Ecosystem restoration is an effective way to improve conditions for recreation, wildlife, and more. Yet permitting—while necessary for ensuring projects are well designed and beneficial—has long slowed restoration projects across California. Is that now shifting? We spoke with the State Water Board’s Paul Hann and Sustainable Conservation’s Erika Lovejoy about a new general order that’s changing the game.

Tell us about the State Water Board’s Statewide Restoration General Order. What is it, and what does it do?

Paul Hann: First, the State Water Board is mandated to protect beneficial uses of water—that is, uses of water necessary for the survival or wellbeing of people, plants, and wildlife. When we issue a permit for a project, we first make sure it protects our water quality objectives. Unfortunately, it can take a long time to review projects and issue individual permits for each one.

But there’s a better way to do it: identifying a category of projects with similar activities and creating a streamlined permitting process with a pre-written “programmatic” permit. At the State Water Board, we call these programmatic permits “general orders.” We began working with Sustainable Conservation years ago to design a Statewide Restoration General Order (SRGO) that applies to many environmental restoration activities, including creating fish passage, removing dams, and restoring floodplains, among others.

Erika Lovejoy: The SRGO has been valuable for both agencies and project proponents. For instance, a project proponent and the lead agency can now use the programmatic California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) analysis already completed for the general order rather than drafting a new analysis. This can save a lot of time and money. You’re not skirting CEQA; you’re just using a completed analysis, and then, if needed, doing any supplemental analysis for impacts not covered in the document. This can free up significant funds for on-the-ground restoration.

How does this benefit the state?

PH: A general order is much more efficient for everyone involved. It requires less from the project proponent who’s submitting an application because the CEQA work and policy heavy lifting have already been done. You see better environmental outcomes, because by the time we’ve developed a general order, we have a deep understanding of what kinds of projects should be allowed under the order. There’s a good set of conditions to protect water quality, implemented in a way that project proponents can understand.

EL: It’s a bit like having a recipe in hand before you start cooking—you know exactly what ingredients you need and the steps to follow. When a permit is written in advance, laying out which projects qualify and the conditions to meet, everyone starts on the same page. The agencies have already done the heavy lifting, so applicants know what’s expected from the start. This upfront work saves both sides a lot of time, effort, and back-and-forth. One consultant estimated they saved over a hundred hours of staff time. Another said they were able to implement a project a full year earlier than they would have previously.

The State Water Board’s general order was part of a bigger statewide permitting initiative that Sustainable Conservation facilitated to help several agencies develop coordinated permits to accelerate restoration. The State Water Board was a big part of the effort and actively collaborated with other state and federal agencies that were developing their own permitting tools for restoration.

We’ve heard positive feedback from applicants, who say this has resolved many permitting conflicts. They really appreciate not having to go back and forth as much to reconcile different conditions between different agencies.

PH: In the past, it took months to renew California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) permit for its fisheries restoration program. Since the general order, we’ve significantly improved how fast we can turn around that order. For one recent permit, the submittal date was early April, and the permit was issued in late May—that is, in little over a month.

It’s paying dividends in other ways, too. With the SRGO, we’ve forged better relationships between agencies, and it’s easier to pick up the phone and talk to CDFW, for instance, to resolve an issue. That benefit is hard to measure, but it’s tremendous.

Is this helping to enable restoration at scale?

PH: Yes. The ability to do this work in a streamlined, standardized way facilitates larger restoration projects. This permit has been used 118 times since it was adopted in 2022. And it appears there are some projects, especially in the North Coast, that are far larger than what’s typically been approved in the past. I’m proud of the gains we’ve made, and I’m excited about prospect of doing similar work in other areas, like wildfire.

EL: I can see the pride coming from both sides. There’s a lot more trust and partnership overall, and we are seeing more progress.