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B. The Evidence
The City’s EIR/FAA for Gate King’s proposed project includes a broad overview
of the SWP, a review of the historical deliveries of SWP water to CLWA and other local
contractors, and DWR’s projections of SWP water supplies which will be available for
delivery to CLWA (which were projected for “average/normal” conditions, and “a single
dry year . . . based on a repeat of the worst-case historic hydrologic conditions of 1977,”
and “a multiple dry-year period . . . based on a repeat of the worst-case historic four-year
drought of 1931-1934”).
The City’s EIR/FAA for Gate King’s proposed project also includes an extensive
review of the myriad of litigation arising from the Monterey Agreement and Monterey
Amendments, and the transfer of 41,000 AFY from KCWD to CLWA, and includes the
accurate observation that “[n]o court has ordered any stay or suspension of the Monterey
Agreement pending certification of a new EIR,” and that no court has ordered any stay or
suspension of the 41,000 AFY from KCWD to CLWA. The City’s EIR/FAA further
notes (correctly) that DWR and its contracting water agencies “continue to abide by the
Monterey Agreement[,] as implemented by the Amendments, as the operating framework
for the SWP.”
We are satisfied that the evidence summarized above supports the City’s finding
that the 41,000 AFY of water from KCWD to CLWA is reliable for planning purposes,
and we consider CWIN’s real objection not to be that there is an absence of substantial
evidence in support of the City’s conclusions, but that City’s conclusions are, themselves,
wrong. Where, as here, substantial evidence supports an agency’s findings, we will not
substitute our conclusions for those of the agency.
Finally, even assuming we were inclined to discard the City’s conclusions, and to
take it upon ourselves to make our own independent conclusions based on the evidence,
our decision would be the same. Although CWIN is abstractly correct that DWR’s new
EIR for the Monterey Agreement/Monterey Amendments may (if and when feasible
mitigation measures are adopted) affect the amount of SWP water which will be
delivered to CLWA pursuant to the transfer of 41,000 AFY of water from KCWD, that
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