California lawmakers passed significant new rules for managing groundwater a decade ago, during a major drought. Since then, the state has continued to see floods and more severe drought.
That’s given state leaders a lot to think about as they evaluate the decade-old policy, which they covered at a Department of Water Resources conference on Monday.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act — or SGMA — gave local governments requirements and a new structure to protect groundwater levels.
Groundwater was largely unregulated by the state before 2014, and overpumping led to depletion in some areas.
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said SGMA has been successful and has impacts beyond the environment.
“Our economy, of course, whether you’re in the Central Valley or the Central Coast, really most parts of the state, is going to rely on maximizing the durability of our groundwater supply,” he said.
The local agencies that SGMA helped to stand up have spent most of the last decade establishing themselves and working with the state on plans to implement over the next couple decades.
The non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California reported earlier this year that since SGMA passed, the state’s water management has seen gradual improvements. For example, local agencies are mapping out where wells are most likely to go dry and limiting new drilling in risky areas.
The report also found that SGMA helped speed up incentives to reduce groundwater use and recharge depleted basins in wet years.
State leaders say as they’ve seen SGMA in action, they’ve also noticed some weak points.
Former State Assembly member and Sacramento City Council member-elect Roger Dickinson authored one of the bills that makes up SGMA.
“I’m not sure that we gave the emphasis to small farmers that we should have, or the emphasis to disadvantaged communities’ access to clean and safe drinking water that we should have,” he said.
Dickinson added that SGMA doesn’t go far enough in encouraging localities with overlapping water supplies to function as one entity rather than multiple with competing interests.
Many of the speakers at the DWR conference spoke about how they hope the state builds on SGMA in the coming decade.
State Board of Food and Agriculture President Don Cameron said California needs to shore up its systems that refill underground aquifers — especially in light of recent bouts of flooding and drought.
“I think we need to be prepared, and not be caught off guard, and not have to wait for an executive order to do what we did in ‘23,” he said.
California Department of Conservation Assistant Director Keali’i Bright said he’s hoping the $10 billion climate bond voters approved through Proposition 4 will have a big impact on state water projects in general.
“It comes down to just, efficient governance and efficient processes to move money between the state and the locals,” he said.
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