Welcome to CEQA News You Can Use, a quarterly production of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP’s Natural Resources lawyers. This publication provides quick, useful bites of CEQA news, which we hope can be a resource to your real-time business decisions. That said, it is not and cannot be construed to be legal advice. Enjoy! CEQA can’t stop, won’t stop regional board permit Does CEQA prevent a Regional Water Quality Control Board from issuing its own permit under state water quality law? In Santa Clara Valley Water District v. San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (2020) 59 Cal.App.5th 199, the First Appellate District answered “no,” holding that CEQA does not bar a regional board from imposing additional requirements on a flood control project, even after the project’s final environmental impact report (FEIR) was certified. To protect against Berryessa Creek flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers designed a flood control project and named the Santa Clara Valley Water District as a project sponsor. The District certified a FEIR, which included various mitigation measures. The Regional Board then certified the Berryessa Creek project per section 401 of the Clean Water Act under time pressure from the District and the Army Corps of Engineers in order to preserve federal funding for the project, but included the caveat that it would later issue a waste discharge requirement permit (WDR) under the state Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act requiring the District to perform additional mitigation. After the Regional Board issued the WDR, the District challenged the order, claiming that because the Regional Board failed to impose mitigation as a responsible agency during the CEQA process, it was now barred from doing so. The court rejected the District’s argument, however, noting that the Regional Board has independent authority to impose mitigation under the Porter-Cologne Act.