Title: Vineyard Citizens v. Rancho Cordova
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S132972
State: California
Issuer: California Supreme Court
Date: February 1, 2007

1
Filed 2/1/07 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
VINEYARD AREA CITIZENS FOR  
) 
RESPONSIBLE GROWTH, INC., et al., 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Plaintiffs and Appellants, 
) 
 
 
) 
S132972 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
Ct.App. 3 C044653 
CITY OF RANCHO CORDOVA, 
) 
 
) 
Sacramento County 
 
Defendant and Respondent; 
)  
Super. Ct. No. 02CS01214 
 
 
)  
SUNRISE DOUGLAS PROPERTY 
)  
OWNERS ASSN. et al., 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Real Parties in Interest and 
) 
 
Respondents. 
) 
___________________________________ ) 
The County of Sacramento (County) approved a community plan for a 
large, mixed-use development project proposed by real parties in interest in this 
mandate action (real parties), as well as a specific plan for the first portion of that 
development.  A group of objectors to the development (plaintiffs) brought a 
petition for writ of mandate to overturn, on a variety of grounds, the County’s 
approval.  The superior court denied the petition, and the Court of Appeal 
affirmed. 
We granted review to consider plaintiffs’ claims, arising under the 
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et 
seq.), that (1) the environmental impact report (EIR) prepared for the community 
 
2
and specific plans failed to adequately identify and evaluate future water sources 
for the development, and (2) potential impacts on migratory salmon in the 
Cosumnes River, disclosed in the Final EIR, should instead have been 
incorporated in a revised Draft EIR and recirculated for public comment. 
We conclude that while the EIR adequately informed decision makers and 
the public of the County’s plan for near-term provision of water to the 
development, it failed to do so as to the long-term provision and hence failed to 
disclose the impacts of providing the necessary supplies in the long term.  While 
the EIR identifies the intended water sources in general terms, it does not clearly 
and coherently explain, using material properly stated or incorporated in the EIR, 
how the long-term demand is likely to be met with those sources, the 
environmental impacts of exploiting those sources, and how those impacts are to 
be mitigated.  On the second issue, we agree with plaintiffs that the Draft EIR 
must be revised and recirculated for public comment on the newly disclosed 
potential impact on Cosumnes River fish migration. 
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
The facts are drawn from the record before the County’s Board of 
Supervisors (Board) when that body took the challenged actions.  (See Western 
States Petroleum Assn. v. Superior Court (1995) 9 Cal.4th 559, 568-574.) 
Real parties, a land development group led by AKT Development 
Corporation, propose to develop more than 6,000 rural acres in the eastern part of 
the County (now within the jurisdiction of the recently incorporated City of 
Rancho Cordova (Rancho Cordova), which has assumed the County’s place in this 
litigation) into a “master planned community” known as Sunrise Douglas (after 
Sunrise Boulevard and Douglas Road, two major roads forming part of its 
borders).  Fully built, the project would include more than 22,000 residential units, 
 
3
housing as many as 60,000 people, together with schools and parks, as well as 
office and commercial uses occupying about 480 acres of land. 
County planning staff prepared two plans for initial regulatory approval:  
the Sunrise Douglas Community Plan (Community Plan), which sets out the 
“policy framework and conceptual development plan” for the entire project, and 
the SunRidge Specific Plan (Specific Plan), which details the proposed 
development of a substantial portion of the project―2,600 acres of land to contain 
9,886 residential units, as well as community commercial areas, shopping centers, 
neighborhood schools and parks.  County staff also prepared a single EIR 
assessing the likely environmental consequences of implementing both plans, to 
be used by the Board in deciding whether to approve the plans.   
On July 17, 2002, the Board passed resolutions and ordinances that 
amended the County general plan and zoning ordinances to approve the project.  
The Board also certified the Final EIR (FEIR) and made findings as to significant 
unmitigated environmental effects and overriding benefits.  (See Pub. Resources 
Code, § 21081; Guidelines for the Implementation of Cal. Environmental Quality 
Act (CEQA Guidelines) (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, §§ 15090, 15091.)   
The EIR for the Community Plan and Specific Plan addressed myriad 
potential environmental impacts associated with the development, as well as 
mitigation measures and alternatives to the development.  Many of these formed 
the basis for critical public comment on the Draft EIR1 and disputes at earlier 
                                              
1  
We refer to the “Revised Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report” 
for the Community Plan and Specific Plan, publicly circulated on May 18, 2001, 
as the Draft EIR.  A different draft EIR, addressing inter alia a different water 
supply plan, circulated in 1999 but was superseded by the 2001 Draft EIR and is 
not at issue in this case.  The FEIR was publicly circulated on November 16, 2001. 
 
4
stages of the litigation, but this court’s review of the EIR’s adequacy is focused 
solely on issues of water supply and the impact of groundwater withdrawals on 
Cosumnes River fish migration.  Our factual summary therefore also addresses 
only these two points. 
Water Supply:  Sources, Impacts and Mitigation Measures 
According to the FEIR, the average water demand in the Specific Plan area, 
on full build out, is estimated to be 8,539 acre-feet annually (afa); demand in the 
remainder of the Community Plan area is estimated at 13,564 afa, giving a total 
project demand, when fully built and occupied, of about 22,103 afa.  The plan for 
supplying this water relies on both groundwater and surface water supplies.  
Initially, groundwater in an amount eventually reaching about 5,527 afa would be 
provided from a newly developed source, the North Vineyard Well Field (Well 
Field), to be built southwest of the development.  The Well Field is thought to 
have a safe yield of about 10,000 afa, but that full amount would not necessarily 
be available to Sunrise Douglas.  The project’s additional needs, beyond those 
supplied from the Well Field, would later be met with surface water diverted from 
the American River.  Both the ground and surface water supplies would be 
delivered by the Sacramento County Water Agency (the Water Agency).  
The Water Agency, according to the FEIR, will provide the surface water 
supplies as part of its system for a larger area of the County known as Zone 40, 
which, as expanded in 1999, includes the Sunrise Douglas project area.  This water 
will be employed in “conjunctive use” with the Well Field groundwater, 
employing more surface water in wet years (allowing the groundwater resources to 
be recharged) and more groundwater in dry years when surface supplies are 
restricted.  The Water Agency has an existing contract with the federal Bureau of 
Reclamation for 15,000 afa of American River water for use in Zone 40 (an 
 
5
allocation referred to in the FEIR and by the parties as Fazio water) and is 
negotiating or exploring other surface water diversion rights. 
The FEIR relied to a significant extent on prior water supply planning 
completed under the aegis of the Water Forum, a group of public and private 
“stakeholders”―including the County, the City of Sacramento, other water 
providers, business groups and environmental organizations (among them the 
Environmental Council of Sacramento, a plaintiff here), that undertook long-term 
planning to meet increased demand for American River water through the year 
2030.  The Water Forum’s product, the Water Forum Proposal, which became the 
Water Forum Agreement on execution by the participants, includes plans for 
increased surface water diversions by several water purveyors, including new 
diversions by the County and the Water Agency by the year 2030 totaling as much 
as 78,000 afa; used conjunctively with groundwater, this surface water is intended 
to meet the County’s need for new water supplies in the Zone 40 area. 
The final EIR for the Water Forum Proposal extensively analyzed the 
environmental impacts of the participants’ planned increases in surface water 
diversion, as well as the cumulative impacts of the proposal and other foreseeable 
changes in area water supply and demand.  It found that in spite of measures 
included in the proposal for water conservation, conjunctive use and fisheries 
protection, increased use of American River water under the plan is likely to cause 
“significant and potentially significant impacts within the Lower American River 
and Folsom Reservoir, including effects to certain fisheries, recreational 
opportunities, and cultural resources.”  In addition, “impacts to water supply, 
water quality and power supply” are likely to occur outside the American River 
system.   
The impacts of groundwater withdrawals at the Well Field, the other source 
of water for the development, are discussed in the FEIR for the Community and 
 
6
Specific Plans.  The FEIR analyzes a set of seven groundwater withdrawal 
scenarios to satisfy Specific Plan area and other regional needs, ranging between 
2,265 afa and 32,821 afa.  According to the FEIR’s modeling analysis, 
groundwater elevations in the shallow aquifer near the Well Field would decline 
by 10-15 feet―deemed a potentially significant amount because it could affect 
adjacent landowners’ domestic wells―under the scenarios involving the project’s 
use of around 10,000 afa of groundwater from the Well Field.2  This potential 
impact would be mitigated by conjunctive use of surface water supplies to 
recharge the aquifer and, if necessary, by deepening domestic wells or connecting 
their users to the municipal supply.   
Because the Sunrise Douglas development does not have legal rights to the 
projected Well Field and surface water resources, and transmission and treatment 
facilities have not yet been built, the FEIR contemplates that legal entitlements for 
development must await final agreements and facilities financing.  The FEIR’s  
mitigation measure WS-1 specifies that entitlements (“subdivision maps, parcel 
maps, use permits, building permits, etc.”) in Sunrise Douglas shall not be granted 
“unless agreements and financing for supplemental water supplies are in place.” 
                                              
2  
Both a shallow aquifer and a deeper one underlie the Well Field area.  The 
Well Field would draw from the deeper aquifer, resulting in local depression of 
that aquifer’s level, but the FEIR considers this less potentially significant than the 
effect on the shallow aquifer because the municipal wells drawing from the deeper 
aquifer, unlike the domestic wells in the shallow aquifer, are already sufficiently 
deep to be unaffected by lowered levels.   
 
The FEIR also analyzed possible effects of Well Field extraction on known 
plumes of groundwater contaminants in the area.  No significant impact was 
projected under the relevant scenarios. 
 
7
Cosumnes River:  Impact on Salmon Migration 
The Cosumnes River lies south of the Well Field.  The only remaining 
undammed river draining the Sierra Nevada’s western slope, the Cosumnes 
supports steelhead trout and fall-run chinook salmon populations.  The Draft EIR 
did not discuss the impact groundwater extraction at the Well Field would have on 
the river’s flows and habitats.  In public comments on the Draft EIR, however, 
several agencies, organizations and individuals expressed concern on the subject. 
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service noted that past groundwater 
withdrawals had significantly lowered groundwater levels in the area, which 
causes loss of flow in the Cosumnes River due to seepage through the riverbed and 
thus limits access of adult fall-run chinook to their spawning grounds.  “Any 
further withdrawals will almost certainly exacerbate this situation.”  The Fish and 
Wildlife Service comment urged an analysis of the potential effect of groundwater 
withdrawals on flow conditions in the river’s spawning reach (between LaTrobe 
and Dillard Roads) and migratory reach (from the tidal zone to LaTrobe Road) 
during the fall and winter months.  
The National Marine Fisheries Service observed that the Cosumnes River is 
designated critical habitat for the Central Valley steelhead trout, a “federally 
listed” species, as well as habitat for a “candidate species,” fall/late fall-run 
chinook salmon.  Further groundwater withdrawals in the area could reduce 
surface flow, “significantly impacting recovery of listed and sensitive salmonid 
species.”  
The Nature Conservancy, which manages the Cosumnes River Preserve (an 
area of 30,000 acres in which several state and federal agencies hold land 
interests), similarly observed that due to the lowering of the groundwater table the 
Cosumnes River now loses surface flow to groundwater, and, as a consequence, 
“the river ceases flowing earlier in the year, stays dry longer into the Fall, and 
 
8
dries over an increasingly long reach, compared to historic conditions.”  Because 
water from fall rains must saturate an increasingly dry riverbed, significantly more 
fall water is now required for surface flows to reach the Delta and permit salmon 
migration; riparian habitats and seasonal wetlands are also adversely affected.  
“Any increment of further lowering of groundwater will, in our view, have a 
significantly negative effect on these habitat and public trust values.” 
Graham Fogg, a professor of hydrogeology at the University of California, 
Davis, who has studied the effects of groundwater extraction on the Cosumnes 
River, also warned that increased extraction could reduce stream flows, 
jeopardizing salmon migration.  In particular, Fogg explained that while some 
reaches of the Cosumnes River are hydrologically disconnected from the aquifer 
in the region, modeling and field observations show a potential for connection 
“upstream of Dillard Road and downstream of Highway 99.” 
In response to these public comments, the FEIR states that “available data 
suggest groundwater extraction at the proposed [W]ell [F]ield will not 
significantly impact flows in either Deer Creek [a tributary of the Cosumnes] or 
the Cosumnes River.”  The estimated impact on groundwater levels in the 
Cosumnes River area is less than five feet.  Moreover, the deep aquifer from 
which the Well Field would draw is hydrologically disconnected from the 
Cosumnes River over most of its reach in the County.  In the unconnected reaches, 
seepage from the river occurs whatever the regional groundwater elevation; further 
extraction would therefore have no effect on river flows.  Hydrological 
connections exist “upstream of Dillard Road and downstream of Twin Cities 
Road” (“about 7 miles downstream of Highway 99”), but groundwater elevation 
changes in those reaches is expected to be no more than two feet and typically less 
than one foot.  The FEIR concludes:  “The resulting impact on depletions from 
Deer Creek and the Cosumnes River is not considered significant.  
 
9
Correspondingly, these depletions are expected to result in small but uncertain 
impacts on flows in Deer Creek and the Cosumnes River.  The potential exception 
could be during periods of very low flow.  During such periods of low flow, these 
depletions could change the timing and areal extent of the dewatering of the 
stream invert, potentially impacting aquatic and riparian-dependent species and 
habitat.”   
The FEIR response also observed that the proposed extraction of 10,000 afa 
from the Well Field represented less than a 3 percent increase in the annual 
groundwater extraction underlying and adjacent to the Cosumnes River, and that 
agricultural wells located very close to the river and drawing from the region’s 
shallower aquifer “exert a much greater influence on local groundwater elevations 
and gradients than the proposed [W]ell [F]ield.”  
Lower Court Review  
The superior court denied plaintiffs’ petition for writ of mandate, which  
challenged the County’s CEQA findings and approval of the project.  The Court of 
Appeal affirmed, holding, inter alia, that the FEIR’s water supply discussion 
satisfied CEQA because it did not rely on speculative or illusory sources, and that 
substantial evidence supported the County’s finding the impact of groundwater 
extraction on flow levels in the Cosumnes River would be insignificant.  We 
granted plaintiffs’ petition for review. 
DISCUSSION 
In reviewing an agency’s compliance with CEQA in the course of its 
legislative or quasi-legislative actions, the courts’ inquiry “shall extend only to 
whether there was a prejudicial abuse of discretion.”  (Pub. Resources Code, 
 
10
§ 21168.5.)3  Such an abuse is established “if the agency has not proceeded in a 
manner required by law or if the determination or decision is not supported by 
substantial evidence.”  (Ibid.; see Western States Petroleum Assn. v. Superior 
Court, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 568; Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of 
University of California (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376, 392-393 (Laurel Heights I).)4  
An appellate court’s review of the administrative record for legal error and 
substantial evidence in a CEQA case, as in other mandamus cases, is the same as 
the trial court’s:  the appellate court reviews the agency’s action, not the trial 
court’s decision; in that sense appellate judicial review under CEQA is de novo.  
(County of Amador v. El Dorado County Water Agency, supra, 76 Cal.App.4th at 
p. 946; Friends of the Old Trees v. Dept. of Forestry & Fire Protection (1997) 52 
Cal.App.4th 1383, 1393; Sierra Club v. County of Sonoma (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 
1307, 1321; City of Carmel-by-the-Sea v. Bd. of Supervisors (1986) 183 
Cal.App.3d 229, 239.)  We therefore resolve the substantive CEQA issues on 
which we granted review by independently determining whether the 
                                              
3  
All further unspecified statutory references are to the Public Resources 
Code. 
4  
Although the resolutions and ordinances by which the Board approved the 
Community and Specific Plans appear to have been legislative rather than 
quasi-judicial acts, the writ petition was styled as for administrative mandamus 
(Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5) as well as traditional mandamus (id., § 1085).  The 
parties have not briefed the question of which remedial scheme applies, but, as we 
have noted before (Laurel Heights I, supra, 47 Cal.3d at p. 397, fn. 5), the 
substantial evidence standard applies to review of the Board’s factual 
determinations under either analysis.  (See Pub. Resources Code, §§ 21168, 
21168.5; see also County of Amador v. El Dorado County Water Agency (1999) 76 
Cal.App.4th 931, 945 [distinction between these provisions is “ ‘rarely 
significant’ ”].) 
 
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administrative record demonstrates any legal error by the County and whether it 
contains substantial evidence to support the County’s factual determinations.  
I.  Adequacy of the FEIR’s Water Supply Analysis 
Plaintiffs contend the FEIR is deficient in that it “fails to identify the actual 
source of most of the water needed to fill the project’s long-term demand,” an 
analytical gap that “serves to obscure the undisclosed environmental impacts of 
the project.”  The County’s assurance, through the FEIR’s mitigation measure 
WS-1, that development entitlements will not be granted until agreements and 
financing for water supplies are in place does not remedy the deficiency, plaintiffs 
argue.  Rather, the promise of future environmental analysis merely sidesteps the 
County’s obligation to disclose and consider the impacts of supplying water to the 
entire planned Sunrise Douglas project at the outset, before approving that project.  
Moreover, plaintiffs maintain, insofar as the FEIR relies on mitigation measures 
proposed in the Water Forum Proposal, those are legally inadequate to support 
approval of the Sunrise Douglas project because they have not been embodied in a 
legally enforceable agreement. 
Relying in part on the FEIR’s use of information drawn from the Water 
Forum Proposal’s final EIR, the Court of Appeal held the FEIR’s treatment of 
water sources and impacts satisfied CEQA’s requirements.  The identified sources 
“were not speculative, although they were not completed.”  Unlike the reliance on 
“illusory supplies” condemned in earlier appellate decisions, the Court of Appeal 
concluded, here the FEIR identified and assessed the impacts of using “future 
water supplies.”  Real parties and Rancho Cordova, similarly, contend the FEIR 
adequately identified and addressed future water supplies.  CEQA, Rancho 
Cordova argues, requires only that the County “use its best efforts to disclose all 
that [it] reasonably could, not to actually secure a water source and work out all 
 
12
the uncertainties and competing demands before an environmental review would 
be adequate.”   
A.  Principles Governing CEQA Analysis of Water Supply 
The fundamental purpose of an EIR is “to provide public agencies and the 
public in general with detailed information about the effect which a proposed 
project is likely to have on the environment.”  (§ 21061.)  To that end, the EIR 
“shall include a detailed statement setting forth . . . [a]ll significant effects on the 
environment of the proposed project.”  (§ 21100, subd. (b)(1).)  It is common 
ground for the parties and the lower court that the EIR in this case was required to 
analyze the effects of providing water to this large housing and commercial 
development, and that in order to do so the EIR had, in some manner, to identify 
the planned sources of that water.  The principal disputed issue is how firmly 
future water supplies for a proposed project must be identified or, to put the 
question in reverse, what level of uncertainty regarding the availability of water 
supplies can be tolerated in an EIR for a land use plan.   
Neither CEQA itself, nor the CEQA Guidelines,5 nor any of this court’s 
decisions address this question specifically.  On a general level, section 15144 of 
the CEQA Guidelines (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14), addressing the need to forecast 
future events in an EIR, states that “[w]hile foreseeing the unforeseeable is not 
possible, an agency must use its best efforts to find out and disclose all that it 
                                              
5  
The CEQA Guidelines, promulgated by the state’s Resources Agency, are 
authorized by Public Resources Code section 21083.  In interpreting CEQA, we 
accord the Guidelines great weight except where they are clearly unauthorized or 
erroneous.  (Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of 
California (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1112, 1123, fn. 4 (Laurel Heights II); Bakersfield 
Citizens for Local Control v. City of Bakersfield (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 1184, 
1197.) 
 
13
reasonably can.”  We endorsed this view in Laurel Heights I, supra, 47 Cal.3d at 
pages 398-399, explaining that an EIR must address the impacts of “reasonably 
foreseeable” future activities related to the proposed project.  The Courts of 
Appeal, however, have in several decisions specifically addressed the sufficiency 
of an EIR’s analysis of future water supplies.  
In Santiago County Water Dist. v. County of Orange (1981) 118 
Cal.App.3d 818, the EIR for a proposed mining project stated that the mine would 
consume 12,000 to 15,000 gallons of water daily and that the local water district 
would supply it, but provided no information as to the impacts on water service 
elsewhere of supplying that amount of water to the mine.  (Id. at pp. 830-831.)  
The Court of Appeal held that without any “facts from which to evaluate the pros 
and cons of supplying the [needed] amount of water” to the mine (id. at p. 829), 
the EIR was inadequate.   
Long-term supplies for a large project―a residential community and resort 
to be developed over 25 years―were addressed in Stanislaus Natural Heritage 
Project v. County of Stanislaus (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 182 (Stanislaus Natural 
Heritage).  The EIR noted that “ ‘[a] firm water supply has not yet been 
established beyond the first five years of development, although the applicant is 
pursuing several sources.’ ”  (Id. at p. 195.)  Although the EIR listed several 
possible sources of long-term water supply (id. at p. 194), it provided no analysis 
of the likelihood of their materializing and their environmental impacts if 
employed.  Instead, the EIR deferred such analysis to future environmental review 
of water acquisitions or “detailed project-level review for future phases of 
development,” providing as a mitigation measure that if the applicant failed to 
demonstrate and analyze the impacts of future water supplies, further phases of the 
development would not be approved.  (Id. at p. 195.) 
 
14
The appellate court held this treatment of future water supplies defeated 
CEQA’s fundamental informational purpose.  Before approving a specific plan for 
an entire development, the decision makers must be informed of the intended 
source or sources of water for the project, “what the impact will be if supplied 
from a particular source or possible sources and if that impact is adverse how it 
will be addressed.”  (Stanislaus Natural Heritage, supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at 
p. 206.)  CEQA, the court recognized, permits the environmental analysis for long-
term, multipart projects to be “tiered,” so that the broad overall impacts analyzed 
in an EIR at the first-tier programmatic level need not be reassessed as each of the 
project’s subsequent, narrower phases is approved,6 but tiering “is not a device for 
deferring the identification of significant environmental impacts that the adoption 
of a specific plan can be expected to cause.”  (Stanislaus Natural Heritage, at 
p. 199.)  Nor can the unanalyzed impacts of unknown water sources be mitigated 
by providing that if water proves unavailable, the project’s future phases will not 
be built:  “While it might be argued that not building a portion of the project is the 
ultimate mitigation, it must be borne in mind that the EIR must address the project 
and assumes the project will be built.”  (Id. at p. 206.) 
In Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment v. County of 
Los Angeles (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 715 (Santa Clarita), the EIR for a residential 
and commercial development project, for which the Castaic Lake Water Agency 
(Castaic) was to supply water, relied for analysis of cumulative development 
impacts on Castaic receiving its full entitlement of 54,200 afa from the State 
Water Project and purchasing an additional 41,000 afa in State Water Project 
                                              
6  
See Public Resources Code sections 21068.5, 21093, 21094; CEQA 
Guidelines, California Code of Regulations, title 14, section 15152.  We discuss 
tiering further below. 
 
15
water rights from another agency.  (Id. at pp. 718-719.)  Quoting another appellate 
court’s recent observation that because the State Water Project had never been 
fully constructed “there is a huge gap between what is promised and what can be 
delivered,” rendering State Water Project entitlements nothing more than “hopes, 
expectations, water futures or, as the parties refer to them, ‘paper water’ ” 
(Planning & Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 
Cal.App.4th 892, 908, fn. 5), the Santa Clarita court held the EIR’s water supply 
discussion was inadequate because of its assumption that “100 percent of Castaic’s 
State Water Project entitlement” would be available to Castaic.  (Santa Clarita, at 
p. 722; see also California Oak Foundation v. City of Santa Clarita (2005) 133 
Cal.App.4th 1219, 1238-1239, 1244 (California Oak) [disapproving EIR for an 
industrial park because the water supply analysis relied, without adequate 
consideration of the attendant uncertainties, on Castaic’s purchase of 41,000 afa in 
imported State Water Project water].) 
Finally, Napa Citizens for Honest Government v. Napa County Bd. of 
Supervisors (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 342 (Napa Citizens) considered the closely 
related issue of what constitutes an adequate discussion of contingencies in case 
the anticipated water supplies for a land use project fail to materialize.  The EIR 
for an industrial development project in Napa County stated that water would be 
supplied by the City of American Canyon, which already supplied other users in 
the area.  American Canyon’s water sources were adequate for planned growth in 
the short term, but in the longer term would fall short unless that city was able to 
purchase additional water from the City of Vallejo, as it was trying to do.  The EIR 
assumed that purchase would go through and therefore found the project’s demand 
for water would have no significant impact.  (Id. at p. 372.)  The appellate court 
held the EIR inadequate for not disclosing possible alternative water sources and 
their impacts.  In light of the uncertainty regarding American Canyon’s future 
 
16
supplies, the EIR “cannot simply label the possibility that they will not materialize 
as ‘speculative,’ and decline to address it.  The County should be informed if other 
sources exist, and be informed, in at least general terms, of the environmental 
consequences of tapping such resources.”  (Id. at p. 373.)   
While these decisions state no definitive standard of certainty for analysis 
of future water supplies, they do articulate certain principles for analytical 
adequacy under CEQA, principles with which we agree.  First, CEQA’s 
informational purposes are not satisfied by an EIR that simply ignores or assumes 
a solution to the problem of supplying water to a proposed land use project.  
Decision makers must, under the law, be presented with sufficient facts to 
“evaluate the pros and cons of supplying the amount of water that the [project] 
will need.”  (Santiago County Water Dist. v. County of Orange, supra, 118 
Cal.App.3d at p. 829.) 
Second, an adequate environmental impact analysis for a large project, to 
be built and occupied over a number of years, cannot be limited to the water 
supply for the first stage or the first few years.  While proper tiering of 
environmental review allows an agency to defer analysis of certain details of later 
phases of long-term linked or complex projects until those phases are up for 
approval, CEQA’s demand for meaningful information “is not satisfied by simply 
stating information will be provided in the future.”  (Santa Clarita, supra, 106 
Cal.App.4th at p. 723.)  As the CEQA Guidelines explain:  “Tiering does not 
excuse the lead agency from adequately analyzing reasonably foreseeable 
significant environmental impacts of the project and does not justify deferring 
such analysis to a later tier EIR or negative declaration.”  (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, 
§ 15152, subd. (b).)  Tiering is properly used to defer analysis of environmental 
impacts and mitigation measures to later phases when the impacts or mitigation 
measures are not determined by the first-tier approval decision but are specific to 
 
17
the later phases.  For example, to evaluate or formulate mitigation for “site 
specific effects such as aesthetics or parking” (id., § 15152 [Discussion]) may be 
impractical when an entire large project is first approved; under some 
circumstances analysis of such impacts might be deferred to a later tier EIR.7  But 
the future water sources for a large land use project and the impacts of exploiting 
those sources are not the type of information that can be deferred for future 
analysis.  An EIR evaluating a planned land use project must assume that all 
phases of the project will eventually be built and will need water, and must 
analyze, to the extent reasonably possible, the impacts of providing water to the 
entire proposed project.  (Stanislaus Natural Heritage, supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at 
p. 206.) 
Third, the future water supplies identified and analyzed must bear a 
likelihood of actually proving available; speculative sources and unrealistic 
allocations (“paper water”) are insufficient bases for decisionmaking under 
CEQA.  (Santa Clarita, supra, 106 Cal.App.4th at pp. 720-723.)  An EIR for a 
                                              
7  
Conversely, once a general project impact has been analyzed in the 
broadest first-tier EIR, the agency saves time and resources by relying on that 
first-tier analysis in later, more specific environmental analysis documents, 
provided of course that passage of time or factors peculiar to the later project 
phase do not render the first-tier analysis inadequate.  (See § 21083.3 [limited 
analysis required for development project consistent with general or community 
plan that was subject of earlier EIR]; CEQA Guidelines, Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, 
§ 15152, subds. (d)-(f).)  The Stanislaus Natural Heritage court gives the apt 
example of a set of office building projects:  the buildings’ traffic impacts and 
other common environmental impacts would properly be discussed in a first-tier 
EIR covering the entire set of buildings, a discussion that could be relied upon, 
rather than repeated, in each of the building-specific environmental evaluations.  
(Stanislaus Natural Heritage, supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at p. 198.)  Impacts specific 
to the individual buildings’ designs would properly be analyzed in later tier 
documents. 
 
18
land use project must address the impacts of likely future water sources, and the 
EIR’s discussion must include a reasoned analysis of the circumstances affecting 
the likelihood of the water’s availability.  (California Oak, supra, 133 Cal.App.4th 
at p. 1244.)  
Finally, where even a full discussion leaves some uncertainty regarding 
actual availability of the anticipated future water sources, CEQA requires some 
discussion of possible replacement sources or alternatives to use of the anticipated 
water, and of the environmental consequences of those contingencies.  (Napa 
Citizens, supra, 91 Cal.App.4th at p. 373.)  The law’s informational demands may 
not be met, in this context, simply by providing that future development will not 
proceed if the anticipated water supply fails to materialize.  But when an EIR 
makes a sincere and reasoned attempt to analyze the water sources the project is 
likely to use, but acknowledges the remaining uncertainty, a measure for curtailing 
development if the intended sources fail to materialize may play a role in the 
impact analysis.  (See id. at p. 374.)   
Significantly, none of the Court of Appeal decisions on point holds or 
suggests that an EIR for a land use plan is inadequate unless it demonstrates that 
the project is definitely assured water through signed, enforceable agreements with 
a provider and already built or approved treatment and delivery facilities.  
Requiring certainty when a long-term, large-scale development project is initially 
approved would likely be unworkable, as it would require water planning to far 
outpace land use planning.  Indeed, one appellate court has held that speculative 
water planning, in which water is developed before the need for it has been finally 
determined, itself violates CEQA.  (County of Amador v. El Dorado County Water 
Agency, supra, 76 Cal.App.4th at p. 950 [water project should not have been 
approved before county’s general plan was adopted and the impacts of planned 
growth in land use were analyzed].)  
 
19
Examination of other state statutes specifically addressing the coordination 
of land use and water planning supports our conclusion CEQA should not be 
understood to require assurances of certainty regarding long-term future water 
supplies at an early phase of planning for large land development projects.  
Pertinent are two measures enacted in 2001 “to ensure that local land use 
authorities will thoroughly consider the availability of water supplies before 
approving major new developments.”  (Tepper, New Water Requirements for 
Large-Scale Developments (Jan. 1995) 27 L.A. Law. 18, 20.)   
Government Code section 66473.7 generally requires a city or county, 
before approving a subdivision map for a residential development of more than 
500 units, to obtain from the applicable public water system a “written 
verification” that adequate water supplies will be available for that project as well 
as other existing and planned future uses for a projected 20-year period.  When the 
verification rests on supplies not yet available to the water provider, it is to be 
based on firm indications the water will be available in the future, including 
written contracts for water rights, approved financing programs for delivery 
facilities, and the regulatory approvals required to construct infrastructure and 
deliver the water.  (Id., subd. (d).)  The subdivision map may be approved only if 
the water system verifies, or the city or county finds on substantial evidence, that 
water supplies will be adequate.  (Id., subd. (b); see Tepper, New Water 
Requirements for Large-Scale Developments, supra, 27 L.A. Law. at p. 20.)  
While the verification or finding is required as a condition of subdivision 
approval, “[n]othing in this section shall preclude the [local] legislative body . . . 
from making the determinations required in this section earlier than” the 
subdivision approval stage.  (Gov. Code, § 66473.7, subd. (l).)   
Water Code sections 10910 to 10912, enacted in 1995 but substantially 
amended in 2001, apply more broadly to any large land use project (not only 
 
20
residential developments) and to approval of any such project subject to CEQA 
(not only to subdivision map approvals).  (Wat. Code, §§ 10910, subd. (a), 10912, 
subds. (a), (b).)  They require the city or county considering a project to obtain, at 
the outset of the CEQA process, a water supply “assessment” from the applicable 
public water system.  (Wat. Code, § 10910, subd. (b).)  The “water supply 
assessment” is then to be included in any CEQA document the city or county 
prepares for the project.  (Wat. Code, § 10911, subd. (b).)8  With regard to existing 
supply entitlements and rights, a water supply assessment must include assurances 
such as written contracts, capital outlay programs and regulatory approvals for 
facilities construction (paralleling the assurances Gov. Code, § 66473.7, subd. (d) 
requires for future water), but as to additional future supplies needed to serve the 
project, the assessment need include only the public water system’s plans for 
acquiring the additional supplies, including cost and time estimates and regulatory 
approvals the system anticipates needing.  (Wat. Code, §§ 10910, subd. (d)(2), 
10911, subd. (a).)   
Taken together, Water Code sections 10910 to 10912 and Government 
Code section 66473.7 thus demand, as amicus curiae Association of California 
Water Agencies explains, that “water supplies must be identified with more 
specificity at each step as land use planning and water supply planning move 
forward from general phases to more specific phases.”  The plans and estimates 
that Water Code section 10910 mandates for future water supplies at the time of 
any approval subject to CEQA must, under Government Code section 66473.7, be 
replaced by firm assurances at the subdivision map approval stage.  To interpret 
                                              
8  
A section of CEQA, in turn, requires compliance with these Water Code 
provisions.  (Pub. Resources Code, § 21151.9.)  The parties agree that the 
County’s compliance with the Water Code requirements is not at issue in this case.   
 
21
CEQA itself as requiring such firm assurances of future water supplies at 
relatively early stages of the land use planning and approval process would put 
CEQA in tension with these more specific water planning statutes.  
Consistent with the foregoing, we emphasize that the burden of identifying 
likely water sources for a project varies with the stage of project approval 
involved; the necessary degree of confidence involved for approval of a 
conceptual plan is much lower than for issuance of building permits.  The ultimate 
question under CEQA, moreover, is not whether an EIR establishes a likely source 
of water, but whether it adequately addresses the reasonably foreseeable impacts 
of supplying water to the project.  If the uncertainties inherent in long-term land 
use and water planning make it impossible to confidently identify the future water 
sources, an EIR may satisfy CEQA if it acknowledges the degree of uncertainty 
involved, discusses the reasonably foreseeable alternatives―including alternative 
water sources and the option of curtailing the development if sufficient water is 
not available for later phases―and discloses the significant foreseeable 
environmental effects of each alternative, as well as mitigation measures to 
minimize each adverse impact.  (§ 21100, subd. (b).)  In approving a project based 
on an EIR that takes this approach, however, the agency would also have to make, 
as appropriate to the circumstances, any findings CEQA requires regarding 
incorporated mitigation measures, infeasibility of mitigation, and overriding 
benefits of the project (§ 21081) as to each alternative prong of the analysis. 
Moreover, CEQA, in our understanding, does not require a city or county, 
each time a new land use development comes up for approval, to reinvent the 
water planning wheel.  Every urban water supplier is already required to prepare 
and periodically update an “urban water management plan,” which must, inter alia, 
describe and project estimated past, present, and future water sources, supply and 
demand for at least 20 years into the future.  (Wat. Code, §§ 10620-10631.)  When 
 
22
an individual land use project requires CEQA evaluation, the urban water 
management plan’s information and analysis may be incorporated in the water 
supply and demand assessment required by both the Water Code and CEQA “[i]f 
the projected water demand associated with the proposed project was accounted 
for in the most recently adopted urban water management plan.”  (Wat. Code 
§ 10910, subd. (c)(2).)  Thus the Water Code and the CEQA provision requiring 
compliance with it (Pub. Resources Code, § 21151.9) contemplate that analysis in 
an individual project’s CEQA evaluation may incorporate previous overall water 
planning projections, assuming the individual project’s demand was included in 
the overall water plan. 
Finally, before assessing the adequacy of the FEIR’s water supply analysis, 
we pause to clarify the nature of our review.  As explained earlier, an agency may 
abuse its discretion under CEQA either by failing to proceed in the manner CEQA 
provides or by reaching factual conclusions unsupported by substantial evidence.  
(§ 21168.5.)  Judicial review of these two types of error differs significantly:  
while we determine de novo whether the agency has employed the correct 
procedures, “scrupulously enforc[ing] all legislatively mandated CEQA 
requirements” (Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990) 52 Cal.3d 
553, 564), we accord greater deference to the agency’s substantive factual 
conclusions.  In reviewing for substantial evidence, the reviewing court “may not 
set aside an agency’s approval of an EIR on the ground that an opposite 
conclusion would have been equally or more reasonable,” for, on factual 
questions, our task “is not to weigh conflicting evidence and determine who has 
the better argument.”  (Laurel Heights I, supra, 47 Cal.3d at p. 393.) 
In evaluating an EIR for CEQA compliance, then, a reviewing court must 
adjust its scrutiny to the nature of the alleged defect, depending on whether the 
claim is predominantly one of improper procedure or a dispute over the facts.  For 
 
23
example, where an agency failed to require an applicant to provide certain 
information mandated by CEQA and to include that information in its 
environmental analysis, we held the agency “failed to proceed in the manner 
prescribed by CEQA.”  (Sierra Club v. State Bd. of Forestry (1994) 7 Cal.4th 
1215, 1236; see also Santiago County Water Dist. v. County of Orange, supra, 118 
Cal.App.3d at p. 829 [EIR legally inadequate because of lack of water supply and 
facilities analysis].)  In contrast, in a factual dispute over “whether adverse effects 
have been mitigated or could be better mitigated” (Laurel Heights I, supra, 47 
Cal.3d at p. 393), the agency’s conclusion would be reviewed only for substantial 
evidence.  Thus, in Laurel Heights I, we rejected as a matter of law the agency’s 
contention that the EIR did not need to evaluate the impacts of the project’s 
foreseeable future uses because there had not yet been a formal decision on those 
uses (id. at pp. 393-399), but upheld as supported by substantial evidence the 
agency’s finding that the project impacts described in the EIR were adequately 
mitigated (id. at pp. 407-408).  (See also California Oak, supra, 133 Cal.App.4th 
at p. 1244 [absent uncertain purchase of additional water, as to which the EIR’s 
discussion is legally inadequate, “substantial evidence of sufficient water supplies 
does not exist”].) 
B.  The FEIR’s Analysis of Near-term Groundwater Supplies 
As previously described, the Sunrise Douglas Community and Specific 
Plans proposed to rely initially on between 5,000 and 10,000 afa of groundwater to 
be extracted at the Well Field, a new well facility drawing from the region’s 
deeper aquifer; the FEIR analyzed the impacts and needed mitigation of such 
extraction.  Plaintiffs contend competing identified uses for the Well Field water, 
in particular growth in the Mather Field, Sunrise Corridor and Security Park areas 
of the County and the replacement of contaminated groundwater sources serving 
 
24
those areas, are likely to use the full 10,000 afa capacity of the Well Field, making 
the planned use of the same water for the Sunrise Douglas development 
“completely out of the question.”  As a result, plaintiffs argue, the Sunrise Douglas 
project will need instead to employ some other, unknown near-term water source, 
the impacts of which have not been analyzed.9 
As explained above, we review solely for substantial evidence the County’s 
factual conclusion that 5,000 afa or more of Well Field water will be available for 
Sunrise Douglas.  We disagree with plaintiffs that the FEIR’s analysis of 
near-term water supply is inadequate on this ground.   
The FEIR noted that “capacity would not be reserved in the [Well Field] for 
any specific user; capacity would simply be available to users on a ‘first-come, 
first-served’ basis, since the [Well Field] would be a public water facility”; 
acknowledged that existing and new demand in the Mather Field, Sunrise Corridor 
and Security Park areas might also be satisfied from the Well Field; and made 
clear that serving all these demands as well as a significant portion of the Sunrise 
Douglas project from the Well Field would require much more water than the 
10,000 afa that source can safely provide.  Nothing plaintiffs cite in the 
administrative record, however, demonstrates that these competing demands can 
be satisfied only from the Well Field or that they will all materialize in full in the 
near term and have priority over the Sunrise Douglas project.  Uncertainty in the 
                                              
9  
Plaintiffs also contend extraction from the Well Field will be limited by a 
regional groundwater cap of 273,000 afa set under the Water Forum Agreement.  
As Rancho Cordova explains, however, that limit was set at the projected 2005 
level of groundwater withdrawals and may include projected growth in the Sunrise 
Douglas area.  According to discussion at a 2002 public hearing on the project, 
taking 10,000 afa from the Well Field would bring total area groundwater 
withdrawals to about 260,000 afa.   
 
25
form of competition for identified water sources is an important point that should 
be discussed in an EIR’s water supply analysis―and was here―but it does not 
necessarily render development of the planned water supply too unlikely.   
In fact, the record indicates that a substantial portion of the projected Well 
Field water is likely to be used for the Sunrise Douglas project.  The FEIR 
explains that the initial phase of Well Field construction (three wells, pumping 
about 2,265 afa) would include a pipeline connecting the wells to the Sunrise 
Douglas project’s water distribution system and to a storage tank located at 
Sunrise Boulevard and Douglas Road.  Those facilities would be constructed and 
operational within an estimated 18 months of project approval.  Only with the 
second phase of construction (three additional wells pumping about 3,262 afa) 
would the Well Field be connected to the Water Agency’s larger Zone 40 system, 
where it might also serve other users.  The County’s findings also state that 
developers within the Specific Plan area will be required to pay a per unit fee to 
purchase insurance for compensation of any Well Field neighbors whose wells fail 
as a result of the project. 
With regard to competition from other planned development, the findings 
state that already entitled development is expected to call, in the following six 
years, on about 3,000 of the Well Field’s 10,000 afa production, leaving about 
7,000 afa―more than the FEIR’s projected near-term demand of about 5,500 
afa―for “development within the SunRidge Specific Plan area.”  With regard to 
replacement of contaminated groundwater, both the FEIR and the findings refer to 
other remediation and replacement efforts not involving Well Field water; what 
approaches will be taken and how successful they will be appear partly unknown. 
While much uncertainty remains, then, the record contains substantial 
evidence demonstrating a reasonable likelihood that a water source the provider 
plans to use for the Sunrise Douglas project―a source that will initially be 
 
26
connected only to the Sunrise Douglas project, for which the Sunrise Douglas 
project developers will pay a special insurance fee, and which is not already 
allocated to other entitled uses―will indeed be available at least in substantial part 
to supply the Sunrise Douglas project’s near-term needs.  
Nor did the County, in this instance, fail to proceed in the manner required 
by CEQA.  With regard to the near-term exploitation of groundwater from the 
Well Field, the FEIR neither improperly used tiering to defer all analysis of 
supplies to future stages of the project, as in Stanislaus Natural Heritage, supra, 
48 Cal.App.4th 182, nor relied upon demonstrably illusory supplies, as in Santa 
Clarita, supra, 106 Cal.App.4th 715, and California Oak, supra, 133 Cal.App.4th 
1219.  Although the FEIR did not demonstrate a level of certainty regarding future 
supplies comparable to that required for subdivision approval under Government 
Code section 66473.7, CEQA does not demand such certainty at the relatively 
early planning stage involved here.  
The Attorney General, as amicus curiae in support of plaintiffs, points out 
that the Specific Plan occupies a later land use planning stage than the Community 
Plan and that, under Government Code section 65457, a subdivision application 
consistent with the Specific Plan would not require further CEQA analysis unless 
substantial changes had occurred to the project or the surrounding circumstances, 
or new information had surfaced about the project’s impacts (see Pub. Res. Code, 
§ 21166).  Nonetheless, to satisfy CEQA, an EIR for a specific plan need not 
demonstrate certainty regarding the project’s future water supplies.  To the extent 
a subsequent subdivision proposal relies on different water sources than were 
proposed in the specific plan it implements, or the likely availability of the 
intended water sources has changed between the time of the specific plan and the 
subdivision application (or more has been learned about the impacts of exploiting 
those sources), changes in the project, the surrounding circumstances or the 
 
27
available information would exist within the meaning of section 21166, requiring 
additional CEQA analysis under that section and Government Code section 65457.  
In holding the FEIR’s analysis of supplying water to the Specific Plan area from 
the Well Field satisfies CEQA, therefore, we do not imply that the FEIR’s analysis 
would suffice for approval of a future subdivision application proposing to use 
different or additional near-term water sources.  
C.  Long-term Surface Water Supplies 
With regard to the long-term provision of surface water supplies to the 
project, plaintiffs again stress the competing demands for new water in the 
County, including other planned growth and the replacement of contaminated 
groundwater.  They first note that the only assured source of new surface water 
supplies, 15,000 afa in federal Fazio water (not all of which is yet available for 
diversion), is clearly inadequate to meet long-term water demand in the southern 
part of the County.  In so arguing, however, plaintiffs seemingly ignore the 
additional planned surface water supplies disclosed in the Water Forum Proposal 
and the FEIR.  True, those supplies are not certain to materialize:  even the Fazio 
water may in practice be limited to something less than 15,000 afa by lack of 
adequate diversion and transmission facilities, while neither binding contracts nor 
established facilities financing has been demonstrated for the remaining new 
surface water.  But as we have seen, CEQA does not require this level of certainty 
at planning stages prior to approval of permits, subdivision maps or other 
development entitlements.  (Cf. Gov. Code, § 66473.7, subd. (d) [detailed 
verification of future supplies required at subdivision approval stage].)  The FEIR 
discloses the remaining uncertainty regarding actual provision of surface water, 
noting that “provision of a long-term reliable water supply . . . cannot be ensured 
until facilities are approved.”  The EIR thus contains substantial evidence to 
 
28
support the conclusion that some part of the planned new surface water supplies 
will be developed and made available to the Water Agency for use in its Zone 40. 
Plaintiffs are correct, however, that the FEIR’s discussion of the total long-
term water supply and demand in the Water Agency’s Zone 40 (which includes 
the Sunrise Douglas project) leaves too great a degree of uncertainty regarding the 
long-term availability of water for this project.  Factual inconsistencies and lack of 
clarity in the FEIR leave the reader―and the decision makers―without 
substantial evidence for concluding that sufficient water is, in fact, likely to be 
available for the Sunrise Douglas project at full build out.  Most fundamentally, 
the project FEIR and the Water Forum Proposal final EIR provide no consistent 
and coherent description of the future demand for new water due to growth in 
Zone 40 or of the amount of new surface water that is potentially available to 
serve that growth.  
Regarding demand, the FEIR (in its background water supply discussion) 
states:  “The average water demand to support growth approved in the 1993 
General Plan for the Zone 40 area, as expanded, is approximately 113,000 AF/yr.”  
But the Water Forum Proposal and its associated final EIR, assertedly working 
from the same general plan growth projections, provide a lower estimate:  87,000 
afa in expanded Zone 40 demand by the year 2030.  The reason for divergence in 
these estimates is not explained.  Also left unclear is whether these figures 
represent water demand from expected growth alone or total demand including 
that from expected growth. 
As to supply, the FEIR, relying on the Water Forum Proposal, projects new 
surface water deliveries of “approximately 63,857” afa to the south area of the 
County (which includes the project and the Well Field), but elsewhere (responding 
to a comment on the Draft EIR) discloses only 45,000 afa of expected new surface 
water (“15,000 AF/year of  ‘Fazio’ water from the [Central Valley Project]; 
 
29
30,000 AF/year from an assignment of [the Sacramento Municipal Utility District 
(SMUD)’s] appropriative water rights on the American River”), plus an 
“application” for an undisclosed amount of “surplus supplies on the Sacramento 
River.”  The final EIR for the Water Forum Proposal, however, is more optimistic, 
disclosing to “up to 78,000” afa in new surface water.10 
The FEIR does not explain the divergence between its estimates and those 
in the Water Forum Proposal, or even the FEIR’s own use of divergent new 
surface water supply figures in different portions of its discussion.  In its findings 
approving the project, the Board used the FEIR’s estimated demand figure of 
113,000 afa and the FEIR’s new surface water supply figure of “approximately 
63,857” afa, but did not attempt to explain the different estimates appearing 
elsewhere in the Water Forum Proposal and FEIR.  An explanation of the 
differences among these figures may well exist, but it did not appear in the FEIR 
presented to the public and the Board. 
Nor does the FEIR make clear how the available water supply is expected 
to meet total Zone 40 demand over the long term and, hence, why a sufficient 
amount of the identified water should reasonably be expected to be available for 
the Sunrise Douglas project.  Demand of 113,000 afa “to support growth” 
obviously cannot be met with new supplies of 63,857 afa.  Even using the lowest 
demand figure of 87,000 afa and the highest new surface water supply figure of 
                                              
10 
The 78,000 afa is made up of 15,000 afa in existing contractual rights to 
American River diversion (Fazio water), 15,000 afa of SMUD’s American River 
rights as to which the Water Agency and SMUD have reached an agreement in 
principle, a final 15,000 afa as to which the Water Agency and SMUD are in 
negotiations, plus 33,000 afa of intermittent water consisting of excess flows on 
the American and Sacramento Rivers for which the Water Agency is applying.   
 
30
78,000 afa (both drawn from the Water Forum Proposal, not from the FEIR), a 
significant gap remains.   
The general answer given in the FEIR, and echoed by real parties and 
Rancho Cordova, is that the new surface water supplies are to be used 
conjunctively with groundwater supplies.  But this explanation is vague and 
unquantified.  By itself, reliance on “conjunctive use” is inadequate, for, as 
plaintiffs argue, “CEQA requires more than a reference to a water supply 
management practice as water supply analysis.”  How much groundwater, existing 
and new, will be used with how much new surface water?  In what combinations 
will these sources be used during wet and dry years, respectively?  No such 
description of planned future water use appears in the FEIR.  As an amicus curiae 
observes:  “The conjunctive use program . . . lacks quantification, with no analysis 
that would disclose whether the program will produce sufficient supplies and 
storage capacity to meet expected demands.”   
Instead of itself providing an analytically complete and coherent 
explanation, the FEIR notes that a full analysis of the planned conjunctive use 
program must await environmental review of the Water Agency’s Zone 40 master 
plan update, which was pending at the time the FEIR was released.  The Board’s 
findings repeat this explanation.  To the extent the FEIR attempted, in effect, to 
tier from a future environmental document, we reject its approach as legally 
improper under CEQA.  If the environmental impact analysis the Water Agency 
expects to perform on its Zone 40 master plan update is important to 
understanding the long-term water supply for the Sunrise Douglas project, it 
should be performed in the Sunrise Douglas project FEIR even though that might 
result in subsequent duplication by the master plan update.  If, as Rancho Cordova 
argues, such duplication would be an impractical waste of resources, the County 
could instead have deferred analysis and approval of the Sunrise Douglas project 
 
31
until the master plan update analysis was complete, then tiered the project FEIR 
from the programmatic analysis it performed there.  What the County could not do 
was avoid full discussion of the likely water sources for the Sunrise Douglas 
project by referring to a not yet complete comprehensive analysis in the Zone 40 
master plan update.  CEQA’s informational purpose “is not satisfied by simply 
stating information will be provided in the future.”  (Santa Clarita, supra, 106 
Cal.App.4th at p. 723.)   
A reader of the FEIR, moreover, cannot readily derive the missing 
quantitative analysis of conjunctive use from the figures provided.  The 10,000 afa 
in new groundwater to be drawn from the Well Field does not appear sufficient to 
bridge the dry-year gap between new surface water supplies and demand due to 
Zone 40 growth, which appears to be 42,000 afa at a minimum:  45,000 afa in 
planned dry-year surface water diversion rights versus 87,000 afa in demand (both 
figures per the Water Forum Proposal final EIR).  In wet years even less 
groundwater would be available for extraction, as conjunctive use involves 
recharging the aquifer in wet years.   
To be sure, the County’s burden in preparing the FEIR for the Sunrise 
Douglas project was not necessarily to demonstrate with certainty that the 
County’s total water supply in the year 2030 would be sufficient to meet its total 
demand, though some discussion of total supply and demand is necessary to 
evaluate “the long-term cumulative impact of development on water supply.”  
(Santa Clarita, supra, 106 Cal.App.4th at p. 719; see also CEQA Guidelines, Cal. 
Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15130, subd. (b)(1)(B) [cumulative impact analysis may 
employ projections in general planning documents].)  But CEQA did require that 
the FEIR show a likelihood water would be available, over the long term, for this 
 
32
project.11  Without an explanation that shows at least an approximate long-term 
sufficiency in total supply, the public and decision makers could have no 
confidence that the identified sources were actually likely to fully serve this 
extraordinarily large development project.  An EIR that neglects to explain the 
likely sources of water and analyze their impacts, but leaves long-term water 
supply considerations to later stages of the project, does not serve the purpose of 
sounding an “ ‘environmental “alarm bell” ’ ” (Laurel Heights I, supra, 47 Cal.3d 
at p. 392) before the project has taken on overwhelming “bureaucratic and 
financial momentum” (id. at p. 395). 
In this respect, the FEIR’s discussions of near- and long-term water 
supplies differ significantly.  As explained in part I.B. above, the FEIR included 
substantial evidence that competing users would not deprive the Sunrise Douglas 
project of most of its planned groundwater from the Well Field.  But the FEIR 
contains no evidence, other than the gross demand figures (which are, as noted, 
inconsistent) regarding the uses that might be expected to compete with Sunrise 
Douglas for the planned new surface water over the next 20 or more years. 
Real parties point to a discussion of conjunctive use in the Water Forum 
Proposal that refers to larger amounts of groundwater than will be drawn from the 
Well Field.  But the origin and precise reference of these figures is not explained, 
nor is their connection to the demand figures made entirely plain.12  More 
                                              
11  
Other analytical paths are possible (see ante, at p. 21 and post, at pp. 39-40) 
but were not pursued in the FEIR.   
12  
The Water Forum Proposal discussion refers to use of 34,000 afa and 
95,100 afa in groundwater in wet and dry years, respectively, as being used 
conjunctively with new surface water supplies to meet “a total 2030 demand of 
117,600” afa for the “South County M & I users group.”  The exact relationship of 
this demand figure to those in the FEIR and elsewhere in the Water Forum 
 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
33
important, neither these figures nor any reference to this analysis appears in the 
FEIR or even, so far as we are able to determine, in the Water Forum Proposal’s 
final EIR.  A reader of the FEIR could not reasonably be expected to ferret out an 
unreferenced discussion in the earlier Water Forum Proposal, interpret that 
discussion’s unexplained figures without assistance, and spontaneously 
incorporate them into the FEIR’s own discussion of total projected supply and 
demand.  The data in an EIR must not only be sufficient in quantity, it must be 
presented in a manner calculated to adequately inform the public and decision 
makers, who may not be previously familiar with the details of the project.  
“[I]nformation ‘scattered here and there in EIR appendices’ or a report ‘buried in 
an appendix,’ is not a substitute for ‘a good faith reasoned analysis.’ ”  (California 
Oak, supra, 133 Cal.App.4th at p. 1239, quoting Santa Clarita, supra, 106 
Cal.App.4th at pp. 722-723.)  To the extent the County, in certifying the FEIR as 
complete, relied on information not actually incorporated or described and 
referenced in the FEIR, it failed to proceed in the manner provided in CEQA.  
We do not hold or suggest that the Sunrise Douglas FEIR needed to 
reproduce or repeat an environmental impact analysis for new surface water 
supplies already performed in connection with the Water Forum Proposal.  As 
discussed in the statement of facts, the final EIR for the Water Forum Proposal did 
discuss the impacts of the planned additional diversions of American River water; 
indeed, a summary of these impacts and the proposed mitigation measures 
occupies 85 pages of that EIR.  The contemplated diversions include additional 
water for the Water Agency to use in its Zone 40 area, which, as noted, includes 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
Proposal (113,000 afa and 87,000 afa, respectively) is not clear, and the source of 
the proposal’s groundwater supply figures is not identified. 
 
34
Sunrise Douglas.  To the extent the Community and Specific Plans call for that 
same surface water to be used by the Sunrise Douglas development, the FEIR 
could have properly tiered from or incorporated the earlier environmental analysis.  
CEQA does not require that the information on impacts of diversion laid out in the 
Water Forum Proposal’s final EIR be repeated in environmental documents for 
every development that depends on that water.  (See § 21068.5 [through tiering, 
applicable analysis information in an EIR for a policy or program may be 
incorporated by reference in later narrow or site-specific project EIR’s].)13 
The FEIR did not, however, make sufficiently clear its relationship with the 
Water Forum Proposal’s environmental impact analysis.  Although the FEIR’s 
water supply discussion refers at several points to the Water Forum Proposal’s 
final EIR, the FEIR does not state that it is tiered from or incorporates parts of the 
earlier document.  In its background discussion, the FEIR lists the Water Forum 
Proposal’s final EIR as one of the technical analyses upon which it is based but, 
again, does not expressly incorporate any part of that document by reference or 
state that it is formally tiered from the earlier environmental impact analysis.  
Because it does not expressly tier from or incorporate the earlier documents, a 
reader of the FEIR would not be alerted that in order to apprehend the intended 
                                              
13  
At oral argument, plaintiffs’ counsel asserted the Water Forum Proposal 
could not be relied upon because, inter alia, it was formulated before discovery of 
widespread groundwater contamination in the Zone 40 area.  In using tiering, of 
course, an agency must consider “whether, in light of changing circumstances, the 
EIR prepared earlier in the process would still provide an adequate description of 
the broad effects considered at that stage.”  (CEQA Guidelines, Cal. Code Regs., 
tit. 14, § 15152 [Discussion].)  We do not attempt to resolve the factual question 
whether the Water Forum Proposal’s conjunctive use assumptions need to be 
reevaluated in light of groundwater contamination discovered in the interim.  That 
should be decided in the first instance by Rancho Cordova in proceedings on 
remand. 
 
35
surface water supply for the Sunrise Douglas project, and particularly the impacts 
of exploiting that supply, he or she must separately read parts of those earlier 
documents.  And the reader who did look to the earlier documents would do so 
without explicit reference in the FEIR to the particular portions incorporated.  
When an EIR uses tiering or incorporation, it must give the reader a better road 
map to the information it intends to convey.  (See CEQA Guidelines, Cal. Code 
Regs., tit. 14, §§ 15150, subd. (c) [when an EIR incorporates an earlier 
environmental document by reference, “the incorporated part of the referenced 
document shall be briefly summarized where possible” and “[t]he relationship 
between the incorporated part of the referenced document and the EIR shall be 
described”], 15152, subd. (g) [when tiering is used, “[t]he later EIR or negative 
declaration should state that the lead agency is using the tiering concept and that it 
is being tiered with the earlier EIR”].)  
The audience to whom an EIR must communicate is not the reviewing 
court but the public and the government officials deciding on the project.  That a 
party’s briefs to the court may explain or supplement matters that are obscure or 
incomplete in the EIR, for example, is irrelevant, because the public and decision 
makers did not have the briefs available at the time the project was reviewed and 
approved.  The question is therefore not whether the project’s significant 
environmental effects can be clearly explained, but whether they were.  The 
Sunrise Douglas FEIR fails that test. 
Because the FEIR failed to explicitly incorporate the impacts and 
mitigation discussion in the Water Forum Proposal’s final EIR, it lacks, contrary 
to CEQA’s requirements, enforceable mitigation measures for the surface water 
diversions intended to serve the Sunrise Douglas project.  “A public agency shall 
provide that measures to mitigate or avoid significant effects on the environment 
are fully enforceable through permit conditions, agreements, or other measures. 
 
36
Conditions of project approval may be set forth in referenced documents which 
address required mitigation measures or, in the case of the adoption of a plan, 
policy, regulation, or other public project, by incorporating the mitigation 
measures into the plan, policy, regulation, or project design.”  (§ 21081.6, subd. 
(b); see also CEQA Guidelines, Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15126.4, subd. (a)(2).)  
The County could have complied with this command by incorporating the Water 
Forum Proposal final EIR’s mitigation measures into the Community and Specific 
Plans.  But absent such incorporation, the FEIR, and the County’s findings based 
on it, are inadequate to support project approval under CEQA because they do not 
discuss the impacts of new surface water diversions, enforceable measures to 
mitigate those impacts, or the remaining unmitigated impacts.  (See § 21081.)14  In 
this respect, the County failed to proceed in the manner required by CEQA. 
Real parties also assert that the FEIR’s mitigation measure WS-1, which 
states that entitlements for development within the Sunrise Douglas project shall 
not be granted without firm proof of available water supplies, assures that water 
will be available for later phases of the project.  As discussed earlier, however, an 
EIR may not substitute a provision precluding further development for 
identification and analysis of the project’s intended and likely water sources.  
“While it might be argued that not building a portion of the project is the ultimate 
mitigation, it must be borne in mind that the EIR must address the project and 
assumes the project will be built.”  (Stanislaus Natural Heritage, supra, 48 
Cal.App.4th at p. 206.)  A provision like WS-1 could serve to supplement an EIR’s 
                                              
14 
To the extent mitigation of the impacts of new surface water diversions 
under the Water Forum Agreement is the responsibility of agencies other than the 
County, approval of the project would require the finding set out in section 21081, 
subdivision (a)(2). 
 
37
discussion of the impacts of exploiting the intended water sources; in that case, 
however, the EIR, in order adequately to inform decision makers and the public, 
would then need to discuss the probability that the intended water sources for later 
phases of development will not eventuate, the environmental impacts of curtailing 
the project before completion, and mitigation measures planned to minimize any 
such significant impacts.  The Sunrise Douglas FEIR did not attempt such an 
analysis.  In this respect as well, the County erred procedurally. 
In short, the FEIR’s long-term water supply discussion suffers from both 
lack of substantial evidence to support its key factual conclusion and legally 
defective procedures.  On the factual question of how future surface water supplies 
will serve this project as well as other projected demand in the area, the project 
FEIR presents a jumble of seemingly inconsistent figures for future total area 
demand and surface water supply, with no plainly stated, coherent analysis of how 
the supply is to meet the demand.  The reader attempting to understand the 
County’s plan for providing water to the entire Sunrise Douglas development is 
left to rely on inference and speculation.  In this respect, the FEIR water supply 
discussion fails to disclose “the ‘analytic route the . . . agency traveled from 
evidence to action’ ” and is thus not “sufficient to allow informed decision 
making.”  (Laurel Heights I, supra, 47 Cal.3d at p. 404.) 
The concurring and dissenting opinion purports to find our holding―that 
the FEIR’s long-term water supply discussion is legally insufficient, while the 
short-term discussion is adequate―“surprising” and the distinctions on which it 
rests “elusive.”  (Conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., post, at pp. 2, 4.)  For maximum 
clarity, we summarize the pertinent distinctions here.   
(1)  The time periods involved:  According to the FEIR, the first phase of 
groundwater supply is to occur within about 18 months of project approval, with 
the second phase following as needed.  In contrast, real parties suggest full build 
 
38
out of the Community Plan may take 15 to 20 years.  As the planning horizon is 
extended, one’s confidence that large quantities of new surface water will be 
available, and not allocated to competing projects that may be developed in the 
future, necessarily decreases. 
(2)  Discussion of facilities and competing uses:  As already discussed (see 
ante, at p. 25), the administrative record contains information on the potential 
competitors for Well Field water that, taken together with information on the 
planned development of the facilities for delivering the water to Sunrise Douglas, 
is sufficient to demonstrate a likelihood of its availability for Sunrise Douglas.  In 
contrast, the record contains no information (beyond the County’s general plan 
projections) on other planned long-term developments in Zone 40.  Nor does the 
FEIR disclose any concrete plans for new surface water diversion, treatment and 
transmission facilities that would tend to tie the new water particularly to Sunrise 
Douglas.  A reader of the FEIR is not informed what other Zone 40 development 
projects are in prospect over the long term, what their specific water needs will be, 
or when they will draw on available supplies.15  In these circumstances, the FEIR 
could not demonstrate a likelihood of adequate long-term supply for Sunrise 
Douglas without showing that plans for the Zone 40 area call for at least a rough 
balance between water supply and demand, a showing the FEIR fails to make. 
                                              
15  
The concurring and dissenting opinion’s assertion that no other projects in 
Zone 40 have been “entitled, approved, or even proposed” (conc. & dis. opn. of 
Baxter, J., post, at p. 5) is thus without factual basis in the FEIR.  In effect, the 
concurring and dissenting opinion simply assumes that Sunrise Douglas will be 
first in line for sufficient new surface water supplies when those supplies are 
developed, which could be 10, 15 or more years in the future.  Such assumptions 
are no more reliable, and no more legally supportable, than the assumption that a 
water district would in the future, contrary to historical experience, receive 100 
percent of its SWP allocation.  (See Santa Clarita, supra, 106 Cal.App.4th at 
p. 722.)  
 
39
(3)  Analysis of impacts and mitigation measures:  The FEIR analyzes the 
impacts of withdrawing groundwater from the Well Field to meet the project’s 
water needs in the near term and proposes mitigation measures, which the County 
adopted in approving the project.  As already discussed, however, the FEIR 
contains no discussion of the impacts of new surface water diversion or the 
measures needed to mitigate those impacts and does not adequately incorporate 
the impact and mitigation discussion contained in the Water Form Proposal’s final 
EIR.  (See ante, at pp. 34-36.)  The FEIR neither states that it is tiered from that 
earlier EIR, nor expressly incorporates the pertinent discussion from it, nor guides 
the reader with a summary of the contents of the earlier discussion or a specific 
reference to the discussion’s location within the earlier document, nor incorporates 
mitigation measures proposed in the earlier EIR into proposed measures the 
County could adopt as enforceable requirements for implementing the Community 
and Specific Plans. 
The concurring and dissenting opinion also asserts that our decision here 
will hold Sunrise Douglas and other developments “hostage to a balancing of 
supply and demand for all conceivable development that is not prohibited by the 
County’s general plan.”  (Conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., post, at p. 5.)  This claim 
misses the mark for two reasons, both of which we have already explained.  First, 
CEQA does not necessarily require that an EIR show that total water supply and 
demand are or will be in balance in an area.  The EIR may by other means 
demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that water will be available for the project 
from an identified source (see ante, at pp. 25-26 [near-term water supply 
discussion for this project]) and, even without a showing that water from the 
identified source is likely to be sufficient, an EIR may satisfy CEQA by fully 
 
40
disclosing the uncertainty, the other possible outcomes, their impacts and 
appropriate mitigation measures.  (See ante, at p. 21.)16  Second, long-term local 
water planning is not a burden that must be taken up anew, for CEQA purposes, 
each time a development is proposed; rather, cities and counties may rely on 
existing urban water management plans, so long as the expected new demand of 
the development was included in the water management plan’s future demand 
accounting.  (See ante, at pp. 21-22; Wat. Code, § 10910, subd. (c)(2); Pub. 
Resources Code, § 21151.9.) 
In summary, the FEIR’s long-term water supply discussion suffers from 
both procedural and factual flaws.  Procedurally, the FEIR improperly purports to 
tier from a future environmental document, the pending Zone 40 master plan 
analysis.  The FEIR also fails to properly incorporate or tier from the impact and 
mitigation discussion of the Water Forum Proposal and hence to include in the 
present project enforceable mitigation measures for the large new surface water 
diversions proposed.  Finally, it relies on a provision for curtailing later stages of 
development if water supplies do not materialize without disclosing, or proposing 
mitigation for, the environmental effects of such truncation.  Factually, the FEIR’s 
use of inconsistent supply and demand figures, and its failure to explain how those 
figures match up, results in a lack of substantial evidence that new surface water 
diversions are likely to supply the project’s long-term needs.  We think that with 
approval at stake of a development project ultimately expected to use more than 
                                              
16  
As we do not hold that CEQA requires planning for a development project 
to necessarily establish a future area-wide balance between water supply and 
demand, the concurring and dissenting opinion’s claim that our holding mandates 
what the Legislature deliberately omitted from Water Code section 10911 (see 
conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., post, at pp. 6-7) is unfounded. 
 
41
22,000 afa of water―almost 4 percent of the entire County’s projected urban 
demand in the year 2030―CEQA entitles the decision makers and the public to a 
legally proper procedure and to a clearer, more coherent and consistent 
explanation of how, given the competing demands expected to arise for new water 
supplies, water is to be provided to the project.   
II.  Recirculation of the Draft EIR for Comment on the Cosumnes 
River Salmon Impacts 
Section 21092.1 provides that when a lead agency adds “significant new 
information” to an EIR after completion of consultation with other agencies and 
the public (see §§ 21104, 21153) but before certifying the EIR, the lead agency 
must pursue an additional round of consultation.  In Laurel Heights II, supra, 6 
Cal.4th at page 1129, we held that new information is “significant,” within the 
meaning of section 21092.1, only if as a result of the additional information “the 
EIR is changed in a way that deprives the public of a meaningful opportunity to 
comment upon a substantial adverse environmental effect of the project or a 
feasible way to mitigate or avoid such an effect.”  (Accord, CEQA Guidelines, 
Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15088.5, subd. (a).)  Recirculation is not mandated 
under section 21092.1 when the new information merely clarifies or amplifies the 
previously circulated draft EIR, but is required when it reveals, for example, a new 
substantial impact or a substantially increased impact on the environment.  (Laurel 
Heights II, at pp. 1129-1130.)  We further held the lead agency’s determination 
that a newly disclosed impact is not “significant” so as to warrant recirculation is 
reviewed only for support by substantial evidence.  (Id. at p. 1135.) 
In this case, the Draft EIR contained no discussion of the impact the 
planned groundwater extraction at the Well Field would have on water flows and 
habitats in the Cosumnes River.  When several agencies and private organizations 
commenting on the Draft EIR raised concerns regarding such effects and the 
 
42
resulting impacts on salmon migration, County staff responded in the FEIR that, 
due to restrictions on the amount of water to be pumped from the Well Field and 
the limited hydrological connections between the Cosumnes River and the aquifer 
from which water would be taken, the impact on Cosumnes River flows would be 
small and insignificant.  The County adopted that conclusion in its findings 
approving the project.  
Plaintiffs contend, and we agree, that the County’s finding is not supported 
by substantial evidence because the FEIR discloses a potentially significant impact 
of reduced river flows on aquatic species, including migrating salmon.17  While 
concluding the effect of further groundwater withdrawals was likely to be small 
and therefore generally insignificant, the FEIR authors included this proviso:  
“The potential exception could be during periods of very low flow.  During such 
periods of low flow, these depletions could change the timing and areal extent of 
the dewatering of the stream invert, potentially impacting aquatic and riparian-
dependent species and habitat.” 
Though phrased as a limited exception to the conclusion of insignificance, 
this reservation appears instead to identify a substantial, or at least potentially 
substantial, new impact.  That is because “periods of very low flow” are precisely 
those in which, according to comments on the Draft EIR by the United States Fish 
and Wildlife Service and the Nature Conservancy, migratory fish, waiting in the 
fall for streamflows to rise to sufficient levels, are likely to be adversely affected 
                                              
17  
Under section 21068, a significant environmental impact is defined as “a 
substantial, or potentially substantial, adverse change in the environment.”  (Italics 
added.)  In Laurel Heights II, supra, 6 Cal.4th at page 1131, we explained that 
recirculation had been required in an earlier case because the draft EIR had not 
addressed a “potentially substantial adverse environmental effect.”  (Italics 
added.) 
 
43
by further dewatering.  The potential adverse change identified by the FEIR in 
“the timing and areal extent of the [Cosumnes’s] dewatering” is impossible to 
distinguish from the barrier to migration caused, according to the Nature 
Conservancy’s comment, when the Cosumnes River “ceases flowing earlier in the 
year, stays dry longer into the Fall, and dries over an increasingly long reach . . . .” 
Moreover, the area of the Cosumnes River in which the FEIR projects 
potential loss of flow overlaps with the river’s migratory reach.  The Fish and 
Wildlife Service comment identifies the migratory reach as “from the tidal zone to 
LaTrobe Rd.,” a reach that includes both of the areas identified by the FEIR as 
having a hydrological connection to the lower aquifer (“to the east of Dillard Road 
and to the west of Twin Cities Road”).18 
Thus, in response to comments raising the issue of an impact on salmon 
migration in the Cosumnes River, the FEIR states, in effect, that loss of flow to 
that river is likely to be small and therefore insignificant except that the river 
might remain drier longer in the year―including when the salmon would be 
migrating―and over a longer reach―including where the salmon would be 
migrating.  We do not consider this response substantial evidence that the loss of 
stream flows would have no substantial effect on salmon migration.  Especially 
given the sensitivity and listed status of the resident salmon species, the County’s 
failure to address loss of Cosumnes River stream flows in the Draft EIR 
“ ‘deprived the public . . . of meaningful participation’ ” (Laurel Heights II, supra, 
6 Cal.4th at p. 1131) in the CEQA discussion.  (See CEQA Guidelines, Cal. Code 
                                              
18  
As plaintiffs point out, LaTrobe Road crosses the Cosumnes River 
upstream (east) of the river’s crossing with Dillard Road.  We may take notice of 
this fact under Evidence Code sections 452 and 459.  (See Thomas Guide to 
Sacramento County (2001) pp. 6-7.)  
 
44
Regs., tit. 14, § 15065, subd. (a)(1) [potential substantial impact on endangered, 
rare or threatened species is per se significant].) 
Real parties and Rancho Cordova point out that the FEIR “contemplated 
additional environmental review of the Cosumnes River issue in the then-pending” 
Zone 40 master plan EIR.  But as we explained in part I above, analysis of the 
project’s impacts could not be deferred in this manner.  An EIR cannot be tiered 
from another EIR if the latter is not yet complete.  
The burden of revising and recirculating the Draft EIR, we note, is limited 
by the narrowness of the issue on which we determine it is required.  “If the 
revision is limited to a few chapters or portions of the EIR, the lead agency need 
only recirculate the chapters or portions that have been modified.”  (CEQA 
Guidelines, Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15088.5, subd. (c).) 
CONCLUSION 
The preparation and circulation of an EIR is more than a set of technical 
hurdles for agencies and developers to overcome.  The EIR’s function is to ensure 
that government officials who decide to build or approve a project do so with a 
full understanding of the environmental consequences and, equally important, that 
the public is assured those consequences have been taken into account.  (Laurel 
Heights I, supra, 47 Cal.3d at pp. 391-392.)  For the EIR to serve these goals it 
must present information in such a manner that the foreseeable impacts of 
pursuing the project can actually be understood and weighed, and the public must 
be given an adequate opportunity to comment on that presentation before the 
decision to go forward is made.  On the important issues of long-term water 
supply and impacts on migratory fish, the County’s actions in the present case fell 
short of these standards. 
 
45
DISPOSITION 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and the matter is 
remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
  
 
 
 
WERDEGAR, J. 
WE CONCUR: 
GEORGE, C. J. 
KENNARD, J. 
CHIN, J. 
MORENO, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
 
 
 
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY BAXTER, J. 
 
I concur in the majority’s conclusion that the final environmental impact 
report (FEIR) for the Sunrise Douglas project adequately assessed the near-term 
environmental impacts of supplying water to the proposed development.  This 
conclusion rests in large part on the majority’s finding of a reasonable likelihood 
that groundwater from the North Vineyard Well Field (Well Field) would be 
available to supply the project’s near-term needs.  I agree in particular that 
substantial evidence supports the FEIR’s reliance on the Well Field even though 
Well Field water had not been reserved “ ‘for any specific user’ ” and would be 
made available “ ‘on a “first-come, first served” basis’ ” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 24), 
even though existing demand and new demand in the region “might also be 
satisfied from the Well Field” (ibid.), even though serving that demand and the 
initial phase of the Sunrise Douglas project “would require much more water than  
. . . [the Well Field] can safely provide” (ibid.), and even though “much 
uncertainty remains” as to the Well Field’s ability to supply water to the project in 
the near term (id. at p. 25).  As the majority explains, nothing in the administrative 
record demonstrates “that these competing demands can be satisfied only from the 
Well Field or that they will all materialize in full in the near term and have priority 
over the Sunrise Douglas project.”  (Id. at p. 24.)  Indeed, as the majority 
subsequently explains, there is more than enough water that can be drawn from the 
 
2 
Well Field to satisfy this project’s near-term demand even after one subtracts the 
expected demand for “already entitled development.”  (Id. at p. 25, italics added.) 
Like the majority, I further agree that the FEIR need not provide “firm 
assurances” of long-term water supplies at the early stages of the land use 
planning and approval process, inasmuch as the “ultimate question” under the 
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) “is not whether an EIR establishes 
a likely source of water, but whether it adequately addresses the reasonably 
foreseeable impacts of supplying water to the project.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 21.)  
The requisite level of specificity in identifying water supplies thus increases “ ‘at 
each step as land use planning and water supply planning move forward from 
general phases to more specific phases.’ ”  (Id. at p. 20.)  For example, because the 
SunRidge Specific Plan is further along the planning process than is the Sunrise 
Douglas Community Plan (id. at p. 26), CEQA imposes a greater level of 
specificity in identifying water supplies for the Specific Plan than it does for the 
Community Plan.  What is sufficiently specific for the Specific Plan in the near 
term should therefore prove more than sufficient for the Community Plan in the 
long term, inasmuch as “CEQA should not be understood to require assurances of 
certainty regarding long-term future water supplies at an early phase of planning 
for large land development projects.”  (Id. at p. 19.)       
The surprising thing, though, is that the majority has adopted precisely the 
opposite rule in analyzing the sufficiency of the FEIR for this project in the long 
term.  The FEIR estimates the average water demand of the entire Sunrise Douglas 
Community Plan at full build out will be 22,103 acre-feet annually (afa).  The 
sources identified in the record to meet this demand are more than ample:  at least 
5,500 afa from the Well Field, with a possibility of up to 10,000 afa; 15,000 afa of 
American River water under the Sacramento County Water Agency’s existing 
contract with the federal Bureau of Reclamation (an allocation known as Fazio 
 
3 
water); 15,000 afa of American River water under the water agency’s agreement 
in principle with the Sacramental Municipal Utility District (SMUD); an 
additional 15,000 afa as to which the water agency and SMUD are in negotiations; 
and 33,000 afa of intermittent water consisting of excess flows on the American 
and Sacramento Rivers for which the water agency is applying.  In other words, 
the FEIR has identified sufficient water for this project three or four times over.   
Why the majority nonetheless holds that the FEIR has insufficiently 
identified long-term water supplies for Sunrise Douglas—and, in doing so, 
reverses both the trial court and the Court of Appeal—is thus difficult to 
comprehend.  There does not appear to be a problem with the likelihood that the 
identified water supplies will come to fruition.  Although these supplies “are not 
certain to materialize,” the majority correctly points out that “CEQA does not 
require this level of certainty at planning stages prior to approval of permits, 
subdivision maps or other development entitlements.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 27.)  
There also does not appear to be a problem with the analysis of the reasonably 
foreseeable impacts of supplying water to the project in the long term, inasmuch as 
the FEIR for the Water Forum Proposal “extensively analyzed the environmental 
impacts of the participants’ planned increases in surface water diversion”—indeed, 
a summary of these impacts and the proposed mitigation measures occupies 85 
pages of that FEIR—and the FEIR for this project analyzed “[t]he impacts of 
groundwater withdrawals at the Well Field.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 5.)   
The majority’s rejection of the Sunrise Douglas FEIR rests instead on the 
FEIR’s failure to balance total long-term water supply and demand in the entirety 
of the Sacramento County Water Agency’s Zone 40, an area comprising the 
southern and eastern regions of the county that is almost ten times as large as the 
Sunrise Douglas project.  The majority simply asserts, without explanation, that 
while substantial evidence “support[s] the conclusion that some part of the 
 
4 
planned new surface water supplies will be developed and made available to the 
Water Agency for use in its Zone 40” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 28), there is “too great 
a degree of uncertainty regarding the long-term availability of water for this 
project.”  (Ibid., italics added.)  The distinction is an elusive one.  The Fazio water 
for the long term, like the Well Field water in the short term, will be made 
available to users on a first-come, first-served basis, and, as with the Well Field 
water, there is no indication in the record that capacity for these long-term supplies 
has been “ ‘reserved . . . for any specific user,’ ” that these other “competing 
demands” can be satisfied only from the identified supplies, or that the potential 
demand from other sources will all “materialize in full” in the relevant period and 
“have priority over the Sunrise Douglas project.”  (Id. at p. 24.)  The only 
significant distinction I can see is that, in contrast to its discussion of the Well 
Field water, the majority does not identify any portion of the project’s long-term 
supplies that has been “already allocated to other entitled uses.”  (Id. at p. 26.)  But 
that distinction, of course, would favor the FEIR’s analysis of the project’s long-
term supplies.  Thus, if the majority’s analysis of the two situations had been 
consistent, the majority should have found substantial evidence that these long-
term supplies will be available at least in substantial part to supply the Sunrise 
Douglas project.  The majority finds otherwise only by assuming that other users 
will have priority on all of the identified supplies—or, to put it another way, by 
speculating that there is evidence outside the record that would rebut the Board’s 
finding, sustained by both the trial court and the Court of Appeal below, that the 
supplies will be adequate.  (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 38, fn. 15.)        
The path the majority pursues to reverse the lower court judgments is a 
curious one.  What dooms the FEIR here, according to the majority, is the 
potential for increased long-term demand from other, purely hypothetical projects 
that could be developed under the 1993 general plan for the Zone 40 area—even 
 
5 
if, so far as the record discloses, those projects have not yet been entitled, 
approved, or even proposed.  In other words, Sunrise Douglas must be held 
hostage to a balancing of supply and demand for all conceivable development that 
is not prohibited by the County’s general plan—even if no one has yet stepped 
forward to propose such development.   
Until today, this was not the law in California.1  The majority can find no 
support for its new rule in the statute for, as the majority concedes (maj. opn., 
ante, at p. 12), neither CEQA itself nor this court’s decisions have ever before 
required a project EIR not only to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that there is 
water for the project at issue but also that there is water for all hypothetical future 
projects nearby, including those no entity has yet planned to build.  Thus, as the 
majority elsewhere observes, “[d]ecision makers must, under the law, be presented 
with sufficient facts to ‘evaluate the pros and cons of supplying the amount of 
water that the [project] will need.’ ”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 16, quoting Santiago 
County Water Dist. v. County of Orange (1981) 118 Cal.App.3d 818, 829.)  An 
EIR “must analyze, to the extent reasonably possible, the impacts of providing 
water to the entire proposed project.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 17.)  An EIR, in 
particular, need not analyze a “ ‘worst case scenario’ ” and “need not identify and 
analyze all possible resources that might serve the Project should the anticipated 
resources fail to materialize.”  (Napa Citizens for Honest Government v. Napa 
County Bd. of Supervisors (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 342, 373.)  None of these cases 
                                              
1  
It also, quite obviously, is not the test by which the majority has approved 
the adequacy of the FEIR’s analysis of water supplies in the near term.  The 
majority finds that analysis adequate, notwithstanding the fact that supplying 
existing and new demand in the area as well as a significant portion of the Sunrise 
Douglas project from the Well Field in the near term “would require much more 
water than the 10,000 afa that source can safely provide.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 
24.)   
 
6 
requires an EIR to identify a water supply sufficient to meet the demands of all 
development envisioned by the project, together with all hypothetical future 
development that might look to the same supplies.   
The majority suggests that a balancing of total supply and demand in the 
Zone 40 region is required by the CEQA Guidelines (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, 
§ 15000 et seq.) in order to evaluate the long-term cumulative impact of 
development on water supply.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 31, citing CEQA Guidelines, 
Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15130, subd. (b)(1)(B).)  But a “cumulative impact” 
consists of “the change in the environment which results from the incremental 
impact of the project when added to other closely related past, present, and 
reasonably foreseeable probable future projects” (CEQA Guidelines, tit. 14, § 
15355, subd. (b), italics added), not (as the majority apparently assumes) all 
possible future projects.  Under the majority’s newly minted rule, no project could 
ever be approved in the Zone 40 area until the entire region’s projected long-term 
water supply and demand are in balance.  
This is essentially the rule that the Legislature considered—and rejected—
in amending the Water Code in 1995.  The initial versions of Senate Bill No. 901, 
which (among other things) added sections 10910-10915 to the Water Code, 
directed the lead agency for a project EIR to request a water supply and demand 
assessment from the appropriate public water system, and stated that the lead 
agency “shall consider a project to have a significant effect on the environment” if, 
based on that assessment, “water supplies are, or will be, insufficient to meet the 
reasonable needs of the proposed project in addition to existing and planned future 
uses.”  (Sen. Bill No. 901 (1995-1996 Reg. Sess.) § 2, as amended July 5, 1995, 
proposed Wat. Code, § 10915.)  The bill as enacted, however, deleted the 
requirement that the lead agency make a finding of a significant environmental 
impact under such circumstances and directed the lead agency, if it determined 
 
7 
that water supplies will not be sufficient to meet existing and planned future uses, 
instead simply to “include that determination in its findings.”2  (Sen. Bill No. 901 
(1995-1996 Reg. Sess.) § 4, as amended Sept. 7, 1995; Stats. 1995, ch. 881, § 4, p. 
6705, in Wat. Code, § 10911.)  This sequence of events makes me confident that 
the Legislature did not intend to require a project EIR to balance water supply with 
water demand not only for the project itself but also for the entire region.  (Cf. 
Hess v. Ford Motor Co. (2002) 27 Cal.4th 516, 532 [“ ‘Generally the Legislature’s 
rejection of a specific provision which appeared in the original version of an act 
supports the conclusion that the act should not be construed to include the omitted 
provision’ ”]; accord, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987) 480 U.S. 421, 442-443 
[“ ‘Few principles of statutory construction are more compelling than the 
proposition that Congress does not intend sub silentio to enact statutory language 
that it has earlier discarded in favor of other language’ ”].)  The majority offers no 
justification for effectively reinserting what the Legislature has rejected.       
Indeed, the legislative history leading to the elimination of Senate Bill No. 
901’s stricter requirement explains why this court ought not itself resurrect it.  One 
legislative analysis warned that the required finding of a significant environmental 
impact due to an imbalance between water supply and demand on a regional basis 
“could be a severe roadblock to housing development as it is the [Department of 
Housing and Community Development]’s experience that many areas of the State 
cannot demonstrate water supply availability for all potential development which 
could be permitted under their general plan land use designations within the next 
five years.  Also, it would be infeasible for many cities or counties to demonstrate 
water supply availability for all potential development over the 10 to 20 year 
                                              
2  
As the majority concedes, the County’s compliance with these Water Code 
provisions is not at issue in this case.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 20, fn. 8.) 
 
8 
timeframes of general plan updates.”  (Dept. of Housing and Community 
Development, analysis of Sen. Bill No. 901 (1995-1996 Reg. Sess.) Aug. 7, 1995, 
p. 5.)  The Department of Housing and Community Development’s analysis 
further warned that “[w]here there may be an adequate water supply for a housing 
project and the project may have no significant effect on the environment, but an 
inadequate water supply exists for long term future uses, mitigation measures in 
the form of fees are likely to be assessed to buy water or develop new supplies.  
These are likely to significantly increase costs for new housing development.”  (Id. 
at p. 6.)  Moreover, “[u]sing the complex and bureaucratic CEQA process to 
assure local water planning is likely to result in significant administrative costs 
which will, in every likelihood, be charged to new development because there is 
no other pocket to pay.”  (Id. at p. 8.)  Finally, such an approach would supply 
“new opportunities for court challenges of new housing and job-creating 
development.  From the perspective of possible environmental litigation, the bill 
would create great uncertainty.”  (Id. at p. 7.)3   
I also find it interesting that neither plaintiffs nor the Attorney General as 
amicus curiae, when offered the opportunity at oral argument to embrace the 
majority’s new rule, chose to do so.  Plaintiffs stated instead that “the EIR must 
address the water supply essential for the scope of the project that is approved,” 
not for the entire general plan.  The Attorney General similarly explained that the 
general rule under CEQA is that an agency must consider “all the significant 
                                              
3  
The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research also cautioned that an 
early version of the bill made no provision for measures that may act to reduce 
overall demand by requiring “new development to retrofit old, existing 
development in order to free sufficient ‘wasted’ water to serve the new project.”  
(Governor’s Off. of Planning and Research, analysis of Sen. Bill No. 901 (1995-
1996 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 3, 1995, p. 6.)   
 
9 
environmental impacts for the project that it is approving,” distinguishing the 
SunRidge Specific Plan and Sunrise Douglas Community Plan from the entire 
Zone 40 area, and that considering the entire general plan was thus “too far out 
from where this court needs to go.”    
By recognizing that CEQA does not require a project EIR to balance water 
supply and demand on a regional basis, I do not intend to diminish the significance 
of a finding in a project FEIR that projected supply will not be able to satisfy the 
entirety of projected demand contemplated by a general plan.  Obviously, if new 
supplies are not found, then a decision to approve one project means that projects 
proposed later in time may be unable to identify adequate water supplies and 
therefore may not be built.  If not all of the development contemplated by the 
general plan can be built, cities and counties must ensure that the projects that are 
approved are of the highest priority, in order to prevent the negative economic or 
social effects from haphazard development.  However, one must also remember 
that “[e]conomic or social effects of a project shall not be treated as significant 
effects on the environment” (CEQA Guidelines, tit. 14, § 15131, subd. (a)) and 
therefore are beyond the scope of CEQA.  Under the majority’s new rule, 
however, once a city or county approves a general plan, it could not approve a 
project in furtherance of that plan unless or until it had secured water sources for 
build out of the entire general plan.  Nothing in CEQA requires such a result.  
(Atherton v. Board of Supervisors (1983) 146 Cal.App.3d 346, 351 [“where future 
development is unspecified and uncertain, no purpose can be served by requiring 
an EIR to engage in sheer speculation as to future environmental consequences”].) 
It is no answer to suggest, as the majority does, that the FEIR for the 
Sunrise Douglas Community Plan might have been adequate if it instead had 
disclosed “concrete plans for new surface water diversion, treatment and 
transmission facilities that would tend to tie the new water particularly to Sunrise 
 
10 
Douglas,” akin to those included in the SunRidge Specific Plan’s discussion of 
water from the Well Field.   (Maj. opn., ante, p. 38.)  The majority seems to forget 
that “[t]o interpret CEQA itself as requiring such firm assurances of future water 
supplies at relatively early stages of the land use planning and approval process 
would put CEQA in tension with . . . more specific water planning statutes.”  (Maj. 
opn., ante, at pp. 20-21.)  Indeed, it is precisely because “full build out of the 
Community Plan may take 15 or 20 years” (id. at pp. 37-38) that the analysis of 
water supplies for the Community Plan did not need to be as detailed as the 
analysis for water supplies for the Specific Plan, which would begin to draw water 
“within about 18 months of project approval.”  (Id. at p. 37.)  The majority’s 
insistence that the analysis of Zone 40 water supplies in the long-term must be as 
concrete as that for the Well Field in the near-term completely inverts its earlier 
assertion that “ ‘water supplies must be identified with more specificity at each 
step as land use planning and water supply planning move forward from general 
phases to more specific phases.’ ”  (Id. at p. 20.)   
The reader might likewise be forgiven for looking with skepticism at the 
majority’s assurance that “CEQA does not necessarily require that an EIR show 
that total water supply and demand are or will be in balance in an area,” inasmuch 
as the majority elsewhere condemns this FEIR because it “could not demonstrate a 
likelihood of adequate long-term supply for Sunrise Douglas without showing that 
plans for the Zone 40 area call for at least a rough balance between water supply 
and demand, a showing the FEIR fails to make.”  (Compare maj. opn., ante, at p. 
38 with id. at p. 39.)  And if, as the majority belatedly states, it would be enough 
for the FEIR, as to future water supplies needed for the project, to “include only 
the public water system’s plans for acquiring the additional supplies, including 
cost and time estimates and regulatory approvals the system anticipates needing” 
(maj. opn., ante, at p. 20; see id. at p. 40), one wonders why the majority goes on 
 
11 
at length to discuss far more burdensome requirements—and what authority it has 
to do so.  
In sum, the majority’s insistence that the FEIR should have identified 
sufficient water not merely for the project itself but also for all conceivable future 
development in the region suffers from a number of serious defects.  It is not 
supported by any statute or guideline—or, indeed, by any party to this litigation.  
It is inconsistent with the legislative history of Water Code section 10911.  It is 
inconsistent as well with the majority’s own analysis of the environmental effects 
of drawing on this project’s near-term water supplies.  And, as the Legislature  
recognized in rejecting such an approach in 1995, it will discourage new housing 
development, increase its cost, create uncertainty, and trigger more litigation.  For 
all these reasons, I respectfully dissent.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BAXTER, J. 
 
 
 
 
See last page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted XXX 127 Cal.App.4th 490 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S132972 
Date Filed: February 1, 2007 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Sacramento 
Judge: Raymond M. Cadei 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Appellant: 
 
Law Office of Stephan C. Volker, Stephan C. Volker, Joshua A. H. Harris, Marnie E. Riddle and Gretchen 
E. Dent for Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Tom Greene, Chief 
Assistant Attorney General, J. Matthew Rodriquez and Theodora Berger, Assistant Attorneys General, 
Susan Durbin and Gordon Burns, Deputy Attorneys General, for The People of the State of California as 
Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
Law Offices of Thomas N. Lippe and Thomas N. Lippe for California Oak Foundation as Amicus Curiae 
on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
Rossmann and Moore, Antonio Rossmann, Robert B. Moore and David R. Owen for The Planning and 
Conservation League as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
Brandt-Hawley Law Group and Susan Brandt-Hawley for Stanislaus Natural Heritage Project as Amicus 
Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
David P. Selmi; Chatten-Brown & Carstens, Jan Chatten-Brown and Douglas P. Carstens for 
Environmental Defense Center, Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment and Friends of 
the Santa Clara River as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
Lawrence Bragman for City of Fairfax as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Respondent: 
 
Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, Steven R. Meyers, Julia L. Bond and Andrea J. Saltzman for 
Defendant and Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Page 2 – S132972 – counsel continued 
 
 
Attorneys for Respondent: 
 
Remy, Thomas, Moose and Manley, James G. Moose, Sabrina V. Teller, Meghan M. Habersack and 
Megan M. Quinn for Real Parties in Interest and Respondents. 
 
Morrison & Foerster, Michael H. Zischke, R. Clark Morrison and Scott B. Birkey for California State 
Association of Counties and League of California Cities as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and 
Respondent. 
 
Bingham McCutchen and Stephen L. Kostka for Building Industry Association for California, Consulting 
Engineers and Land Surveyors of California, Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation, California 
Business Properties Association and California Association of Realtors as Amici Curiae on behalf of 
Defendant and Respondent and Real Parties in Interest and Respondents. 
 
Downey Brand, Jennifer L. Harder and Scott L. Shapiro for North State Building Industry Association as 
Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent and Real Parties in Interest and Respondents. 
 
Thomas Cumpston; Somach, Simmons & Dunn, Sandra K. Dunn and Jacqueline L. McDonald for El 
Dorado Irrigation District as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent and Real Parties in 
Interest and Respondents. 
 
Bartkiewicz, Kronick & Shanahan, Ryan S. Bezerra, Paul M. Bartkiewicz and Joshua M. Horowitz for 
Regional Water Authority as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent and Real Parties in 
Interest and Respondents. 
 
Robert A. Ryan, Jr., County Counsel (Sacramento) and Krista C. Whitman, Deputy County Counsel, for 
County of Sacramento and Sacramento County Water Agency as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and 
Respondent and Real Parties in Interest and Respondents. 
 
Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard, Clifford W. Schulz; Best Best & Krieger and Roderick E. 
Walston for Association of California Water Agencies and State Water Contractors as Amici Curiae on 
behalf of Defendant and Respondent and Real Parties in Interest and Respondents. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Stephan C. Volker 
Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker 
436 14th Street, Suite 1300 
Oakland, CA  94612 
(510) 496-0600 
 
Bill Lockyer 
Attorney General 
1300 I Street 
Sacramento, CA  94244-2550 
(916) 324-3081 
 
Julia L. Bond 
Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson 
555 12th Street, Suite 500 
Oakland, CA  94607 
(510) 808-2000 
 
James G. Moose 
Remy, Thomas, Moose and Manley 
455 Capitol Mall, Suite 210 
Sacramento, CA  95814 
(916) 443-2745