Following a lawsuit filed by hundreds of Pajaro Valley
residents and business owners, farmers and agricultural
landowners and tenants have filed two lawsuits against local,
regional and state agencies they claim are liable for damages
connected to the 2023 Pajaro levee breach and subsequent
flooding. One suit is filed by about a dozen business entities
(and roughly 50 people who are trustees); another by Willoughby
Farms. Each case, filed on March 4 in Monterey County Superior
Court, names a long list of defendants: the counties of
Monterey and Santa Cruz; the Monterey County Water Resources
Agency; Santa Cruz County Flood Control and Water Conservation
District; Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency; State of
California; and Caltrans. (The Willoughby Farms suit also names
the City of Watsonville and others.)
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge confirmed that the
Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin is one connected basin—not
separate subbasins—allowing for the groundwater adjudication to
move forward following a year and a half of delays and
litigation. … The Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin is one of
California’s 21 critically overdrafted basins that was required
under the 2014 California Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA) to create a groundwater sustainability agency (GSA)
and corresponding groundwater sustainability plan.
The California State Water Resources Control Board issued a
$6.6 million grant for a city of San Luis Obispo project
intended to clean up contaminated groundwater. Presently, the
city does not use groundwater for its drinking water supply.
SLO’s potable water supply comes from Whale Rock Reservoir,
Santa Margarita Lake and Nacimiento Reservoir. City
officials have sought to diversify the water supply in an
attempt to achieve “greater drought and climate change
resiliency.” Previously, contamination from
tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, served as a barrier to doing so.
PCE is a toxic chemical produced by dry cleaning and industrial
activities, which took place in the city decades ago. The
cleanup project will consist of the city building two new
groundwater supply wells that are expected to be fully
operation in 2026.
The State Water Resources Control Board is exploring regulating
nutrients emitted from Southern California wastewater treatment
plants into the ocean. The controversial move is prompted by
concerns that these discharges may accelerate acidification and
oxygen loss in the region’s coastal waters, harming nearshore
marine life. The wastewater treatment industry says this
nutrient regulation is premature. Environmentalists say it’s
overdue. … Wastewater effluent from 23 million
people is piped offshore in Southern California. The resulting
acidity boost could be enough to start dissolving the shells of
crabs and small snails called pteropods, which swim near the
ocean surface and are a favorite food of many fish and whales.
And the resulting oxygen depletion could deprive anchovies,
which many commercial fish eat, of their habitat.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge confirmed that the
Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin is one connected basin—not
separate subbasins—allowing for the groundwater adjudication to
move forward following a year-and-a-half of delays and
litigation. … The Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin is one
of California’s 21 critically overdrafted basins that was
required under the 2014 California Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) to create a groundwater sustainability
agency (GSA) and corresponding groundwater sustainability plan.
After the California Department of Water Resources approved the
sustainability plan, which called for a 60 percent water use
reduction in 20 years, agricultural corporations Bolthouse
Farms and Grimmway Farms filed a groundwater adjudication
against every landowner in the Cuyama Valley in August
2021.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has mapped
out the state over the last few years to gain a better
understanding of its groundwater basins. The department has
been using new technology combined with helicopters to create a
database about what lies below. Out of sight, out of mind, many
people might not think about the water that could lie below our
feet, but the DWR knows groundwater is critical to California.
The state has 515 basins that can hold up to five times more
groundwater than all surface water combined. However, state
officials need to learn more about these basins. With phase one
of their airborne electromagnetic survey project done, they’re
one step closer.
Sea otters, once hunted to near extinction, are staging a
comeback in California. Their return has revealed the
incredible positive effects these furry apex predators can have
on the state’s coastal ecosystems, including kelp forests and
seagrass meadows. Now, there’s another coastal ecosystem to add
to that list, one that plays an important role in bank
stabilization, water filtration, and carbon storage: the salt
marsh. In a new study in Nature, researchers found that sea
otters have reduced bank erosion rates by 69% in Elkhorn
Slough, a coastal wetland south of San Francisco, in the
decades since their return to the estuary. Their big effect is
due to their big appetites—the Elkhorn Slough salt marsh has
been eroding, in part, because of root-munching shore crabs
that burrow into the soil and destabilize the banks.
The Pleasanton City Council will be reviewing a staff
presentation on the city’s proposed plan to authorize and
approve a bond sale for as much as $19 million to finance a
portion of planned water infrastructure upgrades during
Tuesday’s meeting. According to the March 5 staff report, staff
will be presenting a debt financing overview and a resolution
for the council to approve, which will declare the city’s
intent to “reimburse expenditures relating to capital
improvement projects from the proceeds of tax-exempt
obligations.”
Residents in Grover Beach are feeling the pinch as water rates
surged this month, but a new bill could ease their burden. “We
had a rate increase of $26, which we were billed once every two
months,” said Dave Browning, who lives in Grover Beach. “That
was roughly $13 per month.” Grover Beach residents recently
felt the impact of a long-discussed water rate hike. “We did
send a couple of letters, and I know they’ve received quite a
few from what I was being told,” Browning said. And while many
still have strong opinions about it moving forward, those
facing the reality of the hike now are concerned about how
they’ll pay for it.
The cause of Santa Barbara County’s biggest offshore sewage
spill in recent memory — north of one million gallons — remains
the subject of an ongoing investigation, the county supervisors
were told in an informational briefing this Tuesday
morning. The supervisors were most interested in figuring
out why it took six days for its Department of Public Health to
get the news of a leak that was first detected late Friday,
February 16.
Pain and hurt continue to linger through the Pajaro community
as the anniversary of the devastating floods approaches. On
Tuesday, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors approved the
final rollout plan for the $10 million allocated directly to
help survivors. … Six million dollars will be allocated
for individual households and $4 million for small businesses.
Residents who sustained damages to property can qualify for up
to $15,000 dollars, and small businesses up to $85,000. All
residents, regardless of citizenship status, will be able to
apply in person for aid. The county, ultimately decided how
much would be dispersed on a case-by-case basis.
An effort toward a public takeover of the private water utility
California American Water has taken years to get to this point.
Activists asked voters to approve a ballot measure to that end
in 2005, and it failed. They tried again in 2014, and lost
again. They prevailed in 2018 with the passage of Measure J,
which compelled the Monterey Peninsula Water Management
District to acquire Cal Am’s local system “if and when
feasible.” More than five years later, the matter has moved to
the courts. In October 2023, the board of the water district
determined that yes, it was feasible—and that it would pursue
acquisition of Cal Am’s system. Because the utility company had
rejected the public district’s previous offer of $449 million
to buy it, the district would proceed by filing an eminent
domain case.
San Luis Obispo has been recognized for its water conservation
program that reduced the city’s water use greatly over the past
decade. The Alliance for Water Efficiency, a nonprofit
organization based in Chicago, awarded the city a platinum
status award for its compliance with the organization’s Water
Conservation and Efficiency Program Operation and Management
Standard. Cities can implement certain water-saving techniques
outlined in the standard — such as a water shortage or drought
plans, public information tactics, water waste ordinances,
landscape efficiency programs and better water metering
practices — to achieve a higher award from the Alliance for
Water Efficiency.
In October, CSU Monterey Bay received a $1.13 million grant
from the U.S. Geological Survey to support their ongoing role
in a project called OpenET. The tool uses satellites to
calculate how much water is lost to the air after being applied
to farmland. “There are still gaps in the information and
understanding between how much water we need and how much we
are actually using,” said Dr. AJ Purdy, a senior research
scientist at CSUMB working on the project. “This project fills
a big gap.” OpenET uses satellites from NASA, USGS, and others
to measure evapotranspiration, or the amount of water that
evaporates from soil combined with the water that transpires
through plants — traveling from the roots and evaporating off
the leaves. The satellites measure reflectance — energy from
the sun that bounces off the Earth, which hits the satellites
in different wavelengths that correspond to color. OpenET
measures plant coverage, so it looks for green.
On a mid-winter morning in central California, Alyson Hunter
and Bruce Delgado gathered at the Marina State Beach parking
lot, the sea raging in the distance. Heavy rolling waves gushed
toward shore, crumbling before the dune. The temperature was in
the high 40s, though the morning sun was strong and the air was
nearly still. … Without a coordinated state-wide
plan for sea level rise, however, cities and towns have arrived
at vastly different approaches to their shared problem. This
lack of coordination along the coast could present additional
challenges down the line, sparing certain areas at first but
ultimately worsening the impacts of sea level rise for more
economically and environmentally vulnerable communities.
More problems arose on the Central Coast following a
wild storm Monday that flooded the region and transformed
the runways at the Santa Barbara Airport into a flooded
plain. The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
announced Thursday that it was closing two beaches in the
county indefinitely, after waterways were contaminated by
thousands of gallons of sewage spilling from a sewer line and
manhole that were damaged due to the storm. Goleta Beach
is closed from 1 mile east to 0.5 mile west of the Goleta
Slough outfall after “a release of approximately 500,000
gallons of sewage from a damaged force main sewer line near the
Santa Barbara Airport to the Goleta Slough during the
recent rain event,” the department wrote in a media
release.
Amid all the tragedy wrought by the series of atmospheric
river-fueled storms this winter in the West, there is a silver
lining. California’s winemakers are expecting a “bumper” crop.
“With the rainfall from last year and the high vigor of the
canopy in 2023, we are expecting even bigger yields for 2024,”
said Jordan Lonborg, Vineyard Manager at Tablas Creek Vineyard.
“The rainfall we have received thus far will go a long ways in
supporting the crop that will most likely be what we call a
‘bumper’!” The winery is in Paso Robles on the
Central Coast of California. Tablas Creek’s owner, Jason Haas
shared his vineyard manager’s optimism for the vines but said
people have been hit hard.
The system that California uses to screen neighborhoods at risk
of environmental harm is highly subjective and flawed,
resulting in communities potentially missing out on billions of
dollars in funding, according to new research. The study, by
researchers who began the project at Stanford University,
investigated a tool that the California Environmental
Protection Agency developed in 2013 as the nation’s “first
comprehensive statewide environmental health screening tool” to
identify communities disproportionately burdened by pollution.
… CalEnviroScreen evaluates 21 environmental, public
health and demographic factors to identify which neighborhoods
are most susceptible to environmental harm. Among the factors
considered: air pollution and drinking water contaminants,
pesticide usage, toxic releases, low birth weight infants,
poverty and unemployment rates.
Four California lawmakers recently advocated for sustained
federal investment in the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management
Project in a letter to the Biden Administration. U.S.
Representatives Jimmy Panetta, CA-19, and Zoe Lofgren, CA-18,
along with U.S. Senators Alex Padilla, D-CA, and Laphonza
Butler, D-CA, urged the continued prioritization of the flood
risk reduction project critical to protecting disadvantaged
communities along California’s Central Coast. The Pajaro
River’s levees are about 12-miles long, were built in 1949 and
have broken several times in the decades since, causing
flooding and damage to communities and farmland. The Pajaro
River Flood Risk Management Project is the $599 million effort
to reduce flood risk from the lower Pajaro River and Corralitos
and Salsipuedes creeks.
The Zone 7 Water Agency last month sued the city of Pleasanton
alleging it failed to pay the agency over $18 million in fees
after Pleasanton increased water meter sizes and connections
but failed to properly report those changes. Because the city
did not uphold its end of a longstanding agreement, Zone 7’s
finances have been heavily impacted and is looking for the city
to pay what it owes, and possibly more, according to the
petition for writ of mandate and complaint for breach of
contract, declaratory relief and failure to perform mandatory
duty under state law – a copy of which has been obtained by the
Pleasanton Weekly.
The El Niño cycle bringing wet weather to California is one of
the strongest such cycles on record, according to researchers
from the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). Their
assertions are corroborated by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s climate prediction center,
which also reported a 62 percent chance El Niño would
continue from April through June with historically strong
conditions early in the year. … Record-shattering
rains poured over sections of California this week, with
rainfall totals as high as ten inches (25 centimeters),
bringing widespread flash floods. As atmospheric rivers pound
California, olive growers face the challenge of potential
diseases and problems that may ensue.
Winter storms have hammered the Bay Area in the past month, and
the active weather isn’t letting up anytime soon. Back-to-back
storms on tap for the holiday weekend will bring heavy rain,
gusty wind and a large swell to Northern and Central California
from Saturday through Monday. Before the rainmakers hit over
the weekend, Friday is shaping up to be a pleasant day, with a
mix of sun and clouds. … A quick-moving storm is expected to
hit the Bay Area on Saturday, but a long-duration rain event
will begin Sunday afternoon and last through at least Tuesday.
The culprit is a slow-moving weather system known as a cutoff
low.
… Normally in the US, all [household] water would flush out
to a treatment facility, and eventually out to a body of water;
34 billion gallons of wastewater is processed this way across
the country every day. But with multiple problems for cities
now converging—extreme heat, water shortages, and rapid
population growth—increasingly scientists are finding clever
ways to extract more use from water that’s flushed away.
… What Epic Cleantec has achieved is to essentially
shrink down what a water recycling plant does into a system
that fits in a high-rise basement, lightening the burden on
municipal wastewater treatment and reducing pressure on water
supplies.
With a respite from stormy weather, farmers say they are
surveying for any damage and waiting for the ground to dry so
they can access fields and orchards to make repairs or do other
practices. Historic and deadly storms that brought two weeks of
rain and powerful winds to California led to mudslides,
flooding and widespread power outages and related evacuations.
A state of emergency was declared for eight Southern California
counties. In Santa Barbara County, farm manager Sheldon Bosio
of Goleta-based Terra Bella Ranches said three mudslides
affected about 40 avocado trees or about half an acre, which is
half of what was lost from mudslides caused by storms last
year.
California residents have received a welcome break from rain
and storms following the deadly mudslides that
tore through southern parts of the state earlier in the month.
The floodgates of the Pacific Ocean will again be flung open
as AccuWeather meteorologists project a storm duo to
provide a one-two punch of wet weather this weekend into early
next week. A brief storm will break the dry stretch for
Northern California around midweek. … Areas of
Southern California that received historic rain amounts from
the atmospheric river last week will be spared from
any precipitation with this round. However, AccuWeather experts
say the next pair of storms will take a path farther to the
south, increasing the risk of hard-hit areas receiving
additional rainfall.
Some San Luis Obispo County residents may need to cut their
water use in the coming years under new regulations proposed by
the state — one city as much as 30%. The new regulation
framework, titled “Making Conservation a California Way of
Life,” was rolled out by the California State Water Resources
Control Board in the fall. The agency was still considering
public feedback received on the proposed regulations as of
Monday and will likely release an updated draft in March,
according to spokesman Edward Ortiz. As currently proposed, the
regulations would require some cities in San Luis Obispo
County, but not all, to reduce residential and commercial water
use by 2035, according to the state water board’s data.
… El Niño’s time in the limelight is coming to an end. The
warmer-than-average Pacific waters that define El Niño are
cooling off and temperatures are expected to drop below normal
in the coming months. The Climate Prediction Center issued a La
Niña watch last week, meaning conditions are favorable for La
Niña to develop this summer. … From April to June,
there’s a 79% chance of El Niño transitioning to “neutral”
conditions, with sea surface temperatures closer to
normal. The shift, coinciding with the typical end of the
wet season, suggests less precipitation in California in the
spring. … La Niña is typically associated with
drier-than-normal conditions in Central and Southern
California.
The coastal town of Pacifica is toeing a fine line, balancing
Coastal Commission regulations on sea-level rise and erosion,
which favors strict remodel standards and minimizing armoring
in threatened areas, with residents’ desire to protect property
and homes with physical barriers and redevelopment. Scientists
refer to a gradual pullback from the coastal shoreline to move
development out of harm’s way as “managed retreat” — a term the
Pacifica City Council rejected outright when preparing a 2020
draft of their Local Coastal Land Use Plan, a document which
regulates land use, resource protection and development along
the coast.
More than 250 people joined city and state officials in
celebrating World Wetlands Day on Feb. 3, part of the ongoing
restoration of Struve Slough. Watsonville Wetlands Watch (WWW)
co-hosted the annual event with a widespread planting project,
music, dance performances, arts and crafts, speeches and an
information blitz. The event was headed up by WWW
Executive Director Jonathan Pilch. Watsonville Mayor Vanessa
Quiroz-Carter, Assemblymember Robert Rivas, Sen. John Laird and
a representative from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office were in
attendance. All voiced their support of being stewards of area
wetlands before teams of volunteers fanned out around the
slough to put young plant starters in the ground.
For many Southern Californians, [flooding and landslides are]
the new normal. Homes once prized for hillside views and
apartment complexes on low-lying urban streets alike are
increasingly under threat from severe flooding, mudslides and
heavy winds. Wildfires and earthquakes have long been the focus
of concern, but the consequences of wet storms are only now
beginning to generate similar levels of alarm. The Rivases [a
family in West Hills] had renters insurance when they
lived in a house a few doors down. But when they moved in
November, they couldn’t get a policy because of the location.
What’s been called the “disaster insurance gap” has become an
increasingly dire concern in recent years. Even those who have
insurance but live in imperiled places are often unable to
secure sufficient policies to protect their residences and
belongings.
A quasi-governmental agency has appealed a Monterey County
Superior Court decision that ruled the agency overstepped its
bounds when it blocked a regional water district from acquiring
the local assets of California American Water Co. In January
2022, the Local Area Formation Commission, or LAFCO, denied the
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s petition for
what’s called the district’s latent powers to buy out Cal Am’s
local infrastructure. Latent powers essentially refer to
whether or not the water district has the financial wherewithal
and expertise to acquire and operate the Cal Am system. The
water district sued, alleging the behavior of several LAFCO
commissioners in denying the petition was inappropriate.
Many California cities are already well ahead of their February
rainfall normals, but another turbulent weather pattern is
expected to push some areas toward monthly records this
week. … Wednesday will feature the first in a
weeklong series of wet weather systems. … By the
end of the storm sequence, Los Angeles could set a new February
precipitation record. … Californians planning to head to the
Sierra Nevada for Presidents Day weekend should prepare for a
few feet of snow. However, it’s too early for exact forecast
snowfall amounts.
The California sea otter, once hunted to the edge of
extinction, has staged a thrilling comeback in the last
century. Now, a team of scientists has discovered that the
otters’ success story has led to something just as remarkable:
the restoration of their declining coastal marsh habitat. “To
me, it’s quite an optimistic message,” says Christine Angelini,
a coastal ecologist at the University of Florida and one of the
authors of the study published in the journal Nature. It’s a
demonstration, she says, “that the conservation of a top
predator can really enhance the health and the resilience of a
system that’s otherwise under a large portfolio of stress.”
… Elkhorn Slough in Monterey Bay, California is
the second largest estuary in the US. For decades, it
was falling apart. ”They opened up a new harbor in the
1940’s that created this full permanent opening to the ocean,”
says Brent Hughes, a marine ecologist at Sonoma State
University. “And so all this new tidal energy was eroding away
the marshes.”
Starting Feb. 10, beavers will have more eyes on them as the
SLO Beaver Brigade and the Atascadero City Council team up to
celebrate their contributions to California’s ecosystem.
Beginning at 9 a.m. at the De Anza Trailhead in front of the
Atascadero wastewater treatment facility, the Central Coast
organization will unveil a new interpretive panel. SLO Beaver
Brigade Executive Director Audrey Taub told New Times that two
new interpretive panels and kiosks along the Juan Bautista De
Anza Trail will display information on beaver habits.
… Taub said these wetlands are a refuge for the local
animals and serve as firebreaks for cities and towns along the
Salinas River. To help fund these new interpretive panels,
Taub said SLO Beaver Brigade received a Whale Tail
Grant of a little more than $40,000 from the California
Coastal Commission.
The Zone 7 Water Agency completed the construction of two new
monitoring wells at the Ken Mercer Sports Park in Pleasanton in
early January that representatives said will help the agency
detect PFAS contamination before it spreads any further. While
there haven’t been any contaminants found in the area around
the sports park along Hopyard Road, having these two wells will
help warn the water agency before any contaminants seep into
any wells with actual drinking water.
Rosemary Menard, water director for the City of Santa Cruz,
California, announced in January she is retiring after a
43-year career in local government and water utilities
… During her time at Santa Cruz, Menard helped guide the
water department through multiple droughts, wildfires, repair
and replacement of aging infrastructure, a treatment plant
upgrade, meter replacements and a plan to supplement the city’s
water supply and prepare for the ongoing effects of climate
change.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.