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<br />7 <br />Page 1 <br /> <br />1 <br />2 <br />3 <br />4 <br />5 <br /> <br />(comments of David Lewis: "This is a big improvement from May. And we call these historic <br />changes. . . .").) <br />Yet despite the nature, scope, and burdens of these new and controversial provisions and the <br />failure of the Regional Water Board to allow written comments, each interested entity was allowed <br />only five minutes to speak, and was encouraged by the chair to limit remarks to less than three <br />minutes. (Tr. at p. 51) Permittees who wished to present more than one witness were required to <br />split their five-minute allotment among those witnesses. (Id.) The only exception was granted to a <br />witness appearing on behalf of one group that favored the new provisions. This witness was allotted <br />ten minutes. (ld. at p. 92.) While the Regional Water Board staffwas allowed to respond to all <br />comments with no time limit, and was questioned by the members of the Regional Water Board, no <br />additional time was allotted for Permittees to question staff directly or to submit additional evidence. <br />(See, e.g., Tr. at p. 82 (refusing to allow a witness to provide the Regional Water Board with a copy <br />of written comments).) <br />Witnesses who appeared on behalf of Permittees objected to the imposition of these costly, <br />burdensome and inflexible new provisions being added so late in the process and without the <br />opportunity to provide more detailed comments, and testified to the lack of available public resources <br />to fund them. (See, e.g., Tr. at p. 102 (comments of Melody Tovar: "We do look at the new draft, <br />though, and note some new changes in the permit, and that the revised draft was not circulated for <br />public review and comment, and we think it should have been. F or us, that means that my testimony <br />here today does not benefit from the direction and feedback from our City Council, and that is <br />something we have thoughtfully done for every draft of this permit."); see also, Tr. at pp. 58, 83, 85, <br /> <br />6 <br />7 <br />8 <br />9 <br />10 <br />11 <br />12 <br />13 <br />14 <br />15 <br />16 <br />17 <br />18 <br />19 <br />20 <br />21 <br />22 <br />23 <br />24 <br />25 <br />26 <br />27 <br />28 <br /> <br />111-113, 121-22, 129.) <br /> <br />Under similar circumstances, the State Water Board has expressed concern that such <br /> <br />proceedings were insufficient to assure that all participants were allowed adequate opportunity to be <br />heard: <br /> <br />But we are concerned that at the . . . hearing, interested persons and <br />permittees were not given adequate time to review late revisions or to <br />comment on them. Given the intense interest in this issue, the Regional <br />Water Board should have diverged from its strict rule limiting <br />individual speakers to three minutes and conducted a more formal <br /> <br />8f-2748053 <br /> <br />10 <br />PETITION FOR REVIEW <br />