Paper Water*

There is inadequate coordination between local land-use planning agencies, resulting in a process that fails to fully engage the issues. P.O. Box 4000 • Laguna Hills, CA 92654-4000 • Phone 949.837.7050 • Fax 949.837.7092 www.etwd.com ۶ Response This finding is not applicable to the District. The District is not a land-use planning agency. As such, speculating with regards to the adequacy or not of City and County planning coordination would not be appropriate or useful. It is important to note that the District's service area is essentially built out. That said, the District does work closely with the Municipalities that it serves to provide timely water related information necessary for planning departments to assess and approve proposed new development, redevelopment and infill projects within its service area boundary. The District reviews and offers comments on updates and/or amendments to applicable City General Plan documents. Proposed General Plan developments and water requirements are incorporated into the District's near and far term Water System Master Planning Document. Further, the Cities that the District serves are provided an opportunity to review and comment on the District's Urban Water Management Plan which is updated every five years. The District serves all of the City of Laguna Woods and portions of the City of Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo.

California's looming water supply crisis receives very little, if any, expressed concern from the public in comparison to the numerous other environmental issues presented during development project reviews. This finding is not applicable to the District. The District's service area is essentially built Response out and thus no developments requiring significant environmental review have come before the governing board. As such, it would be difficult for the District to speculate with regards to the public's expressed concerns over competing environmental issues. Orange County's citizens and interest groups do not appear to grasp the seriousness of the

LAFCO is the agency charged with facilitating constructive changes in governmental structure to promote efficient delivery of services. To this end, LAFCO is conducting a governance study of MWDOC which is the designated representative for nearly all the Orange County retail water agencies, acting on their behalf with their surface water supplier Metropolitan. Response Agree.

Orange County is uniquely fortunate to have a vast, high-quality, well managed groundwater basin serving its north geographic area. However, in its south reaches, it has an equally large, high-growth area with virtually no available groundwater resources. Response Agree. The difference in groundwater availability creates the "haves versus the have-nots"