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. . . Western States Water Council Legal Committee Sioux Falls, South Dakota May 3,2007 the right, not the obligation, but the right to say no to those sort of inadequate water basin developments. It's an enonnous controversy. This whole issue is dicey. This document might offer ideas and alternatives. Jeanine Jones noted as an another alternative, just as a point of infonnation, that California's Legislature passed legislation that required local agencies with land use control who were going to approve a development of more than 500 units to go through a mandatory consultation and documentation process with their local water purveyor. CA DWR was directed to prepare a guide book explaining how this was all going to work. It's kind ofa blended approach. Jim Davenport suggested holding off until all the relevant reports are completed and then pull it all together. We should clarifY the distinction between the public interest and the public trust doctrine. Nonna Semanko thought the research and the way the Idaho law was explained was very accurate, but the discussion of whether the standard in Idaho is still broad enough to include consideration of these local growth issues leaves him with doubts. He thought it might be better to have a discussion of what caused Idaho, twenty-five years after adopting the standard, to go in a direction where they wanted to narrow the scope, rather than to discuss whether the standard is still broad enough to encompass these things. Pat Tyrrell: The conclusions are the areas that seem to need some looking at. I'm a little bit like Dennis and I don't want to limit growth unilaterally. On the other hand, and maybe Wyoming is the only state that is this way, our developers are not known for following any kind of public policy at all much less any local plans that may exist. Most state engineers are loath to use public interest to reject a penn it because we haven't done it that much before. You've got to pick the case where you do it, because it's going to be a defining decision in your state. I think it's appropriate to layout the landscape of the issues, but to stop short of being prescriptive. Craig hoped to have a redraft for review by the next Council meetings in Bozeman. He added that we were also asked by the WGA to look at the legal and institutional constraints in responding to the impacts of climate change. Also, we did a report on tools under state law that might be used to accommodate endangered or threatened species a few years ago, as part of our efforts to es~ablish a protocol encouraging the federal government to obtain their water for endangered species under state law. The notion here is to broaden it, not only to look at water for endangered and threatened species, but water for in stream values in general. STATUS REPORT ON CORPS OF ENGINEERS' "WATERSHED STUDY" Mike Fallon, Program Director ofthe Southwestern Division of the Corps of Engineers in Dallas, Texas, will be the liaison with the Council now on this study and he's doing so under the direction of Tom Waters. Mike provided his powerpoint presentation, which included partnerships with various agencies. This holistic approach to watershed management is very positive. The Western States Watershed Study is really an effort involving everyone at both the federal and state level. The Corps is using what they call "12 Actions of Change," which is a by-product that came out of the things we learned from Katrina. The focus 5