Peter Van Zant of Sierra Watch went into the County and looked over the Royal Gorge documents and gave us this summary:
The documents include reports/studies/maps on:
- Water Supply Alternatives
- Specific Plan and map
- Environmental Assessment report
- Waste Water Treatment
- Development Standards
- Summary of Royal Gorge Community Outreach
- Archeology and Historical
- Traffic Impact
- Wetlands Delineation
- Biological Assessment
- Circulation map
- Cross Country Trail map
- Financing plan (may be part of the specific plan document)
Some of these sound like reports we have already seen, but may have been updated or modified.
Here are some of Peter's highlights from the water supply study:
- The "water supply alternatives" study is just that, a list of water alternatives. Note how they are alternatives, not proposals?
- Dredging, either by draining Lake Serena, or by using a dredging barge.
- Lake level management. Actually means raising the dam. What RG seems to be proposing (to be confirmed by studying the document closer) is to capture those overflow inches (6 inches, 12 inches?) that the lake level naturally reaches during spring flooding. This entails starting with the dam low, and then slowly raising it as the food level tries to recede, so as to keep those extra few inches of water. The "dynamically" changing dam height (a gate on top of the dam would work as well), prevents the flood waters from going above the natural flood level, but keeps the lake level at the peak flood level until water usage drains the level down again. So, for you lake side property owners that are flooded for a few weeks, Royal Gorge thinks you should be flooded for a few months. And what happens if the dam mechanism fails (freezes for example)?
- Spring runoff pumped up to "East" lake in Lake Camp, an 85 acre-foot reservoir.
- A new dam and reservoir built down Serene/Ice creek adjacent to Wilderness camp.
- Water from Rainbow Lodge pumped uphill to Lake Camp.
- The SLCWD wells put into action.
- Water from Serene Lakes (how much?)
So far damming Van Norden Meadow is not on the list. Also, the water demand is calculated at both 46% and 75%. Since we've heard that 100% is required, I can only assume that the above "alternatives" only add up to 75%, not 100%.
Highlights of the Specific Plan are:
- Nothing is proposed in Nevada County
- The project will be phased-
- Lake Camp
- Summit Camp (North and North East of Serene Lakes) including the railroad overpass.
- Part of Ski Camp, including the lodge, and the campground part of Wilderness Camp
- The rest of Ski Camp
- The rest of Wilderness Camp
- 85% open space (are roads open space?)
- Infrastructure will be paid for in two ways, by "mitigation fees" imposed on each homeowner's land purchase, and by creating a Mello-Roos district so they can take out bonds and make future homeowners pay them back.
- No mention of a second egress.
They are still planning to go for a single EIR that will cover everything, even if they only turn in specifics for Lake Camp. Apparently there were no subdivision maps submitted for Lake Camp. All the other maps were still the same "bubble" maps.