LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The California Department of Water Resources announced this week the approval of nine alternatives to groundwater sustainability plans submitted by water agencies to meet the requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The agency also reported that the existing groundwater management plan for Lake County’s Big Valley Basin is not recommended for approval.
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, requires local agencies throughout the state to sustainably manage groundwater basins. Basins ranked as medium- or high-priority are required to develop groundwater sustainability plans or submit an alternative.
An alternative may be an existing groundwater management plan that demonstrates a reasonable expectation of achieving sustainability within 20 years.
It may also be a basin adjudication with existing governance and oversight, or a 10-year analysis of basin conditions showing sustainable operations with no undesirable results such as subsidence, saltwater intrusion, or degraded water quality.
“It is clear that a number of local agencies have been addressing groundwater issues in their basins for many years,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “Their continued commitment to sustainably manage their basins will help protect California’s groundwater reserves as the state confronts critical water challenges.”
Following extensive technical review, DWR approved seven existing groundwater management plans and two 10-year sustainable yield analyses as alternatives under SGMA.
One existing groundwater management plan and five 10-year sustainable yield analyses were not recommended for approval as alternatives.
That existing groundwater management plan is for the Big Valley Basin, a medium-priority basin, while the 10-year sustainable yield analyses are for the Eel River Valley Basin, the Napa Valley Subbasin, the South American Subbasin, the Ojai Valley Basin and Sutter Subbasin.
In a July 17 letter to Scott De Leon, Lake County’s Public Works director and interim Water Resources director, the DWR said the alternative the county submitted in December is not recommended for approval because it lacked sufficient information and data to assess if it would result in sustainable groundwater management as defined in state water code.
In the DWR staff report, it stated that Lake County Water Resources’ plan “contains no detailed analysis that would justify exempting the District from developing criteria for undesirable results that are essential to SGMA’s definition of sustainable groundwater management. In fact, the Plan itself states that the Basin may be overdrafted during periods of drought and that potential impacts of that overdraft might include water shortages, dry wells, deterioration of groundwater quality and ground subsidence. The Plan does not determine when those potential impacts might be an undesirable result, or how the District might avoid those potential impacts moving forward.”
It continues, “Furthermore, the District has little or no information with regard to other groundwater conditions such as groundwater quality and depletions of interconnected surface water. The Department staff cannot assume undesirable results have not occurred, or will not
occur, in the absence of a compelling argument and sufficient and credible supporting data. Because of the limited understanding of current and historical basin conditions and insufficient information and data demonstrating the absence of undesirable results, the Department staff are unable to determine whether the Groundwater Management Plan implementation would lead to sustainable groundwater management for the Big Valley Basin and, therefore, recommends not approving the Alternative.”
The letter to De Leon said DWR will review any information provided by the district and make a final decision within 90 days of the notice letter.
Basins with approved alternatives are required to provide annual reports and five-year updates on their progress. Agencies submitting groundwater sustainability plans have the same reporting requirements.
For alternatives that were not recommended for approval, submitting agencies have 30 days to let DWR know if they believe information in their original submittal was overlooked. New information or data cannot be submitted during this time.
DWR will evaluate agency responses and finalize the assessments within 60 days of receiving comments.
If DWR’s disapproval of the alternative is finalized, basins without a groundwater sustainability agency, or GSA, are subject to extraction reporting requirements.
The State Water Board, which has the authority under SGMA to intervene where no GSA has been formed, intends to coordinate with affected county governments to support the immediate formation of GSAs in unmanaged basins to avoid mandatory extraction reporting requirements.
GSAs in basins without an approved alternative must submit a GSP by Jan. 31, 2022.