California Water Views

Managed retreat—the process of moving people and property away from the shoreline—is an unpopular but increasingly accepted response to rising sea-levels. In the inaugural issue of Nossaman’s California Water Views – 2023 Outlook, we discuss the saga of Morro Bay’s efforts to relocate and reopen its wastewater treatment plant farther inland at the direction of the California Coastal Commission. After many fits and starts, the Morro Bay plant opened in February 2023 and cost $161 million to build. The Morro Bay case is relevant because similarly situated coastal ...

On May 12, 2022, at the conclusion of a 10-hour hearing, the California Coastal Commission voted to deny Poseidon Water’s application to site and operate a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, in what could be a fatal blow for a project that has been debated for more than 20 years.

The Coastal Commission’s vote was unanimous, 11-0, in agreeing with the staff report’s recommendation to reject Poseidon Water’s application. The staff report recommended denial “due to this project’s fundamental inconsistencies with Coastal Act and LCP policies related to coastal ...

On May 27, Nossaman’s Water Industry Group hosted a webinar to discuss the potential impacts of sea level rise on infrastructure and private property, as well as current legislation seeking to address the impacts of sea level rise.

This post is not intended to summarize the topics discussed during the webinar, so if you missed the presentation and want to catch up, you can download the slide deck or watch a recording of the webinar here.

Over the course of the webinar, we asked a few poll questions to get to know more about our audience and their concerns about sea level rise.  We found the ...

With the recent flurry of coastal law bills before the California State Legislature and the myriad headlines advising that we must retreat from the shore, sea level rise (SLR) and related climate change topics remain front and center in California. Join our Water Industry Group on May 27, 2021 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PT for "Living on the Edge: Managing Sea Level Rise in California" as we sort through the pending legislation and discuss the basis for this ever-increasing concern with the encroaching ocean.

Comprised of attorneys from Nossaman’s Water, Environment & Land Use and ...

Please join us on May 6, 2021 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PT as Nossaman’s Coastal Development and Environment & Land Use Groups present “Charting a Course for Offshore Wind Energy in California” to discuss current proposals and pending regulations concerning offshore wind development along the California coast.

We will be participating on a top tier panel of coastal specialists which will also include: Kate Huckelbridge, Deputy Director of Energy, Ocean Resources & Federal Consistency, CA Coastal Commission; Jennifer Lucchesi, Executive Officer, State Lands ...

Sea level rise is a critical issue facing public agencies and property owners throughout the United States. In California alone, this phenomenon could impact thousands of residences and businesses, dozens of wastewater treatment plants and power plants and hundreds of miles of highways, roads and railways. Last year, the California Legislature introduced a number of bills that proposed to address, or anticipate, or mitigate the impacts of sea level rise in California. Almost all of those bills, however, failed to make their way to the Governor’s desk. This year, the California ...