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Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Basin Groundwater Management Plan Northeastern San Joaquin County Executive Summary Groundwater Banking Authority 19 described above. The Plan is therefore intended to be an iterative document, and it will be important to evaluate all of the actions and objectives over time to determine how well they are meeting the overall goal of the plan. The Authority plans to evaluate this entire plan within five years of adoption. In the immediate future, the Authority and its member agencies will undertake the following planned activities described below subsequent to the adoption of the Plan. Integrated Conjunctive Use Program CEQA Review The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) allows agencies to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for a proposed course of action. The Integrated Conjunctive Use Program is a grouping of stand alone projects that could have very different specific environmental impacts, but would also have to address many of the same global environmental impacts requiring disclosure under CEQA. The Program EIR will support the implementation of future site-specific projects by: • Allowing proper consideration of broader scale impacts, alternatives, and mitigation criteria that would extremely difficult in individual site-specific project level EIR. • Focusing on cumulative impacts and growth inducing impacts with the implementation of the Conjunctive Use Program. • Addressing policy, design, and management issues at the program level rather than repeatedly considering them at the project level. • Considering broad policy alternatives and programmatic mitigation measures at an early stage in the development of the Conjunctive Use Program when policy flexibility is greatest. • Conserving resources and promoting consistency by encouraging the reuse of data. • Providing the basis for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and Federal permitting approval processes should federal interest be established in the Conjunctive Use Program or any of the Program elements. The Program EIR would also include a healthy technical appendix that would speak to the feasibility of specific project in the Conjunctive Use Program, demand management measures, and other policy alternatives. The Program EIR will also analyze the potential environmental effects of the Basin Management Objectives, assumptions and technical methods, policy alternatives to achieving identified objectives, broad-scale impacts, and establish mitigation criteria for the overall Plan. The Program EIR effort is expected to begin in 2005 and continue for 18 to 24 months Basin Operations Criteria Originally tied to the development of Basin Management Objectives, Basin Operations Criteria would set quantitative target groundwater levels and descriptive basin condition levels. Basin Operations Criteria could potentially consist of a series of groundwater levels that would correspond to basin condition levels (similar to the US EPA Air Quality Index and the US Department of Homeland Security Advisory System) to indicate the effectiveness of groundwater recharge programs and also potentially when and how much groundwater could be exported. The development of Basin Operations Criteria is a collaborative process that will be undertaken by the Authority immediately following the adoption of the Plan and is expected to be completed by summer 2005. Basin Operations Criteria developed with the framework of the Authority could ultimately provide the basis for a revised Export Ordinance and a new Groundwater Management Ordinance.