Water Code, 1943

State agencies with resource management responsibilities affected by a project may cooperate with federal and local sponsoring agencies and may develop data needed to carry out this chapter.

The Department of Fish and Game is responsible for managing all fish and wildlife resources at projects covered by this chapter.

The state must pay half of certain nonfederal capital costs for eligible recreation and fish and wildlife enhancement features, and the department or Reclamation Board must get public-access assurances before state money is spent.

Each fiscal year, the Legislature must include in the department’s budget an appropriation from the General Fund sufficient to cover all costs required by this chapter.

This section gives Chapter 4 its short title: “The California Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Law.”

The definitions in this article control how this chapter is interpreted.

This section defines “lands, easements and rights of way” for watershed protection flood prevention projects.

“Local organizations” means a county, city, state agency, or public district.

The section declares that the people of the State have a primary interest in controlling and conserving floodwaters and preventing erosion, sediment damage, and other floodwater damage in river and stream watersheds.

The section states that recurrent floods are harmful and that flood control and prevention, along with conserving and protecting state land and water resources, are proper state functions carried out with local and federal cooperation.

The Legislature states that California’s policy is to pay the local cooperation costs required by Congress for certain watershed projects.

The State’s assumed local-cooperation costs are limited to lands, easements, and rights of way.

The state must not give financial assistance for relocating, reconstructing, or replacing existing improvements, structures, or utilities when the owner has no legal right to compensation.

For certain flood control projects approved after November 10, 1969, the state and local agency must share specified project costs, and the department determines the state’s share in prescribed circumstances.

A local agency may get credit against its share of project land costs if the land was required for the project and was acquired within five years before federal authorization.

The department may lend funds to a local agency, and the local agency may accept the loan if authorized to participate in watershed protection projects.

The State must pay certain land, easement, and right-of-way costs for specified projects only when the listed conditions are met.

The State may pay certain project land and right-of-way costs only if the listed planning, local assurance, benefit, transmission, and funding conditions are met.

Local organizations that have agreed on a plan for works of improvement and want state financial assistance must file an application with the department.

The department must make a recommendation to the Legislature if it finds the requirements of Section 12867 or 12868 have been met.

The department’s required findings must be based on current cost estimates or on actual costs incurred or expended.

The department must make the required findings once when it first recommends a project or complete usable unit to the Legislature.

The department must reallocate appropriated money to local organizations when they apply and meet the stated showing requirements, and the organizations must later report expenditures and provide information the department requires.

The department may refuse to issue any reallocation order if this chapter is violated.

This section defines key terms used throughout the chapter on maintenance areas.

The department must prepare a detailed work statement and cost estimate when specified maintenance or operation problems exist, and it must estimate and submit costs to a requesting local agency before doing additional formation work. The board or department may proceed with forming a maintenance area in some circumstances, but not all.

After the description and map are completed, the board or department must schedule a hearing.

Notice of the hearing must be published in a newspaper of general circulation within the proposed maintenance area.

The notice for the hearing must state the hearing time and place, the hearing’s purpose, where the proposed-boundary map may be inspected, and a description of the maintenance area.

At the hearing, affected landowners or other interested people may present evidence, object to boundaries or zones, and ask for changes; the board or department must receive the evidence or testimony.

Land outside the proposed maintenance area’s exterior boundaries cannot be included unless the owner consents or gets notice, an opportunity to object, and a chance to be heard.

If additional land is proposed to be included and the owner does not consent, the hearing must be adjourned to a specified time and place.

Notice of an adjourned hearing, when additional land will be included, must be published at least once a week for two successive weeks, or sent by registered mail to the landowner instead.

After the hearing, the board or department must set the maintenance area boundaries, the zone boundaries, and the benefit percentages.

Land benefited by more than one unit may be included in as many maintenance areas as there are benefiting units.

A board or director creating a maintenance area must do so by order or resolution, and that order or resolution must describe the area’s boundaries, any zones, and the percentage of benefits for each zone. The area must also be given a brief name.

The statement must describe the unit and name any local agency responsible for operation and maintenance, and it must be sent to the affected local agency and, for projects under the board’s jurisdiction, to the board.

The order or resolution establishing a maintenance area’s boundaries must be filed for record in each county recorder’s office where part of the area is located.

After a maintenance area is formed, the department must operate and maintain the unit until the area is dissolved. If only part of a project unit is included in the maintenance area, the remaining part stays the responsibility of the local agency.

Certain local agencies may ask the board or department to dissolve a maintenance area, and the board or department may do so after a hearing if it decides dissolution is in the State’s best interest.

The board or the department may change maintenance-area boundaries, works descriptions, and benefit determinations, and may consolidate maintenance areas that share a common boundary.

If a petition for modification is received, or the board or department starts the proceeding itself, the board or department must conduct the modification proceedings and may approve the modification if it thinks that doing so serves the best interests of the State and the affected area.

Land in each zone, or in each maintenance area where no zones exist, is conclusively presumed benefited by continued operation and maintenance and is subject to assessment under this article.

Each maintenance area is treated as a district where assessments are collected based on land value or benefit product.

The department must estimate annual operation and maintenance costs for each unit by April 1 and send a copy of the estimates to the board.

Each year after April 1, the board or department must hold a hearing in Sacramento about fixing estimates and assessments for units operated or maintained by the department under this chapter.

Notice of the hearing must be published in newspapers in each affected maintenance area.

A statement required by this section cannot be used as evidence in a court action against the local agency, its governing body or members, the State, or state officials, and noncompliance with the statement cannot be treated as negligence in such an action.

The notice must set the hearing time and place, and the hearing must be held at least 10 days after publication is completed.

At the hearing, affected landowners or other interested people may present relevant evidence or testimony, and the board or department must receive it.

After the hearing ends, the board or department must set the estimate amount for each unit, and if the board sets it, the board must immediately tell the department the amounts.

If an area or zone spans more than one county, the department must divide the estimate by each county’s acreage, adjusted for any zones of benefit.