AB 497: San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary Water Quality Control Plan: update: substitute environmental document: exemption.

The Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act establishes a statewide program for the control of the quality of all the waters in the state and makes certain legislative findings and declarations. Existing law establishes the State Water Resources Control Board to exercise the adjudicatory and regulatory functions of the state in the field of water resources. Pursuant to its authority, the board adopted the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta Plan) that, among other things, establishes objectives to protect the beneficial uses of the water and prevent nuisance within the waters specified in the Bay-Delta Plan.

Existing law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report (EIR) on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA, except as provided, when a regulatory program of a state agency requires a plan or other written documentation containing environmental information, authorizes that plan or other information to be submitted in lieu of the EIR if the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency has certified that regulatory program, as specified.

This bill would require the board to adopt an update to the Bay-Delta Plan that addresses the Sacramento River and its tributaries, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) eastside tributaries, and the Delta no later than August 31, 2026. The bill would exempt the board from the requirements to prepare, provide for review, transmit to state agencies, and include written or oral responses to comments on a specified draft substitute environmental document, as provided.