BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 229|
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CONFERENCE COMPLETED
Bill No: SB 229
Author: Pavley (D)
Amended: Conference Report No. 1 - 9/9/09
Vote: 21
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE VOTE : 8-0, 9/9/09
AYES: Senators Steinberg, Florez, Padilla, and Pavley,
Assembly Members Bass, Solorio, Caballero, and Huffman
NO VOTE RECORDED: Aanestad, Cogdill, Fuller, Huff,
Jeffries, Nielsen
SUBJECT : Water: diversion and use: groundwater
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : Conference Committee Amendments delete the prior
version of the bill declaring legislative intent to enact
legislation to authorize actions to be undertaken prior to
the adoption of a comprehensive Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta Plan. This bill now provides a comprehensive plan
for water diversion and use, establishes a groundwater
monitoring program, which expends the role of the
Department of Water Resources, and provides civil liability
penalties to be adjusted for inflation. Lastly, this bill
becomes operative only if the other comprehensive water
bills are enacted - AB 39 (Huffman), AB 49 (Feuer and
Huffman), SB 12 (Simitian), and SB 458 (Steinberg and
Simitian).
ANALYSIS : Existing law generally prohibits the state, or
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a county, city, district, or other political subdivision,
or any public officer or body acting in its official
capacity on behalf of any of those entities, from being
required to pay any fee for the performance of an official
service. Existing law exempts from this provision any fee
or charge for official services required pursuant to
specified provisions of law relating to water use or water
quality.
This bill expands the exemption to other provisions
relating to water use, including provisions that require
the payment of fees to the State Water Resources Control
Board (SWRCB) for official services relating to statements
of water diversion and use.
The California Constitution requires the reasonable and
beneficial use of water. Under the public trust doctrine,
the board, among other state agencies, is required to take
the public trust into account in the planning and
allocation of water resources and to protect the public
trust whenever feasible. The SWRCB and the California
regional water quality control boards (RWQCBs) are required
to set forth water quality objectives in state and regional
water quality control plans. Existing law establishes the
Water Rights Fund, which consists of various fees and
penalties. The moneys in the Water Rights Fund are
available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the
administration of the board's water rights program.
This bill authorizes the SWRCB to issue, on its own motion
or upon the petition of an interested party, an interim
relief order in appropriate circumstances to implement or
enforce these and related provisions of law. A person or
entity that violates any interim relief order issued by the
board would be liable to the SWRCB for a civil penalty in
an amount not to exceed $5,000 for each day in which a
violation occurs. These funds would be deposited in the
Water Rights Fund.
Existing law authorizes the SWRCB to investigate all
streams, stream systems, lakes, or other bodies of water,
take testimony relating to the rights to water or the use
of water, and ascertain whether water filed upon or
attempted to be appropriated is appropriated under the laws
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of the state.
Existing law requires the SWRCB to take appropriate actions
to prevent waste or the unreasonable use of water. Under
existing law, the SWRCB makes determinations with regard to
the availability of recycled water.
This bill authorizes the SWRCB, in conducting an
investigation or proceeding for these purposes, to order
any person or entity that diverts water or uses water to
submit, under penalty of perjury, any technical or
monitoring report related to the diversion or use of water
by that person or entity. By expanding the definition of
the crime of perjury, this bill imposes a state-mandated
local program. This bill authorizes the SWRCB, in
connection with the investigation or proceeding, to inspect
the facilities of any person or entity to determine
compliance with specified water use requirements.
Existing law authorizes the board, upon the submission of a
petition signed by a claimant to water of any stream system
requesting a determination of rights among the claimants to
that water, to enter an order granting the petition. After
granting the petition, the SWRCB is required to investigate
the stream system to gather information necessary to make a
determination of the water rights of that stream system.
This bill authorizes the SWRCB to initiate a determination
of rights under its own motion if after a hearing it finds
that the public interest and necessity will be served by a
determination of rights.
Existing law declares that the diversion or use of water
other than as authorized by specified provisions of law is
a trespass. Existing law authorizes the administrative
imposition of civil liability by the SWRCB for a trespass
in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which the
trespass occurs. Moneys generated by the imposition of
civil liability under these provisions are deposited in the
Water Rights Fund.
This bill provides that a person or entity committing a
trespass may be liable in an amount not to exceed the sum
of $1,000 for each day in which the trespass occurs and
$1,000 for each acre-foot of water diverted or used other
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than as authorized by those specified provisions of law.
Existing law, with certain exceptions, requires each person
who, after December 31, 1965, diverts water to file with
the SWRCB a statement of diversion and use.
This bill establishes a rebuttable presumption, in any
proceeding before the SWRCB in which it is alleged that an
appropriative right has ceased or is subject to prescribed
action, that no use required to be included in a statement
of diversion and use occurred unless that use is included
in a statement that is submitted to the SWRCB within a
specified time period.
This bill requires a person who files a statement of
diversion and use, and certain petitions involving a change
in a water right, to pay an annual fee, for deposit in the
Water Rights Fund. This bill includes as recoverable
costs, for which the SWRCB may be reimbursed from the fund
upon appropriation therefor, costs incurred in connection
with carrying out requirements relating to the statements
of diversion and use and the performance of duties under
the public trust doctrine and provisions that require the
reasonable use of water.
Existing law authorizes the SWRCB to issue a cease and
desist order against a person who is violating, or
threatening to violate, certain requirements, including
requirements set forth in a decision or order relating to
the unauthorized use of water. Any person who violates a
cease and desist order may be liable in an amount not to
exceed $1,000 for each day in which the violation occurs.
Revenue generated from these penalties is deposited in the
Water Rights Fund.
This bill authorizes the SWRCB to issue a cease and desist
order in response to a violation of certain requirements
relating to the unauthorized diversion or use of water or
of a reporting or monitoring requirement established under
a decision, order, or regulation adopted by the SWRCB
pursuant to various provisions of law, including the public
trust doctrine. This bill increases the civil penalties
that apply to a person who violates a cease and desist
order by subjecting a violator to a civil penalty in an
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amount not to exceed the sum of $2,500 for each day in
which the violation occurs and $2,500 for each acre-foot of
water diverted or used in violation of the cease and desist
order.
This bill imposes civil liability, in an amount not to
exceed $500 for each day in which a violation occurs, for a
failure to comply with various reporting or monitoring
requirements, including requirements imposed pursuant to
the public trust doctrine. This bill authorize the SWRCB
to impose additional civil liability, in an amount not to
exceed $500 for each day in which a violation occurs, for
the violation of a permit, license, certificate, or
registration, or an order or regulation involving the
unreasonable use of water. Funds derived from the
imposition of these civil penalties would be deposited in
the Water Rights Fund.
This bill requires the SWRCB to adjust for inflation, by
January 1 of each year, beginning in 2011, the amounts of
civil and administrative liabilities or penalties imposed
by the board in water right actions, as specified.
This bill requires that, in a proceeding before the SWRCB
in which it is alleged that an appropriative water right
has ceased, or is subject to prescribed action, there would
be a rebuttable presumption that no use occurred on or
after January 1, 2009, unless that diversion or use was
reported to the SWRCB within six months after it is
required to be filed with the SWRCB.
Existing law authorizes a local agency whose service area
includes a groundwater basin that is not subject to
groundwater management to adopt and implement a groundwater
management plan pursuant to certain provisions of law.
Existing law requires a groundwater management plan to
include certain components to qualify as a plan for the
purposes of those provisions, including a provision that
establishes funding requirements for the construction of
certain groundwater projects.
This bill establishes a groundwater monitoring program
pursuant to which specified entities, in accordance with
prescribed procedures, may propose to be designated by the
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Department of Water Resources (DWR) as groundwater
monitoring entities, as defined, for the purposes of
monitoring and reporting with regard to groundwater
elevations in all or part of a basin or subbasin, as
defined. This bill requires DWR to work cooperatively with
each monitoring entity to determine the manner in which
groundwater elevation information should be reported to
DWR. This bill authorizes DWR to make recommendations for
improving an existing monitoring program, requires
additional monitoring wells under certain circumstances,
and requires DWR, under prescribed circumstances, to
perform groundwater monitoring functions for those portions
of a basin or a subbasin for which no monitoring entity has
agreed to perform those functions under this program.
Existing law requires DWR to conduct an investigation of
the state's groundwater basins and to report its findings
to the Governor and the Legislature not later than January
1, 1980.
This bill repeals that provision. DWR will be required to
conduct an investigation of the state's groundwater basins
and to report its findings to the Governor and the
Legislature not later than January 1, 2012, and every five
years thereafter.
These provisions only become operative if AB 39, AB 49, SB
12, and SB 458 of the 2009-10 Regular Session of the
Legislature, relating to water use and resource management,
are enacted and become effective on or before January 1,
2010.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
DLW:mw 9/10/09 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED
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