General Plan Water Resources Element

The Water Resources Element in the draft Butte County General Plan 2030 newly, and for the first time in the general plan, asserts the importance of water to the management of Butte County. The 26 page element is posted for public review here.

Several significant recommendations by the League of Women Voters to increase the county’s control of water have not been incorporated so far; nevertheless, the Water Element brings together in one document all the tools Butte County currently has in place toward managing our surface and groundwater. Currently the tools are primarily educational and voluntary.

BEC will be submitting formal comments to the county in the weeks ahead, well before the planned joint Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors meeting in January for their consideration to accept the draft General Plan. Subsequent steps necessary, such as the completion of the environmental document and the zoning ordinance, before the Board adopts the general plan will likely take the final adoption date into 2011.

From the Fall 2009 issue of the Environmental News.