On December 12th the Board of Supervisors certified a flawed and misguided EIR, despite the known issues of air quality, green house gas emissions, groundwater pollution and aquifer capacity. A staff report from Analytical Environmental Services' representative Ryan Sawyer and the County's contract planner, Sally Zeff of the consulting firm ICF, contained no new data nor mitigations and contained mainly "handwaving" arguments as a substitute. Although W.A.T.E.R. members and W.A.T.E.R.'s experts provided highly detailed and technical analyses of the FEIR's flaws, these were essentially ignored by the BOS, County Staff, and the county's consulting firms in their drive to approve the project. 

Supervisor Valenzuela made a statement and moved to certify the FEIR, adopt the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program, approve the caretaker's residence permit, and deny the Appeal of the Planning Commission's approvals put forward by W.A.T.E.R., the Gateway Neighborhood Association and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. There was no further Board discussion. W.A.T.E.R. will be looking into every means to continue to defend the many outstanding issues and work for a legitimate FEIR. We will fight on.