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methods. In other words, IID would use less water to farm the same amount of land. Even though this kind of conservation would mean less water flowing to the Salton Sea, and therefore might have some potential impact on the ecology ofthe Sea, it was nevertheless assumed that this approach would be acceptable and would represent sound water management through conservation. One primary reason for this assumption was that the Salton Sea Reclamation Act, enacted by Congress in 1998, specifically provided that reclamation alternatives advanced by the Secretary were to be based on the presumption that there would be reduced inflows in the future. In other words, Congress recognized the importance of the proposed water transfers and attempted to provide that any Salton Sea reclamation project would not stand in the way of such transfers. Nevertheless, as the QSA water transfers proceeded toward approval a number of interested parties became much more concerned aboutthe linkage to the Salton Sea - for example, environmental groups and the State of California. This became particularly evident during the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) proceeding (to obtain approval for the liD-San Diego transfer), and during state legislative hearings (to obtain necessary legislative action to facilitate execution of the QSA). This Salton Sea linkage was eventually manifested in the form of provisions in SB 482, enacted by the sate legislature in August of 2002, wherein it was provided that in order to obtain certain environmental clearances under state law the QSA water transfers would need to be structured so as to result in no material impact on salinity at the Salton Sea for fifteen years (it is merely coincidental that this fifteen-year period is similar to the ISG fifteen year period). This new QSA state law based requirement resulted in the use of land fallowing as a conservation method during the SB 482 fifteen-year period. The stated purpose of the fifteen-year period was to give the state sufficient time to work with Congress to develop a long-term reclamation plan for the Salton Sea. In addition to this point of linkage, it is important to recognize that the SWRCB order approving the liD-San Diego transfer also imposed a number of environmental mitigation requirements on the QSA parties. Some of these requirements are species based, thus fulfilling obligations under the California Endangered Species laws, and some of the species concerned reside at the Salton Sea. However, many of the requirements are not species related, but have to do with matters such as air quality when the Salton Sea begins to shrink in size after transfer year fifteen when IID reverts to efficiency conservation methods. Altogether these types of environmental mitigation costs exceed $120 million, and this then represents one of the significant QSA facilitation hurdles now being addressed in Sacramento. E. Endangered Species Act compliance - In the context of the QSA there are several important aspects of state and federal ESA compliance that are important for understanding what has happened with the QSA and what needs to be done to develop and approve a restructured QSA. a) Section 9 - Section 9 of the federal ESA addresses "take" of species (the actual killing of species). It is the potential for take that gives rise to the obligation to comply with state and federal ESA requirements. In this 3