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Water Board Hearing Temporarily Suspended - Settlement Negotiations Breakthrough!by Martha Davis The late winter hearing held by the State Water Resources Control Board on stream and waterfowl restoration plans for Mono Lake was suspended after five intense days of testimony (link is temporarily unavailable) when the Department of Water and Power (DWP), the Committee, and other parties announced that they had reached conceptual agreement on a settlement proposal. John Caffrey, chairman of the Water Board and hearing officer for the current round of Mono Lake proceedings, agreed to postpone additional testimony for 30 days to see if the parties could put the agreement into writing. The terms of the settlement, which the Committee has spent many months working on, are confidential. However, if the parties are successful in translating the verbal agreement to writing, the settlement will be presented to the Water Board where it will be reviewed at a public hearing. If a written agreement is not produced, the original Board hearing will continue. Efforts to work out a settlement were begun in the summer of 1996. The Water Board deferred hearings twice on the promise of a possible settlement; however, by late January, no agreement had been reached and hearings commenced. The parties agreed to continue settlement discussions despite their return to the Water Board. The breakthrough was achieved during the second week of the hearing. Parties to the settlement include the groups which have participated in the Mono Lake hearings for years: DWP, the Mono Lake Committee, National Audubon Society, California Trout, U.S. Forest Service, State Lands Commission, California Department of Fish and Game, and California Department of Parks and Recreation. Joining the settlement discussion are several parties which joined the proceedings recently because of their interest in the restoration plans; these include the Bureau of Land Management, Arcularius Ranch, and the Trust for Public Land. One party to the proceeding, the newly formed group People for Mono Basin Preservation, declined the invitation to be part of the settlement negotiations. Keep an eye out for the summer Mono Lake Newsletter, which will report on the settlement terms and analyze what they mean for restoration! Martha Davis, the Committee's former Executive Director, has spent many months negotiating with DWP on this topic.
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