I. Introduction

The Multi-Year Stream Maintenance Program (SMP) describes a proposed program for conducting routine stream and canal maintenance on facilities of the Santa Clara Valley Water District (District) throughout Santa Clara County, California. The program applies to three major activities, sediment removal, vegetation management, and bank protection, and a group of minor activities. The program is intended to be ongoing and can be modified as conditions change.

The District, as lead agency, prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to cover effects of the SMP. The public review period for the DEIR was from March 29, 2001 to May 14, 2001. The District notified 158 agencies, organizations and individuals of the availability of the DEIR, distributed copies of the DEIR to local libraries and the California Office of Planning and Research (State Clearinghouse), advertised the availability of the DEIR and the SMP documents in local newspapers, and posted the documents on its website. A public hearing before the District's Board of Directors was held on April 24, 2001 to receive comments on the DEIR. Comments were received from twenty-two persons or organizations, and 5 people commented at the public hearing.

This document is the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) which responds to comments on the DEIR and revises the documents accordingly. This FEIR includes: a new Appendix F to the EIR which contains the comments received on the Draft EIR with responses from the District; a list of revisions to the March 28, 2001 DEIR and revised EIR tables and figures; and a list of revisions to an accompanying report, the March 2001 Draft SMP document, and revised tables. The FEIR incorporates the unrevised portions of the Draft EIR by reference herein.

In these lists of revisions, additions to the EIR or SMP text are indicated by (underlined text) and deletions are indicated by (strikeout text). Revisions are provided in order of their appearance in the documents, with revisions to the first chapter occurring before revisions to the second chapter, and so forth. Additional changes may be necessary to the SMP document (which is essentially the project description) after the District's Board approves the FEIR and chooses an alternative for the project.