The cost to submit the grant application is shared equally among the eight parties per the executed Second Amended and Restated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), approved by the Board on March 22, 2022, for the implementation of the East Contra Costa Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Pursuant to the MOU, the Contra Costa County Water Agency is responsible for 1/8 of the cost of actions to implement the GSP up to an annual cap of $40,000. The estimated cost to the County for the preparation of the grant application to DWR is $5,699 (this is 1/8th of the total cost). The County's costs would be funded 100% by the Water Agency.
Additional costs to prepare groundwater specific written technical comments on the draft Environmental Impact Report for the Delta Conveyance Project is outside the scope of the executed MOU. Thus, one-time funding of $7,330.39, paid to the consultant named in the MOU, Ludorff & Scalmanini Consulting Engineers, is proposed, covered 100% by Water Agency funds.
Contra Costa County is the Groundwater Sustainability Agency for portions of the East Contra Costa (ECC) Subbasin and is responsible for implementation of the ECC Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to ensure that groundwater resources in East County are sustainably managed and in compliance with the State’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
The MOU includes the following participating agencies, Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, City of Antioch, City of Brentwood, Contra Costa County, Contra Costa Water District, Diablo Water District, East Contra Costa Irrigation District, and Town of Discovery Bay (“the Parties”), and formed the ECC Working Group to facilitate the implementation of the GSP for the East Contra Costa Subbasin so as to share in the costs of administering and implementing the GSP within their jurisdictions, including work done by consultants, Ludorff and Scalmanini.
The Parties are now pursuing GSP implementation funding from the SGMA Proposition 68 (Round 2) Implementation funding cycle through DWR. The City of Brentwood is the lead applicant on behalf of the Parties. Resolution No. 2023/169 is a grant requirement. If successful, the grant may help offset some of the costs to implement the GSP. The City of Brentwood is the ECC Subbasin’s lead agency for grant applications/accounting, per the MOU.
Ludorff & Scalmanini Consulting Engineers, which consults on GSP implementation, also assisted the County and Water Agency with comments on the groundwater sections of the State of California’s Delta Conveyance Project environmental impact report. It was later determined that this work was beyond the scope of the service plan of the firm’s contract. The work has been completed to the satisfaction of the Water Agency’s Manager. The work will not be ongoing or repeated and an amendment to the contract is not needed. Therefore, to ensure the consultant is paid for work it performed that benefited the County, staff recommends the Board approve one-time funding for preparation of technical comments in response to the draft EIR for the conveyance project.
A decision not to adopt this resolution may result in a delay in executing a grant agreement and beginning projects, should a grant be awarded to the East Contra Costa Subbasin.