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The really good news is that the Senate
Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee included $400,000 for Bolinas
Lagoon in their bill. Current indications are that the funding will
survive the Senate-House Reconciliation. MANY THANKS to all who
wrote to Senators Boxer and Feinstein!
On the “not so good news” side, comments made at the July 24 public hearing, and written comments, show that the environmental community has a number of serious, and legitimate, concerns about the adequacy of the Draft Feasibility Study/EIS/EIR as published in June. Persons making comments at the public hearing included a number of members of the Bolinas Lagoon Technical Advisory Committee, and participants on the Habitat Expert Evaluation Panel. As a result of many requests for a chance to allow a more thorough evaluation the Draft Plan, the public comment period has been extended from an August 5 close to October 1.
Although the delay in closing the public comment period will cause yet another schedule change, and preclude authorization for construction in WRDA ’02, a better plan will undoubtedly result from the analyses, a plan that the environmental community can support enthusiastically, along with those of us who are so strongly attached to Bolinas Lagoon. The Corps had planned to flesh out and finalize certain elements of the plan (such as the Adaptive Management section) during Phase III (Pre-construction Engineering Design). It now appears likely that this work will be done as part of the current Phase (Feasibility Study), and spelled out before the plan is submitted to Congress.
Also, there is speculation in Washington that there will not be a WRDA bill this year. Should this prove to be the case, the question of authorization will be moot, and past experience suggests there will be one next year, and our project should be authorized in that legislation. The one-year delay will not adversely affect the project timing because work on Phase III (Pre-construction Engineering Design) can commence when the Feasibility Study Report is sent to Corps Headquarters.
In closing, I’d like to thank Ron Miska (Marin County OSD) and Roger Golden (USACE) for their help in keeping my facts straight in all of these newsletters.
Bucky Mace
For the Foundation