BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1168| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- UNFINISHED BUSINESS Bill No: SB 1168 Author: Pavley (D), et al. Amended: 8/29/14 Vote: 21 SENATE NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER COMMITTEE : 7-2, 4/22/14 AYES: Pavley, Evans, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Monning, Wolk NOES: Cannella, Fuller SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 5-2, 5/23/14 AYES: De León, Hill, Lara, Padilla, Steinberg NOES: Walters, Gaines SENATE FLOOR : 24-12, 5/27/14 AYES: Beall, Block, Corbett, Correa, De León, DeSaulnier, Evans, Galgiani, Hancock, Hernandez, Hill, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Lieu, Mitchell, Monning, Padilla, Pavley, Roth, Steinberg, Torres, Wolk NOES: Anderson, Berryhill, Cannella, Fuller, Gaines, Huff, Knight, Morrell, Nielsen, Vidak, Walters, Wyland NO VOTE RECORDED: Calderon, Liu, Wright, Yee ASSEMBLY FLOOR : Not available SUBJECT : Groundwater management SOURCE : Author DIGEST : This bill requires adoption of a sustainable groundwater sustainability plan (GSP) by January 31, 2020, for CONTINUED SB 1168 Page 2 all high or medium priority basins that are subject to critical conditions of overdraft and by January 31, 2022, for all other high and medium priority basins unless the basin is legally adjudicated or the local agency establishes it is otherwise being sustainably managed. Assembly Amendments add chaptering language with AB 1739 (Dickinson) and SB 1319 (Pavley); revise and recast the Senate provisions relating to all groundwater basins and subbasins in the state, enacting the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (Act), and adopting a GSP. ANALYSIS : Existing law: 1.Provides the State Water Resources Control Board (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 groundwater management plans. 4.Requires that a groundwater management plan contain components related to funding, management, and monitoring in order for a local agency to be eligible for groundwater project funds administered by the Department of Water Resources (DWR). 5.Allows a groundwater management plan to voluntarily contain additional listed components. 6.Requires all of the groundwater basins identified in DWR's Groundwater Report, Bulletin No. 118, to be regularly and systematically monitored locally and the information to be SB 1168 Page 3 readily and widely available. 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. This bill: 1.Makes findings including, but not limited to, California's high reliance on groundwater to meet its water needs; the necessity of integrated surface and groundwater management in order to meet the state's water management goals; and the failed wells, deteriorated water quality, environmental damage, and irreversible land subsidence that occur when groundwater is not properly managed. 2.Establishes that it is the policy of the state that all groundwater basins are managed sustainably for multiple economic, social and environmental benefits and that such management is best achieved locally based on best available science. 3.Enacts the Act with the stated intent of empowering local groundwater agencies to sustainably manage groundwater basins through the development of GSPs. 4.Defines sustainable groundwater management, among other terms. 5.Encourages the voluntary participation of California Native tribes and federal agencies in sustainable groundwater management while preserving and acknowledging the federally reserved rights of federally recognized Indian tribes. 6.Specifies that groundwater basins are those identified by the DWR in Bulletin No. 118, as it may be amended, and includes subbasins. SB 1168 Page 4 7.Requires DWR, by January 31, 2015, to prioritize each basin as either a high, medium, low, or very low priority using factors under the California Statewide Groundwater Elevation Monitoring (CASGEM) program that include, but are not limited to: population, extent of public wells; overlying irrigated acreage; reliance on groundwater; any documented impacts upon the basin from overdraft, subsidence, saline intrusion and other water quality degradation; or any other information determined to be relevant by the department, including adverse impacts on local habitat and local stream flows. 8.Requires that high and medium priority basins that are in a be sustainably managed through a GSP but excepts: A. Basins, or portions of basins, that were subject to a groundwater adjudication; and B. Basins that a local agency can demonstrate are already being sustainably managed. 1.Encourages low and very low priority basins to manage through a GSP but, should they voluntarily choose to do so, exempts them from any State compliance actions. 2.Allows any local agency or combination of agencies to establish a groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) for the purpose of developing and implementing a GSP. Allows water corporations regulated by the Public Utilities Commission to participate in a GSA if the local agencies forming the GSA approve. 3.Recognizes and lists special districts that were created in legislation for the purpose of managing groundwater and makes those districts the exclusive entities within their boundaries with authority to comply with the Act, unless they choose to opt out. 4.Allows a city or county to be the GSA or, in the case of an area where no local agency has assumed management, presumes the county to be the GSA unless the county opts out. If the county opts out and there is no other local agency, requires reporting of groundwater extractions directly to the State Water Board. SB 1168 Page 5 5.Requires a local agency or combination of local agencies that is electing to be, or forming, a GSA to notify DWR of the intent to be a GSA and provide a notice to DWR that includes the proposed boundaries of the GSA, among other information. Requires DWR to post the notice to its Internet Web site. 6.Following public notice, a public hearing, and final action to become a GSA, requires the GSA to notify DWR within 30 days and include copies of pertinent documents, as specified. Requires DWR to post the final notice and documents to its Internet Web site. Ninety days following posting by DWR, the GSA is presumed to be the exclusive GSA for its boundaries if no other GSA submits a notice. 7.Provides for public involvement in the development of GSPs and sets forth a diverse set of interests that should be considered by the GSA during that process including an entity within the basin that is currently a CASGEM monitoring entity. 8.Empowers GSAs to collect information regarding the condition of the basin and then develop and implement a GSP using, as the GSA chooses, powers and authorities provided under the Act including, but not limited to: A. Acquiring land and water to carry out the plan, including but not limited to spreading, storing, retaining, percolating, transporting, or reclaiming water to recharge the basin or provide water supplies in-lieu of groundwater; B. Monitoring for compliance and limiting extractions; and C. Proposing, collecting, updating and enforcing fees, consistent with all statutory and Constitutional requirements. 1.Specifies that nothing in the Act or in any GSA adopted pursuant to the Act determines or alters surface water rights or groundwater rights under common law or any provision of law that determines or grants surface water rights. 2.Requires, by June 1, 2016, that DWR develop regulations regarding: SB 1168 Page 6 A. GSP components; B. Coordination of multiple GSPs for a basin; and C. Alternative compliance, including submitting an existing plan as a functional equivalent of a GSP or submitting an analysis of basin conditions that demonstrates the basin is being sustainably managed. 1.Specifies, in those areas that require a GSP to be completed, adopted, and submitted to DWR that the deadlines are: A. January 31, 2020, in high and medium priority basins that are subject to critical conditions of overdraft; and B. January 31, 2022 for all other high and medium priority basins. 1.Exempts the preparation and adoption of a GSP from the California Environmental Quality Act but does not exempt a project or action to implement the GSP. 2.Requires GSPs to meet certain standards including: A. Encompassing an entire basin or subbasin; and 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. 1.Requires a GSA to annually report to DWR its groundwater elevation data, aggregated extraction data, use or availability of surface water for recharge or in-lieu supplies, total water use, and change in groundwater storage. 2.Allows DWR to adjust basin boundaries, as specified, and re-prioritize low and very low basins according to criteria that include adverse impacts to habitat and surface water resources. Requires DWR to adopt emergency regulations governing basin boundary adjustments. 3.Provides that if a basin is reprioritized to medium or high, it shall have two years from the date of reprioritization to form a governance entity for sustainable management or submit SB 1168 Page 7 an alternate means of establishing the basin is sustainably managed. If no alternate means is approved, allows five years to adopt a GSP in compliance with the Act. 4.Prohibits the adoption or renewal of existing groundwater management plans that do not meet the requirements for a GSP but allows such plans to remain in effect until a GSP is adopted. 5.Allows a GSA to become a CASGEM monitoring agency. 6.Contains chaptering language that only allows this bill to become operative if AB 1739 (Dickinson) and SB 1319 (Pavley) are enacted and become operative this session. Background As Benjamin Franklin warned over 200 years ago, we know the worth of water when the well is dry. Unfortunately, for many Californians that is a stark reality or a pending calamity that has been coming in slow-motion for 50 years. In its August 15, 2014, editorial the Sacramento Bee notes that it was in 1962 that an Assembly Interim Committee on Water dodged the issue of needed groundwater management by advising the Legislature it should act if the situation got worse. It got worse. Sixteen years later, in 1978, the Governor's Commission to Review California Water Rights Law, a group commissioned by Governor Jerry Brown, found the groundwater situation was critical and that comprehensive local management had not been undertaken in many over drafted areas of the state. Again, there was no action. An August 18, 2014, Los Angeles Times column asserts there is no better time to act than now. The Times notes that the recently-passed $7.545 bond for water-related projects and programs that is scheduled for the November 2014 ballot contains $100 million for planning and implementing groundwater management, $800 million for cleaning up groundwater, $700 million for recycling and $2.7 billion for dam building. As the Los Angeles Times column states, these are projects that can help replenish underground basins but it will take pumping rules to assure taxpayers that they are getting their money's worth. The Times Los Angeles column concludes, the State has been ignoring experts' increasing warnings regarding groundwater SB 1168 Page 8 depletions for decades and holding off on groundwater regulation since statehood but together this bill and a related measure AB 1739, seek to empower local governments to manage groundwater sustainably while allowing the state to step in if they fail to do so. While California uses more groundwater than any other state, it is the last in the Union to lack an enforceable set of statewide groundwater management standards. Groundwater informational hearings in the Assembly Water, Parks & Wildlife Committee and the Senate Natural Resources and 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 Nevada, 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. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee: Increased annual General Fund costs to DWR of approximately $4 million beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2019-20 to collect and manage data, complete evaluations, and assist the State Water Board in developing interim plans. DWR received $22.5 million in the 2014-15 Budget ($2.5 million for FY 2014-15 and $5 million each year from FY 2015-16 through FY 2018-19 which will fund Bulletin 118 updates and technical assistance. Minor, if any, reimbursable local government costs. SUPPORT : (Verified 8/29/14) Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Zone 7 American Planning Association Association of California Water Agencies Audubon California SB 1168 Page 9 Barona Band of Mission Indians Bay Area Council California Climate and Agricultural Network California Coastkeeper Alliance California Council of Geoscience Organizations California Environmental Justice Alliance California Environmental Rights Foundation California Groundwater Coalition California League of Conservation Voters California ReLeaf California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation California State Pipe Trades Council California Teamsters Public Affairs Council California Tribal Business Alliance California Trout California Urban Streams Partnership California Water Foundation California Waterfowl Association City of Anaheim City of Los Angeles, Mayor's Office Clean Water Action Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation Community Alliance with Family Farmers Community Water Center Comte Civico Del Valle, Inc. Cucamonga Valley Water District Earthworks East Bay Municipal Utility District East Orange County Water District EMAX Laboratories, Inc. Environmental Defense Fund Environmental Justice Coalition for Water Environmental Navigation Services, Inc. Groundwater Resources Association of California Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Heal the Bay Horizon Environmental Inc. Inland Empire Utilities Agency Inyo County Irvine Ranch Water District Karuk Tribe Klamath Forest Alliance Klamath Riverkeeper Leadership Council for Justice & Accountability SB 1168 Page 10 Local Government Commission Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Los Angeles City Council Los Angeles Waterkeeper Luhdorff & Scalmanini Consulting Engineers Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster Montclair Environmental Management, Inc. Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center Natural Resources Defense Council Orange County Water District Pacific Forest Trust Pala Band of Mission Indians Parker Groundwater Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians Planning & Conservation League PolicyLink PRO Water Equity Pueblo Unido CDC Quinn Environmental Strategies, Inc. Raymond Basin Management Board Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians Russian Riverkeeper Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples San Diego County Water Authority San Francisco Public Utilities Commission San Gabriel Valley Water Association San Jerardo Cooperative, Inc. Santa Clara Valley Water District Sierra Club California Sonoma County Water Agency Sullivan International Group, Inc. Sustainable Watershed Management The Nature Conservancy The Source Group, Inc. The Trust for Public Land The Wildlands Conservancy Todd Groundwater Trout Unlimited Union of Concerned Scientists United States Department of Defense, Regional Environmental Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District Valley Industry and Commerce Association Valley-Warner Center Chamber of Commerce Ventura County SB 1168 Page 11 Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians Water Replenishment District of Southern California West Basin Municipal Water District Western Municipal Water District WiLDCOAST Women's International League for Peace and Freedom OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/29/14) African American Farmers of California Agricultural Council of California Allied Grape Growers Almond Hullers & Processors Association Association of California Egg Farmers Blue Diamond Growers CALAMCO California Agricultural Aircraft Association California Ammonia Co. California Association of Nurseries & Garden Centers California Bean Shippers Association California Blueberry Association California Canning Peach Association California Cattlemen's Association California Chamber of Commerce California Citrus Mutual California Construction and Industrial Materials Association California Cotton Ginners Association California Cotton Growers Association California Dairies, Inc. California Farm Bureau Federation California Fresh Fruit Association California Grain & Feed California Groundwater Association California League of Food Processors California Pear Growers Association California Seed Association California State Floral Association California Tomato Growers Association California Warehouse Association California Women for Agriculture Campos Brothers Farms Coachella Valley Water District Dairy Farmers of America-Western Area Del Monte Foods SB 1168 Page 12 Desert Water Agency (unless amended) Family Business Association Fruit Growers Supply Company Grower-Shipper Association of Central California Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara & San Luis Obispo Counties Kaweah Basin Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District Kern County Kern County Water Agency Kings River Conservation District Kings River Water Association Land O' Lakes Nisei Farmers League Northern California Water Association Pacific Coast Producers Raisin Bargaining Association San Joaquin County San Joaquin River Exchange Contactors Stockton East Water District Sun-Maid Growers of California Sunsweet Growers Inc. Tulare Irrigation District Valley Ag Water Coalition Western Agricultural Processors Association Western Growers Association Western Plant Health Association ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The author states that this bill is needed because California faces a groundwater crisis. The author points out that the cumulative overdraft of our groundwater basins is equivalent to the entire amount of water stored in Lake Tahoe and that in many areas of the state, local groundwater managers lack the tools and authorities to manage the groundwater basins. The author concludes that without improved local 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 addresses one of California's most pressing water management issues. Supporters point out that breadth of the stakeholder involvement process that was used in order to help ensure the right balance of provisions to empower local groundwater management agencies with new tools and authorities and to create SB 1168 Page 13 an appropriate state backstop that will allow the state to intervene only when needed. ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : Opponents state they share the author's interest in improving groundwater management but are concerned about the broad scope and specific impacts of this measure. Opponents believe this bill is extraordinarily ambitious and comprehensive and that in its current form it would substantially alter the California landscape and economy for generations to come. Opponents are concerned that this bill could require hundreds of millions of dollars in implementation costs and are worried about potential affects to existing groundwater rights and generate litigation. Opponents maintain the legislation goes beyond the goal of sustainable groundwater management and will adversely affect the agricultural economy and the landscape that is dependent upon it and cause a potential devaluation in some land thus affecting property tax collections in some areas and the services and programs that are dependent upon them. Opponents advocate delaying action in order to avoid what they believe would be unanticipated consequences. RM:e 8/29/14 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END ****