Opinion: The grand jury is in, and the Paso basin is still in trouble
The plan to save the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin is failing. In 2014, the California Legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), requiring local communities to form groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) to be administered by groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs). If you’ve been following the saga of the critically overdrafted Paso Robles Groundwater Basin for the last 10 years, the following news may depress you, but it probably won’t surprise you. Some things have changed over that time—the basin now has a groundwater sustainability agency and a groundwater sustainability plan—but some other things have not, including the mindset that still believes the problem can be solved by voluntary conservation, supplemental water projects, and digging deeper wells.