BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1152
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 1152 (Chesbro and Cook)
As Amended June 30, 2011
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |78-0 |(May 19, 2011) |SENATE: |39-0 |(August 18, |
| | | | | |2011) |
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Original Committee Reference: W.,P. & W.
SUMMARY : Allows technologies other than monitoring wells to be
used, under specified circumstances, to meet groundwater elevation
monitoring requirements.
The Senate amendments :
1)Allow a local agency that has been collecting and reporting
groundwater elevations to assume groundwater monitoring functions
even if it does not have a groundwater management plan, as long as
it adopts a groundwater management plan by January 1, 2014.
2)Clarify that, in areas that are wholly owned or controlled by
state, tribal, or federal authorities, groundwater monitoring
information must be requested from, but not provided by, those
entities before alternate monitoring techniques may be used.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires that groundwater elevations in all groundwater basins and
subbasins are regularly and systematically monitored locally and
that the resulting groundwater information is readily and widely
available.
2)Specifies that if no local entity is willing to perform the
monitoring and the Department of Water Resources (DWR) is required
to assume those monitoring functions, then the local entities who
were eligible to, but did not, assume the groundwater monitoring
functions would be ineligible for state water grants or loans.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill allowed methods other than
monitoring wells to be used to comply with the requirement to
monitor groundwater elevations in basins that are: unaffected by
land use activities; unusable due to the presence of naturally
occurring dissolved solids; inaccessible due to federal, state or
AB 1152
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tribal ownership; or, where it is impracticable to install a
monitoring well due to geographic or geologic features.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee,
there will be minor, absorbable costs to DWR to receive and review
reports by entities that attempt to substantiate their claims that
monitoring by using a well is irrelevant or impracticable.
COMMENTS : The Senate amendments allow some local entities who do
not currently have groundwater management plans to become monitoring
entities. The Senate amendments also require communication between
monitoring entities and federal, state or tribal governments who may
be willing to provide information from their own groundwater
monitoring wells.
Analysis Prepared by : Tina Cannon Leahy / W., P. & W. / (916)
319-2096 FN: 0001997