BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1739
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 1739 (Dickinson)
As Amended August 22, 2014
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |48-24|(May 28, 2014) |SENATE: |26-11|(August 27, |
| | | | | |2014) |
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Original Committee Reference: W., P. & W.
SUMMARY : Requires, together with SB 1168 (Pavley) of the
current legislative session, that in all basins and subbasins
designated high and medium priority by the Department of Water
Resources (DWR) that a locally-formed groundwater sustainability
agency (GSA) adopt a groundwater sustainability plan (GSP)
unless the basin or subbasin is adjudicated or otherwise being
sustainably managed. Requires adoption of a GSP by January 31,
2020, if the basin or subbasin is in a critical condition of
overdraft, or by January 31, 2022, for all other high and medium
priority basins or subbasins.
The Senate amendments :
1)Enact this bill contingently with SB 1168 so that both bills
together form the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (Act)
and associated provisions.
2)Make legislative 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; that failed wells, deteriorated water quality,
environmental damage, and irreversible land subsidence occur
when groundwater is not properly managed; that sustainable
groundwater management is part of the implementation of the
California Water Action Plan; and that sustainable groundwater
management will respect overlying and other property rights.
3)Provide GSAs, as created by SB 1168, with authorities to
regulate groundwater extraction through well spacing rules,
temporary and permanent transfers of groundwater extraction
allocations within the agency's boundaries, accounting rules,
and other approaches. Prohibits a GSA from issuing permits
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for well construction, modification, or abandonment except as
authorized by a county.
4)Allow DWR or a GSA to provide technical assistance to entities
that extract groundwater and direct DWR to use its best
efforts to provide assistance to any GSA that requests it.
5)Require DWR to develop best management practices through a
public process, as specified, and publish those best
management practices on its internet web site.
6)Provide a GSA with financial authorities to impose regulatory
fees to fund the preparation, adoption, and amendment of a GSP
and authorities, consistent with the California Constitution,
to fund acquisition of lands, water supply, water treatment,
and other activities to implement the GSP.
7)Provide a GSA with capabilities and remedies to enforce its
GSP including, but not limited to, civil penalties.
8)Require DWR to periodically review GSPs to evaluate whether
they meet minimum requirements, are likely to achieve their
sustainability goals, and do not adversely affect the ability
of an adjacent basin to implement its GSP or achieve its
sustainability goals.
9)Require, by June 1, 2016, that DWR develop emergency
regulations regarding:
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.
10)Require DWR to post all notices it receives pursuant to GSA
formation on its Web site within 15 days of receipt.
11)Require a GSA to submit its adopted GSP to DWR for
evaluation, as specified, and posting on its Internet Web
site.
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12)Allow a local agency to submit an alternative to DWR for
evaluation if it believes that alternative satisfies the Act.
13)Allows the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water
Board) to designate a basin as "probationary" if one or more
of the following occurs:
a) By June 30, 2017, no local agency or collection of local
agencies has either formed a GSA or submitted an
alternative form of compliance;
b) By January 31, 2020, no local agency or collection of
local agencies has adopted a GSP for a high or medium
priority basin in a critical condition of overdraft or DWR
has not approved an alternative form of compliance;
c) By January 31, 2022, no local agency or collection of
local agencies has adopted a GSP for a high or medium
priority basin not in a critical condition of overdraft or
DWR has not approved an alternative form of compliance;
d) After January 31, 2020, DWR, in consultation with the
State Water Board, determines:
i) The GSP is inadequate or not being implemented in a
manner that will likely achieve the sustainability goal;
and,
ii) The State Water Board has determined that the
groundwater basin is in a condition of long-term
overdraft or in a condition where groundwater extractions
result in significant depletions of interconnected
surface waters.
14)Require the State Water Board to identify deficiencies in a
probationary basin and allow a minimum of 180 days for a local
agency or GSA to remedy those deficiencies and, if the
deficiencies are not remedied, adopt an interim plan after
public notice and hearing.
15)Require an interim plan to include an identification of the
actions that are necessary to correct the condition of
long-term overdraft or the condition where groundwater
extractions result in significant depletions of interconnected
surface waters, a time schedule for those actions, and a
description of how the actions will be monitored for
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effectiveness, among other requirements.
16)Allow the State Water Board to require reporting of
groundwater extractions in areas that are either in a
probationary basin, or not being managed by any local agency;
and, charge fees to recover the cost of groundwater
management.
17)Allow the State Water Board to exclude extractions from
reporting if they are subject to a local plan or program that
adequately manages groundwater within the portion of that
basin to which that plan or program applies, or if those
extractions are likely to have a minimal impact on basin
withdrawals.
18)Require 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 groundwater
management plans (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
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Groundwater Report, Bulletin No. 118, to be regularly and
systematically monitored locally and the information to be
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.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill required sustainable
groundwater management in all groundwater subbasins determined
by DWR to be at medium to high risk of significant economic,
social and environmental impacts due to an unsustainable and
chronic pattern of groundwater extractions exceeding the ability
of the surface water supplies to replenish the subbasin.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee:
1)No additional state costs for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014-15 through
FY 2018-19 to DWR for initial activities.
2)Annual costs of $3.5 to $4 million from the General Fund
beginning in FY 2017-18 to DWR to review plans and to provide
ongoing technical support.
3)Annual costs of $260,000 to $390,000 from the Water Rights
Fund (special) for FY 2014-15 through FY 2016-17 to the State
Water Board for initial activities.
4)Annual costs of $325,000 to $600,000 from the General Fund
beginning in FY 2017-18 to the State Water Board for review of
GSPs.
5)Unknown annual costs, estimated to be approximately $1.5
million, from the Water Rights Fund (special) to the State
Water Board for enforcement actions beginning in FY 2017-18.
These costs would be at least partially offset by fees.
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COMMENTS : 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 overdrafted 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're getting their money's worth.
The Los Angeles Times column concludes, the state has been
ignoring experts' increasing warnings regarding groundwater
depletions for decades and holding off on groundwater regulation
since statehood but together this bill and the
contingently-enacted SB 1168 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 and 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 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
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resulting increased rates of groundwater being pumped for human
uses, such as irrigation.
In response to the crisis two bills were introduced in the
Legislature, this bill and SB 1168, and the authors began
extensive stakeholder outreach facilitated by both a nonprofit
nonpartisan foundation and an association of water agencies.
During this time, the Administration of Governor Brown also
proposed statutory language to manage groundwater, made it
available on the internet, and started a series of public
stakeholder meetings. In July 2014, four professionally
facilitated public meetings were convened and led by
representatives of both authors as well as the Administration.
Following those meetings language was taken from each bill and
the Administration's proposal and crafted into one integrated
statute. That language was amended into both this bill and SB
1168, making them identical. Both authors also became coauthors
of each bill. When the integrated statute came into print,
another professionally-facilitated stakeholder meeting was held
to get additional input on refinements.
On August 18, 2014, amendments to this bill and SB 1168 divided
the integrated statute into two logical pieces that must be
enacted together. Both that set of amendments and further
amendments taken on August 22, 2014, incorporated many
stakeholder-suggested refinements. SB 1168 contains: the
state's general policy regarding sustainable groundwater
management; the Act's general provisions, including the
requirement for high and medium priority basins to be managed
sustainably, as defined; basin boundary adjustment language;
authorities and powers for GSAs; and, required GSP components.
This bill includes provisions related to coordination between
local land use agencies and GSAs as well as those provisions of
the Act regarding: DWR technical assistance; GSA financial
authorities; GSA enforcement powers; state evaluation and
assessment of GSPs; and, State intervention under specified
circumstances, including authority for the State Water Board to
require reporting of groundwater withdrawals and charge fees for
its interim management activities. In many respects SB 1168
contains the actions related to establishing GSAs and planning
GSPs while this bill contains most of the complimentary
implementation tools and enforcement authorities, both State and
local.
The author states that in many areas, including parts of the San
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Joaquin Valley, overdraft of groundwater has become a serious
problem and while a number of groundwater basins and subbasins
are under sound local and regional management, others are not.
The author adds that while existing authorities and requirements
for managing groundwater provide a strong foundation, managing
to a sustainable level of groundwater requires additional tools
that build upon that foundation. Supporters state this bill
would provide authority to local and regional GSAs to prepare
and implement GSPs including the ability to adopt rules and
regulations necessary to further their sustainability goals and
a variety of tools to use in preparing plans, adopting fees, and
imposing fines, among others. Other supporters state that every
Californian is affected by our current inability to measure or
control the use of our groundwater resources, in particular
those that rely upon groundwater-fed streams or shallow wells
for drinking water. This legislation provides an important
framework to address this long-standing and expanding problem
and ensure the long-term viability of communities, industry, and
the environment throughout the state.
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 the agricultural economy and the landscape that is
dependent upon it. Opponents also claim this bill could 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.
Analysis Prepared by : Tina Cannon Leahy / W., P. & W. / (916)
319-2096
FN:
0005479
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