HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlanning Comm Reports/1993/12/01 (2)
BAY-DELTA OVERSIGHT COUNCIL
SOLUTION-FINDING PRo.CESS
Overview and Companion Description of
Schematic: .Phase I - Foundational Decisions.
The BDOC process can be divided into two distinct phases. Phase I includes the primary
wotk of the Council in building consensus on problems and objectives, evaluation criteria, and
alternatives. Phase II is the Environmental Documentation process that will be the responsibility
of the State and Federal lead and cooperating agencies. This summary focuses on Phase I.
OVERVIEW
Phase I of the BDOC process entails: [1] identification of problems and setting objectives
in relation to the identified problems so that their achievement wjll define a long-term solution;
[2] developing action options to achieve the objectives; [3] developing a broad range of
alternatives, each comprised of a combination of action options, targeted at achieving the full
range of objectives; [4] developing detailed evaluation criteria to measure whether the
recommended alternatives can meet the objectives; [5] screening the broad range of alternatives
against adopted evaluation criteria; and, [6] selecting the .best" alternatives for recoD1l1)endation
to the Water Policy Council for detailed examination through the CEQA/NEPA process.
It bears repeating that each alternative the BDOC recommends for detailed EIR/EIS
analysis will be focused on addressing all four major areas of concern identified by the
Governor's Executive Order; 1) water supply, 2) water quality, 3) environmental/biological
resources, and 4) levee/channel improvements, as well as other areas of concern .as
recommended by the Council. A combination of action options is necessary because some may
be infeasible or impracticable standing alone while others may only deal with one aspect of the
problems manifest in the Estuary. The BDOC's charge is to develop and recommend an
alternative, comprised of a set of action options, that will meet all the challenges expressed in
the Executive Order.
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Consequently, it is important to remember that an "alternative" will not be a single
"action option," but a combination of action options (water transfers, conservation, water
management strategies, environmental mitigation measures, levee/channel modification, etc.)
that, taken in the aggregate, comprise an acceptable overall solution. These options, as
components of each individual alternative, would be analyzed at various "implementation levels";
for example, one alternative might include 400,000 af of spring releases from Oroville
Reservoir, while another alternative would include 200,000 af of spring releases from Oroville.
The "action option" -- spring releases from Oroville - would be a component of more than one
"alternative," but the "implementation level" would be different in the two.
An analogy may be made to going shopping. The BDOC is shopping for the best
alternative that will most completely satisfy the Governor's charge. The "alternatives" to be
studied are equivalent to a number of full shopping carts. However, only one shopping cart will
hold the most effective combination of goods; that is, the altemative that the EIRJEIS process
will identify as the best to implement. Individual items ("action options") may be in only one,
more than one, or even each, shopping cart ("alternative"). For example, consider increased
releases from Oroville Dam in the spring as an item ("action option") in all but one shopping
cart ("alternative") under EIR/EIS review. While one shopping cart may have the increased
releases item in the jumbo 400,000 af package ("implementation level"), another might have the
mini-size 200,000 af package. Again, alternatives consist of a varying combination of action
options executed at various implementation levels.
We reemphasize that this narrative and accompanying graphic are focused exclusively on
Phase I -- "foundational Decisions" -- of the overall BDOC process. The full details and
schedule of Phase II -- "Environmental Documentation" -- will unfold as milestone decisions in
Phase I are reached. We cannot stress too much that this plan is evolutionary in nature. We
fully expect it will be continually reevaluated as the BDOC proceeds with its deliberations, and
may require adjustment, alteration and revisiting. The underlying strategy aim is to create and
maintain flexibility so that the Council's capability to reexamine early decisions, with reference
to evolving data and analysis that may not have been available at the time an initial decjsion was
taken, is assured.
.
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THE SCHEMATIC
. What follows is a narrative description of the attached schematic. It is meant to provide
a road map of the first phase of the BDOC's work plan; "Foundational Decisions."
Step #1 -- Problems & Objectives
The first step is the identification of problems in the Estuary which represent why it is
"broken. " ('The Council has already accomplished the bulk of this task through the fairly detailed
listing it developed at its March meeting earlier this year.) Next, and closely related to problem
identification, is the development of objectives which will satisfy the Governor's charge, upon
which the BDOC was premised, to create a long-term plan to:
protect and enhance the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Estuary by addressing warer quality concerns, effective design and operation of
warer export systems, maintenance of Delta levees and channels. and guarantees
for protection of the Bay-Delta EstUllry and its fish and wildlife resources.
The Governor's charge has been divided by staff into four categories for investigation and
discussion: water quality, water supply, biological resources, and levee stability. Background
and more technical materials are being produced for use by the Council during its deliberations
as it moves forward in identifying problems and developing objectives for each targeted area of
concern .
The objective setting process will be undertaken in a sequential manner, focusing on each
of the four target issues separately. The ramification of this methodology, however, is that after
the Council has developed a initial set of objectives, it will have to revisit them as a whole to
ensure consistency, completeness.
Step #2 - Options for Meeting Objectives
After coming to consensus on the objectives to be met, the Council will then move on
to the discussion of action options for meeting the objectives in each of the four target areas.
Action options will likely include water transfers, conservation, water management strategies,
environmental enhancement measures, facilities, levee/channel modification, etc. These options
will then become components of alternatives to be considered for detailed analysis. To reiterate
a previous point, an action option may be implemented within different alternatives at different
implementation levels; for example, the action option to increase flows at a particular time of
year may be included in one altemative at an implementation level of 100,000 af while another
alternative could set the implementation level at 200,000 af.
4
Step #3 -- Develop Range of Alternatives
Having developed a menu of action options for addressing the problems manifest in the
Estuary related to the four target areas of concern, the Council will then pick and choose action
options to be combined into a broad range of altematives. . It is expected that many alternatives
(combinations of action options) will be developed at this stage for review.
Step #4 -- Evaluation Criteria
To evaluate which alternatives are worthy of recommendation for full CEQA/NEPA
investigation, the Council must develop neutral, measurable evaluation criteria that can be used
to determine the degree to which objectives are met by each alternative.
As presented in the diagram, this step in the process may occur simultaneously with both
the development of action options for achieving objectives and the combining of those action
options into a broad range of alternatives.
Instead of planning for a relatively isolated discussion of criteria, we felt it important to
explicitly insert more flexibility into the process by spreading this task over a longer period of
time. This also affords the Council sufficient time to secure the advice and recommendations
of techincal experts.
Step #5 -- Screening
This step involves taking the results from Step #3 (Develop Range of Alternatives) and
Step #4 (Evaluation Criteria), and merging the two. By examining the results of applying the
evaluation criteria to each alternative, those alternatives which show the most promise for
achieving the target objectives will be carried forward for further consideration. H.is.expected
that the original broad array of alternatives will be narrowed down to 20-30 combinations of
action options, each expected to be able to measure up to the standards established by the
evaluation criteria.
Step #6 -- Recommendations
Ideally at this point, the Council will reach consensus on a relatively narrow range of
alternatives representing those that could be expected to achieve the objectives previously agreed
upon. Since the number of alternatives remaining on the table (probably 10-12) will likely be
too large for the EIR/EIS process to accommodate, the Council may have to make a final "cut"
and select a subset (perhaps 4-8) to recommend to the Water Policy Council for exhaustive
investigation through the EIR/EIS process.
BDOC 9/93
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