SCH Number 2014032038

Project Info

Title

El Dorado Water Reliability Project

Description

The El Dorado County Water Agency proposes to implement the El Dorado Water Reliability Project (Proposed Project) to secure the partial assignment of surface water rights (State Filed Applications 5644 and 5645) of up to 40,000 acre-feet per year from the upper American River and its tributaries. Consistent with the 2005 El Dorado–SMUD Cooperation Agreement, the surface water would be stored and diverted at the existing Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Upper American River Project facilities and delivered to two locations: SMUD’s White Rock Powerhouse Penstock and the El Dorado County area of Folsom Reservoir, where the South Fork American River meets the upper reach of the reservoir. This surface water would be put to reasonable and beneficial use to help meet projected water demands associated with the anticipated land use capacity identified in the adopted 2004 El Dorado County General Plan, as amended, for the western slope of El Dorado County that extends from the Sierra Nevada crest at Echo Summit west to the Sacramento County line. No new diversion, storage, treatment, or distribution facilities would be built or operated as part of the Proposed Project. The Project Area includes the portion of El Dorado County that extends from the Sierra Nevada crest at Echo Summit west to the Sacramento County line (West Slope). The adopted 2004 El Dorado County General Plan describes the West Slope as a rural-agricultural–dominated landscape with high-density urban development concentrated in areas adjacent to Sacramento County and along U.S. Highway 50. The City of Placerville is the only incorporated city on the West Slope. The Study Area includes areas downstream of the Project Area that may be affected by the proposed water diversions: Folsom Reservoir, the lower American River to its confluence with the Sacramento River, and the Sacramento River south to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Implementation of the Proposed Project may result in significant impacts. Among other considerations, the Draft EIR considers the potential urban development and agricultural growth within El Dorado County envisioned in the adopted 2004 El Dorado County General Plan. The Draft EIR considers direct effects associated with diversion of water, and indirect effects associated with use of the Proposed Project water and construction of new infrastructure and facilities to deliver the water. The analysis in the Draft EIR identifies potentially significant impacts associated with future use of the water on the west slope, including infrastructure necessary to convey the water, in the following California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) resource areas: aesthetics; agriculture and forestry; air quality; biological resources, cultural resources; energy; geology and soils, and mineral resources; greenhouse gas emissions; hazards and hazardous materials; hydrology and water quality, land use and planning; noise and vibration; public services; recreation; transportation; tribal cultural resources; utilities and service systems and wildfire.

3 documents in project