received the following e-mail (excerpted): To members of the public interested in state watershed programs and policy: The California Resources Agency and California Environmental Protection Agency, working with 17 departments, boards, offices and conservancies, developed the attached 18 Month Action Plan to implement the 2004 interagency watershed protection MOU and to update the California Agency Watershed Management Strategic Plan. The strategic plan, developed in 2003, included goals to improve watershed program coordination and efficiencies, collective investments, and local involvement in watershed management, and to demonstrate improvements in watershed health. We welcome comments on this plan. Please send them to me (cathy.bleier@resources.ca.gov ) or Rick Brausch (rbrausch@calepa.ca.gov ).
Since several actions in this plan are already under way, the Steering Committee will consider your comments and suggestions at our next meeting. We will also establish a site on the California Watershed Portal to post information about the state's progress on the Action Plan.
I responded: In a cursory review of the document, I failed to find recognition and acknowledgement of the County’s primary role in local land and resource planning as an expression of its constitutionally delegated police powers. ARTICLE 11 of the California constitution entitled “Local Government,” SEC. 1. declares that:
(a) “The State is divided into counties which are legal subdivisions of the State...”
(b) “The Legislature shall provide for county powers…” SEC. 7. further declares: “A county or city may make and enforce within its limits all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.”
In 1937, the State Legislature in providing for county powers required all counties to adopt General Plans. This requirement was recodified as law in 1951 under Government Code 65000, et seq. California Planning Law requires the adoption of a comprehensive plan for the physical development of land within the county. It delegates that authority to local counties and cities: "Each planning agency shall prepare and the legislative body of each county and city shall adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city, and any land outside its boundaries which in the planning agency's judgement bears relation to its planning."
-Government Code Section 65300 Section 65300.7. Recognizes the need for local control over planning: "The Legislature finds that the diversity of the state's communities and their residents requires planning agencies and legislative bodies to implement this article in ways that accommodate local conditions and circumstances, while meeting its minimum requirements." The Conservation Element of the County General Plan addresses the conservation, development, and use of natural resources including water, forests, soils, rivers and minerals.
-Government Code 65302 states: (d) A conservation element for the conservation, development, and utilization of natural resources including water and its hydraulic force, forests, soils, rivers and other waters, harbors, fisheries, wildlife, minerals, and other natural resources.
The conservation element shall consider the effect of development within the jurisdiction, as described in the land use element, on natural resources located on public lands, including military installations. That portion of the conservation element including waters shall be developed in coordination with any countywide water agency and with all district and city agencies that have developed, served, controlled or conserved water for any purpose for the county or city for which the plan is prepared. Coordination shall include the discussion and evaluation of any water supply and demand information described in Section 65352.5, if that information has been submitted by the water agency to the city or county. The conservation element may also cover the following:
(1) The reclamation of land and waters.
(2) Prevention and control of the pollution of streams and other waters.
(3) Regulation of the use of land in stream channels and other areas required for the accomplishment of the conservation plan.
(4) Prevention, control, and correction of the erosion of soils, beaches, and shores.
(5) Protection of watersheds.
(6) The location, quantity and quality of the rock, sand and gravel resources.
(7) Flood control. The conservation element shall be prepared and adopted no later than December 31, 1973.
State regulation of land and resource use on private lands is exercised through specific agencies that have been delegated very restricted authorities by the legislature. These authorities have been codified. These agencies do not have general land use planning authority. These agencies would include the Department of Fish and Game, the Board of Forestry, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Department of Water Resources.
Initially, watershed assessment and planning was done as a framework to support purely voluntary participation in restoration and enhancement projects. With the listing of endangered species and declarations of watercourses as “impaired,” watershed planning has become an indirect way to regionally regulate land, water and other resource use.
It is my opinion that County governments should have the lead role in local land and resource management planning. Local governments should be recognized as having the authority to validate watershed planning that affects the private property of constituents. If appropriate, local governments may then chose to formally adopt policies and ordinances to implement these plans. It is most appropriate that this type of planning occur at the local level through duly elected officials who are directly accountable to the People.
(((thanks combat_boots))) just didn't have the energy to fix it. Hope it was worth it! lol
property rights!