## Facts

- The State Water Resources Control Board approved permits and certified an EIR for the Delta Wetlands Project, which proposed diverting water from the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta into off-stream reservoirs on privately owned Delta islands.
- The Project contemplated later re-diversion and possible sale of stored water to future purchasers that were not identified when approval was granted.
- Decision No. 1643 authorized diversion of large annual quantities from the Delta for storage, with later use and sale subject to various conditions intended to protect water quality, fisheries, and other uses.
- Petitioners (local water agencies and landowners) challenged the approvals, arguing the permits effectively authorized a water marketing framework without adequately specifying core water-right elements and without a sufficiently defined project for meaningful CEQA review.
- The trial court denied mandate relief and upheld the Board’s decision; petitioners appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Board violated California water-right permitting requirements by issuing permits that did not adequately specify the beneficial uses, places of use, and quantities associated with a water marketing project.
2. Whether the EIR complied with CEQA’s requirement for a stable, finite project description where purchasers, operational details, and actual marketed quantities were uncertain.
3. Whether the EIR adequately analyzed and mitigated impacts on water quality, fisheries, Delta agriculture, and related resources given the Project’s flexible future operations.
4. Whether the Board’s public-interest and no-injury determinations were supported by substantial evidence and reflected a proper exercise of discretion.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal granted mandate relief in part and denied it in part.
- The court held that portions of the permits and CEQA approval were legally deficient because the Project was authorized in an overly open-ended form.
- The court required the Board on remand to clarify and narrow permit terms and to correct CEQA defects tied to an insufficiently stable project description.
- The court otherwise upheld aspects of the Board’s analysis and conditions where supported by substantial evidence and consistent with CEQA.

## Legal Principles

- Appropriative water-right permits must identify core elements—purpose of use, place of use, and quantity—with enough specificity to make the right intelligible, enforceable, and capable of no-injury and public-interest evaluation.
- The Board has discretion to approve innovative arrangements, including marketing-related projects, but may not issue a permit that amounts to approval of a marketing concept without adequately describing the right being created.
- Under CEQA, an EIR must describe the project with sufficient stability and finiteness to permit informed public participation and meaningful environmental analysis; a description that shifts or remains too indeterminate is inadequate.
- CEQA review may address projects with some uncertainty, including staged or programmatic components, but environmental analysis must correspond to a reasonably defined set of foreseeable operations and consequences.
- Courts review CEQA compliance and agency findings for prejudicial abuse of discretion, applying substantial-evidence review to factual determinations and ensuring required analysis is not undermined by an undefined project.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the Board to consider a Delta storage-and-marketing project but required a more definite water-right authorization and a more stable CEQA project description, partially setting aside the Board’s decision and remanding for corrective action while affirming supported portions of the approvals.


Central Delta Water Agency v. State Water Resources Control Board, 124 Cal. App. 4th 245 (Cal. Ct. App. 3d Dist. 2004)