Not everyone was able to make it inside a crowded March 17 meeting organized by the East Bay Municipal Utility District at Amador Water Agency headquarters in Sutter Creek. The meeting raised the possibility of expanding Pardee Reservoir. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch

Local elected officials will jump with both feet into a Pardee Reservoir fight building with Bay Area water authorities.

On the heels of dozens of loud protests lodged toward East Bay Municipal Utility District officials in a jam-packed March 17 meeting in Sutter Creek, county supervisors Tuesday called for a larger, more fully accommodating session to be held with EBMUD officials inside the board of supervisors chambers on Court Street in Jackson. At issue is a proposed raising of Pardee Dam, a move that would flood a scenic, public-access stretch of the Mokelumne River.

"I think we should go so far as to ask EBMUD to hold another meeting, in this facility," said District 2 Supervisor Richard Forster. "For example, on AB 885, a meeting hall in Santa Rosa wouldn't accommodate everybody, so they didn't hold the meeting, because it was a violation of the public meeting law."

Forster was referring to a controversial septic tank regulation bill.

EBMUD is looking at a range of projects to serve long-term water supply needs of its growing customer base. But local activists want the matter settled comparatively quickly.

"The projects are 15 or 20 years down the road, true, but it's our river," said Debbie Dunn, an Amador Water Agency director.

District 4 Supervisor Louis Boitano said county officials need to bone up quickly on a 1958 water rights agreement concerning the Mokelumne River.

A side issue that could connect up with the controversial dam proposal is a draft U.S. Fish and Wildlife agreement with EBMUD. The utility district wants, in effect, a negotiated partial immunity from the federal Endangered Species Act. Under the agreement, it could offset an action such as a flooding of some Mokelumne drainage - destroying threatened-species habitat and killing significant numbers of individual species members - by agreeing to perform particular other actions that would tend to protect the overall survival of the three species. Called a "safe harbor" agreement, the document is now under public comment until April 8.

"EBMUD denies safe harbor has anything to with the Pardee project," said District 1 Supervisor John Plasse, "but I think it does."

The agreement covers 28,000 acres in parts of Amador, Calaveras and San Joaquin counties for the threatened Valley elderberry longhorn beetle, California red-legged frog and California tiger salamander. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls the 28,000-acre agreement the largest safe harbor deal ever.

"The effect of the safe harbor agreement looks to me like it would expand Pardee," Forster said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for districts statewide to cut water use by 20 percent. However, according to the EBMUD board of directors, its plan for the next 30 years will call on customers to reduce water use through rationing by only 10 percent.

A district consultant argued EBMUD's total cutback would be more like 35 percent at the March 17 meeting at water agency headquarters. That was the same meeting that Calaveras Supervisor Steve Wilensky requested a public meeting in his county, promising district officials and a room of nearly 150 that the neighboring foothill community could "really turn out a crowd."

"Not that this isn't a lot of people," he joked.

Wilensky will get his wish. EBMUD has already agreed to meet with foothills residents from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, March 30 at the San Andreas Town Hall, 24 Church Hill Rd. in San Andreas.

Last night's agenda for the Plymouth City Council included a request from the city of Jackson to join Jackson officials in urging EBMUD to raise conservation standards instead of expanding Pardee Reservoir. The water agency was also scheduled to discuss EBMUD's water supply plan yesterday. Both meetings occurred after deadline.

Raheem Hosseini contributed to this report.