Health, Housing & Human Services Committee - Regular Meeting

Closed session agenda, recessing to closed session. We'll reconvene here in chambers at 10:30. And at this time, I'm gonna call to order the board of supervisors of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency. Let the record reflect that all members of the board are present. I'm gonna see if there's any additions or corrections to this closed session agenda by county council.

No additions or corrections.

This morning, have one item, one a on this agenda. Gonna invite the public to share comments on this item at this time. Again, if you're joining us via Zoom and wish to comment, please use the raise hand function or star nine via landline to be recognized. I see no one coming forward in room. No hands going up via Zoom. So we'll go ahead and, close the public comment on these items, recessing the closed session, reconvening here in chambers at 10:30 to resume the agendas. Thank you. Alright. We've got a lawyer. So with that, we're gonna call to order this, meeting of the board of supervisors. Sorry. Reconvene this meeting of the board of supervisors. Let the record reflect that all members of the board are present. I'm gonna ask for the announcement of our Spanish interpreter services by Kenya Cobos. Kenya, we'll give you the floor.

Kenya, you might need to switch channels. With that, I'm gonna go ahead and ask if supervisor Alejo doesn't mind leading us in the pledge this morning. With that emphasis on for all. With that, we're had additions and corrections by our clerk. And I'm gonna ask the clerk to take us through those.

Yes. We have several and that is we have corrections to item numbers 34, 47, 49, and 50 under consent agenda in the Tividad Medical Center. And we have received revised board reports on all of these items.

For all those having been noted for the record, we'll proceed to our ceremonial resolutions. We have items one through four today. Is there any member of the public who wishes to make a comment at this time on the ceremonial resolutions? I don't see anybody in room. I do have a hand up, and so we're gonna recess the board of supervisors, and recess into the board of supervisors of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency. Let the record reflect that all members are present with supervisor Alejo joining us shortly. We've got a couple scheduled matters here beginning with considering adopting a position regarding a request from Monterey Peninsula Water Management District. And so for that presentation and information, we're gonna go to Ara for the background.

Good afternoon, Chair, Board. On the request from the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District on 10/20/2025, the management district's board of directors unanimously approved, a request to the State Water Resources Control Board to modify a 2009 cease and desist order and more specifically condition two which has limited the setting of new water meters and new water use within the CalAm service area on the Monterey Peninsula. In November, the way it ties back to the county, in November 12, Housing and Community Development Department asked the Planning Commission to begin a process to consider a water allocation policy for areas of the unincorporated Monterey County. And as part of that effort, the water resources agency was asked for its opinion regarding the request from the water management district. The request from the water management district and the opinion that we offer here today is really relates to the facts that they have provided both to the state board and as part of their public processes in considering this issue and related issues.

In its application of the state board, the district points to the fact that pumping from the Carmel River over the past four years have been within the legal limit and that currently the supply of water to the peninsula is greater than demand, which is resulting in the ability to increase storage in the seaside groundwater basin. The district also notes in August 2025 decision by the CPUC in which it has determined that these supply surpluses would continue for the foreseeable future and that's generally defined as several years. And it also states agreement amongst the district CalAm and the CPUC that further diversions from the Carmel River will be capped at the legal limit. And lastly, with respect to the district's pledges to the state board, it is also proposing in its application improvements to the reporting requirements to give the state board the data it would need to ensure that legally allowable amount of water from the Carmel River is not exceeded and offers triggers to reinstate enforcement, if it is. This question came before the agency's board of directors on November 17, and the board took action to form an ad hoc committee to advise in the drafting, of a letter of support.

The issues raised by the directors and and some of the members of the public that that commented on this issue focus largely on the water supply concerns as they might relate to increased demands that could be created by a modification of the cease and desist order. And so we have captured those concerns in the board report where we talk about the history of these supplies, the role that the Carmel River ASR project is making, the role that substantial water conservation efforts is making, the role that Pure Water Monterey plays in this, and of course, the role of the ongoing CalAmp's work moving the Water Peninsula water supply project forward. And so these issues, while related to the CDO perhaps are really separate from them. And so we have attempted to capture those concerns and those realities again in the board report and have focused on trying to keep the letter of support itself rather simple and straightforward. And so that is what is before you today.

There is a draft letter, in your packet for consideration, and we're happy to take any questions or, work on any edits that, the words you said.

I'll bring it to the dice first. Questions, comments from the dice?

We talked to Pope on it.

Alright. So we'll take public comment on this at this point. Go ahead and open it up to folks here in the room and on Zoom reminding folks via Zoom to use the raise hand function. Star nine via landline to recognize. We'll go with folks in the room first. I see Mr. Stratton coming forward and we'll give him two minutes.

Well, supervisors, thanks for the opportunity to speak today. I wanna first congratulate you on the budget conversation. I haven't listened to these for a number of years. I really appreciate and respect the comments that were new and original, I think, this year that have not happened in previous years. I really appreciate the conversation. CalAm, we too, we live on a we have a water budget. We don't, we can't exceed what we don't have because we, as you know, don't get external water sources from here. We don't get Sierra snowpack, we don't get benefit from the Colorado River. All of our water is sourced here locally. So we just, wanna make sure that, you know, moving forward that we don't over allocate the water that that we have here in the in the community.

So, we we know, we acknowledge and understand the the need to amend the CDO and to comply with Rina and other housing and business obligations that the community has. So we support the adjustment of it, but we also need to make sure that we move forward with only drought proof reliable water source that the region has, which is desal. So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Trenton. Anyone else in room? All right, we're going to go to Zoom. I see one hand up. Gary's PC.

Yes. Thank you, chair, and thank you, board of supervisors. Gary Curcio today representing the coalition of peninsula businesses. The draft correspondence does not reflect several key points that the report itself highlights. The letter is the letter as written makes no mention of the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project even though it is the foundation of the peninsula's long term water strategy.

Leaving it out sends an incomplete message. It may be worth asking Ara at MCWRA how the draft letter ended up omitting this component, and I would encourage the board to revise the letter so it clearly acknowledges that any modification of the CDO should be accompanied by commitments to continue pursuing a long term water supply solution the region depends on, which is they sell. Thank you for considering this request and for your continued leadership on these complicated water issues. Thank you.

Thank you very much, mister Curcio. I don't see any other hands up via Zoom and nobody coming forward in room, so I'll bring it back to the dais. Supervisor Daniels.

Sure. I'd be happy to speak at the end of this very long day. Thank you, Ara, and thank you to the board of supervisors for considering this letter of support, and thank you, Josh Stratton, for coming and and also offering your support. One of the things that I want to be clear about that I've been clear about in the past, as uncomfortable as it has been, is that the waters conversation in Monterey County is highly politicized. And we have to call that out whenever we see it.

And so it's put me in a position on other boards that I sit on where as a county board of supervisor, I had to bring up a conversation about, for example, the permanence of of the recycled water project in terms of the long term viability and availability. And then on the same token, you know, when when we're getting a request to talk about the desalination plant and in a letter that needs to be very simple because it's not asking for the cease and desist order to be lifted. It's asking for some flexibility in one condition that is in the cease and desist order that is that is going to impact Monterey County's ability in unincorporated Monterey County to even comply, I believe, with the housing element. Right? Because the housing element is going to require zoning changes that we cannot do under condition two.

And so what I wanna be clear about is this isn't a request for increased use. It's a request for flexibility within a condition to set new meters and to rezone. And the cease and desist order is complete and intact with this request. So all the reporting that we're obligated to do and all of the guardrails that exist in terms of our relationship and our obligation to the state water board, all are in place. And so I'm concerned that the request to ask this board to take a position on the desalination plant in this letter would muddy the waters and bring up a whole other conversation that doesn't need to be had for this simple request.

I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, the water management district did provide originally two letters to various various people that it requested the support letters to come from, and one of those letters did take a position and added the desalination plant, but those were for entities that have already, I believe, taken a position. And so I think if we were to have that conversation here at this board, it would be a much longer conversation and it would be less clear to the State Water Board when what we need is clarity that we as a board support this flexibility so two of our districts can move forward to build housing and finish our housing element in a way that is within the water that's available today. It's it's not asking for more water than exists. It's well within even and under the amount of water that the CPUC recently identified as our supply and along with what they identified as our demand. And so I I'm very comfortable with this request, and I want it just to be simple, and I appreciate the work that was done.

And I hope we can move forward today. Thank you.

Other supervisors. Supervisor Askew.

I'll just say, think that the letter that was presented to us I mean, I missed got a bunch of stuff printed out. But the the letter that I'm reading here, that there's no title on it, but it doesn't reference desalinization. I think it's a clear, simple, straightforward message. I support the letter that I'm looking at that I'm assuming came. I don't have attachment number on it, which I should have had.

But you know, very clearly, I think everything that supervisor Daniels just said around the politicization of these things, like, need to move forward. We need to be clear when when things are clear and leave the politics out. This is something that we need in order to be able to get the housing built that we need to get built. And we're all working towards that goal, I believe. So in the effort and the interest of those shared goals that we do have, let's not bring in controversial, unshared goals that are gonna muddy the waters literally in this particular situation. So I fully support the letter that's been presented to us by staff.

Supervisor Church?

I think I I don't support pretty much the position I think supervisor Daniels has taken. I'm I think it addresses the issues and is a reasonable approach at this point. So I'm gonna back that as well.

I I have to I I would say I I don't dispute the strategy that supervisor Daniels outlined, very charged issue, I think that's why I started it the way he did, but I it it it is like after seeing what happened with the Coastal Commission and the governor's office being involved, state agencies monitoring it, not even referencing it. It seems to take one side, right? Because it's not the total solution, but the DSL was always seen as part of the solution, as it's part of solution in other counties in San Diego County and Orange County, other places that are exploring it. And it's an important future part of the solution in our water portfolio. And it's moving forward.

It's made progress, although slow. But not to even reference it that it's part of a future potential availability to address our greatest one of our greatest needs in the county, I think it's, it's denying what is obvious to all of us, right, what what's going on here. But I I get the strategy argument here, with others, but it seems like not even mentioning it, that in and of itself is not neutral either. To not not even to reference an important project that has won approvals along the way and is moving forward despite the litigation.

Yeah. I'm struggling only because in the conversations that we had, it was made clear to me that there was support from the agencies responsible for DSL, right? That in the end, they saw that as the solution that they were clear. And as was said, there's a second letter out there somewhere that they've drafted for folks clear clear clearly stating that. Right?

But to be here today saying, oh, but not in ours is a hard thing for me given the structure of The U the where that water is originating. It's always been the fight, right, for me that I do believe in the shorter than most people believe, long run that water will be needed in the Salinas Valley. And without mentioning what that long term source is, I'm feeling uncomfortable on that front.

Can I offer something to you?

I'm open here. I just

the reason being is this request is not asking for water that would be required by the desalination plan. There isn't even, I believe, an opportunity to use 2,000 acre feet of water if you were to allocate every single legal lot of record on the Monterey Peninsula and issue them a meter and move forward with the projects that are in our housing element. Just don't see that happening. And so what we would be doing by including it is actually creating an opportunity for the State Water Board even to question, well, is this community that's never been able to finish a water project and get a single large scale water project that's regional over the finish line? Are they going to be able to do the desal plant?

And I'm not saying that we're not. I'm just saying it's actually adding another component to this letter that could give this agency pause. And I think if we were asking to lift the cease and desist order, that would be a whole different conversation that would require a lot more analysis of what the impacts are going to be. But this is strictly about the fact that we take 3,376 acre feet out of the Carmel River, and will this request for flexibility cause us to increase that 3,376 acre feet? And the answer is no.

And so taking the opportunity to weigh in on a highly politicized and charged issue in Districts 4 and Districts 5 is going to or on the Monterey Peninsula is going to be a much larger conversation that has nothing to do with what's in this request. This request is in a location, in an underutilized commercial property that I want to make housing, can I change the zoning to residential? Can I add a meter where that used to be a garage and I want to make a low income housing development? I'm the city of Monterey. You know, can I do that?

These are the things that we're getting stopped from doing. And so the point I was trying to make about the CPUC is the CPUC said we're going to need 14,000 acre feet and some change in the next fifty years. And everybody applauded that that wants this included in the letter. And they also said your demand is 11,000 something acre feet per year. And we also know that if you take the three year average, we've only used 9,000 and some change.

And if you do the five year average, it's even less than that. So there's so much safety built into this request for flexibility that it feels wrong. And like I said, I'm going to say this to my colleagues on the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District when I think we're being overly political and we're doing things that are not based in fact, and I'm gonna say it to you all here today. The conversation about the desalination plant is not part. It's apples and oranges, and it's a political choice to include this in this letter.

And I would go as far as to say, and I don't know why he did it, but if mister Stolt sent out a letter for folks that had the desal plant in it, it was a political decision to try to get them to still lend support, and he handed them a carrot. But it's not because it has anything to do with this conversation. So, know, sounds like we have support for this letter. I'm, you know, fine with that, but I just I've got to call it out where I see it, because I'm not going to swear I almost did. But if we keep doing this, it is the senior citizens in my district that I grew up with their children that are living in their cars along Carmel Valley Road and at the mouth of Carmel Valley.

It's the 2,000 children in Wendy's district that are unhoused in the school district out of less than 10,000 children. And that is the that is the result of the politicization of our water supply that's gone on for years. And we have to call it out. It's not fair. And so, I don't think the desal plant has any place in this conversation unless the goal is political and to prove a point. Thank you.

And I wanna be clear on my end. It's more, again, I I see it through your the lens of your district, and I wanna put it through the lens of mine. Right? And just ask this clear question of Ara. The new meters that will be set, will they be dependent on waters that originated in the Salinas River or Salinas groundwater remanufactured, recycled and then put into the supply on the peninsula?

I think that's hard to say just off the cuff supervisor. We are in a position currently and will remain in a position for the foreseeable future where we are producing more supply than there is demand and that supply is being stored in the seaside base. And so is there a moment in time where those lines break? Yeah, I suspect so. And certainly the CPUC suspects so as well.

When asked that question, the water management district's answer has been, yeah, decel. So I think for me, from the agency's perspective, they are two different things. The CDO is more of a demand side issue, not a supply side issue. We've had the supply conversation with the water management district some of its jurisdictions about approaching the allocation of this water cautiously because the water management district has acknowledged that that supply is interruptible and it is subject to repurposing. It's in their estimation several years down the road.

And so that's kind of what gives us this buffer that we're experiencing right now. And so I think for the time being, where we are and with the reporting and the enforcement actions that are included in the request, we're in a reasonably good position to be able to support this from the resource management perspective. The decel thing, as folks have noted, it's moving. The coastal commission has approved it more recently, the CPUC. There's steady progress there. It's not within the purview of the agency, right? We have no authority over that. We're not engaged in it. And so that's why I felt it better to just not get into it.

So again, for me, it ties back to that source piece. I get it. I understand where you're coming from and I get that we might not be able to find the common ground today on this. But to me, it's not just the pure desal. Right? It's the current source. And that to me is the challenge knowing what the vision is for the Salinas Valley for itself. And that's the piece that to me is not currently aligned with, right, what I'm hearing and the willingness to say, well, this is a big picture question. And that to me is a challenge given where we are. But, again, I hear the support and

Yeah.

And I'm good with that. And to me, it's not pure politics. It's that big concern about putting on our face mask in this valley because as we've seen throughout The United States when a community is dependent on water for human consumption, all other users are told to shut off the tap. And if that concern comes to bear at some point in a heavy drought, that means my people lose work, my people lose opportunity. And it's just it's the breaking down of a wall that puts my communities at risk without saying but we're committed to seeing through this bigger solution that will long term solve it. I feel like we're solving a piece, not the bigger piece. And I hear you. But

The letter, though, doesn't say that we've been putting ASR water into the ground for years now. And I've sat on the board this entire year of the Modern Peninsula Water Management District. We've never pulled out a drop. So we've only put it in. It's just storage, and we're not taking any out. And that was even in advance of expansion coming online. So there are other projects. If you're gonna cite projects, you'd wanna cite them all. I'm I'm trying to reassure you that it's not completely dependent on the the source waters you're concerned about. There's other supply that is going into the ground that is not being extracted. It's just being stored over the same period of time.

Supervisor Church had his hand up.

You know, we we need housing, and water is a big role in that housing. We just dealt with an ADU issue the coastal areas that have some water issues that's taken years to develop. That's gonna provide some housing. This provides some housing. And I look at that in the whole picture of what we're needing to do.

Yes, this is a politicized issue in Districts 4 And 5, but in Districts 12, And 3. It's a politicized issue between the Valley and the Peninsula, between the North part and the South part of the Valley. And as I pointed out in in North County, which, again, has half of the unincorporated population, would be the second largest city if it was a city, is consistently ignored because it's not part of the Valley and it's not part of the Peninsula. So it's we have a complicated, highly politicized problem that's gonna take all solutions to solve eventually when it comes down to it because we're gonna need water for housing. We're gonna need water so we can continue with our two biggest industries, which include tourism and agriculture.

And, there have to be solutions that take into consideration all of these. And, it means everybody who is currently in their corners, essentially, arguing for their piece of the pie and, usually arguing for a bigger piece of the pie than everybody else is getting, is eventually gonna have to sit down, and we're gonna all have to compromise. We're all gonna have to go through and decide that, yes, what my neighbor needs is just as important as what I need. And that's how we're going to find a solution out of this. And it isn't we include desalinus in this letter or not, or however we approach it, because it frankly is, when we look down the long term on twenty five years from now, whether it's now or then, decel is part of the discussion.

There's going to be other parts that are going to be in discussions that we're not even discussing right now, I'm sure, that are going to come We're going to have to find some way to work together on this. And we've got to take that in consideration with housing, with ag, with tourism, with all our businesses, with our people that are living here, with the people that come and visit here. And it means, as I say, again, we're just gonna have people on the compromise. I see this as an opportunity to address some housing issues over on the Peninsula, which are badly needed. But there's a bigger issue at stake here.

And, you know, one of the issues that have not been, I keep bringing up, has to be addressed because it's going to affect water on the Peninsula, it's going to affect water over here in the valley, is when Ag Order four point zero comes into impact in a few years. That's going to have a huge impact. It's going to dry up. It's going to dry up a lot of those water reserves that are being counted on over from the peninsula, and we've got to start taking a look at that. But at the same time, we're going to have a big discussion coming up in this county over these next few months on the value of demand management and on a billion dollar project that's being talked about.

I have no idea how we're even paying for that. And so there's a whole range of issues that have to be assessed. Plus, we've got the dams. I mean, we we you know, when you look at the costs that we're looking at, you know, maybe, you know, we should start investing in a printing press. I don't know because we need to get we need to have money. And, we talked about the budget issues a little earlier. I mean, this looks like penny ante stuff compared to what we're facing right now. But we've got to work together. That's what it's going to come down to. I'm going to support this as one step, at least dealing with some of this, this housing.

But, you know, if water dries up and we don't have solutions, we're gonna have to go back and re and and and reinforce this this ban.

Alright. I think it's clear where the votes are. Is there a motion?

I'll move and say we're gonna have another opportunity when we have the allocation conversation to really go into part two of this conversation. There is more to come, but I'd like to move the staff recommendation.

Is there a second? Second. Alright, there's a motion and a second. I'm gonna ask all those in favor to signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Three two vote carries. Thank you. Alright, we've concluded that item. With that, we have got bigger presentation on the deep aquifer. So we're gonna go back to our for that one. Good

afternoon supervisors. Amy Woodrow, senior hydrologist at the Water Resources Agency. I'm going to take the first part of this presentation and talk to you about the monitoring plan for the deep aquifers. Just as a refresher, in 2024, a deep aquifer study was completed and it was brought to this board among others. The study included a number of recommendations, one of which was refining the monitoring networks that covered the entirety of the deep aquifers extent, which was defined in the study.

In response to that, one part of the recommendations, the agency worked with a number of other entities in the county that have water management jurisdiction over some portion of the deep aquifers. They're listed here on the screen, and the outcome of that work was preparation of a document that we've called the monitoring plan for the deep aquifers in the Salinas Valley groundwater basin. The entirety of the plan was included in the agenda packet, and we'll just touch on a couple highlights of that today. The deep aquifers extent covers a large geographic space and there are a number of different parties that have some responsibility over a portion of that extent. What we're trying to do with this monitoring plan is capture the work that's currently happening for monitoring groundwater in the deep aquifers, also looking to identify data gaps and discuss an approach for how we can minimize those in the future and enhance the network and looking to do all of this really collectively with all of the different partner agencies so that we have a regional understanding that's consistent of the conditions in the deep aquifers throughout the county.

The monitoring plan also includes a mechanism for doing a regular review of the data that we're collecting and you know taking the opportunity to discuss improvements or refinements that might be needed to the network. The map that you see here on the right, the colored areas are the extent of the deep aquifers, the sort of the orange and yellows. So we're looking to cover data collection across that whole area. There are three main categories of data looking to understand groundwater extraction and injection, groundwater elevations, and groundwater quality. So there's a different frequency that these parameters are measured.

What this monitoring plan is looking to do is make sure that all of the participating entities are doing that data collection on the same frequency so that we have a comparable data set that covers the entire geographic extent. And then as I mentioned, know there are a number of different wells that we're using. A lot of these are privately owned wells that we have the opportunity to collect data from. Others are dedicated monitoring well sites, many of which are owned by the Water Resources Agency or other partner agencies such as the Marina Coast Water District, GSA. The monitoring plan did, as I mentioned, also identify data gaps.

Those are the areas within the red circle that you see on the map there. The monitoring plan is not providing a schedule or a funding mechanism for filling these data gaps, but at this point it's just identifying where those are so that collectively we can understand where there may be a need to improve the network going forward. And then finally, know I mentioned there's an annual assessment mechanism that's part of the monitoring plan. I'm just making sure that we're keeping it robust and relevant and taking opportunities to make improvements as they might arise. And then I'll turn things over to Araf.

And so as Amy mentioned, the deep aquifers doesn't respect political boundaries. It is its own beast and so there are five different entities that have some form of responsibility for monitoring and management over the deep aquifers. And so we decided to enter into a memorandum of understanding so that we could collectively together in a very general way describe who's doing what. And so it talks about what entity is doing what work and what jurisdiction, how the costs are being borne and essentially each entity is absorbing the cost to do the work within their jurisdiction. It expresses the commitment to cooperate with the implementation of the monitoring plan and perhaps more importantly with the opportunity to get together on an annual basis and revisit the plan.

Does it need to be more or less and how do we move it forward? So trying to bring some uniformity to how this is done, trying to bring some understanding when staff at agencies change, when directors and supervisors change, or for the public that's interested and might be tracking this, you know, how is this all gonna work? And so those are kind of the simple reasons for for pursuing the memorandum of understanding. So it's fairly straightforward and it does provide for, you know, each agency to withdraw for any reason or no reason at all if it so chooses. And but that's basically what we're trying to accomplish through the existence of the MOU.

And to Supervisor Church's observation that us working together is the path forward. This is certainly an example of that.

And I think I just wanted to jump in and just acknowledge that the agencies work on this to prepare the monitoring plan was funded through a sub grant with the Salinas Valley Basin GSA so another opportunity we had to collaborate with our partners on that and then just alignment with the agency's strategic plan that was in here as well and we'll bring it back to the board. Thank you.

Questions from the board? Supervisor Church. Sure.

I want to thank our Amy for the work and the expansion on trying to understand the deep aquifers moving ahead and to just say, you know, this is something to get different different agencies. That's one of the problems. We're not just talking about political interests out there. We're talking about different different agencies that are overlapping a lot, and this is some way to try to clarify some of this. Could we go back to a couple of slides?

First, maybe four and then five. And again, I have brought up repeatedly about how there is a lack of knowledge of understanding what's going on with this deep aquifer. And I know that there's efforts to try to go through and take some kind of different actions onto it on protecting it or whatever. But it's for me, it's hard to go through and do this when we have such a vacuum of understanding onto it. And when I look at this, I can see the northern, the southern, and the western side are sort of undefined.

We don't know what's going on right there. Notice on this slide, we have it broken up into regions. And yet this isn't like sub basins like we're talking about the 18400. This is all, as we understand it now, this is all just one big aquifer. So the lines that we have there are more just sort of nebulous political ones. Is that what I'm understanding what you have here?

Those lines were based on data that came from the deep aquifer study, and part of it is actually geologically based and part of it is also I know there are some water quality differences that we observe in the deep aquifers. For example, the Northern region is a little bit different than conditions in that Southeastern region. So a lot of these based on data that were collected during the deep aquifers study.

So there's, you're picking up the differences on the water. I mean, they are connected or they are not connected?

They are connected, yes. Hydrologically What

are the differences that you're seeing there? I mean, is the first I've heard of that, so I'm fairly kind of intriguing.

Yeah, one of the things I know that's observed is a pH difference, and some of that just comes from the qualities of the geologic formation that the water is moving through. So again, they're all connected, but the rocks and the soils that the water is moving through do vary across that extent of the deep aquifers.

Okay. All right. Well, that's very interesting. So the next page you could go to, and I know you identified a couple of data gaps here and it's data gaps where we have sort of wells within the main part of aquifer, we'll call it. But I noticed, you know, we haven't identified it, but I I noticed it is particularly to the very far north and the south, there's hatched areas, and especially in the northern part, there's a lot of people up there.

I would hope we could move in and try to do some research up there, identify where the boundaries of this are going, what there is, because I think it's important to understand how big this is. We don't know how much water is there. We don't know how much we're using every year. We don't really understand what the recharge is onto it. And yet, when we look at it, urban use is almost the same as agricultural use, or shall be probably in a few years with the current trends going forth, especially with some of the build outs going out in Salinas.

And we just need as much data as possible, and the southern part there, with all due respect to District 3, I don't think there's too many people living down there. But on northern part, there are quite a few people living up there, I and how that interacts is is really important. So I'm just encouraging that we try to move into that direction to get that understanding of those boundaries. And I believe there's something else, actually, good chunk over there, and I missed this over on the East Side too, in the Langley area there, or the East Side, I guess it is. These we have hatched marks.

It may be bigger or may be smaller than that. You know, we don't know. Understood. But but thank you for making efforts to move ahead. You know, I've been pretty outspoken about the deep aquifer, but I appreciate, you know, the efforts that you're moving ahead on to as we try to understand what we have here. Thank you.

I'll just say I'm supportive of moving forward with this. I think, you know, deep aquifer water is the water that Marina exists on. It's really the life line of our community And to have the data that allows us to make science based decisions, to protect and adjust where needed, without the data, it's really hard to make those decisions. And so I just I think we need the monitoring and we need the monitoring plan so that we have the data to be able to figure out the best path forward. So I'm supportive.

And I think that one question I had was around public transparency. Is the Brown Act a committee being formed?

Well, it's a technical committee, It's the hydrologists from the various agencies Just getting

a technical committee.

Yeah. Getting together on an annual basis. Each entity and want to thank all of them, Because they've all been a part of crafting this cooperative effort. Each entity will continue to report out through its normal processes and so there will be plenty of opportunity for public engagement.

Okay, Fantastic. So all of the technical advisory committee and then all of the continuing reporting that's occurring will happen. So people will be able to see what's happening. We'll be able to get the data that's shared equally among everyone. Thank you. And I'm supportive.

Supervisor Lehoo, you're good? Supervisor Daniels? Good. Alright, let's take this out to the public, see if there's any public input on this item. Nobody coming forward? No hands up via Zoom, we'll bring it back. Yeah. I think my one big question that we still cannot find a solution for or an answer to is how it recharges. Right? Speaking to that hash in the South that you talked about, that's right at the opening of the Aurora Seiko, which most people believe is the largest filler based on quality of water, but there is no proof of that.

But again, part of that big question of speed of recovery, speed of percolation down to that level, and then source water. I've always heard the rumors, Ah, it comes from the Sierras. Beautiful legends, the dinosaurs drank the water, all the great things you hear when you're drinking Paso wine. No, that's not a shed of a shot at my friends from SLO. Just recognition that big picture, how it all plays together is really important. And so appreciate the plan that's laid out here to keep us looking forward and trying to find better answers to questions that have long plagued our communities. And so with that, I'll turn and see if there's a motion to approve staff recommendation.

I'll show move to approve staff recommendations.

Alright, I've got a motion. Is there a second? I second. Alright, I've got a second from Askew. Will ask all those in favor to signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Anybody opposed? The motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ara. Thank you, Amy. With that, we have concluded. In this agenda for today, we're gonna recess and reconvene the board of supervisors and reconvene