The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources (DWR) noticed in the June 15, 2015 Federal Register the intent to prepare a partially recirculated draft EIR-EIS to the draft EIR on the Bay Delta Habitat Conservation Plan (BDCP) and Natural Community Conservation Plan (NCCP) for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The revised DEIR/SDEIS will describe conveyance alternatives that do not contain all the elements of a HCP/NCCP that were described in the previously circulated EIR/EIS.
Three additional conveyance alternatives are being proposed for analysis, each of which contains fewer Conservation Measures. DWR has identified one of the new alternatives, Alternative 4A, as their proposed project. Alternative 4A consists of a water conveyance facility with three intakes and habitat restoration measures necessary to minimize or avoid project effects. The Federal Register Notice can be accessed here.
If one of the new alternatives is selected as the preferred alternative, it would be analyzed through the interagency consultation process under Section 7 of the federal Endangered Species Act and the CA Endangered Species Act through Section 2081 (b) of the Fish and Game Code. The lead agencies are not proposing any scoping process for this RDEIR/SDEIS.