[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the city of Bakersfield Planning Commission meeting this television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies the county of kar and the City of Bakersfield you can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 700 p.m. and Sunday at 10:00 a.m. you can download the agenda for this meeting at w www. Bakersfield city. us preci over this evening's meeting Vice chair Adam Strickland it is my pleasure to call to order the October 3rd 2024 Planning Commission meeting Madame clerk will you please call the role chair kater Vice chair Strickland here commissioner Bashir toos commissioner Biddle here commissioner core here commissioner Coman here commissioner Neil here Madam clerk next item please Pledge of Allegiance please stand for the pl pledge of allegiance to the repblic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you for attending tonight's Planning Commission meeting this commission provides an opportunity for public participation in the development processes throughout the city of Bakersfield the Planning Commission considers a wide variety of projects including subdivision Maps zone changes and general plan amendments and more when applications are received the city planning division analyzes the requests planning staff will present the facts about the project along with with their recommendations to the Planning Commission who will approve the item or make recommendations as appropriate Madam clerk next item please public statements public statements are now received at a different times depending on the item I will call on Madam clerk to call for a public statement at an appropriate time so please listen carefully to the correct time to [Music] speak does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items not listed on tonight's agenda if you are here for non-consent public hearing item 6A now is not the time to speak you will be given an opportunity to speak at a later time non-agenda item 3B public statements does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items not listed on tonight's agenda if so please come forward and state your name Vice chair sugland um I think you skipped on um public statements for items on the agenda so if if there's anyone that want to speak on items on the agenda except for item 6A you can come and speak now I'm going to redo that then if we can just back up sorry first time agenda item 3A public statements got it does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items listed on tonight's agenda if you are here for non-consent public hearing item 6A now is not the time to speak you will be given an opportunity to speak at a later [Music] time non-agenda item 3B public statements does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items not listed on tonight's agenda if so please come forward and state your [Music] name seeing none Madame clerk next item [Music] please agenda item four consent calendar items all matters listed under the consent items do not require a public hearing and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of set items unless staff or commissioner requests specific items to be discussed and or removed for separate action may I get a motion approving consent items 4 a so moved I'll second all right motion passes with commissioner Bashir toos and chair ker abson Madam clerk next item please agenda to item five consent public hearing items now is the time for consent public hearing items if the item is not removed by commissioner staff or a p member of the public the commission will vote on all items in one motion without further comment if an item is removed it will be placed at the end of the non-consent public hearing items at this time I will open the public the consent public hearing items does any member of the public wish to remove a consent public hearing item does any commissioner or staff wish to remove a consent public hearing item at this time the consent public hearing items not removed are now closed may I get a motion to adopt sash's recommendation on the consent public hearing items not removed incorporating all staff memoranda and revised staff recommendations I'll make a motion to approve all items under five A B C thank you commissioner Coman do you have a second I'll second that thank you commissioner core please cast your votes motion passes with commissioner Bashir toos and chair ker absent thank you madam clerk next item please agenda items six non-consent public hearing items now is the time for non-consent public hearing items before we begin I would like to explain how the hearing will be I would like to explain how the hearing will be conducted staff will first give a report and then those in favor of the project will be allowed to speak those in opposition of the project will be given will be able to speak after those in favor have spoken each side will be given 5 minutes to provide rebuttal comments and individual speakers may ask questions during their statements but questions will not be answered until the public hearing on that item is closed written comments may be given to the clerk who will provide copies to the commission please be respectful of others participating in the hearing by not repeating the remarks of previous speakers and presenting new comments or thoughts in a clear and concise way Mr Johnson would you please provide us with your staff report yes thank you Vice chair Strickland Commissioners member of the audience thank you for attending tonight's hearing this is a request from bua Vista water storage district for several actions which I will talk about more detail in my presentation to facilitate construction of What's called the mallister ranch groundwater banking project project site is located in Southwest Bakersfield as identified on this map surrounding uses include to the north a current water banking operation with within the county and some agricultural that's designated for future residential to the east you have residential and future residential to the South another water banking operations in the county jurisdiction along with agricultural that's designated for future residential and then to the West you also have additional water banking operations within the County's jurisdiction this project site is maybe more commonly referred to or known as the mallister ranch this will was a specific plan approved by Kern County in 1993 covers just over 2,000 acres and was designed for residential commercial had a golf course schools Park a lake and multi-purpose Trails so to facilitate um the proposed project of the groundwater banking there were some project objectives that needed to be first identified as part of the environmental review some of those include assisting that this project would assist in groundwater sustainability it would conserve available water supply it would provide water recharge storage and recover recovery capacity provide for flexible flexibility for implementing conjunctive use pro programs increase the water supply reliability in the area reduce dependence on the Delta and also provide for an ecosystem to get there it needs a zone change so we're going to be changing in or the request is a change from residential commercial drill Islands to agricultural with a water recharge combining Zone there will be an associated general plan amendment to two elements of the general plan the first is to the land use element which will go from existing residential and Commercial to Agricultural and then a general plan Amendment to the circulation element to remove the street alignments within the plan boundary area area another action that's required is to resend the mallister ranch specific plan and this therefore will eliminate all goals and policies and implementation measures that were part of that plan and through this we an environmental review was done through an environmental impact report or eir um that process consists of a notice of preparation which was done in 2020 there were five comments received as part of that notice of preparation there was a scoping meeting held in 2020 during the NP process and no comments were received the draft eir was circulated in 2022 seven comments were received and then the final e went out prior to this meeting we received two comments on the eir the final e itself along with two additional comments regarding the overall process those were transmitted in a memo to your commission today today uh one of the comments from the current water Bank Authority came in um a little bit later and so the applicant is in the audience to to address those comments in that letter otherwise there the comments to the current Water Agency who commented on the E are part of the memo that was prepared for your commission as you may recall when we discussed different types of environmental review the eir is really considered the heart of the California Environmental Quality act it is the most intensive environmental review you can do there are required elements of an e per squa that includes a project description discussion of environmental impacts analysis of impacts as measured against the Baseline alternatives to the project mitigation measures and discussion of cumulative impacts and all those were in the draft e and final eir there were numerous factors that are required to be considered um the four on the top starting with Aesthetics uh there was no impact to those those four Aesthetics Transportation agricultural resources forestry and Wildfire the eight factors you see under less than significant impacts were analyzed and determined that this project would have no um or the impacts to these four eight factors would be less than significant the eight factors you see where it says with mitigation measures starting with air quality there are mitigation measures that were required to address these factors in order to bring that down to a less than significant level level and there were no significant and unavoidable impacts identified for this project part of the request that we are asking of your commission in certifying the E is that you adopt a mitigation monitoring and Reporting program this is 34 mitigation measures that were identified for the eight elements that you I previously talked about air quality bio cultural geology hazards tribal cultural resources utilities and cumulative impacts out of those 34 there was Heavy emphasis on cultural resources and the biological is where the majority of those mitigation measures lie uh and the mitigation monitoring and Reporting program or mmrp as is often referred to as really shows the responsibilities of the contractor the responsibilities of the city a timeline for implementation and then the checklist to make sure that those mitigation measures are complied with so it's a living document is what it is uh you also have to um adopt squa finding 15091 findings and these explain the lead agency and in this case the city's conclusion regarding a Project's environmental impacts the reason for incorporating or not incorporating mitigation majores and the reasons for selecting the approved project over the Alternatives so your commission does have several options on this decision tonight you could approve the project as requested you could obviously deny the request if there are comments made tonight where staff does not have the answer readily available but we have a certain reasonable timeline when we can get those you can continue this project to a specific date in which case we're either looking at two months four weeks and again the first or third Thursday of every month or if there are questions of of staff and the applicant and the consultant that cannot be answered or cannot be answered tonight and will take some time you this project could be referred back to staff in which that allow us time to uh obtain those answers and return to you and that would be read vertis for a future hearing at a date undetermined at this point in time based on what we have in the record right now staff is recommending that your condition or your commission excuse me adopt a sqa finding section 15091 mitigation monitoring and Reporting program and certify the final eir approve the general plan Amendment to the land use element by changing the land use designations approve the general plan Amendment to the circulation element by removing the street alignments approve the changes in zone classification and approve the specific plan amendment to resin the McAllister Ranch specific plan and again this is a recommendation that you will be making to city council who will have final approval staff is available if there are any questions thank you thank you director Johnson the public hearing is now open is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor of the project please step up to the microphone identify yourself and proceed good evening Commissioners and thank you for this opportunity my name is Isaac St Lawrence and I am representing buav Vista water storage District the applicant for this particular project as the last few years have demonstrated to us we have an urgent need for more water storage facilities throughout California but especially in Kern County Water Supplies in the last couple years and historically in Kern County very for example in 2021 22 the Kern River produced about 200,000 acre feet in 2023 that number was 2.3 million acre feet that's how the Kern River works that's how our water supplies work we have wet years and unfortunately extended drought this project aims at being able to effectively and efficiently manage our water supplies here locally for agricultural purposes and to the benefit of the municipal purposes within the city of Bakersfield the current fan area where this project site is located is uniquely situated with its sandy soil and proximity to the Kern River and existing facilities it is perfect for water banking thus it is surrounded by water Banks so we have a unique opportunity to utilize this project site for a much needed purpose pro pro the proposed project would involve the construction of water recharge ponds conveyance facilities to store water when it is available it doesn't have a specific water demand or need will very likely be dry empty years and empty when there is no water available but when water is available under existing rights of the applicant that water can then be put in those ponds recharged and stored in the subbasin for for later recovery during dry periods this will help the community with our compliance with a sustainable groundwater management act known as Sigma and provide our Farms an economy with some much needed water during dry years at full buildout the project could store up to 200,000 acre feet of water in a year now that's assuming that we have that much water available that water could then be recovered at a later time but there are parameters on that recovery to make sure that there are no significant impacts for example the project cannot recover any more water than has been recharged less losses the project cannot recover more than 56,000 acre feet in a given year to ensure there there aren't impacts on neighboring Wells the project also has a long-term operations plan that is nearly identical to that of those water Banks right around the project site that oper oper ation plan provides for monitoring and ensuring that groundwater quality and levels are maintained project also is subject to an agreement with the city of Bakersfield known as a joint use or joint operating joint use agreement and mitigation agreement um that specifically protects some of the city wells in the vicinity this project accomplishes a goal of conserving available Water Supplies providing for the efficient management of water and benefiting the local ecosystem and water supply we did receive some comments that are in the record um I'll just the Salk Keen Facilities Management comment letter and the Kern County Water Agency comment letter um we boab Vista supplied a response in writing to both of those which are also in the record and we have been in contact and Communications with both of those entities and have satisfied their concerns it's our understanding that they support this project regarding the krent water Banks comments which came in uh this afternoon these comments are really a repeat of what they submitted on the draft environmental impact report um we feel that Deal's comments are fully responded to and addressed in the final impact report just a few examples of that um the water Bank the current water Bank Authority stated that or asked questions regarding the testing of water being put back in the aqueduct and whether it meets the standards the Department of Water Resources controls what water can be put in that aquad do the eir for this project specifically says that we will comply we are required to comply with those standards so yes the water will be tested and be adequate quality to be put in the aqueduck if it is um if it doesn't meet that standard it can't be placed into the aqueduct the comment from the water Bank also asked about a Palms related facilities Palms project related facilities and whether they'd be used to recover the Project's water the eir specifically identifies the wells that would be used to recover water stored at mallister those do not include the Palms recovery facilities that's very clear in the figures and the language of the draft the water Bank also stated that there was new information provided in the final impact environmental impact report however none of that is material um SQL guidelines sections 1 15008 only requires recirculation of a e when the new information in question is significant and it's not significant if it doesn't change in a way that it deprives a public of meaningful opportunity here there was no information that was added to the final e that meets that criteria um the water Bank also has concerns about the modeling assumptions that were used for the in the eir those were developed by an expert in the field and tailored to the specific needs of the project and used historical data Bo this is not required to use modeling assumptions that the current water Bank Authority prefers so again we legally complied with requirements of Sigma and finally there was some questions about the long-term operations plan whether it it is an element of the project again if they looking into response to comment f-67 it is clear that that long-term operations plan is an element of the project and must be entered into uh for operations of the project so with that I I thank you for this opportunity ultimately this is a project that helps the area comply with a sustainable ground of water management act it promotes efficient storage and use of water and ultimately benefits the local Agricultural and Municipal communities and would request that you approve this as uh requested by this in the staff report and I'm available for any questions should you have any thank you sir thank you is there anyone else in the public who would like to speak in favor of the project please step up to the microphone identify yourself and [Music] proceed seeing none is there anyone who wishes to speak in opposition of the project please step to the microphone phone identify yourself and [Music] proceed all right does any commissioner have questions for the public on this item remember this is not the time to express any opinions on the matter it is only the time to ask [Music] questions Mr cman go ahead uh thank you uh thank you so um this is going to be mostly to staff and to I'm sorry Isaac I didn't get your last name but you're with the buesta water retention okay um is the staff staff confident that uh that the applicant has met all the requests that came in at the last minute today that's correct um and our our consultant who is an expert in this field has also red and we believe um that's correct okay can you tell me what the effect is on the private property rights like who owns this property now answer that uh buav Vista water storage District owns this property so you already own all this property correct okay how does this uh how does this plan uh tie into our current water use water storage plan it seems like there's you know different districts doing different things and is there is there a cohesive plan everybody's like on the same page about or you guys just doing whatever you want to do how long do you have tonight um historically the agency districts have kind of managed their own areas under the sustainable groundwater management act everybody has had to have a coordinated plan to ensure that the Basin s is sustainable we are in the process of getting a plan passed through the State Board um and and avoid probation so I've been doing this in the Water World for almost 20 years now 18 years and I've never seen the Basin so coordinated as it is right now and working together it's a little bit surprising but it's a it's a good change um so this is another facility that will work in conjunction with all the all the other facilities that are out there uh primarily utilized by buav Vista um and buav Vista has some other storage facilities that will no longer be available in the future so this is kind of a replacement for that is there uh any going to are you going to do any grading or anything out here or is this going to be just a giant vacant lot whenever there's not water on it there certainly will be grading and that's all detailed in the e um there will be levies that were built uh to yeah I didn't see any of that one stuff I was looking at I scroll through pages I didn't I didn't see a plan of any kind yes but there are uh that that made no sense tough but yeah there's little ponds that are identified um some of that one of the unique aspects of this is the grading that was already done for the golf course that was out there it was kind of in and really it uh avails itself to be a pond as is right now but there would be additional levies that will be built to look like much of the other water banks that you see around the area it's all that other uh curban Gutter and debris that's out there all going to be cleaned up and U so it's not going to just like a oh correct is it g to be fenced yes okay point of this has already hauled off loads of garbage as that area has been used as a illegal dumping site for quite some time so won't be Contin to do that during forever and ever right correct okay then my last question is is for staff I know you mentioned it in the staff report the effect on our Arena numbers can you review that that please so this site was part of our Arena numbers in the last housing cycle but this request came in well prior to the establishment of our current housing cycle that we're working on so these numbers were removed not considered I should say um so they're not part of the housing element at all it has no effect but you you say in the in in the staff report that you still have to uh submit something to hcd regarding the fifth cycle I would have to double check on the fifth cycle so the fifth cycle this was included in the housing element these these housing units were in our sixth cycle that we're working on now with with the subal that we're going to submit we've already submitted twice we have a third one coming this month right uh these housing units in anticipation of this project uh were not included at all all right so there is no effect on these housing units for Reena unless of course it goes back to residential then we would obviously grab these housing units as part of Reena okay I'll take I'll I thought I read something about that I'll I'll take that you understand that so if anybody understands that I suppose you do so I have no further questions thank you commissioner Coman commissioner Neil hi good evening um I have a couple of questions um can you tell me about the valley fever management plan I saw that in the uh in the ER yes and oh de I will refer to our expert who from montros um that she can answer that question for us like that hello I'm demorra Lily I'm with Montrose environmental or the environmental Consultants that prepared the environmental impact report the valley fever management plan is a plan that will be prepared um before construction begins and Grading takes place um Kern County and the Central Valley are very susceptible to the um the entities that cause valley fever and over the last say 10 years it's become uh much better understood and um people are much more aware of it than they had been in the past um the valley fever management plan that will be prepared uh will be a combination of um measures that have been developed by the county and the state and um CDC at the Centers for Disease Control and protection ction prevention sorry um so basically it it will be uh a plan that uh informs the construction workers and the contractors um how to reduce the risk of being exposed to Valley Fever including uh masks um dust reduction um a bunch of other um measures about um wind and uh construction vehicles um some of it it's fairly standard dust reduction um policies uh there will also be some information provided in the plan about um health care providers in the area who are familiar with valley fever um on in case uh any of the employees or the contractors are um affected uh what about the at and properties do you feel that the construction um would impact you know the um the people residing around the project at the time of construction and then on an ongoing basis um as this project continues um as I mentioned most of the measures are related to or part of dust reduction because that's how um people are exposed most uh most notably is through inhaling um and the dust reduction measures tend to be um watering uh not doing uh a lot of grading work when there's wind uh reduced speed limits um to to avoid uh generating dust and so those things are going to their purpose is to make sure that the dust doesn't spread off the site yeah um for those uh air quality measures there will be I believe uh contact information available so that if someone nearby felt that they were being uh exposed to that there would be a specific person they could contact UM at the city and then that would be addressed um in terms of after construction there shouldn't be any more issue because it's about disturbing the dirt so once gring is complete and the project is operating there shouldn't be any more concern that area gets really really dusty there's a lot of open field out there I happen I don't live that close but to live out that way and this is a really large site it's going to stay just kind of dirt on top well ideally it's going to going to be um ponds filled with water okay so when when the ponds are not full of water it will be exposed dirt but um there will still be dust reduction measures um in operation so that they have to take care of that okay that's that's what I was getting at um okay and then uh another question about um I'm just just curious about the mosquito and Vector abatement plan how does that work um that's a fairly standard um policy that is provided by the vector control district so that um tends to involve um treatments with certain I don't know which basili uh um small organisms that basically eat mosquito larvae so any place where there are large standing ponds uh there are treatments using those entities that reduce or basically eliminate the mosquito larva so that they're not breeding mosquitoes thank you you thank you commissioner Neil commissioner core oh actually just a buildup on that a mosquito control program um so my question comes from um there's another uh water retention facility on Ellen and Ming area last year when we got a lot of rain um there was no mosquito control the mosquitoes were invading all over that high gate community um is who is going to be responsible for maintaining is just the vector control cuz we called the department so many times times and it was impossible to contain those mosquitoes I would expect and and Paul or Tim or Isaac can jump in but I would expect that it would be the vector control district working with the property owners so that they would have measures that they would discuss with the property owners to make sure that that takes place okay um and my second question is uh probably to Isaac regarding the oil field operation and then you mentioned in your um comments today that there's going to be water tested before it uh gets into the aquaducts um if the soil is already contaminated um and the water gets on it it's not going to just leech into the groundwater already no so we did s soil sampling uh well we Haro environmental a consultant hired by the the district did soil samping and did 15 different bores throughout the entire project um they also dug eight different uh trenches in the boring they didn't find any evidence of any contamination through the trenching they found one area and that was actually limited to 266 cubic feet of soil it was what they identified us is probably you know some gasoline spilled so the district prior to beginning operations of this project is going to remove that soil and haul that off to the appropriate Hazardous Waste Facility to dispose of it um and then so that alleviates all those that concern as it relates to leeching through there all right thank you y cool that's you good okay I had a couple questions I I'm going to try and structure them I'll go Staff first and then I'll I'll come back to you sorry um for staff it was a comment that came up from a property rights owner I think it was resolved in the memorandum but for properties that are within the zone change we're saying that they're going to be grandfathered in right they're going to uh be legal non-conforming for oil and gas operations existing would be legal non-conforming existing existing yeah so is there any overlay for that or we're just putting this as um water resources and just grandfathering them in but in the future do they lose their capability to do any additional efforts um so the municipal has um a whole chapter on legal non-conforming uses and legal non-conforming structures so in this case uh oil being a a little bit different generally speaking you can keep a legal non-conforming use going indefinitely uh provided that there's no stop and operation for a year after a year you lose that legal non-conforming status however oil is a little bit different let's just say they want to stop drilling then there still efforts that they would need to go into plug and abandon the well so it would it would go past a year to to ensure that that will is properly done with but they have one year to as long as there's not a break of more than one year they can keep that legal non-conforming status indefinitely do they can drill for oil indefinitely as long as they don't stop for a year per se uh a kind of a broad question but are we sure that mineral rights holders in this zone are aware of that condition being applied that if they cuz it's it's not necessarily uncommon to idler leave a well alone for a year do nothing and then come back right are we aware that all property owners are aware of that and that they may not come back because there are a lot of inactive or Idol Wells on site so you're you're talking the mineral rights owners not the property owners both I guess I'll say Property Owners because that's probably easier to deal with the I will say that uh bune a Vista is the property owner of all of this entire site so the property owner is aware now a lot of times these are these oil wells are done on leases um and not all mineral rights are required mineral rights owners are required to be informed of um of of actions that are occurring on the property in part because some of these Minal rights owners have been there for decades and decades uh sometimes there's hundreds of Minal rights owners um in and so actually the if you if you notice on some of our subdivision map acts uh there are Provisions within the munity code that allows for certain Provisions where mineral right owners do not need to be contacted certain waivers and exemptions so for this project um I would safely say that not all mineral rights owners were informed I think it answers the question anything after that it's probably a comment thank you and then I think that would be it for I have questions for the applicant but can we go to the you had the map with showing inactive wells in the presentation can we bring that back up or I think the site map that had the wells as well yes so thank you so I guess the kind of continuing on the soil contamination discussion looking at this map we've got a couple of inactive Wells that are going to be right in the um location of pond right looks like I'm assuming Pond 1 23 just a name a few are going to be in that there's no detailed drawing that shows kind of what the Pawn's going to look like what kind of protection are those active well are those inactive Wells going to be submerged underwater at some point during banking no um part of the reason you don't have that detail at the pawns is it you have to get out there and start digging to see where the the sand takes you but the eir specifically states that levies will be constructed to preserve existing petroleum facilities so those will be island out or Peninsula out or or avoided by the ponds okay so on the detail drawing for like Pond two where if there are a couple of inactive you're going to build levies around the wells all the way so it's not a complete circular Pond there's a boxed off area that'll never get depth correct that's the intention yes and the levy will be designed to what the maximum height of storage plus I believe and Tim you probably know this I think we can't go over six foot otherwise it becomes a dam if I if I remember that correctly it would it would look the of those would but similar to The Towers like in the there's already Towers right you got to come up to the microphone sorry yep no good questions yeah I guess to get to the question is call the engineer because that my head that's great no it they would just be they probably would be exact at a little above the existing ground now two foot higher so the the water level will not be probably will be at ground level or even below existing ground level in most locations okay so so it it it won't be difficult to do and and if it is that's just brought in more dirt okay so there's which there's plenty of there there's never going to be a condition where water levels Crest The Bu levies okay thank you sir can you say your name for the record please sure it's Tim ashlock um I I don't want to jump around but kind of going around some comments we had I had a couple questions on I wanted to get the overview of operation I read through the documentation provided I got a general overview could you provide just high level when's the site going to be active storing water how often will it have water because I think it was a little conflicting in the documentations provided so could you just give like a high level operation yeah the it's estimated like twice in a 10-year period that we'd actually be recharging water but it is all dependent on the hydrology and the wet the water year um you know for example in 20123 had this project been operational we'd been recharging water in 2024 most likely wouldn't have there wasn't was enough water available to recharge so forecasting what it's going to look like is a little bit different because it really is just weather dependent okay yeah cuz so the operational documentation provided to the staff was Operation December through July 7 days a week two employees on site maybe some for deliveries and then further on it said that 85% of the time these are going to be just dry ponds with no water so kind of going back to commissioner core's question um or sorry commissioner Neil's question around um I guess valley fever control and that these won't be wetted ponds right these are going to be dry is there a plan to minimize dusting will there be spray filed activities to keep these ponds at least there is the project is or the property is currently has dry dirt and the district maintains that to keep dust down and these will these ponds are probably going to improve conditions out there with the with the grading that goes on okay so there already is dust mitigation efforts in okay cool thank you and then in the E under volume 19 um they talked about some Alternatives uh and the only reason it stands out was one of the Alternatives said that there are times where they can have adverse effects during very low low groundwater conditions and that alternative recommend the removal of pond 24 as a mitigation effort could you speak to what the adverse effects during low groundwater conditions are and how removal of that pond resolves that issue my understanding is the removal of that uh SE section 24 relates to Habitat and cultural resources that are in that particular section you throw up that map that we were just uh looking at that is the southwest corner right over there and um so that was that alternative to we just better to just avoid it than disturb that particular area um as it relates to the extended drye periods anytime you're in a water Bank you put water in the ground then you start drawing it out and if we have extended droughts you're going to see some groundwater level impacts in that particular area that's part of water Bing you also see benefits When You're recharging in that area that's where the long-term operations plan comes in and make sure that those do not become significant it's also that area is subject to the Kern River groundwater sustainability agency's groundwater sustainability plan under Sigma and so it will be subject to that uh the city of Bakersfield is part of that Kern River GSA developing that plan and so this project will also be subject to that to ensure that there aren't significant impacts on groundwater during those dry really dry periods okay and then following up I'm glad we brought this drawing back up the the site 24 in that southwest corner doesn't show any kind of pond or tension but we're not proposing and this may be a question for staff we're not proposing the alternative we're proposing the original right which would include a pond there or potentially include upon there and potentially include disturbing that area I don't believe the district had any intention and uh yeah the district didn't have any intention of disturbing that section 24 there there's some cultural resources and bio stuff so yeah that's I don't you see in our site plan there that's in the E it's not Disturbed there's no pwn showing there okay I I don't want to get too far into e discussions back and forth but there was a recommendation to reduce the overall capacitance by 8% um by avoiding a certain Pond and I thought it was at 24 so yes the specific reason was because it could have adverse effects during very low water groundwater so ason answered I guess good enough um and then the only other question I had to final was at my understanding is the flow this doesn't increase the flow from the Cur River to the facility right you're using existing water rights this isn't increase water rights correct there will be no increase in water rights these are existing water rights that are being utilized so Kern River or the point of Vista the applicant is the owner of the second Point Kern River right also has State Water Project water so that can be brought in from the California aquadoc and and put into the the property as well okay thank you that that was all I had thank [Music] you I will now close the public hearing on this item and return to the commission for comment and [Applause] [Music] action do I have commission comment or action make a com sure I think everybody gets a little fearful when they see water attorneys in the audience so I'm glad we're not going to be here for about 4 hours but water is a major topic for every industry and every Community member in bakersf Kern County and all of California so when we see these water Banks come up I'm I'm so glad to have heard all of your questions and concerns and I think that really covered a lot of it so I'm definitely in favor of this project and the water Bank project so I would like to make a motion to approve I'm I will second that all right uh we have a motion cast your votes motion passes with commissioner Bashir toos and chair ker absent thank you madam clerk next item please agenda item seven reports does staff have any reports [Music] items uh I would just note that we will be having a meeting uh in two weeks on October 17th we have a couple projects uh on the agenda um it'll be worth reading the agenda when that once that's released although you will get a copy of the hearing notices that go out thank you just for clarification Miss King I think I messed this all up that wasn't reports right that was communication oh I'm sorry we have no reports that's fine I'm not supposed to read the part there there a bunch of stuff we had some text in there but we we can just jump to commissioner comments and then if staff has any comments so that's my report Madame clerk you figure out the next item we're going to skip to item 10 agenda item 10 Communications does staff have any communication items staff has none Madam clerk next item please agenda item 11 commission comments does any commissioner have any comments commissioner Neil I'll be out of town for the meeting on the 17th okay thank you you can watch it live I will say you can watch it live with probably my mom right now every one of these everyone um Madam clerk next item please agenda item 12 adjournment this meeting is adjourned at 6:21 p.m. I m [Music]