stakeholders process now for just a second. 10 It is your understanding that when the Interim 11 Operations Plan was agreed to by the parties, that was not 12 going to be the long-term plan for New Melones; is that 13 correct? 14 MR. STEFFANI: That's correct. 15 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And, in fact, the stakeholders 16 agreed that we would all get back together and try to get a 17 long-term plan in place for New Melones; is that correct? 18 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 19 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And it's your understanding that 20 that process is presently underway; is that correct? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 22 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And, in fact, your Board has 23 now agreed to participate in the temperature model study 24 that will be started on December 1st of this year; is that 25 correct? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7037 1 MR. STEFFANI: The Board has agreed. We are 2 currently seeking the City of Stockton consent, also, 3 right. 4 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: You've run into a little problem 5 with the City of Stockton. There's a lawsuit ongoing about 6 what amount of monies can be expended from Stockton East 7 for certain matters pertaining to the Goodwin Project. And 8 that litigation is ongoing, so you need their assent in 9 regards to the expenditure of certain funds; is that 10 correct? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Yes. 12 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: But either the City or Stockton is 13 committed to moving forward to a long-term operation plan 14 for New Melones; is that correct? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And my understanding is that 17 Stockton East is also participating in the conjunctive-use 18 plan for the New Melones Project and the long-term 19 operation plan; is that correct? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 21 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And, in fact, Stockton East 22 is participating with fellow stakeholders in regards to the 23 fishery studies that would be necessary in order to 24 identify the instream needs of the Stanislaus River; is 25 that correct? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7038 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. And we are also funding 2 fishery-related projects on the Stanislaus, gravel 3 replacement projects, land acquisition, et cetera, in an 4 effort to improve the fishery. 5 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Right. In fact, one of your former 6 consultants, Mr. Carl Mesick who is now with U.S. Fish and 7 Wildlife Service had a project for gravel restoration and 8 identification in the Stanislaus River; is that correct? 9 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 10 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Now, you understand that as for 11 planning purposes, the Interim Operations Plan was included 12 within the San Joaquin River Agreement as a baseline; is 13 that correct? 14 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 15 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And Stockton East requested 16 clarifying language within the San Joaquin River Agreement 17 to make it absolutely clear that the Interim Operations 18 Plan would not foreclose the stakeholders coming to an 19 agreement on a long-term plan; is that correct? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 21 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. So my understanding, then, 22 from that is that the Stockton East Water District, in 23 order to look for consensus on the San Joaquin River, is 24 supportive of the San Joaquin River Agreement; is that 25 correct? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7039 1 MR. STEFFANI: That is still under consideration. 2 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. 3 MR. STEFFANI: And I say "still under consideration," 4 because we are dealing with our local contractors. It's 5 not just Stockton East, we're dealing with the City of 6 Stockton, Cal Water and the county. 7 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: All right. Have you received a 8 Letter of Support from the San Joaquin River Group 9 Authority to support groundwater recharge in Eastern San 10 Joaquin County? 11 MR. STEFFANI: I'm not sure -- 12 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: A letter from Mr. Allen Short that 13 was dated in July of 1998. 14 MR. STEFFANI: I'm sorry, Tim, I just don't remember. 15 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. That's fine. Have you 16 received support from the San Joaquin River Group Authority 17 and/or its members to support a deviation from your buildup 18 schedule within your contract with the United States Bureau 19 of Reclamation? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 21 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. Can you explain to the Board 22 what that deviation is in the buildup schedule for Stockton 23 East? 24 MR. STEFFANI: The contract provides that we pay a 25 minimum amount based on last year's use. Our concern is CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7040 1 that with an interim operating plan we may get water this 2 year and not get water next year, but we would still have 3 to pay for it. 4 Under a normal arrangement you could expect water 5 every year, every year so it would make sense to pay a 6 buildup schedule. But when you're not assured water every 7 year, then you'd be paying for something you wouldn't get. 8 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Right. And, in fact, so the San 9 Joaquin River Group Authority and its member unit support 10 you in asking the United States Bureau of Reclamation for 11 deviation from your buildup schedule in order for the 12 Interim Operations Plan to work and in order for the 13 Stockton East Water District not to be charged for water 14 that it would not otherwise receive? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: There is presently a contract that 17 exists between Oakdale Irrigation District, South San 18 Joaquin Irrigation and Stockton East Water District for a 19 transfer of up to 30,000 acre-feet a year to Stockton East 20 Water District and other member agencies within San Joaquin 21 County; is that correct? 22 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 23 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And presently that contract is in 24 the final stages of putting together the necessary CEQA 25 document to support that transfer; is that correct? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7041 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 2 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. And that transfer allows up 3 to 30,000 acre-feet of water per year -- 4 C.O. CAFFREY: Excuse me, Mr. O'Laughlin. 5 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Sure. 6 C.O. CAFFREY: Clarifying question from Mr. Brown. 7 MEMBER BROWN: Is that 30,000 acre-feet each, or 8 30,000 acre-feet total? 9 MR. STEFFANI: That's total. 10 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you. 11 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Thank you. In regards to the 30,000 12 acre-feet there is also -- even in critically dry years 13 there's a firm number of 8,000 acre-feet that would be 14 delivered to Stockton East Water District; is that correct? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And that's a ten-year contract with 17 a renewal for another ten years, correct? 18 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 19 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Now, my understanding is that 20 Stockton East Water District is presently and has been in 21 contact with Calaveras Water District in regards to 22 obtaining supplies, additional supplies from the Stanislaus 23 River via Angels Creek and into New Hogan; is that correct? 24 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 25 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. Are those discussions still CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7042 1 ongoing? 2 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 3 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Can you describe briefly for the 4 Board what that project is? 5 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Calaveras County Water District 6 has rights to water in the -- is it the north fork of the 7 Stanislaus, that can be conveyed to Angels Creek which then 8 flows into New Melones. 9 On its way between Angels Creek and New Melones it 10 passes a saddle, apparently a very low saddle that divides 11 the New Melones and Calaveras watersheds. So the idea is 12 to purchase some of this water from Calaveras Water 13 District, siphon it over from Angels Creek over into 14 Cherokee Creek which flows into New Hogan Reservoir. 15 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And that project is presently on 16 hold pursuant to a stipulation between Calaveras County 17 Water District, Oakdale Irrigation District and South San 18 Joaquin Irrigation District until the Bay-Delta proceedings 19 have some resolution in order that we can identify what the 20 impacts would be on the Stanislaus River; is that correct? 21 MR. STEFFANI: That's correct. 22 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: There's not a firm opposition to 23 that project, nor is there an agreement on it. It's "Let's 24 see what happens with Bay-Delta first and then let's see if 25 this makes sense to go forward with this project"; is that CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7043 1 correct? 2 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. I thought you were also asking 3 me about the other deal we're talking with Calaveras about, 4 Spicer. 5 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: No, I don't want to. 6 MR. STEFFANI: You don't want to talk about that? 7 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: No, I don't want to talk about that. 8 C.O. CAFFREY: Was that a policy statement? What was 9 that? 10 MEMBER FORSTER: Don't ask about that one. 11 C.O. CAFFREY: You fended that one well though, 12 Mr. O'Laughlin, thank you. 13 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: That's not on my dime, that's on 14 his. That will probably be coming out in these hearings at 15 a later date. 16 Another one, in regards to -- you stated earlier 17 in response to some questions by Mr. Minasian that the 18 problem in Eastern San Joaquin County can't be solved by 19 the ag area alone. What it really comes down to, isn't it, 20 is the fact that basically the ag area is pumping a greater 21 amount of water, using it but if you were to put on the 22 cost of building a project such as a 150-million-dollar 23 conjunctive-use project, or tying into the Folsom South 24 Canal, or doing some of these other projects that are 25 proposed, the cost to ag would be such that it would make CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7044 1 it extremely difficult for them to take that surface water 2 supply, or that in-lieu water for groundwater recharge? 3 MR. STEFFANI: That the cost would exceed their 4 payment capacity. 5 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. So what really needs to 6 happen in Eastern San Joaquin County is to identify a 7 program that we can all agree on and work toward wherein 8 identify the sources of water that could be made available 9 and what means -- the most cost-efficient method to 10 recharging the groundwater table in Eastern San Joaquin 11 County and sharing that on a statewide basis? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 13 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: And, then, if I understand the 14 responses to the questions posed by Mr. Minasian, Stockton 15 East would not be out looking to, i.e., take water from 16 other people, or have other people not take water supplies, 17 but it would be more in the vein of try and get something 18 within the county that would take place within the county 19 and within the confines of the area around the county to 20 meet the needs of the people within San Joaquin County? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 22 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Couple other quick ones. Presently 23 Oakdale Irrigation District drains water that is used 24 within Central San Joaquin Water Conservation District; is 25 that correct? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7045 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 2 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Has that amount of water ever been 3 identified? 4 MR. STEFFANI: I don't know. 5 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Okay. When is it planned that 6 Stockton East would begin taking water pursuant to the 7 water transfer with O.I.D. and SSJID? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Let's see, October of '99. 9 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Thank you. When do you expect to 10 hear back from your other parties within San Joaquin County 11 as to whether or not they support the San Joaquin River 12 Agreement? 13 MR. STEFFANI: Hopefully within a couple months. 14 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: I have no further questions. Thank 15 you very much. 16 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. O'Laughlin. It's about 17 10:25, so why don't we take our morning break now. And 18 then we'll come back and hear from Mr. Nomellini, 19 Mr. Shephard and Mr. Birmingham. 20 (Recess taken from 10:25 a.m. to 10:39 a.m.) 21 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. We're back on the record 22 and Mr. Nomellini is going to cross-examine Mr. Steffani. 23 Good morning, sir. 24 // 25 // CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7046 1 ---oOo--- 2 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STOCKTON EAST WATER DISTRICT 3 BY THE CENTRAL DELTA PARTIES 4 BY DANTE JOHN NOMELLINI 5 MR. NOMELLINI: Good morning. Mr. Chairman, Members 6 of the Board, Dante John Nomellini for Central Delta 7 Parties. 8 Mr. Steffani, I'd like to cover a little bit of 9 the area of the relationship between the Stockton East 10 Water District and the Bureau of Reclamation with regard to 11 the attempts to obtain water for Eastern San Joaquin 12 County. 13 I believe in your testimony, and I'm not 14 absolutely clear whether it was part of the direct or cross 15 or a mix, but you had indicated that Stockton East Water 16 District had attempted to obtain a contract for water from 17 the American River; is that correct? 18 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 19 MR. NOMELLINI: And was that in connection with the 20 Folsom South Canal Project? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: And did Stockton East negotiate a 23 contract with the Bureau to the point at which Stockton 24 East submitted and executed a contract to the Bureau? 25 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7047 1 MR. NOMELLINI: And what happened to that contract 2 when it was submitted by Stockton East Water District? 3 MR. STEFFANI: It went to Washington and it's still 4 sitting there. 5 MR. NOMELLINI: Did the Bureau of Reclamation execute 6 any contracts for water from the American River at the same 7 time that Stockton East was pursuing its contract? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 9 MR. NOMELLINI: And with whom did the Bureau execute 10 a contract for delivery of water from the American River? 11 MR. STEFFANI: East Bay MUD. 12 MR. NOMELLINI: So you would agree, then, that the 13 Bureau of Reclamation declined to execute a contract with 14 Stockton East Water District for water from the American 15 River, but, in fact, executed a contract with East Bay MUD? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 17 MR. NOMELLINI: Do you know how much water was 18 involved in the contract between the Bureau and East Bay 19 MUD from the American River? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 150,000 acre-feet of water 21 annually. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: Now, with regard to the New Melones 23 Project, do you know how it came about that the negotiation 24 for a contract by Stockton East with the Bureau of 25 Reclamation was instituted? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7048 1 MR. STEFFANI: How it was instituted, I know that in 2 the New Melones documents, these green books, there is 3 substantial discussion about Stockton East's efforts to 4 obtain American River water, how American River water would 5 be its permanent supply, et cetera, et cetera. 6 That the New Melones Project will be built. If 7 there is no demand for the New Melones water during this 8 interim period when the basin would build up, therefore, 9 this water ought to go to Stockton East until it can get 10 its ultimate supply from the American River. 11 MR. NOMELLINI: Do you know who actually initiated 12 the negotiation for the contract between Stockton East 13 Water District and the Bureau for New Melones' supply? 14 MR. STEFFANI: The Bureau. 15 MR. NOMELLINI: And how did they initiate that 16 negotiation? 17 MR. STEFFANI: As I recall there was a need for the 18 Bureau to show demand, to show a customer for New Melones 19 in order that the Bureau could obtain its permit from this 20 Board, the State Water Resources Control Board. 21 MR. NOMELLINI: So in order to show -- 22 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Nomellini. 23 MR. NOMELLINI: -- a beneficial -- 24 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Nomellini, excuse me for 25 interrupting you. I should have said something earlier CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7049 1 before we came back from the break. 2 I was reminded earlier that Ms. Harrigfeld had 3 said on the record a week or so ago, when last we met, that 4 Mr. Steffani would need to leave this morning at 11:00. 5 That's not to limit you, but he will have to leave around 6 11:00 for a Board meeting. 7 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 8 C.O. CAFFREY: And we'll have him back first thing in 9 the morning to complete cross-examination. So when 10 Mr. Steffani leaves, I believe we will hear from -- we'll 11 finally get to your case in chief, Mr. Shephard. You've 12 been waiting a long time. 13 MR. NOMELLINI: That's fine with me. Just get up and 14 leave, Ed, when you have to. 15 C.O. CAFFREY: That wouldn't stop you from asking 16 your questions? 17 MR. STEFFANI: Somebody has to tell me that, because 18 my watch battery just bit the dust. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: Go ahead, Mr. Nomellini. 20 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. So then as I understand 21 your testimony and you can confirm that, the Bureau of 22 Reclamation initiated negotiations with Stockton East Water 23 District for this contract for water delivery from New 24 Melones in order to establish a beneficial use of water 25 that would support their application for a water right CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7050 1 permit from this very Board for that problem? 2 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 3 MR. NOMELLINI: Now, you explained in answer to other 4 questions that the contract with Stockton East is for 5 interim water; is that correct? 6 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 7 MR. NOMELLINI: And isn't it true that it's only 8 interim with respect to demands within the basin and the 9 contractual provision related to the South Delta Water 10 Agency; is that correct? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 12 MR. NOMELLINI: So it's not in any way an interim 13 contract vis-a-vis a contract, for example, between the 14 Bureau of Reclamation and the Westlands Water District, is 15 it? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Correct. 17 MR. NOMELLINI: Now, the word "watershed" and "basin" 18 were interchanged in the cross-examination by Mr. Minasian. 19 There is a difference, is there not? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 21 MR. NOMELLINI: And that the basin determination for 22 New Melones by the Department of Interior is not, in fact, 23 synonymous with the watershed of the Stanislaus; is that 24 correct? 25 MR. STEFFANI: That is correct. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7051 1 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. And the watershed is, in 2 fact, larger than the defined basin? 3 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 4 MR. NOMELLINI: Now, what was the date of your 5 contract with -- 6 MR. STEFFANI: December of 1983. 7 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. And at some point in time 8 you indicated that the Bureau had notified Stockton East 9 Water District that it was ready to deliver water pursuant 10 to the contract? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 12 MR. NOMELLINI: Do you recall when that was, what 13 year? 14 MR. STEFFANI: January '89, I believe. Yes, January 15 '89 was the effective date. 16 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. And at that time the 17 Bureau notified Stockton East that they had a certain 18 number of years in which to construct a conveyance facility 19 and begin receiving the delivery of water pursuant to that 20 contract; is that correct? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. We had five years. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: All right, that was five years. And 23 then Stockton East and Central both had contracts at that 24 time. Do you know whether or not Central received the same 25 type of notification? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7052 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, we both received identical 2 notification. 3 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. And then what did you do 4 at that point in time with regard to efforts to construct a 5 conveyance facility? What was your first step? 6 MR. STEFFANI: To arrange financing. 7 MR. NOMELLINI: And what did that entail? 8 MR. STEFFANI: It's entailed a bond issue. 9 MR. NOMELLINI: And it also entailed negotiation of 10 contracts with the City of Stockton, Cal Water Service and 11 San Joaquin County, did it not? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Exactly. 13 MR. NOMELLINI: And that took a considerable period 14 of time and a great amount of effort? 15 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. Tremendous amount of effort. 16 You were involved quite a bit as I recall. 17 MR. NOMELLINI: And, in fact, Stockton East and 18 Central had to buy part of the Goodwin Dam Project in order 19 to facilitate a delivery system therefrom; is that correct? 20 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. We had to purchase a one-third 21 interest in Goodwin Dam. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. And, in fact, you had to 23 resolve a lawsuit with my fellow wag Mr. Minasian with 24 regard to whether or not you could construct the conveyance 25 facility; is that correct? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7053 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 2 MR. NOMELLINI: How many years did it take from the 3 notification of the Bureau that they were ready to deliver 4 water to the point in which you had a conveyance facility 5 that could take the conveyance of water from New Melones? 6 MR. STEFFANI: Four years. We were ready in early 7 '93. 8 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. Did the Bureau during 9 that four-year period at any time tell you that it was no 10 longer interested in delivering water to you from the 11 Stanislaus River? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Nope. 13 MR. NOMELLINI: Was there any indication that the 14 Bureau was going to take all the water supply from New 15 Melones and let it down the river for fish purposes? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, 17 just the contrary. During '92 there was a legislative 18 effort, the CVPIA, the Bradley Miller bill. We were 19 concerned. We were told by the Bureau, "Don't worry about 20 it. CVPIA will not impact the Stanislaus; this is a 21 separate system." So we didn't worry about it. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: Now, when did Stockton East first 23 notify the Bureau of Reclamation that it was ready to take 24 the delivery of water pursuant to its contract from the 25 Stanislaus? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7054 1 MR. STEFFANI: I believe it was early '93, January, 2 February, something like that. 3 MR. NOMELLINI: You recall what amount of water was 4 requested? 5 MR. STEFFANI: I don't remember, but we did place an 6 order. 7 MR. NOMELLINI: And did you receive a response from 8 the Bureau to that placement of the order? 9 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 10 MR. NOMELLINI: What was the response? 11 MR. STEFFANI: There would be no water available. 12 MR. NOMELLINI: Was there a reason given as to why 13 there would be no water available? 14 MR. STEFFANI: 200,000 acre-feet would be taken from 15 the Stanislaus during '93 pursuant to the CVPIA. 16 MR. NOMELLINI: Was there any indication -- 17 C.O. CAFFREY: Excuse me, Mr. Steffani. 18 MEMBER FORSTER: Would you say that again, what you 19 just said? 20 MR. STEFFANI: The Bureau told us that there would be 21 no water available for us because 200,000 acre-feet would 22 be taken that year from the Stanislaus River pursuant to 23 the legislation, the Central Valley Project Improvement 24 Act. You remember that act takes 800,000 acre-feet of CVP 25 yield for other purposes. And they told us they were going CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7055 1 to take 200,000 of the 800 from the Stanislaus. 2 MR. NOMELLINI: At that time when they told you that 3 they were going to take 200,000 from the Stanislaus, did 4 they indicate that they were going to take 200,000 from the 5 American and 200,000 from Sacramento? 6 MR. STEFFANI: No, they didn't. 7 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. At some point in time 8 were you informed by the Bureau of their plan to take 9 200,000 acre-feet from the American and 200,000 from the 10 Sacramento? 11 MR. STEFFANI: I have a vague recollection of that, 12 yes. 13 MR. NOMELLINI: But you don't know what the timing 14 was? 15 MR. STEFFANI: No, I don't. 16 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. With regard to the 17 200,000 that the Bureau was going to take from the 18 Stanislaus River for CVPIA purposes, was there any 19 representation at that time that the water was going to be 20 used solely for instream-flow purposes in the Stanislaus? 21 MR. STEFFANI: There was no indication. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. Was it your understanding 23 that the water was to be used for a much broader purpose 24 than instream-flow purposes in the Stanislaus? 25 MR. STEFFANI: I don't think we ever really knew what CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7056 1 that 200,000 acre-feet was supposed to do. We asked some 2 very specific questions about that 200,000 acre-feet at a 3 meeting in June of '93. The Stockton East Board called a 4 special meeting. We held a meeting at the Farm Bureau. We 5 had representatives of the Bureau and Fish and Wildlife 6 there to try to answer these questions: Why did you take 7 the 200,000 acre-feet? Where is it going? Why is it that 8 now all of a sudden we don't have any water? And we 9 couldn't get any specific answers. 10 They told us, generally, that, well, we need the 11 200,000 acre-feet for fish in the Stanislaus. And when we 12 pushed them for specifics, we asked them, "Well, what 13 science was involved? What reasons do you have for using 14 this water? When will it be released? What days? For 15 what?" 16 We were given no answers except one that I will 17 never forget given by Mr. Jim McKellid of the Fish and 18 Wildlife Department. That they had gotten together, and I 19 don't know who the "they" was. They had gotten together a 20 few days before our meeting and had written something on 21 backs of envelopes. This was their science for determining 22 the need for the 200,000 acre-feet. 23 MR. NOMELLINI: And with regard to the -- 24 MR. CAMPBELL: I'd like to object to that answer on 25 the grounds that it's hearsay. And I understand that under CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7057 1 certain circumstances hearsay is admissible in this 2 proceeding, but I'd like to remind the Board that hearsay 3 testimony cannot form the basis of a finding by the Board. 4 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Campbell. The Board is 5 well-aware of the regulations under which it must -- I'm 6 going to repeat myself, because I had my mic off. Thank 7 you for reminding me, Mr. Stubchaer. 8 I want to thank Mr. Campbell for his reminder to 9 the Board, how we think under the regulations, but his 10 answer is his answer. And the regulation under which the 11 Board operates does allow hearsay under certain situations. 12 And your objection is on the record, Mr. Campbell. And the 13 question and the answer will also stay on the record for 14 the Board's consideration at a later date. 15 Go ahead, Mr. Nomellini. 16 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. Going back to the June 17 1993 meeting, did Stockton East make a request for a 18 limited amount of water to be delivered at that meeting? 19 MR. STEFFANI: I think we did. 20 MR. NOMELLINI: You remember asking for 10,000 21 acre-feet? 22 MR. STEFFANI: I thought it was more like 30,000 -- 23 MR. NOMELLINI: Okay. 24 MR. STEFFANI: -- but it may have been. 25 MR. NOMELLINI: And what was the response to that? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7058 1 MR. STEFFANI: It was not available. 2 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. At some point in time, I 3 guess -- were you here for the testimony of Lowell Ploss? 4 MR. STEFFANI: Just for parts of it. 5 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. And are you aware that 6 the total amount of water allocated from New Melones for 7 instream-flow purposes ranges from, well, I'll say it's 0 8 to about 467,000 acre-feet? 9 MR. STEFFANI: I am aware of that, yes. 10 MR. NOMELLINI: When did you first become aware that 11 the Bureau was contending that that flow, the range from 0 12 to 467,000 acre-feet, was solely for the purpose of 13 instream-flow purposes on the Stanislaus? 14 MR. STEFFANI: I guess when I first read the AFRP 15 fish doubling document. 16 MR. NOMELLINI: Okay. And when was that? 17 MR. STEFFANI: I guess a year ago, maybe. 18 MR. NOMELLINI: Prior to that time was there ever a 19 representation by the Bureau that that amount of water was 20 needed for instream-flow purposes on the Stanislaus? 21 MR. STEFFANI: Not that I'm aware of. 22 MR. NOMELLINI: Okay. Do you know how the per capita 23 use of water in San Joaquin County compares to per capita 24 use in Riverside County? 25 MR. STEFFANI: It's probably half, half as much. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7059 1 MR. NOMELLINI: How about San Bernardino County? 2 MR. STEFFANI: Maybe we're a third. 3 MR. NOMELLINI: I'm not going to ask about Monterey 4 County. How about the evapotranspiration rates for 5 agricultural purposes, do you know how they compare between 6 San Joaquin County and the desert areas of California? 7 MR. STEFFANI: We're much lower. 8 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. Are you aware of an 9 ordinance in San Joaquin County that limits new development 10 beyond the 1968 General Plan unless there is a 11 demonstration of where the water is going to be provided 12 from? 13 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, I am. 14 MR. NOMELLINI: Is there any other county in 15 California that you're aware of that has a similar 16 ordinance? 17 MR. STEFFANI: No, I'm not aware of any other county 18 that has a similar ordinance. May I elaborate a bit on 19 that so that the Board understands that this ordinance -- 20 and I should have said something earlier this morning when 21 we were talking about this. The ordinance prohibits new 22 development which would use more water than the ag which it 23 is displacing. So there's no increase in use. 24 MR. NOMELLINI: Okay. Are you going to take off at 25 11:00? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7060 1 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 2 MR. NOMELLINI: I have a couple more questions, but 3 rather than drag him -- it's just short. 4 C.O. CAFFREY: Is it like four or five minutes' worth 5 or more? 6 MR. NOMELLINI: Well -- 7 MR. STEFFANI: No, go ahead. 8 C.O. CAFFREY: I'll leave it up with you, 9 Mr. Steffani, if you've got five more minutes we might be 10 able to complete with Mr. Nomellini, but I don't want to -- 11 it's your call. 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes, let's do it. I'll just have to 13 drive faster. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: Don't want you to do that. 15 MR. NOMELLINI: All right, let me just shorten it up. 16 C.O. CAFFREY: Go ahead, Mr. Nomellini. 17 MR. NOMELLINI: Stockton East Water District is in -- 18 well, did you hear the testimony of Lowell Ploss with 19 regard to his admission that Stockton East Water District 20 was in an area immediately adjacent to the Stanislaus River 21 watershed? 22 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 23 MR. NOMELLINI: And do you agree that it is in an 24 area immediately adjacent to the Stanislaus River 25 watershed? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7061 1 MR. STEFFANI: Absolutely. 2 MR. NOMELLINI: And do you agree that it can be 3 conveniently served with water from the Stanislaus River? 4 MR. STEFFANI: Sure can. We've got a great 5 conveyance system in place. 6 MR. NOMELLINI: And it's already been paid for, 7 right? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Well, we're paying for it. 9 MR. NOMELLINI: The contractors are paid, but the 10 consumers are now paying the bill? 11 MR. STEFFANI: Right. 12 MR. NOMELLINI: In your answers to Mr. Minasian's 13 question about not wanting to take water away from 14 contractors down in the valley, you indicated that you 15 thought that the best solution was to develop sufficient 16 supplies so everybody could be given water. 17 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 18 MR. NOMELLINI: Is it the Stockton East Water 19 District's position that they should not be given an area 20 of origin priority since they are in the watershed of the 21 Stanislaus? 22 MR. STEFFANI: No. 23 MR. NOMELLINI: In the area immediately adjacent 24 thereto, excuse me. 25 MR. STEFFANI: No, that's not our position. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7062 1 MR. NOMELLINI: So you would prefer not to have 2 somebody else lose water to provide water to your district, 3 but your legal position is that you're entitled to that 4 preference, is it not? 5 MR. STEFFANI: That is correct. 6 MR. NOMELLINI: Is part of the Stockton East Water 7 District in the legally defined Delta? 8 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 9 MR. NOMELLINI: And are you aware that the Delta is 10 defined by law to be part of the watershed of the 11 Sacramento River? 12 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 13 MR. NOMELLINI: And do you believe that the portion 14 of Stockton East Water District that's in the Delta should 15 be provided the protections of the Delta Protection Act? 16 MR. STEFFANI: Yes. 17 MR. NOMELLINI: All right. That's all. 18 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you very much, 19 Mr. Nomellini. 20 Thank you, Mr. Steffani. And we'll see you first 21 thing in the morning, then, sir, at 9:00 and we'll finish 22 the cross-examination. 23 MR. STEFFANI: Very well. 24 C.O. CAFFREY: Drive safely, not too fast. 25 MR. STEFFANI: Thank you. I will. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7063 1 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, sir. 2 Mr. Shephard, are you ready to put on your case in 3 chief, sir? 4 MR. SHEPHARD: We are. 5 C.O. CAFFREY: Good morning and welcome to you. 6 MR. SHEPHARD: Thank you. 7 C.O. CAFFREY: You've waited a long time. 8 ---oOo--- 9 DIRECT TESTIMONY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 10 OF JOHN PULVER 11 BY TOM SHEPHARD 12 MR. SHEPHARD: Tom Shephard on behalf of the San 13 Joaquin County and the San Joaquin County Flood Control and 14 Water Conservation District. At this point we want to 15 expand Mr. Pulver's earlier testimony in this hearing with 16 particular relevance to this phase. 17 C.O. CAFFREY: May I ask you, Mr. Shephard, is your 18 case in chief for this phase going to be the presentation 19 of Mr. Pulver only? 20 MR. SHEPHARD: It is. 21 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you. Good morning, 22 sir. 23 MR. PULVER: Good morning. 24 MR. SHEPHARD: Mr. Pulver has been sworn and his 25 professional background has been set forth in San Joaquin CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7064 1 Exhibit 1 previously admitted in this proceeding. Exhibit 2 13 is Mr. Pulver's testimony today. Mr. Pulver has two 3 minor typographical corrections to his testimony which he 4 will make. 5 MR. PULVER: Those corrections are on Page 10 of the 6 testimony. There's reference to SJC Exhibit 20, Page 1, 7 and that should be SJC Exhibit 19, Page 1. And also 8 there's a second reference that's exactly the same in 9 the -- on the same page, first paragraph, that should have 10 been a 19 rather than 20. 11 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Pulver. Let me say 12 something to you that probably doesn't need to be said, but 13 I'll say it for the record anyway. I know you've been here 14 many, many days of these proceedings. There is a 15 limitation of 20 minutes on your direct, because it is a 16 summary of the exhibits that you've already presented. And 17 we've been strict about that. 18 We have no limit on cross-examination as long as 19 it's relevant, but we will time you for 20 minutes for this 20 presentation. If we interrupt you with a question, that's 21 on our time. We'll stop the clock both for the question 22 and your answer. 23 MR. PULVER: Thank you. 24 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, sir. Please, proceed. 25 MR. PULVER: I am John Pulver, Water Resources CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7065 1 Coordinator of San Joaquin County. And I'm a registered 2 civil engineer. I'm now ready to summarize my testimony. 3 The proposed alternatives which are before the 4 State Board are proposed to meet the salinity objectives at 5 Vernalis in substantial part through the provision of 6 dilution water from New Melones Reservoir. 7 Any action taken by the State Board should not 8 place the entire burden of meeting the salinity standard of 9 the San Joaquin River and the Delta through dilution from 10 the Stanislaus River. The State Board should be concerned 11 with the quality of water in the San Joaquin River upstream 12 of Vernalis as well. 13 The historical position of San Joaquin County 14 regarding the salinity problem of the San Joaquin River and 15 possible water quality releases from New Melones has been 16 consistent since 1960. My testimony presents the struggle 17 of San Joaquin County to meet its water supply needs and 18 its relation to salinity in the Lower San Joaquin River. 19 In 1960 the Federal New Melones Project 20 reauthorization was being considered by congress. And the 21 support of San Joaquin County was deemed critical to the 22 approval of a federal project. The historical position of 23 the county regarding New Melones and its relation to the 24 San Joaquin River and the Bay-Delta has been consistent, 25 continues today and is applicable to these proceedings. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7066 1 That history is presented in my testimony. 2 In April of 1973 the State Board issued Decision 3 1422. That decision was based on the assumption that the 4 USBR would release up to 70,000 acre-feet of water to 5 maintain the mean monthly TDS concentration in the San 6 Joaquin River below the mouth of the Stanislaus River at 7 500 parts per million and to main at least five parts per 8 million of dissolved oxygen in the Stanislaus River. 9 The USBR estimated at that time that releases 10 required to meet these water quality objectives would not 11 exceed 70,000 acre-feet maximum until about year 2075. The 12 water quality releases not to exceed 70,000 acre-feet in 13 addition to the planned 98,000 acre-feet of fish flow 14 releases. 15 As the State Board is well-aware, rulings have 16 been made, circumstances have changed, administrative 17 interpretation of new law has occurred that has changed the 18 ability of San Joaquin County interests to obtain a water 19 supply from the Stanislaus River and has changed the 20 operation of New Melones Reservoir. In addition, San 21 Joaquin River water quality has been significantly degraded 22 by high salinity drainage from water discharged into the 23 San Joaquin River from the wetlands and agricultural areas 24 in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. 25 The San Joaquin County Board has long supported CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7067 1 the construction of a San Joaquin Valley out-of-basin 2 drainage system. In addition the Delta exporters are 3 reaping the benefits of New Melones release without 4 implementing sufficient mitigation measures. 5 The New Melones Interim Operations Plan 6 implemented by the USBR is providing water from New Melones 7 for use in the San Francisco, Sacramento, San Joaquin, 8 Delta estuary. These additional flows are permitted to be 9 recaptured at the export pumps. The use of New Melones 10 water for export purposes is in direct violation of the 11 place of use limitation to the four-county area of 12 Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Calaveras and Tuolumne Counties 13 under the New Melones permit. 14 These practices which allow those who are the 15 cause of salinity problems of the San Joaquin River and 16 thus creating the need for freshwater releases from New 17 Melones to receive additional benefits in the form of 18 increased exports should not be tolerated by the Board. 19 Your Board should take no action which would harm 20 the opportunity for San Joaquin to meet its long-term water 21 supply needs in a way which is contrary to the area of 22 origin and Delta protection statutes and the San Joaquin 23 River Protection Act. As has been presented and repeated 24 for almost 40 years by San Joaquin County, it is essential 25 that water quality on the San Joaquin River be adequately CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7068 1 restored and maintained consistent with state law. 2 The sole remedy of San Joaquin River salinity 3 should not be by required releases from New Melones 4 Reservoir. Those upstream who irrigate and provide saline 5 drainage water to the river should help solve the problem 6 rather than placing the burden on those who are protected 7 by the various protection statutes. The San Joaquin River 8 does not stop at Vernalis. That concludes my summary of 9 the testimony. 10 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you very much, 11 Mr. Pulver. Anything else for direct, Mr. Shephard? 12 MR. SHEPHARD: Nothing else for direct. 13 C.O. CAFFREY: All right, sir. Then we can go to 14 cross-examination. By a showing of hands, who wishes to 15 cross-examine this witness? Mr. Gallery -- let's get these 16 down, Mr. Gallery, Mr. Minasian, Ms. Cahill, 17 Mr. Birmingham. Anybody else? All right. We have 18 Gallery, Minasian, Cahill and Birmingham. 19 Mr. Gallery, you wish to begin. While Mr. Gallery 20 is coming up, I want to announce that due to the schedules 21 of the Board Members, we're going to take a bit of an 22 indulgence on the schedule. We're going to start the lunch 23 hour, should I say, about 20 to 12:00 and we will return 24 around 1:30. That's a little longer than usual, but it's 25 necessary today. Hopefully that helps you with your CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7069 1 planning in advance. 2 Good morning, Mr. Gallery. 3 MR. GALLERY: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. 4 ---oOo--- 5 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 6 BY TUOLUMNE UTILITIES DISTRICT 7 BY DAN GALLERY 8 MR. GALLERY: Dan Gallery for Tuolumne Utilities 9 District. Mr. Pulver, in your -- in the San Joaquin County 10 Exhibit Number 19, it's the document that's called "Record 11 of Decision, April 20th, 1981," adopted by the Commissioner 12 of Reclamation. 13 And that document makes reference to -- it states 14 that the Commissioner adopts the alternative plan Number 2 15 as presented in the special report on the Stanislaus River 16 basin alternatives dated December 1980, and the final 17 supplement to the Final Environmental Statement, FES 80-33 18 dated September 12th, 1980. I want to hand you a copy of 19 the first document. It's one of the green covered 20 documents that we've been talking about. And that is the 21 final special report that's referred to in the Record of 22 Decision. 23 Are you familiar with that document? 24 MR. PULVER: In general, yes. 25 MR. GALLERY: Good. And you do understand that the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7070 1 Record of Decision which adopts Basin Number 2 is referring 2 to this report, special report which is incidentally 3 Tuolumne Utilities District Number 9, Exhibit Number 9? 4 MR. PULVER: Yes, it does. 5 MR. GALLERY: And are you familiar with Plate Number 6 7 in that document which depicts the adopted basin Number 7 2? 8 MR. PULVER: That's the one on -- 9 MR. GALLERY: That's the one I've put up on the 10 screen. 11 MR. PULVER: Yes. 12 MR. GALLERY: The Plate Number 7, which is a part of 13 TUD Exhibit 9 and which is up on the screen, Mr. Pulver, is 14 TUD Exhibit Number 10, also. 15 Directing your attention to Plate Number 7 up on 16 the screen, TUD Exhibit Number 10, Mr. Pulver, do you 17 recognize that it depicts the boundaries of the Stanislaus 18 River basin which were adopted by the Secretary? 19 MR. PULVER: Yes. The limit's on shown in blue on 20 that. 21 MR. GALLERY: Yes. Perhaps, you could take the 22 pointer and direct it to a couple of the matters I wanted 23 to ask you about. And do you understand, also, that 24 congress itself directed the Secretary in the authorization 25 for the New Melones Project to determine the basin needs? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7071 1 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's true. 2 MR. GALLERY: And so it was necessary, was it, for 3 the Secretary to determine what the basin was in order to 4 determine the needs? 5 MR. PULVER: Exactly. 6 MR. GALLERY: And the basin boundaries are shown in 7 blue, I believe? 8 MR. PULVER: That's correct, yes. 9 MR. GALLERY: Now, you would agree with me that the 10 basin east of San Joaquin County, the basin includes a 11 large part of Calaveras County and also a large part of 12 Stanislaus County? 13 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 14 MR. GALLERY: And then as the basin boundaries come 15 into San Joaquin County on the lower left they include 16 Stockton East -- I'm sorry. They include Oakdale 17 Irrigation District and South San Joaquin Irrigation 18 District? 19 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's correct. 20 MR. GALLERY: And then Central San Joaquin is shown 21 just outside the basin to the north? 22 MR. PULVER: Yes. Maybe I should point those out. 23 MR. GALLERY: Go ahead. Central San Joaquin -- 24 MR. PULVER: This is the basin limit here. And this 25 is -- county line is about in here someplace and -- yeah, CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7072 1 here it is. And then this includes the South San Joaquin 2 and Oakdale Irrigation District. This is the Central San 3 Joaquin Water Conservation District and this is the 4 Stockton East. 5 MR. GALLERY: And the last two districts are outside 6 of the basin? 7 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 8 MR. GALLERY: Yes. And then there is also some 9 territory within San Joaquin County that to the east of San 10 Joaquin is within the, quote, basin; is that correct? 11 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 12 MR. GALLERY: That's indicated in red? 13 MR. PULVER: These areas. 14 MR. GALLERY: Yeah. And a part of that is within 15 Stanislaus County as well, is it not? 16 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 17 MR. GALLERY: And also to the south there is an area 18 indicated as Cooperstown subarea within the basin? 19 MR. PULVER: Yes. 20 MR. GALLERY: That's not within any district within 21 Stanislaus County; is that correct? 22 MR. PULVER: It's within Stanislaus County. I don't 23 know its district. 24 MR. GALLERY: But it's not taking any water from the 25 New Melones at the present time? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7073 1 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding. That's 2 correct. 3 MR. GALLERY: In fact, the only entities taking 4 Melones water would be Oakdale and San Joaquin Irrigation 5 Districts under their prior rights and plus some water 6 being taken by Central and Stockton East? 7 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's correct. 8 MR. GALLERY: And then San Joaquin County, then, 9 agrees that the Tuolumne Utilities District is within the 10 Stanislaus River basin; is that right? 11 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 12 MR. GALLERY: And San Joaquin County would also agree 13 that the water flowing into New Melones Reservoir, that the 14 counties of origin of that water are Tuolumne County and 15 Calaveras County; is that correct? 16 MR. PULVER: That has been -- yes. 17 MR. GALLERY: And that San Joaquin County agree that 18 the rights of Tuolumne Utilities District for some New 19 Melones water would come ahead of Central San Joaquin? 20 MR. PULVER: I believe that generally would be the 21 truth. Now, the Central -- Central contract allocated 22 located water on a firm basis to Central San Joaquin. So 23 the difference between the water available to Tuolumne 24 County and Central, I'm not exactly certain. 25 MR. GALLERY: Yeah. Well, the water that was CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7074 1 allocated to Central San Joaquin on a firm basis, the 2 49,000 acre-feet was thought to be excess to the ultimate 3 needs of the area within the basin; is that correct? 4 MR. PULVER: That's correct, yes. 5 MR. GALLERY: So that assumed that the basin needs 6 would be provided for out of New Melones? 7 MR. PULVER: That's correct, yes. 8 MR. GALLERY: And San Joaquin County would also agree 9 that the water that is needed by Tuolumne Utility District 10 is within the county of origin of the water of New Melones 11 Reservoir? 12 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 13 MR. GALLERY: That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you very much, Mr. Gallery. 15 Mr. Minasian. 16 MEMBER FORSTER: Is he taking his map away, 17 Mr. Chairman? Are you taking the map away? 18 MR. GALLERY: I'll leave it here, Ms. Forster. I'll 19 turn the light off unless Paul wants the light on. 20 C.O. CAFFREY: Did you want it left? Did you want to 21 study it some more? 22 MEMBER FORSTER: I want to ask a clarifying question. 23 C.O. CAFFREY: Sure. Go ahead. 24 MEMBER FORSTER: I want to make sure I understand 25 this basin for the New Melones Project. Am I to understand CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7075 1 that it's everything in this big blue line, including the 2 hot pink? 3 MR. PULVER: I don't know exactly what hot pink is. 4 MEMBER FORSTER: That's hot pink. 5 C.O. CAFFREY: The color at the bottom, Mr. Pulver, 6 is that -- 7 MEMBER FORSTER: Magenta. 8 MR. PULVER: The blue line is the limit of the basin. 9 The service to places like Central San Joaquin were with 10 water that was in excess to the needs of the basin. 11 C.O. CAFFREY: So the bright color at the bottom, the 12 magenta is outside the basin? 13 MR. PULVER: Outside the basin, yes. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: Okay. Thank you, sir. 15 MEMBER FORSTER: And was your testimony to 16 Mr. Gallery that there was no recognition of priority of 17 right in this whole basin when they were doing the project? 18 I misunderstood that when he asked a question about 19 Tuolumne priority. You hesitated and I didn't understand. 20 MR. PULVER: Maybe I didn't speak very clearly on the 21 issue, but the priority is to those areas within the basin 22 which does include the Tuolumne interests. 23 MEMBER FORSTER: Are they all equal priority? 24 MR. PULVER: Within the limits, yes, within the 25 boundary of the New Melones Project. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7076 1 MR. GALLERY: Perhaps, Ms. Forster, I could ask a 2 couple more questions of Mr. Pulver. 3 MEMBER FORSTER: Well, that's all I needed to know. 4 MR. GALLERY: Yes. The Oakdale and South San Joaquin 5 Districts are within the basin, are they not? 6 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 7 MR. GALLERY: But those two districts have old rights 8 that predate the rights for New Melones Reservoir? 9 MR. PULVER: Yes. 10 MR. GALLERY: So while they're within the basin and 11 entitled to the basin priority, they, in fact, are assured 12 their water supply by virtue of their old rights? 13 MR. PULVER: That's right. 14 MR. GALLERY: And so they, in effect, come ahead of 15 everybody else within the basin? 16 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding. 17 MR. GALLERY: And the basin itself was required -- 18 congress directed that the New Melones Project not use any 19 water outside of the basin until the needs of the basin are 20 first satisfied? 21 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding, yes. 22 MR. GALLERY: Thank you. 23 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Gallery. Now, we'll go 24 to Mr. Minasian. 25 // CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7077 1 ---oOo--- 2 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 3 BY THE EXCHANGE CONTRACTORS 4 BY PAUL MINASIAN 5 MR. MINASIAN: Mr. Pulver, as head of the County's 6 Public Works Water Division you've worked with the County 7 of San Joaquin for how many years? 8 MR. PULVER: Approaching ten years, nine years plus. 9 MR. MINASIAN: And had you become familiar with what 10 is referred to as the Brown and Coldwell Groundwater Model? 11 MR. PULVER: Yes. 12 MR. MINASIAN: And do you in your department 13 periodically put out reports in regard to the correlation 14 between the predictions of the model and the actual 15 conditions? 16 MR. PULVER: Twice a year we issue a status of the 17 groundwater basin report, which relates to depths to 18 groundwater. And once a year on the water quality, some 19 water quality issues. The correlation is -- to the Brown 20 and Coldwell a report is not specifically dealt with. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Can you provide us with your 22 professional judgment in regard to the correlation between 23 the Brown and Coldwell Groundwater Model and the conditions 24 that we are observing today? That is: Is the model a 25 pretty good fit and a pretty good protective tool still CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7078 1 today? 2 MR. PULVER: Yes, but let me just elaborate just a 3 little bit. That model was developed in the late '80s -- 4 or early '80s, actually, using state of the art modeling 5 techniques and understanding of how the groundwater system 6 actually worked. 7 More recently the Bureau of Reclamation and the 8 American River water resource investigation has developed a 9 more specific model that does not contradict but 10 compliments the work that was done on the Brown and 11 Coldwell report. So we have a much better working model 12 that is a three-dimensional model and relates the surface 13 water and the groundwater flow a much more usable tool than 14 the Brown and Coldwell. 15 But the Brown and Coldwell, the decisions, or the 16 directions that were obtained from the Brown and Coldwell 17 were very useful for defining problems within San Joaquin 18 County in achieving some direction in dealing with 19 developing the need, quantifying the need for supplement 20 surface water supplies. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Now, I noticed you attached to your 22 testimony the Brown and Coldwell Model and report in 1985. 23 MR. PULVER: Yes. 24 MR. MINASIAN: The later three-axis model that you 25 refer to, is that in a written form that could be supplied CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7079 1 to the Board? 2 MR. PULVER: It's public information. It was a part 3 of the American River water resource investigation. So the 4 Bureau of Reclamation has that document. 5 MR. MINASIAN: All right. Generally, what does that 6 model predict will happen at current conditions in regard 7 to the saline intrusion line, which we call the 300-part 8 chloride line? 9 MR. PULVER: It confirms the findings of the Brown 10 and Coldwell analysis that showed an increasing movement of 11 that saline front towards the east. 12 MR. MINASIAN: And the Board Members asked some 13 excellent questions, so let me try to do some cleanup. 14 When you have urban development on a piece of ground and 15 water is supplied to that ground, is there any recharge 16 from return flow from that particular urban use? 17 MR. PULVER: Certainly, there is assuming that there 18 is lawns or other land applications and so forth. 19 MR. MINASIAN: But the water that's used in the house 20 is basically piped off to a sewer plant; is that correct? 21 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 22 MR. MINASIAN: Whereas there is return flow and 23 recharge in the areas of agriculture to the east of the 24 City of Stockton? 25 MR. PULVER: That's correct. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7080 1 MR. MINASIAN: The Board Members asked a question as 2 to the increase of TDS of water between the outfall of the 3 sewer plant and the inflow. The City of Stockton is a very 4 historic area, is it not? 5 MR. PULVER: Yes, it is. 6 MR. MINASIAN: And it was historically served by 7 wells and pipelines within the old city area? 8 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 9 MR. MINASIAN: Now, the sources of surface water are 10 far away from the old city area, are they not? 11 MR. PULVER: Yes, they are. 12 MR. MINASIAN: And so to achieve fire flow and to 13 achieve pressures and to achieve reliability, is it 14 necessary to operate wells that, in fact, pull from 15 high-chloride levels? 16 MR. PULVER: Not to my knowledge. The wells that are 17 used are not in the high-chloride area as defined in the 18 current work that we have. 19 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. Can you help the Board 20 understand how the water increases from 60 to 100 parts to 21 700 parts? 22 MR. PULVER: Yeah, that's not an area of my 23 expertise. I would not be helpful. 24 MR. MINASIAN: Now, in terms of organization and 25 establishing a public will to address the problem of CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7081 1 groundwater overdraft in the area, does the City of 2 Stockton have a unique governmental structure in regard to 3 water planning -- excuse me, let me rephrase that. 4 Does the County of San Joaquin have a unique 5 structure in terms of decision making on water issues? 6 MR. PULVER: Maybe -- I believe I understand, but let 7 me tell you what we have within the structure of the county 8 government to deal with water matters. 9 There is an advisory water commission which is 10 advisory to the Board of Supervisors that includes 19 11 different members representing all areas of interest within 12 the county, Environmental Fish and Wildlife, at large, the 13 districts, the cities, so there's a broad representation. 14 Then the Board of Supervisors also has a Board water 15 committee that specifically deals with water issues. 16 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. 17 MR. PULVER: From the government's point of view, 18 then, that's our internal organization. 19 MR. MINASIAN: The urban water supplies are basically 20 a function of Stockton East, Cal Water and the City of 21 Stockton who each have independent systems for distribution 22 of water? 23 MR. PULVER: Yeah. The County is a supplier of 24 domestic water supply within the Stockton area. That 25 portion of the supply is probably -- approximately 4 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7082 1 percent of the total amount. Those are the areas -- 2 unincorporated areas that are within the corporate limits 3 of the City of Stockton where the citizens have elected to 4 have the County provide that service. 5 MR. MINASIAN: In your observation, is it hard to 6 develop a political will to either connect to the State 7 Water Project through the peripheral canal or to develop 8 storage on the east side streams because of the political 9 structure of water decision making in San Joaquin County? 10 MR. PULVER: The simple answer is: It's difficult. 11 MR. MINASIAN: Is it more difficult than other 12 communities because of the structure? 13 MR. PULVER: I don't have a basis for comparison with 14 other communities. We have 17 water districts, 7 cities 15 which all have elected boards and councils which bringing 16 those entities together on a unified policy is a difficult 17 task. 18 MR. MINASIAN: And is the difficulty compounded by 19 the fact that the agricultural interests are generally 20 served with groundwater, the pumps of which are owned by 21 themselves rather than by a district or supplier? 22 MR. PULVER: Yeah, that is the case, that the 23 individual growers control their own pumping to their 24 surface areas. 25 MR. MINASIAN: Thank you. Thank you. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7083 1 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Minasian. 2 MEMBER FORSTER: I have a clarifying question. 3 C.O. CAFFREY: Yes. Ms. Forster has a clarifying 4 question of Mr. Pulver. 5 MEMBER FORSTER: I think when Mr. Steffani was here 6 he was saying that the charge for his district to the 7 agriculture users is $3 and something per acre-foot? 8 MR. PULVER: That's approximately correct. 9 MEMBER FORSTER: And the farmers do their own pumping 10 in his district, too? 11 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 12 MEMBER FORSTER: I think of you all as one region. 13 MR. PULVER: Well, each region has a different set of 14 rules. And all of Eastern San Joaquin County is not 15 included in organized districts. There are portions of the 16 county that are not in an organized district. So that's an 17 official complication that comes under the direction of the 18 Flood Control and Water Conservation District which is the 19 Board of Supervisors of the County. 20 So Mr. Steffani spoke about the fee that -- 21 extraction fee that Stockton East charges and the concern 22 with limitations in regard to that fee. Other districts 23 have similar types of arrangements, but none have a cap or 24 the upper limit on the fee like Stockton East Water 25 District has. Some don't charge anything at all. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7084 1 MEMBER FORSTER: Now, do you charge in your area for 2 pumping, a pumping fee? 3 MR. PULVER: In the unorganized areas, which come 4 under the control of the Flood Control and Water 5 Conservation District, there is no charge. It's not -- 6 historically the Board of Supervisors has not been an 7 operational water management entity. The Mission Statement 8 of the Board is to support the districts in the management 9 of water -- of water supply. 10 The limited areas, and before just recent times 11 they were believed to not be lands that would be irrigated, 12 that's the reason they're not in an organized district, 13 there has not been a management issue at all. In recent 14 times there has been utilization of those areas for 15 increased wine grape production that is not as concerned 16 about the on-level land. And there has been some pumping 17 of groundwater. That is a problem that has not been 18 resolved yet to get some kind of an organized-management 19 scheme consistent with what the other districts are doing. 20 MEMBER FORSTER: Is it common in the areas that 21 you're associated with to have a groundwater management 22 plan, or is everybody sort of their own master? 23 MR. PULVER: Of the districts on the east side, and 24 there's six major districts on the east side of the county, 25 basically that area between the county line and, say, I-5 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7085 1 that generally runs north south through the county. 2 Of those districts all of them except one have 3 groundwater management plans, which are consistent with the 4 so-called AB 3030, Groundwater Management Concept. It's a 5 concern to get those coordinated, and we continue to work 6 in coordination of those groundwater management plans. 7 MEMBER FORSTER: And in your opinion, have you seen a 8 lot of improvement since 3030 came into effect? 9 MR. PULVER: No. 10 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Do you actually have 3030 plans, 11 or do you just actually have statutory authority to do 12 management that's comparable to 3030? 13 MR. PULVER: No. Five of the six districts on the 14 east side do have adopted AB 3030 plans. 15 MEMBER DEL PIERO: They do. 16 MR. PULVER: They have gone through all the required 17 process under the law. 18 MEMBER FORSTER: Thank you. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Ms. Forster, Mr. Del Piero. 20 I think what we'll do with only five minutes left before 21 the time that we have to break, let's just call it a 22 morning now. And then we'll be back at 1:30. And we'll 23 hear from Ms. Cahill and then Mr. Birmingham. Thank you. 24 (Luncheon recess.) 25 ---oOo--- CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7086 1 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1998, 1:30 P.M. 2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 3 ---oOo--- 4 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. We are back and, 5 Ms. Cahill, if you would like to cross-examine Mr. Pulver 6 now. 7 MS. CAHILL: Yes, thank you. Who had the overhead 8 that was being used? 9 C.O. CAFFREY: Was that Mr. Gallery's? I think it 10 was. Mr. Gallery, do you have your overhead, again? 11 C.O. STUBCHAER: Do you want to rent it to this -- 12 MR. GALLERY: For Ms. Cahill's benefit I learned how 13 to put it on correctly the first time. 14 MS. CAHILL: Thank you, saving her from certain 15 embarrassment. 16 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Mr. Gallery. 17 MS. CAHILL: Virginia Cahill on behalf of the City of 18 Stockton. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: Good afternoon. 20 ---oOo--- 21 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 22 BY THE CITY OF STOCKTON 23 BY VIRGINIA CAHILL 24 MS. CAHILL: I have a few questions, Mr. Pulver. On 25 this overhead that we've been discussing before, is it true CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7087 1 that when the Secretary went to determined what entities 2 would be in the basin he considered several different 3 combinations of districts in the areas? 4 MR. PULVER: Yes. I believe this report lists, as I 5 recall, at least three alternatives. 6 MS. CAHILL: And this was just one of those 7 alternatives; is that right? 8 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 9 MS. CAHILL: And was one of the reasons given for not 10 including Central San Joaquin Water Conservation District 11 and Stockton East Water District for not including them in 12 the basin, the fact that it was expected at that time that 13 they would ultimately receive water from the American 14 River? 15 MR. PULVER: Yes. At that time they were in the 16 service area of the Auburn/Folsom South Project. 17 MS. CAHILL: And I think this has been already 18 answered, the basin is not conterminous with the watershed? 19 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 20 MS. CAHILL: The Secretary could have chosen 21 different combinations? 22 MR. PULVER: That's correct. This is purely, what I 23 would call, political nonhydrological. 24 MS. CAHILL: In fact, is what the Bureau did is they 25 looked at the yield that they expected and then saw how far CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7088 1 that yield would go to cover the entities that were in the 2 basin and then how much yield was left that could be 3 allocated to other entities? 4 MR. PULVER: That's generally what they did. The 5 area was limited to the four-county area for service. And 6 then if there were water beyond that, beyond the service 7 area then -- that's my understanding of the way that the 8 Central San Joaquin Water Conservation District got into 9 the picture, if there was water. 10 MS. CAHILL: And to the extent that the supply 11 supplied Stockton East and Central San Joaquin interim -- 12 was intended to be until development within the basin 13 occurred that would then displace that use; is that right? 14 MR. PULVER: For the Stockton East Water District, 15 that's my understanding, correct. 16 MS. CAHILL: And also for the interim portion of the 17 Central contract? 18 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 19 MS. CAHILL: Central also has 49,000 acre-feet? 20 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's correct. 21 MS. CAHILL: And what has been the growth and demand 22 in the counties of origin? Have they contracted for that 23 water so far? 24 MR. PULVER: To my knowledge that growth has not been 25 appreciable to this time. I don't know of any additional CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7089 1 contracts that have been given to those areas. 2 MS. CAHILL: Do you think the growth has been less 3 than what was expected at the time? 4 MR. PULVER: I have never really done a comparison, 5 but my guess would be that it's probably been very slow. 6 MS. CAHILL: Okay. And Stockton East and Central, 7 are they immediately adjacent to the watershed of the 8 Stanislaus? 9 MR. PULVER: Yes, they are. 10 MS. CAHILL: And they can be conveniently served 11 therefrom? 12 MR. PULVER: Clearly. 13 MS. CAHILL: Thank you. No other questions. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, Ms. Cahill. 15 Mr. Birmingham. Good afternoon, sir. 16 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Good afternoon. And may the record 17 reflect that after having been admonished at the last Water 18 Board meeting I did not state a single objection this 19 morning. 20 C.O. CAFFREY: Well, who said a thing like that? I 21 can't remember who admonished you, but I trust it wasn't 22 me. 23 MEMBER DEL PIERO: You've got an fan in the back of 24 the room. 25 ---oOo--- CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7090 1 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY WATER DISTRICT 2 BY WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT 3 BY THOMAS BIRMINGHAM 4 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Mr. Pulver, my name is Tom 5 Birmingham. I'm the attorney that's representing Westlands 6 Water District in connection with these proceedings. And I 7 have just a few questions for you. 8 THE AUDIENCE: Can you pull the mic toward you. 9 C.O. CAFFREY: I think it's loose. If it's not 10 loose, swing it around. 11 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Mr. Pulver, your testimony states on 12 Page 2, and your testimony is San Joaquin County Exhibit 13 13, that the historical position of San Joaquin County 14 regarding New Melones and its relation to the San Joaquin 15 and Bay-Delta has not changed. Is that correct? 16 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Your written testimony, San Joaquin 18 County Exhibit 13, covers a number of topics, the 19 historical position of the county regarding the use of New 20 Melones water for water quality purposes? 21 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's correct. 22 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Changed conditions since New Melones 23 was constructed? 24 MR. PULVER: I believe those are documented, that's 25 correct. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7091 1 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And the supplemental water supply 2 needs of the County of San Joaquin? 3 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's correct. 4 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Is it correct that the position of 5 the County of San Joaquin that any action taken by the 6 Water Board should not place the entire burden of meeting 7 salinity standards on New Melones in the manner of 8 freshwater releases to dilute the pollution that occurs 9 upstream of the confluence of the Stanislaus and San 10 Joaquin Rivers? 11 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And by that statement do you mean 13 that the county is opposed to the use of New Melones water 14 to improve water quality in the Lower San Joaquin River? 15 MR. PULVER: I don't believe the position is that 16 it's opposed entirely, but to be dependent on the 17 Stanislaus for that dilution is the concern. 18 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And is it your understanding that 19 that's been the historic position of the county that New 20 Melones should not be the exclusive source of water for 21 meeting water quality objectives in the Lower San Joaquin? 22 MR. PULVER: Yes. I believe that was the 23 understanding. I was trying to think of some policy that 24 specifically said that, but I can't think of one, but that 25 has been the understanding. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7092 1 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct that the county was 2 instrumental in obtaining congressional authorization for 3 the use of New Melones to achieve water quality objectives 4 in the Lower San Joaquin? 5 MR. PULVER: Initially in the formulation of the 6 project it was -- it was water that was dedicated for water 7 quality control that was supported by the Board of 8 Supervisors. 9 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And isn't it correct that the County 10 of San Joaquin's position was that it was instrumental in 11 obtaining that authorization from congress to use water for 12 that purpose? 13 MR. PULVER: It was part of the New Melones Project 14 and the Board was instrumental in getting those approvals 15 done for the New Melones. 16 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Do you have a copy of San Joaquin 17 County Exhibit 17 with you? 18 MR. PULVER: Probably. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: What is San Joaquin County Exhibit 20 17? 21 MR. PULVER: It's entitled "Opening Brief of San 22 Joaquin County Flood Control and Water Conservation 23 District in Regard to Matter of United States Bureau of 24 Reclamation Oakdale/South San Joaquin Irrigation District." 25 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I'd like to look at Page 3 of San CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7093 1 Joaquin County Exhibit 17. Under the title, releases from 2 New Melones Reservoir are required to enhance water quality 3 in the San Joaquin River below the mouth of the Stanislaus 4 River and in the channels of the southeastern Delta. 5 Is it correct, Mr. Pulver, that it states, 6 (Reading): 7 "As a result of reduced flows in the San Joaquin 8 River there has been a steady increase in the 9 concentration of salts and total dissolved 10 solids at Vernalis"? 11 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's what it says. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: What was the cause of the reduced 13 flows in the San Joaquin River? Let me ask the question 14 differently: Is it correct that one of the causes of 15 reduced flows in the San Joaquin River was the construction 16 of Friant Dam? 17 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's my belief. 18 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And then further down on Page 3 of 19 San Joaquin County Exhibit 17 it states, 20 (Reading): 21 "This continuing decline in water quality in the 22 Lower San Joaquin River was the prime reason for 23 the provisions of the New Melones Authorizing 24 Act establishing water quality improvement as an 25 authorized purpose of the project." CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7094 1 Did I read that correctly? 2 MR. PULVER: Yes, you did. 3 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And then the next sentence says, 4 (Reading): 5 "San Joaquin County District and many other 6 local districts were instrumental in obtaining 7 the special provisions at the federal level." 8 MR. PULVER: That's what it says, correct. 9 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And is it your understanding that 10 San Joaquin County as well as other local agencies were 11 instrumental in obtaining the special provision referred to 12 on Page 3 of San Joaquin County Exhibit 17? 13 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding from the 14 testimony that was presented here as part of the New 15 Melones Development Project. 16 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Now, on page -- 17 C.O. CAFFREY: Excuse me, Mr. Birmingham, Ms. Forster 18 has a question. 19 MEMBER FORSTER: The document that you're using to 20 cross-examine this witness, I'm a little confused. This 21 special provision on Page 3 does that refer back to the 22 congressional authorization for water quality control, is 23 that the same, one in the same? 24 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Let me ask that question of the 25 witness. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7095 1 Mr. Pulver, it's your understanding that in the 2 County's opening brief where it makes reference to the 3 special provision it's referring to the congressional 4 authorization allowing the use of water from New Melones to 5 meet water quality objectives in the Lower San Joaquin 6 River; is that correct? 7 MR. PULVER: That's correct, that's my understanding. 8 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And so the county was instrumental 9 in obtaining special authorization from congress to use 10 water in New Melones for this purpose? 11 MR. PULVER: Yes. That was -- yes. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And that was to mitigate, the reason 13 that the county obtained that special authorization was to 14 mitigate the affects of lower flows on water quality in the 15 San Joaquin River? 16 MR. PULVER: That's correct, in part. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And among the causes of those lower 18 flows was construction of Friant Dam? 19 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding. That's 20 correct. 21 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So at the time the county filed this 22 brief in 1973, that is the date of this brief, isn't it, 23 Mr. Pulver, February 1, 1973, which I believe is contained 24 on Page 8 of San Joaquin County Exhibit 17? 25 MR. PULVER: Yes, it's dated February 1st, 1973. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7096 1 That's correct. 2 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So at the time this brief was filed 3 it was the position of San Joaquin County that New Melones 4 Reservoir was authorized in part to mitigate impacts of 5 Friant Dam? 6 MR. PULVER: To provide for the water quality in the 7 Lower San Joaquin River, that's right. 8 MR. BIRMINGHAM: That's correct, isn't it? You 9 trailed off there at the end. 10 MR. PULVER: Yeah. That was to mitigate those -- 11 that portion of the water was to mitigate water quality 12 concerns in the Lower San Joaquin. 13 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Some of which were caused by the 14 construction of Friant Dam? 15 MR. PULVER: That would be correct. 16 MR. BIRMINGHAM: On Page 7 of San Joaquin County 17 Exhibit 13, and this is in the first full paragraph second 18 line, it states, 19 (Reading): 20 "The county urged that the New Melones Reservoir 21 was the last source of positive downstream flows 22 to provide water needed in the Delta to enhance 23 the recreation and fish and wildlife potential 24 of the area." 25 MR. PULVER: I haven't found where you are. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7097 1 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I'm looking at San Joaquin County 2 Exhibit 13, your testimony, Page 7. 3 MR. PULVER: Okay. Sorry. Yes. What was the point 4 you were referring to again? 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: In the first full paragraph it 6 states, 7 (Reading): 8 "The county urged that the New Melones Reservoir 9 was the last source of positive downstream flows 10 to provide water needed in the Delta to enhance 11 the recreation and fish and wildlife potential 12 of the area." 13 Is that correct? 14 MR. PULVER: That's what it says, yeah. 15 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Now, by that do you mean that the 16 county urged that New Melones was the last source of water 17 to which entities should look to achieve those purposes? 18 MR. PULVER: No. That was the last opportunity for a 19 source of water supply. 20 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And that is also stated in San 21 Joaquin County Exhibit 17 on Page 4; is that correct, 22 Mr. Pulver? 23 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's also stated in there. 24 That's right. 25 MR. BIRMINGHAM: It states on Page 4 of San Joaquin CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7098 1 County Exhibit 17 in the first full paragraph, 2 (Reading): 3 "New Melones Reservoir is the last source of 4 positive downstream flows to provide water 5 needed in the Delta to enhance the recreation 6 and fish and wildlife potential of that area." 7 Is that correct? 8 MR. PULVER: That's correct, that's what it says. 9 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And what that means, Mr. Pulver, is 10 that if the water for this purpose doesn't come from New 11 Melones, it won't come from anywhere; isn't that correct? 12 MR. PULVER: Well, not exactly. It just says it's 13 the last source of positive downstream flows. 14 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct, Mr. Pulver, that 15 in 1973 it was the county's expectation that all of the 16 water released to control salinity in the Lower San Joaquin 17 River would come from New Melones Reservoir? 18 MR. PULVER: I don't know the answer to that. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: On Page 6 of your testimony, 20 Mr. Pulver, San Joaquin County Exhibit 13, you make 21 reference to Decision 1422 of the State Water Resources 22 Control Board; is that correct? 23 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 24 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And in the bottom paragraph on Page 25 6 of San Joaquin County Exhibit 13 you state, CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7099 1 (Reading): 2 "Decision 1422 was also based upon the 3 assumption that the Bureau's release of up to 4 70,000 acre-feet of water would maintain the 5 mean monthly TDS concentration in the San 6 Joaquin River below the mouth of the Stanislaus 7 at 500 parts per million maximum and to maintain 8 at least 5 parts per million of dissolved oxygen 9 in the Stanislaus River." 10 Is that correct? 11 MR. PULVER: That's what it says, yes. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And then further on Page 7 of San 13 Joaquin County Exhibit 13 it states, 14 (Reading): 15 "The water quality releases not to exceed 70,000 16 acre-feet were in addition to the planned 98,000 17 acre-feet of fish flow releases." 18 MR. PULVER: That's correct, that's what it says. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct, Mr. Pulver, that 20 in Decision 1422 the State Water Resources Control Board 21 did not establish a limit on the amount of water that was 22 to be released in order to meet water quality objectives in 23 the Lower San Joaquin River? 24 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding. I also note in 25 the testimony that there was a belief at that time that CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7100 1 that 70,000 acre-feet would meet the needs, water quality 2 objectives needs to the year 2075. So that cap was 3 there -- I mean, not a cap, but a number was there that was 4 not expected to be exceeded for sometime well into the 5 future. 6 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Do you have a copy of Decision 1422 7 with you, Mr. Pulver? 8 MR. PULVER: I believe I do. Let me dive into the 9 briefcase. 10 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Take your time, please. 11 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Mr. Stubchaer and I are arguing 12 over whether it was an attorney or an engineer that made 13 the 2075 figure. You might want to listen to that very 14 closely. 15 MR. PULVER: Being an engineer, I'm sure it was an 16 attorney. Yes, I have a copy of Decision 1422. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Could you refer, please, to Section 18 7 of Decision 1422 which I believe deals with the water 19 quality. I believe it's at approximately Page 11 of the 20 decision. 21 MR. PULVER: Yes, I have water quality, 7, yeah. 22 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Could you take a few moments, 23 Mr. Pulver, and review the first five paragraphs of that 24 section, which I believe actually is an entire section on 25 water quality. And when you're finished with your review, CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7101 1 let me know. 2 MR. PULVER: I've given it an once over, light. 3 MR. BIRMINGHAM: All right. It's correct, isn't it, 4 Mr. Pulver, that in this section of Decision 1422 reference 5 is made to the agreement between the Bureau of Reclamation 6 and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board 7 that the Bureau would release up to 70,000 acre-feet of 8 water in any one year to maintain a mean monthly TDS 9 concentration in the San Joaquin River below the mouth of 10 the Stanislaus at 500 parts per million, maximum? 11 MR. PULVER: Yes, that is referred to. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct, Mr. Pulver, that 13 the State Water Resources Control Board goes on to state 14 that the assumptions on which the agreement was based may 15 not be valid? 16 MR. PULVER: I don't see those exact -- yes, I do see 17 those exact words, yes. 18 MR. BIRMINGHAM: In fact, Decision 1422 states, 19 (Reading): 20 "However, the ability of the agreed upon 21 releases to accomplish the water quality 22 objectives depends upon the assumption that the 23 mean TDS concentration of water released from 24 New Melones will be 50 parts per million and 25 that the relationship between the flow and TDS CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7102 1 at Vernalis established by the U.S. Public 2 Health Service, Staff Exhibit 11, will continue. 3 These assumptions may not be valid." 4 MR. PULVER: Yes. That's correct. 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And doesn't the State Water 6 Resources Control Board go on to conclude that there is 7 little basis for concluding that the flow versus TDS 8 relationship at Vernalis is stable on a long-term basis? 9 MR. PULVER: Yes, that's stated in there. 10 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And isn't it correct that the State 11 Water Resources Control Board concluded that there is a 12 problem in predicting the affect of releases of project 13 water on water quality? 14 MR. PULVER: Yes. That's correct. 15 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And, then, ultimately doesn't the 16 State Water Resources Control Board conclude, 17 (Reading): 18 "That in view of the uncertainty inherent in the 19 problem of proper releases to protect water 20 quality any permits issued pursuant to subject 21 applications should contain an interim term 22 until further studies are made requiring 23 releases of conserved water from New Melones, 24 which will maintain a mean monthly TDS 25 concentration in the San Joaquin River at CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7103 1 Vernalis of 50-parts per million or less and a 2 dissolved oxygen concentration in the Stanislaus 3 River as specified in the Interim Water Quality 4 Control Plan without limitation"? 5 MR. PULVER: That's not in this section. 6 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Are there any statements of 7 limitation imposed on the amount of water that can be 8 released for this purpose? 9 MR. PULVER: No, there are not. 10 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And you would agree with me, 11 Mr. Pulver, that the State Water Resources Control Board 12 rejected the assumptions on which the agreement between the 13 Bureau of Reclamation and the Regional Water Quality 14 Control Board were based? 15 MR. PULVER: Clearly in here there's concern 16 expressed on meeting those standards. Along with a belief 17 that it would be difficult to meet these standards. I 18 believe at this same period of time there was an 19 expectation that a valley drain would be constructed to 20 deal with the salinity. And the final outcome of the 21 scenario as seen during the development, or outcome of 22 Decision 1422 was not altogether -- the vision of the 23 future was not exactly correct. 24 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Well, Mr. Pulver, your testimony 25 states on Page 6 that Decision 1422 was based on the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7104 1 assumption that a release of water of up to 70,000 2 acre-feet would maintain a TDS concentration below the 3 mouth of the Stanislaus River at 50 parts per million 4 maximum; isn't that correct? 5 MR. PULVER: That was the expectation, yes. 6 MR. BIRMINGHAM: That's what your testimony states? 7 MR. PULVER: Yes. 8 MR. BIRMINGHAM: But isn't it correct that when you 9 read the entire decision it's clear that Decision 1422 is 10 not based upon an assumption that only 70,000 acre-feet of 11 water will maintain TDS levels at a concentration of 500 12 parts per million maximum? 13 MR. PULVER: Well, it's my understanding that there 14 was concerns, long-term concerns about that 70,000 being 15 sufficient to meet those requirements. And that's in the 16 discussion. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So on Page 7 when you say the water 18 quality releases not to exceed 70,000 acre-feet were in 19 addition to the planned 98,000 acre-feet of fish flow 20 releases, the not to exceed 70,000 acre-feet is not 21 contained anywhere in Water Rights Decision 1422? 22 MR. PULVER: Not to exceed, yeah, that's too strong a 23 statement, that's correct. It was expected that that 24 70,000 would be sufficient to meet that need indefinitely, 25 2075. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7105 1 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Mr. Pulver, in your testimony, San 2 Joaquin County Exhibit 13, you make reference to the use of 3 New Melones water by exporters? 4 MR. PULVER: Yes. 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: By "exporters" do you mean water 6 users that rely on water exported from the Delta via the 7 Delta-Mendota Canal or the California Aqueduct? 8 MR. PULVER: Yes. 9 MR. BIRMINGHAM: In fact, your testimony states, 10 Mr. Pulver, that Delta exporters are reaping the benefits 11 of the New Melones releases without implementing sufficient 12 mitigation measures; is that correct? 13 MR. PULVER: I believe that's what the testimony 14 said. 15 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct, Mr. Pulver, that 16 at the time you drafted your testimony, San Joaquin County 17 Exhibit 13, you didn't know what mitigation measures were 18 being implemented by exporters? 19 MR. PULVER: To avoid the taking of additional water 20 for dilution, is that what your question is? 21 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Yes. 22 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 23 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Prior to coming to this Board 24 hearing you didn't know anything about the programs being 25 implemented by the Grassland drainers to reduce impacts of CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7106 1 their drainage on the water quality in the San Joaquin 2 River? 3 MR. PULVER: Not in any kind of detail that's for 4 sure. 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So in your testimony you state that 6 Delta exporters are reaping the benefits of New Melones 7 releases without implementing sufficient mitigation 8 measures, there really is no basis for that statement? 9 MR. PULVER: Well, that's not correct. There is 10 additional water that is being sent down the Stanislaus 11 that allows for additional water to be available for export 12 for use outside of the areas that were intended for 13 Stanislaus water, because of the decisions or the 14 additional water that's being sent down the river beyond 15 the originally intended amounts. 16 So someone is getting advantage of that. Somebody 17 is pumping that water. Somebody is moving that water and 18 it's not those people in the area of origin or service 19 areas. 20 MR. BIRMINGHAM: But on Page 13 you state, 21 (Reading): 22 "That the Delta exporters are reaping the 23 benefits of New Melones releases without 24 implementing sufficient mitigation measures." 25 That's what it states, isn't it, Mr. Pulver? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7107 1 MR. PULVER: That's what it says, that's correct. 2 MR. BIRMINGHAM: But you testified that you don't 3 know what mitigation measures are being implemented by 4 Delta exporters. 5 MR. PULVER: I'm not familiar with all of the -- or 6 if there are any. I mean my point here is that there's 7 being -- there's additional water that's being sent down 8 the Stanislaus that is being exported that is not being 9 used within the four county area. And that's a benefit to 10 someone else regardless of what safeguards are put in 11 there. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Let's examine each element of that 13 statement, Mr. Pulver. First, a few moments ago you said 14 that amounts were being released from New Melones in excess 15 of what was expected. It wasn't the State Water Resources 16 Control Board expectation to which you were referring, was 17 it? 18 MR. PULVER: Well, the decision deals with the 70,000 19 acre-feet expectation through a long period of time. 20 MR. BIRMINGHAM: But we established, haven't we, 21 Mr. Pulver, that the State Water Resources Control Board 22 rejected that 70,000 acre-foot expectation, because it said 23 the assumptions on which it was based were unreliable? 24 MR. PULVER: I don't know that it says "rejected." I 25 believe there are concerns expressed regarding the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7108 1 efficiency of the 70,000 acre-feet that was to be a 2 long-term water quality requirement. 3 MR. BIRMINGHAM: You've also stated that water is 4 being released from New Melones Reservoir for export. 5 MR. PULVER: It eventually ends up there. Not -- 6 it's water that's being released to meet other standards, 7 but there's an advantage being taken of that water. 8 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So if a few moments ago you said 9 water was being released for exports, that would have been 10 an erroneous statement; is that correct, Mr. Pulver? 11 MR. PULVER: I don't know if I said it was being 12 released for export. It's being released and taken 13 advantage of by the exporters. 14 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Please, listen to my question. If 15 you had said a few minutes ago that water was being 16 released for exports that would be an erroneous statement? 17 MR. PULVER: That would have been an erroneous 18 statement, that's right. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: In fact, water is being released by 20 the Bureau of Reclamation from New Melones to meet the 21 terms of its water right permits and to meet water quality 22 objectives contained in applicable water quality control 23 plans? 24 MR. PULVER: Those releases are being done as a lot 25 of interpretation of the Central Valley Project Improvement CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7109 1 Act that set -- where standards have been administratively 2 developed. And the Bureau of Reclamation is releasing 3 water to meet those administrative interpretations of the 4 standards, that's correct. 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Now, on Page 13 of your testimony, 6 Mr. Pulver, you state that, 7 (Reading): 8 "This practice which allows those who are the 9 cause of the salinity problems on the San 10 Joaquin River and, thus, creating the need for 11 freshwater releases from New Melones to receive 12 additional benefits in the form of increased 13 exports should not be tolerated by the State 14 Board." 15 What you're referring to there is the practice of 16 making releases in order to meet water quality objectives 17 for permit terms and conditions? 18 MR. PULVER: Well, it's probably more complicated 19 than that. If the goal and the concern expressed in the 20 testimony that too large dependence is put on the 21 Stanislaus River to meet those standards, then this is not 22 finding a solution to the salinity problems in the San 23 Joaquin River. 24 If there were other interim standards, other 25 sources of water to meet those salinity requirements, or CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7110 1 other places of stand -- meeting those salinity standards, 2 or if there were a valley drain, or out-of-basin drain, 3 then those solutions to the salinity problem would be 4 worked towards rather than having a dependency on the New 5 Melones to meet the Vernalis standards. 6 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I want to make sure, Mr. Pulver, the 7 point that you're trying to make through your testimony. 8 If the Bureau of Reclamation releases water from New 9 Melones Reservoir in order to meet minimum fishery flows in 10 the Stanislaus River, is it your position, the position of 11 the County of San Joaquin that that water can't be used for 12 any other purpose after it has been used for the intended 13 release purpose? 14 MR. PULVER: No, that's not the whole point. The 15 point is that there is an advantage being taken of those 16 releases for people outside of the area, the opportunity is 17 there and it's being done. There is a system that allows 18 for those kind of opportunities to exist is -- is 19 detrimental to the water interests within San Joaquin 20 County to meet their long-term water supply needs. 21 MR. BIRMINGHAM: If water is released from New 22 Melones Reservoir, Mr. Pulver, you'd agree with me -- let 23 me restate the question. 24 If water is released from New Melones Reservoir to 25 meet water quality standards in the Lower San Joaquin River CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7111 1 you would agree with me that that water is being used to 2 benefit San Joaquin County? 3 MR. PULVER: Yeah, that was the original intent that 4 up to this 70,000 acre-feet would be used for water quality 5 purposes and there are benefits within San Joaquin County. 6 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And, in fact, it was the County of 7 San Joaquin that almost insisted that that be a term of the 8 Bureau's permit? 9 MR. PULVER: That was supported at the time of the 10 permit, that's correct. 11 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Didn't the County of San Joaquin 12 take the position that its support for New Melones 13 Reservoir was contingent upon the use of water from New 14 Melones Reservoir -- 15 MR. PULVER: That was one of the items important in 16 the support of the New Melones Project. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I hadn't finished my question. 18 MR. PULVER: Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: The support of the county was 20 contingent upon the use of water from New Melones Reservoir 21 for the purpose of meeting water quality standards in the 22 Lower San Joaquin River? 23 MR. PULVER: My answer is the same. That was one of 24 the items included in the support, that's correct. 25 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And so, again, you'd agree with me CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7112 1 then that if water is released by the Bureau of Reclamation 2 to maintain water quality standards in the Lower San 3 Joaquin River that is a release which benefits San Joaquin 4 County? 5 MR. PULVER: There are benefits and that was foreseen 6 at the time that 1422 was under consideration. 7 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And if water is released from New 8 Melones Reservoir in order to maintain water quality 9 standards in the Southern Delta that is a use of water 10 which benefits San Joaquin County? 11 MR. PULVER: Well, there's certainly -- there's an 12 upper limit to that sort of use. And if -- however, the 13 70,000 was devised, at the time that it was determined the 14 intent was to provide for that additional water quality. 15 It was not the intent to put unlimited water down the 16 Stanislaus River to -- for a water quality purpose. 17 It was the intent to bring the water that was 18 available into Eastern San Joaquin County to alleviate, or 19 at that time to alleviate a portion of the water need of 20 that area. Of course, it was dependent on -- there was 21 expectation also at this time that the Folsom South Canal 22 would be constructed. And that was in people's minds at 23 the time of the development of this decision, or 24 considerations that were going on at that time. And that 25 was just part of the solution to meet the long-term water CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7113 1 supply needs of Eastern San Joaquin County. 2 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Mr. Pulver, you've indicated in your 3 testimony that you're a water resources coordinator for the 4 County of San Joaquin and you're a registered civil 5 engineer. 6 MR. PULVER: That's correct, that's my title. And by 7 training, I'm a civil engineer. 8 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And so, Mr. Pulver, you're generally 9 familiar with principles of California Water Law concerning 10 the use of water? 11 MR. PULVER: Generally familiar, that's correct. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Now, isn't it your understanding, 13 Mr. Pulver, that if water is used by an entity with a 14 permit to appropriate water for a particular purpose and 15 the water is then in a stream not being used for that 16 purpose it is available for appropriation by others? 17 MR. PULVER: Within the limits of the existing law 18 and the terms of that right that's given by this Board. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Well, if water is used by the Bureau 20 of Reclamation to maintain water quality standards in the 21 Lower San Joaquin River, it's using that water in a manner 22 that's entirely consistent with its water right permit, 23 isn't it? 24 MR. PULVER: I don't know the complete details, but 25 there are certainly limitations, administrative CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7114 1 interpretations on the use of that water. And there's 2 other State law that deals with that. 3 MR. BIRMINGHAM: But you are unaware of any 4 circumstances in which the Bureau of Reclamation has 5 released water from New Melones Reservoir so that water 6 could be exported from the Delta via the State Water 7 Project or the Delta-Mendota Canal? 8 MR. PULVER: Well, I don't really know what the 9 motives of the Bureau of Reclamation is, or what their 10 intent is. I see administrative interpretation of the 11 CVPIA that costs a lot of water to New Melones water. It 12 is released by the Bureau of Reclamation. The opportunity 13 is there to pick up that water for export outside of the 14 Delta. So I have seen no written documents that describe 15 that as an operating procedure by the U.S. Bureau of 16 Reclamation. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: All of the written documents that 18 you've seen describe the operating criteria of the Bureau, 19 describe conditions under which water would be released in 20 a manner consistent with the terms and conditions of the 21 Bureau's water right permits for New Melones? 22 MR. PULVER: I have never made a direct comparison, 23 or seen one that said that water use is directly consistent 24 with the Bureau's licenses or permits to divert and release 25 water. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7115 1 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I have just a couple of final 2 questions, Mr. Pulver. Are you familiar with the West Side 3 Irrigation District? 4 MR. PULVER: Very general. 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: West Side Irrigation District is 6 within the San Joaquin County? 7 MR. PULVER: I'm trying to remember the name of the 8 districts. There are a number of small districts that 9 divert water from the Delta-Mendota Canal in Southern San 10 Joaquin County and Northern Stanislaus County. I believe 11 that West Side District may be one of those. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Well, you've answered the point of 13 my question, Mr. Pulver. There are a number of water 14 districts which receive water from the Delta-Mendota Canal 15 that are within Stanislaus and San Joaquin Counties; isn't 16 that correct? 17 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 18 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I have no further questions. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, Mr. Birmingham. 20 Are there questions from the staff? 21 MR. HOWARD: No questions. 22 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you, sir. Anymore questions 23 from the Board Members? Nothing from the Board. 24 Mr. Shephard, do you have any redirect, sir? 25 MR. SHEPHARD: Yes, just a bit. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7116 1 C.O. CAFFREY: All right, sir. Please, proceed. 2 ---oOo--- 3 REDIRECT EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 4 BY TOM SHEPHARD 5 MR. SHEPHARD: Mr. Pulver, earlier there was 6 discussions and questions asked of you as to what San 7 Joaquin County, in particularly Eastern San Joaquin County 8 is doing to deal with their overdraft problem. Have any 9 organizations been created to deal with that problem? 10 MR. PULVER: Yes. The East San Joaquin Parties Water 11 Authority is an organization of seven entities within San 12 Joaquin County including the counties representation of the 13 Flood Control and Water Conservation District who would 14 have been -- who have joined together by a Memorandum of 15 Understanding for the sole purpose of developing projects 16 for dealing with the groundwater overdraft and developing 17 recharge projects. 18 MR. SHEPHARD: Have they used any money in planning 19 and developing the projects? 20 MR. PULVER: Oh, yes. There's been I think it's a 21 two-year operation. I estimate about a million dollars has 22 been expended in that period of time in test projects, 23 studies, investigations. 24 MR. SHEPHARD: I'd like to refer you now to Page 7 of 25 your testimony and the full paragraph in the middle of the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7117 1 page. Mr. Birmingham focused you on the first half of that 2 paragraph, but could you tell us what the second half says 3 following the "however"? 4 MR. PULVER: (Reading): 5 "However, it was not the position of the county 6 at the time that New Melones and Stanislaus were 7 the only source of downstream flow. It was, 8 certainly, not the position of San Joaquin 9 County that if higher releases were required for 10 the San Joaquin River they should be met 11 entirely by New Melones, thus eliminating water 12 availability for consumptive use. The county 13 does not then and does not now advocate that the 14 sole responsibility for salinity on the Lower 15 San Joaquin be the burden of the New Melones 16 Project." 17 MR. SHEPHARD: In part, do you understand that based 18 on the other concerns of San Joaquin County in 1973 which 19 are stated in your testimony as to, for example, a water 20 supply and flood control? 21 MR. PULVER: Yes, and that was the position at the 22 time and remains the position. 23 MR. SHEPHARD: Do you believe that the New Melones is 24 the only source of water to address the 500 parts per 25 million problem, that is to meet the 500-million standard CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7118 1 at Vernalis? 2 MR. PULVER: Certainly not. 3 MR. SHEPHARD: What are some of the other 4 alternatives? 5 MR. PULVER: There's other tributary streams on the 6 San Joaquin. There is recycling opportunities. There is a 7 valley drain opportunity. There's a number of 8 possibilities that have been discussed at this hearing that 9 could lead to salinity control in the San Joaquin other 10 than putting a large reliance on New Melones Reservoir. 11 MR. SHEPHARD: When you comment in your testimony on 12 the lack of mitigation by those using water in the west 13 side of the San Joaquin Valley, what is the basis of your 14 comment? Is it primarily the drain, or some other basis? 15 MR. PULVER: Well, the drain is clearly a mitigation. 16 It was foreseen as a solution to dealing with the salinity 17 issues. It's clearly a way to resolve these issues along 18 with probably additional supplemental water supply for the 19 entire area. 20 MR. SHEPHARD: I have no further questions. 21 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. And I thank you very much, 22 Mr. Shephard. 23 Do any of the parties wish to recross? 24 Mr. Birmingham, Mr. Minasian. Anybody else? I have the 25 two names: Mr. Birmingham and Mr. Minasian. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7119 1 All right, Mr. Birmingham. 2 RECROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 3 BY WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT 4 BY THOMAS BIRMINGHAM 5 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Mr. Pulver, Mr. Shephard asked you a 6 question in follow-up to some questions that I had asked 7 regarding the statements contained in your testimony on 8 Page 7. 9 MR. PULVER: Yes. 10 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Do you recall those? 11 MR. PULVER: Yes, I recall them. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Now, when I was cross-examining you 13 before I asked you the following question: In 1973 wasn't 14 it the County's expectation that all of the water released 15 to control salinity in the Lower San Joaquin would come 16 from New Melones? 17 Do you recall me asking you that question? 18 MR. PULVER: Yes, I do. 19 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And you said in response to my 20 question, "I don't know what the County's expectations were 21 in 1973." 22 Do you recall saying that? 23 MR. PULVER: No, I don't recall saying that. 24 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct, Mr. Pulver, that 25 with respect to the statements contained on Page 7 to the CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7120 1 effect that it was not the position of the county at the 2 time that New Melones and the Stanislaus were the only 3 source of downstream flows, you don't know whether that's a 4 correct statement or not? 5 MR. PULVER: It's my understanding that the 6 expectation was that New Melones was not the only answer to 7 the problem. I mean the drain had been talked about at 8 that time. There was other opportunities that had been 9 talked about. The degree to which expectations of other 10 tributary agencies -- tributary streams to the San Joaquin 11 discharging, I don't know any specifics of those. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So your testimony on Page 7 with 13 respect to the historical position of the county is not a 14 statement based on your personal knowledge, instead it's 15 based on things that you've been told? 16 MR. PULVER: Or read, that's correct. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Now, in response to another question 18 by Mr. Shephard about potential mitigation measures and 19 whether or not agricultural districts on the west side of 20 the San Joaquin Valley were implementing sufficient 21 mitigation measures, you made reference to the drain and 22 the fact that it has not been constructed? 23 MR. PULVER: That's correct, the drain has not been 24 constructed. 25 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Isn't it correct, Mr. Pulver, that CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7121 1 on Page 13 of your testimony you make reference to a 2 Federal Court judgment which found that the Bureau of 3 Reclamation is in violation of the San Luis Act by failing 4 to provide drainage? 5 MR. PULVER: Yes, that is part of the testimony. 6 That's correct. 7 MR. BIRMINGHAM: And isn't it your testimony that 8 Westlands Water District is the entity which obtained the 9 judgment to which you refer in your testimony? 10 MR. PULVER: That's my understanding. That's 11 correct. 12 MR. BIRMINGHAM: So you would agree that Westlands 13 Water District is doing what it can in order to cause the 14 Bureau of Reclamation to complete the drain? 15 MR. PULVER: I can't answer that. I don't know what 16 Westlands Water District can do. 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I have no further questions. 18 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, Mr. Birmingham. 19 Mr. Minasian. 20 ---oOo--- 21 RECROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 22 BY THE EXCHANGE CONTRACTORS 23 BY PAUL MINASIAN 24 MR. MINASIAN: Mr. Pulver, among the alternatives 25 that Mr. Shephard asked you, could I direct your attention CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7122 1 to the flood control function at New Melones Reservoir? 2 MR. PULVER: Yes. 3 MR. MINASIAN: And this ties into a question asked by 4 Vice-Chairman Stubchaer the other day. The total capacity 5 of the reservoir is 2,400,000 acre-feet? 6 MR. PULVER: Approximately that, yes. 7 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And are you aware that the New 8 Melones/Lake Stanislaus River, Volume I supplement to the 9 final Environmental Impact Report consider two alternative 10 means of operating the reservoir from flood control 11 function purposes? 12 MR. PULVER: I know that was very important at the 13 time, that's right. 14 MR. MINASIAN: I'm going to show you Page D-75 of 15 Volume I. And just to get the quantity of water that is 16 involved in the alternatives, do you see the title "Flood 17 Control"? 18 MR. PULVER: Yes, I do on Page D-74. 19 MR. MINASIAN: D-74. And do you see they're 20 examining two alternatives out of the 1.4 million, one 21 alternative is you use only 450,000 acre-feet for the flood 22 control reservation? 23 MR. PULVER: Yes, I see that. 24 MR. MINASIAN: And do you see the second one is 700 25 to 800,000? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7123 1 MR. PULVER: Let's see, I don't see the volume in the 2 second alternative here. 3 MR. MINASIAN: Here, right there. 4 MR. PULVER: Yes. There's an alternative that deals 5 with 874,000 acre-feet of flexible storage space in New 6 Melones. 7 MR. MINASIAN: And isn't it, in fact, the current 8 practice of the Army Corps of Engineers to dewater the 9 reservoir each year to maintain approximately 800 to 10 900,000 acre-feet of storage capacity for floods? 11 MR. PULVER: I don't recall those exact numbers on 12 that -- what that reservation of flood control is. 13 MR. MINASIAN: But you are aware that New Melones is 14 being operated to provide a large amount of flood 15 protection? 16 MR. PULVER: Yeah. 17 MR. MINASIAN: For the areas of San Joaquin County 18 and Stanislaus County lying downstream alongside the 19 Stanislaus River? 20 MR. PULVER: That's correct. 21 MR. MINASIAN: Okay. And has there been any 22 consideration by the San Joaquin interest in giving up some 23 of that flood protection and seepage protection in favor of 24 maximizing the water quantity benefits in New Melones 25 Reservoir? CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7124 1 MR. PULVER: I know of no one that is willing to 2 sacrifice the flood protection benefits of the reservoir. 3 MR. MINASIAN: Thank you. 4 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, Mr. Minasian. 5 Any recross from Mr. Howard or Ms. Leidigh? 6 MR. HOWARD: No. 7 C.O. CAFFREY: Thank you. Questions from the Board? 8 Ms. Forster. 9 ---oOo--- 10 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 11 BY THE BOARD 12 MEMBER FORSTER: When you were talking about other 13 streams that would help, would you name them? 14 MR. PULVER: A test here. 15 MEMBER FORSTER: See, they wouldn't let me ask when 16 it's going on, so we have to go back and review. Do you 17 remember? 18 MR. PULVER: Well, let me name at least two, the 19 Merced and Tuolumne are both streams that are tributary to 20 the San Joaquin River in addition to the regulation of 21 upstream flows. 22 C.O. CAFFREY: I can tell by the look on 23 Ms. Forster's face that she's probably not done yet. 24 MEMBER FORSTER: Well, I wanted to ask a big general 25 question about the drain, I think I will. I guess I wish I CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7125 1 had taken this opportunity with some of the other speakers. 2 MEMBER BROWN: Put your mic on. 3 MEMBER FORSTER: What I want to ask you: In your 4 opinion the drain has been a big topic of this whole Phase 5 V. In your opinion what is the biggest issue that blocks 6 the completion of this drain? 7 MR. PULVER: I would say the location of the outfall. 8 It's our preference in -- from the position taken by our 9 Board of Supervisors that that outfall be some ocean 10 outfall, out-of-basin outfall, someplace other than 11 Monterey. 12 MEMBER DEL PIERO: It wouldn't be in Monterey. 13 George Bush took care of that. 14 MR. PULVER: It may well be -- the -- I don't pretend 15 to be an expert on the drain, but I believe that there 16 probably are ways that that drain could be -- flows could 17 be concentrated and exported out of the basin someplace out 18 in the ocean that would not impact coastal uses. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: Hawaii? 20 MR. PULVER: Not Hawaii. 21 C.O. STUBCHAER: Halfway. 22 C.O. CAFFREY: Halfway to Hawaii. 23 MEMBER FORSTER: Thank you. 24 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Any other questions from 25 the Board? All right. Thank you, Ms. Forster. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7126 1 Let's see, that completes the case in chief except 2 for the offering of your exhibits. 3 Now, Mr. Shephard, I know Mr. Pulver has appeared 4 in other phases. So were you going to appear in, yet, 5 other phases and then just -- 6 MR. SHEPHARD: I don't anticipate that. 7 C.O. CAFFREY: So you want to offer your exhibits, 8 then? 9 MR. SHEPHARD: Yes, I do. 10 C.O. CAFFREY: Okay, sir. 11 MR. SHEPHARD: And I would offer as evidence in this 12 proceeding exhibit -- San Joaquin County Exhibits 13 13 through 23. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you, sir. We'll 15 take a look here. Does that synchronize with what you have 16 there, Mr. Howard? 17 MR. HOWARD: Yes, that's correct. 18 C.O. CAFFREY: All right, sir. Any objection from 19 any of the parties to the acceptance of the exhibits into 20 the record as described by Mr. Shephard? Seeing and 21 hearing no objection, your exhibits are accepted. 22 Thank you, sir, for presenting your case in chief. 23 Thank you very much, Mr. Pulver. 24 Mr. O'Laughlin, I had not forgotten you. 25 Mr. O'Laughlin had asked just when we broke for lunch if we CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7127 1 could have a little bit of a discussion about where the 2 scheduling is taking us from here. 3 So why don't you proceed, Mr. O'Laughlin, with 4 your question. 5 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Sure. My understanding is that we 6 have Mr. Steffani to finish tomorrow. 7 C.O. CAFFREY: Right. Let me add to that, a little 8 update to the cross-examiners. Mr. Shephard told me a 9 little while ago that he will not have any questions, so 10 that will just leave us with just Mr. Birmingham 11 cross-examining Mr. Steffani and staff and the Board, of 12 course. 13 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: So that should take approximately a 14 hour to hour and a half. 15 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Birmingham is shaking his head. 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: What? 17 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Maximum. 18 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Maximum of a hour. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: Maybe the other way then. 20 MR. BIRMINGHAM: I'm a reformed man. 21 C.O. CAFFREY: What have we done to you, Tom? 22 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: We should break him down. A 23 reformed man, I love this. 24 MEMBER DEL PIERO: What a day for announcements. 25 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Does the Board envision then CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7128 1 starting rebuttal cases tomorrow, or are we going to take a 2 break? Because looking at the scheduling, here's an idea 3 that I have: Finish up tomorrow, Thursday is not a hearing 4 day. 5 C.O. CAFFREY: That's correct. 6 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: But is a regular Board hearing day 7 for Water Right Order 95-06. If we can get the parties 8 tomorrow to identify who has rebuttal cases, get an order 9 identified and then start the next week with rebuttal 10 cases, we should start rebuttal cases in December and start 11 Phase II-A on the first hearing day in 1999. 12 C.O. CAFFREY: Which is January 11th. 13 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Yes, January 11th. My understanding 14 was there were six rebuttal case that needed to be done. 15 C.O. CAFFREY: I guess one question I would have 16 is -- of course, it may not be a fair question because we 17 haven't finished Stockton East's case in chief, so is 18 anybody capable at this point of saying that they would be 19 ready with the presentation of a rebuttal case tomorrow? 20 Mr. Minasian? 21 MR. MINASIAN: Not tomorrow. But Mr. Birmingham and 22 Mr. Sexton and I have talked. And what we were 23 preliminarily planning was to put on behalf of the Exchange 24 Contractors two rebuttal witnesses. And either 25 Mr. Johnston will go first, or Mr. Deveral and Mr. White CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7129 1 will go first. 2 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: But you don't want to start 3 tomorrow, do you, Paul? 4 MR. BIRMINGHAM: May I have a moment? 5 C.O. CAFFREY: Sure. Go right ahead. 6 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Mr. Chairman? 7 C.O. CAFFREY: Yes, Mr. Birmingham. 8 MR. BIRMINGHAM: We'll be prepared with our rebuttal 9 case in the morning. 10 C.O. CAFFREY: You will. All right. 11 MR. BIRMINGHAM: If that's the pleasure of the Board. 12 C.O. CAFFREY: Well, I think it would be helpful, 13 because we could at least get started. I appreciate 14 Mr. O'Laughlin's bringing up the schedule, but if somebody 15 is ready -- 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: That works, great. 17 C.O. CAFFREY: And if nobody else is ready, we can 18 still follow your suggestion. 19 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Well, the one witness we're going to 20 call will probably take the rest of the day. 21 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. 22 MEMBER FORSTER: Who? 23 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Half an hour maximum. 24 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Dream on. We're going to call 25 Mr. Bill Johnston tomorrow. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7130 1 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. 2 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: So that -- then, we finish up. We 3 do rebuttal for the rest of December. Hopefully start 4 Phase II-A on January 1st, 1999. 5 THE AUDIENCE: January 11th. 6 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: January 11th, excuse me. But my 7 next question is in the recent announcement made by the 8 State Board on the new hearing dates that were set, there 9 was a brief phrase made about having a hearing, or some 10 type of workshop, I forget the terminology, exactly in 11 January. 12 Are we going to brief that ahead of time and set a 13 specific date in January for a briefing ongoing from 14 phasing to implementable orders? 15 C.O. CAFFREY: Well, since I'm going to be home 16 painting my house at the suggestion of Mr. Nomellini who 17 might want to join me and help me -- 18 MR. NOMELLINI: I'm pretty good at that. 19 C.O. CAFFREY: Kidding aside, I can only make a 20 suggestion to Mr. Stubchaer and Fellow Board Members, I 21 happen to think that it would be a worthwhile thing to do, 22 the workshop that is. And it can be done without setting 23 aside a brand new meeting day. It can be done by just 24 saying on one of the listed hearing days: At 2:30 we're 25 going to start a workshop and run it for a couple hours. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7131 1 Now, the question as to whether it should be 2 briefed ahead of time, I have no aversion to that. I don't 3 know, Mr. Stubchaer, do you have any comments since you 4 will be chairing it at that time? 5 C.O. STUBCHAER: No comments. 6 C.O. CAFFREY: Okay. 7 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: The only reason that I ask is that 8 given the time frame, we're going to have Christmas and New 9 Years and then right away we're going to be into January -- 10 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Mr. Chairman? 11 C.O. CAFFREY: You mean you have families and you 12 want to make plans? 13 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: I know, it's a scary concept. 14 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Mr. Chairman, did we specify in 15 that order when that workshop would take place? 16 C.O. CAFFREY: No, we did not. 17 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: No, you said sometime in January. 18 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Did it say in January? 19 C.O. CAFFREY: I apologize. Did we say a date? 20 MS. LEIDIGH: No, there's no dates. 21 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: There's no dates set. 22 MS. LEIDIGH: And I thought it was early next year. 23 MEMBER DEL PIERO: That was my impression, too, that 24 it was like mid February to somewhere around the 1st of 25 March is what people were anticipating as opposed to CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7132 1 January. Am I wrong? 2 C.O. CAFFREY: Well, I think that that's sort of -- 3 MEMBER DEL PIERO: I mean I saw the draft on the 4 announcements. Were there changes to it at the end? 5 C.O. CAFFREY: You have a suggestion, Mr. O'Laughlin? 6 I get the impression that you were leading up to something. 7 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Yeah. I think the earlier we have a 8 hearing on that the better. We have been holding off 9 preparing and submitting a letter by numerous parties to 10 the proceeding to try to get the Board to move in a 11 direction to have that so we can understand the process by 12 which we would be moving from phasing into orders and 13 finalizing the CEQA documentation and how all this will tie 14 together before we get to a Phase VIII. And we just 15 thought the sooner the better for the parties. 16 C.O. CAFFREY: I think you raise an important point, 17 Mr. O'Laughlin, because if we're going to have a process 18 whereby we, the Board decides what its capabilities are 19 within the law, its regulations and CEQA, which is part of 20 the law, then, we ought to have that sooner than later, 21 because it may have a bearing on how you present your 22 cases. 23 So you raise an interesting point. Mr. Del Piero 24 also raises another very good one. If we decide to do that 25 on January 11th, everybody is going to be briefing through CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7133 1 the holiday season, which is probably not something that 2 anybody wants to do. So I would suggest we try to pick a 3 date right now maybe that works for everybody and then 4 maybe we can work towards that. So I assume your 5 recommendation would be, Mr. O'Laughlin? 6 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: The last hearing day in January 7 would be the one I suggest. 8 C.O. CAFFREY: The last hearing day in January which 9 is the 28th. 10 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Yeah. And then all parties could 11 have 15 days prior to the hearing to submit any written 12 document that they would want the Board to consider and 13 exchange it with the other parties. So that would be 14 January 13th. 15 C.O. CAFFREY: Mr. Jackson, you were going to -- 16 MR. JACKSON: I was just going to make an argument 17 for sometime late in February. It seems to me we have a 18 long way to go in this thing. II-A, there were nine cases 19 that I saw that I think were listed. VI and VII are going 20 to be extraordinarily long. It just seems to me that 21 there's no reason to be running back and starting briefing 22 in January with that much time left. 23 C.O. CAFFREY: Well, maybe I'm wrong -- 24 MR. JACKSON: So if I could ask that it be February. 25 C.O. CAFFREY: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to talk over CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7134 1 you, Mr. Jackson. 2 It seems to me, really isn't this more theoretical 3 than having it necessarily depend on what the evidence 4 actually is? 5 Ms. Leidigh, what do you think? 6 MS. LEIDIGH: Well, I think it's quite theoretical, 7 because I'm not quite sure what people would be addressing 8 in their briefs at this point. 9 MEMBER DEL PIERO: Yeah, without the evidence. 10 MS. LEIDIGH: Mr. O'Laughlin hasn't given us a letter 11 raising whatever issues it is that he wants to raise. So 12 I'm at a little bit of a loss. 13 C.O. CAFFREY: I use the term "theoretical" as 14 descriptive. I did not mean to value laden it. I meant it 15 as descriptive of what process we're seeking here. 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Right. 17 C.O. CAFFREY: And it seems to me that if we set a 18 date for a workshop, say, that takes place on the 28th of 19 January at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and everybody briefs 20 with regard to CEQA and whatever other law they may want to 21 reference as to what authority the Board has with regard to 22 phased decisions, et cetera, et cetera, that that's a 23 doable thing. 24 And then you could have a legal discussion about 25 what the extent of the law is. And you could have another CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7135 1 workshop a month later if you needed it, based on other 2 facts that may come to light through the evidentiary 3 record. 4 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: I agree with that entirely, 5 Chairman Caffrey, from the standpoint that -- remember in 6 April when we had the workshop, Mr. Del Piero and I had 7 extensive discussion about CEQA and how CEQA would work and 8 how it would move forward. 9 The San Joaquin River Group Authority, 10 subsequently, prepared and submitted an extensive document 11 and provided it to all the parties about how we would see 12 the State Water Resources Control Board was within its 13 authority and within the guidelines of CEQA and other 14 applicable laws moving forward to give orders. 15 Now, there are parties to the proceedings who 16 believe that the State Water Resources Control Board at all 17 does not have the authority to issue orders prior to Phase 18 VIII being completed, then certifying a CEQA document and 19 then issuing orders. 20 Now, I think that's a very important discussion, 21 because one of the things that we've talked about as part 22 of the San Joaquin River Agreement is that if the Board 23 would adopt the San Joaquin River Agreement, the parties to 24 the San Joaquin River Agreement do not want to participate 25 in Phase VIII and do not want to be here in Phase VIII. CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7136 1 And, in fact, the Board's order of proceedings 2 when it sent out the notice specifically said that the 3 Board would entertain entering orders. It didn't say it 4 would issue orders. I realize that theoretical discussion 5 that would have to take place based on the evidence that 6 would be submitted and whether or not it met the 7 requirements of the law in order for the Board to issue an 8 order. 9 But we clearly need to have an understanding about 10 whether or not you're going to issue orders before we get 11 to Phase VIII if the evidence is sufficient and if other 12 legal requirements are met. 13 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you. 14 Mr. Stubchaer? 15 C.O. STUBCHAER: No, I just hesitated. 16 C.O. CAFFREY: You want to go off the record for a 17 minute? 18 C.O. STUBCHAER: Yeah, let's go off the record for a 19 minute. 20 C.O. CAFFREY: Let's go off the record for a minute. 21 Thank you, Mr. O'Laughlin. 22 (Off the record from 2:45 p.m. to 2:49 p.m.) 23 C.O. CAFFREY: All right, we're back on the record. 24 We're going to have a little discussion among ourselves 25 that extends beyond today's process, or today's meeting and CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7137 1 then we'll come back tomorrow with a little more 2 enlightenment, but this goes more to the timing and the 3 scope and character of what a workshop would entail, not 4 whether or not we should have one. 5 So I think you make a good suggestion, 6 Mr. O'Laughlin. We want to talk a little bit more about 7 what's the best way to do it, whether it should be one, 8 whether it should be two, whether it should be sooner or 9 later, all of that. And there just isn't enough time to 10 really flush is out for us in the time that remains here 11 while we're keeping you all in abeyance. 12 So we'll get back to you. Mr. Stubchaer and I 13 will have something tomorrow, mostly Mr. Stubchaer because 14 he'll be the one continuing. So with that, then, I guess 15 that's about as far as we can go today. 16 MR. O'LAUGHLIN: Right. 17 C.O. CAFFREY: And we'll just be back tomorrow 18 morning as 9:00 o'clock and take it as far as we can -- 19 just a minute. 20 Mr. Sandino, you had something before we wind up? 21 MR. SANDINO: I may have missed it with your 22 discussion with Mr. O'Laughlin, but have you set an order 23 of the parties for rebuttal? 24 C.O. CAFFREY: No, we have not. In fact, we can 25 discuss that tomorrow. All we've done is that we've said CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7138 1 that Mr. Birmingham will be ready tomorrow along with I 2 believe -- who was he joining with, Mr. Minasian? 3 MR. MINASIAN: Yes. If you have this on your mind, 4 we could set a preliminary schedule, because we talked to 5 Mr. Herrick and Mr. Nomellini who were uncertain and some 6 other people. 7 C.O. CAFFREY: If you all want to get together and 8 then suggest a schedule to us. 9 MR. MINASIAN: Let us suggest the first three people. 10 C.O. CAFFREY: That would be fine. 11 MR. MINASIAN: It would be Mr. Johnston then on 12 Tuesday it would be Mr. White and Mr. Deveral and we'll 13 work around anybody else's schedule. 14 C.O. CAFFREY: That's fine. As long as there's no 15 objection from anybody, we'll accommodate the group. If 16 somebody has a problem you'll need to let us know. 17 All right, then, we'll come back and have 18 Mr. Birmingham on for cross-examination tomorrow of 19 Mr. Steffani and then we'll go to a little bit of rebuttal 20 anyway; is that right? 21 MR. BIRMINGHAM: Yes. 22 C.O. CAFFREY: All right. Thank you all very much. 23 (The proceedings concluded at 3:25 p.m.) 24 ---oOo--- 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7139 1 REPORTER'S_CERTIFICATE __________ ___________ 2 3 STATE OF CALIFORNIA ) ) ss. 4 COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO ) 5 I, MARY R. GALLAGHER, certify that I was the 6 Official Court Reporter for the proceedings named herein, 7 and that as such reporter I reported in verbatim shorthand 8 writing those proceedings; that I thereafter caused my 9 shorthand writing to be reduced to typewriting, and the 10 pages numbered 6992 through 7139 herein constitute a 11 complete, true and correct record of the proceedings. 12 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have subscribed this 13 certificate at Sacramento, California, on this 6th day of 14 December, 1998. 15 16 ________________________________ MARY R. GALLAGHER, CSR #10749 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CAPITOL REPORTERS (916) 923-5447 7140