BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1168
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Date of Hearing: June 24, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON WATER, PARKS AND WILDLIFE
Anthony Rendon, Chair
SB 1168 (Pavley) - As Amended: June 17, 2014
SENATE VOTE : 24-12
SUBJECT : Groundwater management
SUMMARY : Requires adoption of a sustainable groundwater
management plan (SGMP) by January 1, 2020 for all basins that
are a high or medium priority as determined by the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) according to specified criteria and that
are not otherwise being sustainably managed pursuant to an
existing plan or adjudication. Specifically, this bill :
1)Establishes that is the policy of the state that all
groundwater basins be managed sustainably.
2)Adds the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (Act) to the
Water Code with the stated intent of empowering local
groundwater agencies to sustainably manage groundwater.
3)Defines sustainable groundwater management, among other terms.
4)Specifies that groundwater basins are those identified in
DWR's Bulletin No. 118, as it may be amended, and includes
subbasins.
5)Allows any local agency or combination of agencies to
establish a groundwater management agency (GMA) and recognizes
a diverse set of interests that should be considered by the
GMA.
6)Provides for public involvement in the development of
sustainable groundwater management plans (SGMPs).
7)Requires DWR, as part of the existing California Statewide
Groundwater Elevation Monitoring (CASGEM) program, to
categorize each basin and subbasin as either a high, medium,
low, or very low priority utilizing factors that include, but
are not limited to, population, extent of public wells,
overlying irrigated acreage, reliance on groundwater, and any
documented impacts upon the basin from overdraft, subsidence,
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saline intrusion and other water quality degradation.
8)Requires a SGMP to be completed, adopted, and submitted to DWR
by January 1, 2020 for each high and medium priority basin.
9)Requires DWR, in consultation with the State Water Resource
Board (State Water Board), to develop a process to certify and
exempt existing groundwater management plans or adjudicated
areas that already meet the requirements of the Act.
10)Requires SGMPs to meet certain standards including:
a) Encompassing an entire basin or subbasin;
b) Being designed to achieve sustainable groundwater
management within 20 years of adoption with progress
reports to DWR and the State Water Board every five years.
11)Requires DWR, in consultation with the State Water Board, to
establish minimum standards for the adoption of a SGMP and
provide technical assistance.
12)Empowers a GMA to:
a) Develop a SGMP;
b) Establish monitoring, measuring, and reporting on
groundwater conditions;
c) Require reports on groundwater extraction;
d) Establish a system for allocating groundwater based on
the sustainable yield of the basin;
e) Collect groundwater management fees; and,
f) Establish a system for local, voluntary transfers of
groundwater within a basin.
13)Requires DWR, by January 1, 2018, to offer assistance to
local agencies in medium and high priority basins that have
not yet initiated a SGMP and, if there is no positive
response, refer the matter to the State Water Board.
14)Allows the State Water Board to initiate a process to have a
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qualified third party develop a SGMP in high or medium
priority basins that either:
a) Failed to initiate a SGMP process by January 1, 2018;
or,
b) Submitted a plan by January 1, 2020 that failed to meet
the requirements of the Act and were unwilling or unable to
cure deficiencies identified in the SGMP.
15)Allows a GMA to assume duties for measuring groundwater
elevations in a basin under the CASGEM program.
16)Requires coordination between local land use planning efforts
and groundwater management planning efforts.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides the State Water Board with broad powers to regulate
the waste and unreasonable use of water, including
groundwater.
2)Categorizes groundwater as either a subterranean stream
flowing through a known and definite channel or percolating
groundwater. Groundwater that is a subterranean stream is
subject to the same State Water Board water right permitting
requirements as surface water. There is no statewide
permitting requirement for percolating groundwater, which is
the majority of groundwater.
3)Encourages local agencies to work cooperatively to manage
groundwater resources within their jurisdictions and, if not
otherwise required by law, to voluntarily adopt GMPs.
4)Requires that a GMP contain components related to funding,
management, and monitoring in order for a local agency to be
eligible for groundwater project funds administered by DWR.
5)Allows a GMP to voluntarily contain additional listed
components.
6)Requires all of the groundwater basins identified in DWR's
Groundwater Report, Bulletin 118, to be regularly and
systematically monitored locally and the information to be
readily and widely available.
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7)Requires DWR to perform the groundwater elevation monitoring
function if no local entity will do so but then bars the
county and other entities eligible to monitor that basin from
receiving state water grants or loans.
8)Requires DWR to prioritize groundwater basins based on
multiple factors including, but not limited to, the level of
population and irrigated acreage relying on the groundwater
basin as a primary source of water and the current impacts on
the groundwater basin from overdraft, subsidence, saline
intrusion and other water quality degradation.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee analysis costs are unknown but will be at least in the
mid-hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars annually, from
the General Fund for the state's oversight of groundwater
management.
COMMENTS : California is the last State in the Union without an
enforceable set of statewide groundwater management standards.
The purpose of this bill, together with AB 1739 and the
Administration's proposal, is to help develop a comprehensive
set of sustainable groundwater management statutes that empower
local agencies that currently lack sustainable management to
plot a 20-year path towards predictable groundwater supplies.
This will facilitate coordinated use of groundwater and surface
water supplies together ("conjunctive use") and create legal
certainty regarding rights to store and withdraw groundwater,
thus increasing overall local water supply reliability.
Catastrophic Impacts from a Lack of Statewide Standards
In some parts of California the lack of sustainable groundwater
management has become an economic and environmental catastrophe.
A headlong rush to pump a finite resource has crashed into a
brick wall of harsh realities including dropping groundwater
levels that are leaving wells spitting sand and farms and
communities stranded; land subsidence that buckles
infrastructure, cracks irrigation canals, and deposits
threatening levels of sediment into flood control structures;
and disappearing streams where the pull of subsurface pumping
has deprived both senior water rights holders and wildlife of
crucial surface flows.
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California uses more groundwater than any other State.
Groundwater provides, on average, 40% of California's water
supply and that usage can increase to 60% or greater in dry
years. For some communities groundwater is 100% of their local
supplies. Groundwater informational hearings in the Assembly
Water, Parks & Wildlife Committee and the Senate Natural
Resources & Water Committee in March 2014 revealed disturbing
statistics on the current degradation of some of California's
groundwater basins: between 2003 and 2009 the groundwater
aquifers for the Central Valley and its major mountain water
source, the Sierra Nevadas, lost almost 26 million acre-feet of
water - nearly enough water combined to fill Lake Mead,
America's largest reservoir. The findings reflected the effects
of California's extended drought and the resulting increased
rates of groundwater being pumped for human uses, such as
irrigation.
Current Groundwater Management
There are three basic methods available for managing groundwater
resources in California: management by local agencies under
authority granted in the California Water Code or other
applicable State statutes; local government groundwater
ordinances or joint powers agreements; and, court adjudications.
AB 3030 (Costa), the California Groundwater Management Act, was
passed by the Legislature in 1992. It set forth a framework for
voluntary groundwater management by local agencies throughout
California. SB 1938 (Machado/2002) took a further step when it
set out certain specified components for GMPs and required any
local agency seeking state funds administered by DWR to meet
those requirements. Both statues were a significant step in that
they encouraged agencies to start to look at the condition of
their groundwater resources. But unlike special district acts
that are designed to empower a groundwater agency to address
sustainable groundwater levels and withdrawals, or
adjudications, where individual rights are quantified based on
available supplies and enforced, neither AB 3030 nor SB 1938
preclude a continued trajectory in a basin of significant and
long-term overdraft.
The Governor's Call for Action
On October 4, 2013 the State Water Board released a Discussion
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Draft Groundwater Workplan Concept Paper identifying five key
elements - "whether at the local, regional, or state level" - in
order to effectively manage groundwater. The five elements are:
1) Establishing sustainable thresholds for groundwater levels
and quality for impacted, vulnerable, and high-use basins; 2)
Groundwater monitoring and assessment; 3) Effective governance
structures to manage and protect the resource; 4) Funding to
support monitoring and management actions; and, 5) State and
local oversight and enforcement. Following release of that
Concept Paper the State Water Board engaged in stakeholder
discussion to receive feedback and held several highly-attended
all day public workshops.
January 22, 2014 the Governor released the final California
Water Action Plan (Action Plan). The Plan focuses on eight
"challenges for managing California's water supplies," which
are: uncertain water supplies; water scarcity/drought; declining
groundwater supplies; poor water quality; declining native fish
species and loss of wildlife habitat; floods; supply
disruptions; and, population growth and climate change further
increasing the severity of risks. With respect to groundwater,
the Action Plan found that "inconsistent and inadequate tools,
resources and authorities make managing groundwater difficult in
California and impede our ability to address problems such as
overdraft, seawater intrusion, land subsidence, and water
quality degradation." Whereas properly managed groundwater
resources could "help protect communities, farms and the
environment against the impacts of prolonged dry periods and
climate change." The Action Plan was supported in the
Governor's January 2014-15 budget proposal which provided, among
other allocations, $1.9 million to the State Water Board for "10
positions [to the State Water Board] to act as a backstop when
local or regional agencies are unable or unwilling to
sustainably manage groundwater basins."
On March 7, 2014 the Governor's Office released a draft
framework for "soliciting input on actions that can be taken to
assure that local groundwater managers have the tools and
authority to sustainably manage groundwater consistent with the
California Water Action Plan." On May 22, 2014, after holding
multiple stakeholder meetings and receiving significant
stakeholder response, the Governor's office posted draft
statutory language entitled Sustainable Groundwater Management
to the web site http://groundwater.ca.gov . Thereafter, SB 868
(Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review) was introduced. SB 868
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is a trailer bill, meaning legislative language that would
implement one or more parts of the California State Budget Bill.
SB 868 declares that it is the policy of the state that
groundwater resources be managed sustainably and could be
amended prior to the end of session to provide guidance on how
groundwater funding in the State budget should be directed.
Much Work Ahead
In early February 2014, following release of the Governor's
Action Plan and Budget items addressing groundwater, this bill
and AB 1739 (Dickinson) were introduced to develop policy
language for sustainable groundwater management through the
Legislative process. AB 1739 was heard in this Committee on
April 29, 2014. Both bills represent initial groundwater
management concepts developed after extensive stakeholder
processes and consideration of the Administration's proposed set
of groundwater statutes.
While there appears to be general agreement among many on the
need for a broad framework of locally-driven sustainable
groundwater management, there are quite a number of issues to be
resolved. Issues where the various proponents agree or are
close to agreement include:
Identifying mandatory elements for groundwater management
Need for fee authority
Permitting of new and/or existing wells
Need for coordination between groundwater planning and local
land use planning
Issues where there are differences of opinion include:
Definitions, including "sustainable groundwater management"
The scope of management plans: one for the entire basin or
subbasin, or many
Changes in land use planning requirements, or not
Appropriate protections of both property rights and community
rights
Representation on groundwater management entities
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Level of transparency in managing and use of groundwater
Reporting requirements for groundwater users
Financing of groundwater management activities
State intervention authorities
Issues that have yet to be addressed include:
Integrating water quality with water supply considerations
Coordination among subbasins within a basin
Scope and limitations on groundwater storage and banking
Potential inclusion of an administrative adjudication process
Potential creation of a new groundwater management district
act
Supporting arguments : The author states that this bill is
needed because "California faces a groundwater crisis. The
cumulative overdraft of our groundwater basins is equivalent to
the entire amount of water stored in Lake Tahoe. In many areas
of the state, local groundwater managers lack the tools and
authorities to manage the groundwater basins. Without improved
management, the overdraft in many parts of the state will get
even worse over the next several years." Other supporters add
that "a new statewide policy for sustainable groundwater
management is urgently needed" and that this bill "is an
important part of the discussion." This bill "addresses one of
California's most urgent water management needs." Supporters
add that "numerous stakeholders have been involved and are
continuing to work together on this legislation and the
companion bill," AB 1739, to help ensure that the "right balance
of provisions to empower local groundwater management agencies
with new tools and authorities and to create an appropriate
state backstop that will allow the state to intervene only when
needed."
Opposing arguments : Opponents commend the author for her
"attention and commitment to sustainable groundwater management"
but seek various amendments to definitions, management
structure, sustainable yield calculation requirements, and state
intervention before they could support the measure. Other
opponents state that they are concerned the current process is a
"rush to meet arbitrary deadlines without adequate time to
address such a complex issue." Those opponents add that this
"measure will have huge long-term economic impacts on farms, the
State and local economies and county tax rolls, with a very real
potential to devalue land and impact farms and business
viability and jobs."
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Comment letters : A number of groups, while not taking a
position of either support or opposition on this bill, have
stated they are generally supportive of legislative efforts
intended to produce more effective management of groundwater
resources and then offered specific recommendations on how this
bill and AB 1739 could be improved as they move forward.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Association of California Water Agencies (if amended)
California Water Foundation
California Waterfowl Association
Opposition
California Farm Bureau Federation (unless amended)
Sacramento Suburban Water District (unless amended)
Analysis Prepared by : Tina Cannon Leahy / W., P. & W. / (916)
319-2096