Groundwater Sustainability Management Act
Despite California's heavy reliance on groundwater, especially during these drought years, the extraction of groundwater has never been regulated. That is about to change.
Last September, Governor Brown signed a package of bills that collectively form the new Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Senate Bill (SB) 1168, Assembly Bill (AB) 1739, and SB 1319 (which amends AB 1739) establish a comprehensive Statewide groundwater management program with the overarching goal of achieving sustainable groundwater basins over the next 20 years. Improved groundwater management is intended to provide a water supply buffer during periods of drought. There are numerous other objectives of the SGMA, which you can read about here: SGMA.
New Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
Rather than regulating groundwater at the State level, the SGMA allocates responsibility for local management of groundwater basins. The basins are to be managed by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs), which can be formed by any local agency or coordinated group of agencies for purpose of complying with the SGMA. If no agency is formed, the county is presumed to be the local GSA unless the county explicitly opts out. In some cases, the legislation lists new special districts, which have exclusive authority for managing groundwater within their jurisdictional boundaries.
GSAs will have authority to acquire land and water for purposes of recharging the groundwater basin and storing and transporting water. The GSAs must submit annual reports to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), listing groundwater elevation data, amount of groundwater storage, use of surface water for groundwater recharge (or as water supply), and total use of water within the GSA's boundaries.
Groundwater Management Requirements
The DWR was required to rank the priority of each of the State's groundwater basins and subbasins as either high, medium, low, or very low priority by January 31, 2015. These rankings were made in accordance with the California Statewide Groundwater Elevation Monitoring (CASGEM) program. The CASGEM program considers such factors as the number of public wells in the basin, population served, acreage of land above the basin, reliance on groundwater, history of overdrafting, occurrence of subsidence, degradation in water quality, and other factors.
For groundwater basins designed as medium or high priority, the SGMA requires the responsible GSA to prepare and adopt a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP)
by January 31, 2020 in basins with critical overdraft conditions, and by January 31, 2022 for all other medium- and high-priority basins. DWR must promulgate regulations for the specific requirements of GSPs by June 1, 2016. The GSPs must encompass an entire basin or subbasin and must demonstrate that the basin can achieve sustainable groundwater management within 20 years of adoption of the plan.
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withdrawal. That is, until the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was passed last year. Read on to learn more.