(a) Of the amount made available pursuant to Section 80110, two hundred million dollars ($200,000,000) is available to the Natural Resources Agency for implementation of voluntary agreements that provide multibenefit water quality, water supply, and watershed protection and restoration for the watersheds of the state to achieve the objectives of integrating regulatory and voluntary efforts, implementing an updated State Water Resources Control Board’s San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary Water Quality Control Plan, and ensuring ecological benefits. Expenditure of funds provided in this section shall be in accordance with the following:
(1) For the purposes of this section, watershed restoration includes activities to fund wetland habitat, salmon, steelhead, and fishery benefits, improve and restore river health, modernize stream crossings, culverts, and bridges, reconnect historical flood plains, install or improve fish screens, provide fish passages, restore river channels, restore or enhance riparian, aquatic, and terrestrial habitat, improve ecological functions, acquire from willing sellers conservation easements for riparian buffer strips, improve local watershed management, predation management, hatchery management, and remove sediment or trash.
(2) For purposes of this section, funds may be used for projects that measurably enhance streamflows at a time and location necessary to provide fisheries or ecosystem benefits or improvements that improve upon existing flow conditions. Project types that may be eligible include, but are not limited to, water transactions such as lease, purchase, or exchange, change of use petitions to benefit fish and wildlife, surface storage to be used to enhance streamflow, forbearance of water rights, changes in water management, groundwater storage and conjunctive use, habitat restoration projects that reshape the stream hydrograph, water efficiency generally, irrigation efficiency and water infrastructure improvements that save water and enable reshaping of the stream hydrograph, reconnecting flood flows with restored flood plains, and reservoir reoperations both at existing and new storage sites.
(b) The funds authorized by this section are available for direct expenditures and local assistance grants by the Natural Resources Agency, in consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, that satisfy all of the following:
(1) Implement voluntary agreements executed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife with federal and state agencies, local government, water districts and agencies, and nongovernmental organizations that improve ecological flows and habitat for species, create water supply and regulatory certainty for water users, and foster a collaborative approach to facilitate implementation of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan.
(2) Implement a voluntary agreement submitted by the Department of Fish and Wildlife to the State Water Resources Control Board on or before June 1, 2018, for consideration.
(3) Implement a voluntary agreement that is of statewide significance, restores natural aquatic or riparian functions or wetlands habitat for birds and aquatic species, protects or promotes the restoration of endangered or threatened species, enhances the reliability of water supplies on a regional or interregional basis, and provides significant regional or statewide economic benefits.
(c) Funds provided by this section shall not be expended to pay the costs of the design, construction, operation, mitigation, or maintenance of Delta conveyance facilities.
(d) If the Department of Fish and Wildlife submits a voluntary agreement that satisfies paragraph (2) of subdivision (b), unencumbered funds available pursuant to this section to implement that voluntary agreement shall no longer be available 15 years after the date the State Water Resources Control Board approves the submitted agreement, at which point funds remaining available pursuant to this section shall become available to the Natural Resources Agency for the purposes of Sections 79732 and 79736 of the Water Code. If no voluntary agreements are submitted on or before June 1, 2018, any remaining funds shall be available to the Natural Resources Agency for the purposes of Sections 79732 and 79736 of the Water Code. The Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency shall ensure an annual reporting of the funds pursuant to Section 80012.
(Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 497, Sec. 237. (AB 991) Effective January 1, 2020.)