Water: permits and licenses: temporary changes: water or water rights transfers.

Under existing law, the State Water Resources Control Board administers a water rights program pursuant to which the board grants permits and licenses to appropriate water. Existing law authorizes a permittee or licensee to temporarily change the point of diversion, place of use, or purpose of use due to a transfer or exchange of water or water rights if the transfer would only involve the amount of water that would have been consumptively used or stored by the permittee or licensee in the absence of the proposed temporary change, would not injure any legal user of the water, and would not unreasonably affect fish, wildlife, or other instream beneficial uses. Existing law prescribes the process for a permittee or licensee to petition the board for a temporary change due to a transfer or exchange of water rights, and imposes on the board related notice, decision, and hearing requirements. Under that process, a petitioner is required to publish notice of a petition in a newspaper, as specified. Existing law requires a petition to contain specified information and requires a petitioner to provide a copy of the petition to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the board of supervisors of the county or counties in which the petitioner currently stores or uses the water subject to the petition, and the board of supervisors of the county or counties to which the water is proposed to be transferred. Existing law authorizes a person entitled to the use of water to petition the board for a change to a water right for purposes of preserving or enhancing wetlands habitat, fish and wildlife resources, or recreation and authorizes the board to approve the petition only if certain requirements are met. Existing law authorizes that petition to be submitted in accordance with specified requirements, including those regulating temporary changes due to a transfer or exchange of water rights. This bill would revise and recast the provisions regulating temporary changes due to a transfer or exchange of water rights, including, among other revisions, specifying that those provisions apply to a person who proposes a temporary change for purposes of preserving or enhancing wetlands habitat, fish and wildlife resources, or recreation. The bill would eliminate the requirement that a petitioner publish notice of a petition in a newspaper. The bill would establish a new process for petitions for which notice is submitted to the board no later than January 31 for a temporary change due to a transfer or exchange of water rights initiated in the same year, and would impose on the board related notice, decision, and hearing requirements. Under this new process, the board would be required, among other things, to post on its internet website and disseminate by email LISTSERV by February 15 of each year a list of all timely and complete notices for which notice is filed.