California Water Quality is aggressively working on a water permit that will support suction dredging!
Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2018 4:54 am
At the invitation of California Water Quality Control, myself and several other industry leaders were urged to attend two separate meetings in Sacramento during this past month of August.
Please note that these were informal meetings to help the Water Board better understand the way our industry works before they release a draft proposal. Once the draft is released, everyone will be invited to participate in the formal process. Nobody has been excluded.
Having devoted multiple hours in two meetings with the Water Board staff, and listening closely to their comments, my personal impression is that this mid-level staff has been directed to develop a water quality permit scheme that will work for our industry. I have not detected any animosity towards our industry. In fact, Diana Messina, a very capable person, who is the Section Chief of the Water Board’s Surface Water Permitting Section, made the bold statement that “the Water Board is bound by law to come up with a permitting scheme that will work for our industry.”
Said another way: my impression is that this staff has no dog in the fight to prevent us from getting back into the water.
According to Water Quality staff, they are hoping to release a draft permit for public comment sometime in February 2019 and have the Statewide Water Permit finalized in April of 2019.
We have composed a substantial explanation about this in our September newsletter which can be found here:
http://www.goldgold.com/newsletter-september-2018.html
Please note that these were informal meetings to help the Water Board better understand the way our industry works before they release a draft proposal. Once the draft is released, everyone will be invited to participate in the formal process. Nobody has been excluded.
Having devoted multiple hours in two meetings with the Water Board staff, and listening closely to their comments, my personal impression is that this mid-level staff has been directed to develop a water quality permit scheme that will work for our industry. I have not detected any animosity towards our industry. In fact, Diana Messina, a very capable person, who is the Section Chief of the Water Board’s Surface Water Permitting Section, made the bold statement that “the Water Board is bound by law to come up with a permitting scheme that will work for our industry.”
Said another way: my impression is that this staff has no dog in the fight to prevent us from getting back into the water.
According to Water Quality staff, they are hoping to release a draft permit for public comment sometime in February 2019 and have the Statewide Water Permit finalized in April of 2019.
We have composed a substantial explanation about this in our September newsletter which can be found here:
http://www.goldgold.com/newsletter-september-2018.html