BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 226
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Date of Hearing: August 26, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 226
(Pavley) - As Amended August 17, 2015
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|Policy |Water, Parks and Wildlife |Vote:|8 - 5 |
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| |Judiciary | |7 - 3 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill modifies the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA) and streamlines groundwater adjudication procedures.
Specifically, this bill:
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1) Establishes a comprehensive, streamlined procedure to be
used in legal actions to obtain a basin-wide adjudication
of groundwater rights within SGMA.
2) Authorizes the state to intervene in any water rights
suit brought in any court.
3) Adds legislative intent language in SGMA to provide a
more efficient, cost-effective groundwater adjudication
process as specified.
4) Allows a court with jurisdiction over specified
adjudicated basins to order the proceeding to be conducted
according to the adjudicated process specified in the bill.
5) Defines expert witness and small state water system.
6) Makes conforming changes and technical clarifications.
FISCAL EFFECT:
Unknown costs, potentially in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars, for state agency intervention in water rights suits.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, groundwater rights
adjudications take an extraordinarily long time and are
extraordinarily expensive. The author adds that as she was
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working last year to enact SGMA it became clear that there
will almost certainly be more adjudications and that it "will
be difficult, if not impossible, for some basins to comply
with the requirements of SGMA if we don't speed up the
adjudication process." The author adds that this bill
"tackles head-on the various time sinks" that witnesses
identified at her informational hearing last November on
groundwater adjudication regarding basin boundaries, notice
and service, discovery, and expert witnesses. The author
concludes that with these changes, this bill "will reduce
needless delays while still protecting due process rights."
2)Background. Groundwater is 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 Resources Control Board
(SWRCB) water right permitting requirements as surface water.
There is no statewide permitting requirement for percolating
groundwater, which is the majority of groundwater in the
state.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is required 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.
The groundwater basins identified in DWR's Groundwater Report,
Bulletin 118, are required to be regularly and systematically
monitored locally and the information is required to be
readily and widely available. DWR is required 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.
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3)The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Last year,
AB 1739 (Dickinson, Chapter 347, Statutes of 2014) and SB 1168
(Pavley, Chapter 346, Statutes of 2014), established landmark
state policy and requirements for groundwater sustainability
and management. By January 31, 2020, SGMA requires groundwater
sustainability plans (GSPs) in all groundwater basins
experiencing critical conditions of overdraft that DWR
determines to be of medium or high priority. SGMA requires
sustainable groundwater management plans for all other medium
or high priority basins by January 31, 2022, unless the basin
is legally adjudicated or the local agency establishes it is
otherwise sustainably managed.
SGMA requires local agencies to identify or form a groundwater
sustainability agency (GSA) by January 1, 2017. Counties are
presumed to be the default agency if no other agency
identifies itself. Water corporations regulated by the PUC
are able to participate in the GSA if other agencies approve.
During last year's Committee hearings on groundwater
management, California Court of Appeal Judge Ronald Robie
suggested that even with comprehensive sustainable management
plans, the state would still need to streamline its
groundwater adjudication procedures. Governor Brown made the
same point when he signed the SGMA legislation.
4)Related Legislation. AB 1390 (Alejo) currently pending in
Senate Appropriations, establishes an alternative adjudication
process in the Civil Code of Procedures, rather than within
SGMA as proposed by SB 226. The most recent amendments to SB
226, provided by the Administration, contain many provisions
similar to those in AB 1390. The two authors may wish to work
together to develop a legislative response to the
Administration's amendments.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Galehouse / APPR. / (916)
SB 226
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319-2081