When we discuss the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (“ENSO” for
short) at the blog, we often take a rather human or physics-y
view of the climate phenomenon. We’ve published loads of
articles discussing the mechanics for how ENSO works in the
atmosphere and the ocean, and how ENSO impacts humans from
droughts and wildfires to floods. … If ENSO can
affect climate patterns thousands of miles away from the
central/eastern equatorial Pacific… why can’t it also affect
marine life within that distance? Specifically, might it affect
one of the poster fish of the North Pacific, the salmon?
Island-dweller Lori Snell grimaced as she tallied her bill
recently at the Avalon Laundry — nearly $50 for three large
loads. … That preoccupation with water has now become
critical as severe drought grips California and its
Channel Islands — a rugged, eight-isle archipelago that hosts
several human outposts and a handful of species that exist
nowhere else on Earth. But although some of the island’s
wildlife is struggling for survival, conditions for humans are
a little different today than in droughts past, due largely to
a desalination plant that opened in Avalon in 2016. The plant
today provides about 40% of Avalon’s drinking water.
The drought in the West and climate change have smaller cities
rethinking their economies, especially if their main business
is agriculture. On California’s Central Coast, one town is
trying to diversify beyond its main moneymaker – grapes and
wine. … Lynn Hamilton [a professor of agribusiness at
nearby Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo] says … “The attitude
here, it seems to be – until recently – that, oh, we’re just a
rainy season away from being saved. And I think people are now
starting to realize that that’s not true any longer.”
The Morro Bay National Estuary Program is getting $4.5 million
over five years to protect and restore water quality and
habitat, the Biden administration announced on Monday. The
funding comes from the bipartisan $978 billion Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act that Biden signed last November.
A humpback whale was spotted off San Diego’s coast on
Valentine’s Day 2020, entangled in a green plastic fishing net.
It struggled to migrate up California’s coast, leaping
repeatedly to desperately try to rid itself of the net.
But rescuers were unable to safely get close enough to
try to cut the net off. … The plague of plastic in
our oceans is steadily worsening, taking an increasingly deadly
toll on whales, dolphins, seals and other marine mammals, not
to mention other marine life. -Written by Dave Phillips, executive director of
Earth Island Institute, a nonprofit environmental organization
based in Berkeley; and Mark J. Palmer, a biologist and the
associate director of Earth Island Institute’s International
Marine Mammal Project.
August is off to a sticky, wet start as a monsoon flow dogs
California. Some parts of the state saw heavy rainfall over the
last few days, while others endured flash floods and debris
flows. … Monsoonal showers and thunderstorms could pass
over the mountains in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, along
with the Antelope Valley, according to forecasts….In the San
Francisco Bay Area, meteorologists are watching for thunder as
storms travel east from the coast. Meteorologist Sarah
McCorkle with the National Weather Service in Monterey said
downtown San Francisco saw one of its wettest Julys in recent
years.
On a ridge overlooking the foothills of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, it would have been possible to see the first
flickering flames of the Oak Fire and then how it engulfed its
surroundings. It took just 24 hours to mushroom to 10,000
acres and become California’s biggest wildfire this
year…. The “megadrought” driven by climate change that
is affecting California and other western states has left
plenty of dry, flammable material that can become fuel so
quickly, especially when humidity is low and winds are high.
And that means grim records are barely being set before they
are burned through, again.
In some of the most arid places around the world, more than
16,000 seawater desalination systems enable countries from
Saudi Arabia to Israel, Morocco to Australia, to remove salt
from ocean water to generate fresh drinking water. Well before
before California entered its driest period on
record, Gov. Gavin Newsom ’89 has supported
building a second major coastal desalination plant as a partial
solution to the Golden State’s water woes.
San Luis Obispo County began selling water purchased by county
residents to out of county water purveyors in 2008 and 2013,
without returning the funds to local property owners as
required by law, according to a recent SLO County Grand Jury
report. … Promoted by then-Public Works Director Paavo Ogren
and Supervisor Bruce Gibson, the Board of Supervisors approved
the sale of excess county water in 2008 and 2013, to out of
county purveyors. However, instead of returning the $6.3
million from the sale of the water to area taxpayers, Ogren
placed the funds in the District Zone General Fund.
The federal government will channel $43 million into efforts to
purchase and distribute locally grown food from California’s
underserved farmers and producers, U.S. Agriculture Secretary
Tom Vilsack announced Wednesday in Woodland. …Vilsack also
highlighted several initiatives that will provide relief to
farmers over the coming years. Congress recently provided USDA
with $10 billion to distribute to farmers struggling due to
climate-related disasters — funds that could be especially
useful in the Golden State, where wildfires burn for months
every year.
Early one winter morning, as Brian Lilla was riding his bike
through Napa, California’s hills and meadows, he spotted
farmworkers driving ATVs through rows of vines. They hauled
huge canisters of the weedkiller Roundup. As the workers
sprayed vines, a chemical smell shot through the air.
… In Children of the Vine, the 54-year-old
documentary filmmaker explores the use of glyphosate from the
time Roundup hit the market in the 1970s to Monsanto’s creation
of “Roundup Ready” genetically modified seeds in the 1990s to
its present legal woes and shattered public trust. But even
now, with at least 20 countries having banned or
limited the use of the herbicide, Lilla was shocked to find out
how ubiquitous the chemical is in our daily lives, and how
trace amounts of glyphosate appears even in certified organic
foods and wine (which by definition are grown without
pesticides or herbicides).
In a strawberry field surrounded by strawberry fields on the
outskirts of Santa Maria, a team of robots have been picking
berries all summer. Each robot, made by a Colorado company
called Tortuga AgTech, trundles between the elevated beds on
rugged wheels, then stops in front of a plant. An articulated
arm maneuvers its sensor array among the leaves; machine vision
software scours the sensor data in search of ripe berries.
… But the team behind Tortuga — and some longtime
experts in California’s $2-billion strawberry industry — see
agricultural robots … as the only way that an industry
sitting on the intersecting fault lines of climate change,
water rights, labor struggles, land use and chemical regulation
can adapt and survive.
A favorite San Francisco Bay Area spot for sleeping under
towering redwood trees is temporarily shutting down its
campground again this summer because of California’s historic
drought. Portola Redwoods State Park said Tuesday that its
campground facilities with 55 sites and four group sites will
be closing Aug. 5 and not reopening for the remainder of the
season because of low flows on its main water source, Peters
Creek. (The campground closes every winter, from Nov. 1 to
April 1.) … Portola Redwoods had similar closures in
2014, 2015 and 2021 due to drought
conditions, McKenna said.
One of the most famous attractions at Hearst Castle in San
Simeon is the marble-framed outdoor Neptune pool. While severe
drought is causing California State Parks to implement water
restrictions at the castle, they say the iconic pool will
remain full, even as most irrigation stops and portable toilets
replace bathrooms. California State Parks, which operates and
preserves the Hearst estate, turned off much of the water at
there earlier this month amid the statewide drought.
Millions of highly skilled environmental engineers stand ready
to make our continent more resilient to climate change. They
restore wetlands that absorb carbon, store water, filter
pollution and clean and cool waters for salmon and trout. They
are recognized around the world for helping to reduce wildfire
risk. Scientists have valued their environmental services at
close to $179,000 per square mile annually. And they work for
free. Our ally in mitigating and adapting to climate change
across the West could be a paddle-tailed rodent: the North
American beaver. -Written by Chris Jordan, mathematical biology
and systems monitoring program manager at NOAA Fisheries’
Northwest Fisheries Science Center; and Emily Fairfax, an
assistant professor of environmental science and resource
management at Cal State Channel Islands.
After a high profile, decades-long battle to build a
desalination plant in Huntington Beach ended in denial, all
eyes will be on the California Coastal Commission as it
considers whether or not to approve two smaller desalination
projects this fall. Commissioners are tentatively scheduled to
consider the Doheny Ocean Desalination project in October. The
project, based in Orange County, could produce up to 5 million
gallons of potable water per day, according to the
project’s environmental impact report. The project is
expected to cost $140 million, and $32.4 million in grants have
been secured thus far, Southern California Water District
Public Information Specialist Sheena Johnson told The Center
Square.
Blazes have burned thousands of acres, cued mandatory
evacuations and threatened some of the state’s oldest and most
impressive trees, but far fewer acres have burned in California
wildfires through the first few weeks of summer than at the
same point last year. The tides may turn in the coming weeks as
conditions stay hot and grow drier, but the numbers to date
suggest the state may have averted a particularly nasty start
to this wildfire season. …And while the Golden State is
immersed in its third straight year of severe drought, a few
storms in April and June helped to dampen fire fuels.
Solvang commercial, industrial and institutional water system
customers will face steep financial penalties if they don’t
immediately cut back their water usage at least 20%. City
Council members on July 11 unanimously adopted a drought
ordinance update that clarifies rate tier penalties in relation
to declared drought stages. The city has been in a Stage 2
drought stage since August 2021.
A new nonprofit is emerging along the Central Coast with its
sights set on ensuring clean, safe drinking water and access to
waterways for all, particularly those in disadvantaged
communities. The fledgling nonprofit is called Waterkeeper
Monterey, formerly known as Monterey Coastkeeper. Monterey
Waterkeeper’s Executive Director Chelsea Tu … told the Herald
this week that Waterkeeper will be working with the State Water
Resources Control Boards, often just called Water Boards, to
limit levels of contaminants in drinking water, mostly in well
water that doesn’t have the benefit of municipal treatment
facilities that urban areas of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties
have.
California’s forests are in rapid retreat, which bodes ill for
the future. Using satellite data, researchers from the
University of California, Irvine found that trees in the
state’s mountainous regions declined 6.7 percent between 1985
and 2021 thanks to wildfires, drought and other climate-related
sources of stress. The drop was even steeper in the Sierra
Nevada, which suffered 8.8% tree cover loss during that time
period. … ”We’re a little worried that relying on these
forests as a means for protecting water quality or erosion
protection or carbon sequestration (is) becoming more and more
at risk as a result of these increasing fires,” said Jon Wang,
a postdoctoral researcher at UC Irvine and lead author of the
study.
As local gardeners and farmers look for ways to keep their
fruit trees alive while meeting water conservation goals, they
can consider the water savings gained by applying organic
mulch, as documented in an influential 1999 University of
California study. The study’s findings and recommendations have
gained relevance today as water supplies tighten and watering
restrictions take effect during the severe drought.
… Rather than promoting growth, the main purposes of
mulch are to reduce erosion, suppress weed growth, moderate
soil temperature, and save water by retaining soil
moisture. -Written by David Goldstein, an environmental resource
analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency
To be clear, there are good reasons to end construction of new
gas stations, which, beyond fueling climate change, also have a
tendency to become costly environmental cleanup sites
themselves. The underground storage tanks they use can
contaminate soil and groundwater and pose risks to drinking
water supplies for years after they close. A statewide 2021
assessment by the State Water Resources Control Board found 136
improperly abandoned underground fuel storage tank facilities,
many of them old gas stations, including a dozen in
disadvantaged communities and within 1,000 feet of a municipal
water supply well.
All Californians play a role in preserving and enhancing our
water supplies for a drought-resilient future. California again
is in a familiar state of drought, although not all communities
are affected equally. Some regions are in extreme water
shortage; others are not. We must address these differences.
That starts with all Californians understanding where their
water comes from and what they can do to use it wisely. -Written by Steve Welch, general manager of the
Contra Costa Water District; and Sandy Kerl, the
general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority.
Preston Brown knows the risk of wildfire that comes with living
in the rural, chaparral-lined hills of San Diego County. He’s
lived there for 21 years and evacuated twice. That’s why he
fiercely opposed a plan to build more than 1,100 homes in a
fire-prone area he said would be difficult to evacuate safely.
Brown sits on the local planning commission, and he said the
additional people would clog the road out. … Opponents
like Brown, a member of the Sierra Club and
California Native Plant Society, scored a win last year.
Climate scientists with the National Weather Service delivered
disappointing news Thursday for anyone hoping for drought
relief this fall or early winter. According to the weather
service’s Climate Prediction Center, there’s a 62% to 66%
chance that La Niña conditions will prevail in the Northern
hemisphere until at least the end of 2022, marking the third
straight year of the weather pattern. La Niña conditions,
measured by surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean,
typically mean that there will be drier conditions in
California, especially in the southern part of the state,
though no one knows for certain.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Southern California
Edison’s (SCE) first desalination plant on Catalina Island. The
desalination process strips salt out of ocean water from two
underground saltwater beach wells to make it drinkable. The
desalination plant was considered a developing technology in
1992. It was the first ocean water to drinking water plant on
the West Coast and one of the first prototypes in the country.
SCE built the first desalination plant in response to the
development of the nearby Hamilton Cove condominiums and the
drought in the late 1980s.
David Schmalz here, thinking about the Seaside Basin, which,
along with the Carmel River and recycled water from Pure Water
Monterey, is one of three major water sources serving residents
in the Monterey Peninsula. Water is a highly complex
topic on the Peninsula and in the county at large, and
what follows is no exception. Still, it’s important: water
facilitates life, and its availability, or lack thereof,
changes the world we live in. It’s one fundamental reason we
can, or cannot, build much-needed housing. I’m thinking
about the Seaside Basin for this reason: recent decisions made
by the Seaside City Council, as it relates to that water
supply, will have an impact on housing in the city in a major
way.
At the San Francisco Fed, we are students of the economy. We
monitor ongoing and future risks to the economy, including
climate risk. The economic impacts of a changing
climate—including the frequency and magnitude of severe weather
events—affect each of our three core responsibilities:
conducting monetary policy, regulating, and supervising the
banking system, and ensuring a safe and sound payment system.
… Of course, it’s not just California and Utah grappling
with a record drought—impacts are being felt across the Twelfth
District. According to the journal Nature Climate Change, the
megadrought in the Western United States has produced
the region’s driest two decades in at least 1,200 years
This May, the California Coastal Commission unanimously
rejected the proposed $1.4 billion dollar Huntington Beach
Desalination Plant for environmental reasons. Set on a
low-lying coastal site, the Commission was concerned that the
facility’s location exposed it to rising sea levels, and that
its process for converting 50 million gallons of drinking water
per day would harm marine life in 100 billion gallons of
seawater each year. … Gov. Newsom supported the plant,
calling desal “more tools in the tool kit,” … So who do
you believe?
Olive oil production in California is expected to drop
significantly in the 2022/23 crop year compared with the
previous harvest. According to the Olive Oil Commission of
California (OOCC), which represents 90 percent of the Golden
state’s production, its members will produce 1.8 million
gallons (8.2 million liters) in the current crop year.
Previously, OOCC members combined to produce three million
gallons (13.6 million liters) in 2021/22 … [P]roducers
faced a range of challenges, from high winds damaging
trees during blossoming to the state’s unrelenting
drought.
The climate in California’s Ojai Valley has been ideal for
citrus, but that climate is changing—getting windier, drier,
and hotter. A recent study showed that Ventura County’s
temperature has warmed more in the last 125 years than any
other county in the lower 48 states …
Summer is here, and water resource managers around the state
are gearing up for another dry season. In Santa Cruz County,
unique geology and three distinct basins make protecting the
water supply a complicated and fractured process involving
multiple water agencies. From the Pajaro Valley to the Santa
Cruz Mountains, here’s what they’re doing.
Trees are a very essential part of California’s infrastructure,
with some of them taking 20 to 30 years to mature. Despite the
drought, watering these important resources remains vital.
… Trees in a drought should still be hand watered about
twice a month at a minimum. During the hottest parts of the
summer, and especially in hotter and dryer areas of California,
trees need watering twice a week. … A mandatory two-day
outdoor watering restriction took effect across Los Angeles on
June 1 …
Californians and others in the Western United States need to
save water. This is true now amidst a historic megadrought, and
it will continue to be true when this drought ends. But
many water conservation and efficiency programs aren’t
accessible to low-income households. … Making such programs
more widely accessible would both help those struggling to
afford their utility bills and save water. Notably, these water
savings would occur immediately and into the future, helping
provide immediate relief for households, as well as building
long-term water resilience and contributing to system-wide
affordability.
There are two schools of thought on how to navigate the West’s
historic drought: Use less water or find new ways to make more
of it usable. A few cities are trying to do both, and so far,
it’s spared them from some of the most stringent drought
restrictions. In the last drought, Santa Monica used to rely
heavily on water imported from Northern California. But now
less than half of Santa Monica’s water is imported, which
spared them from the mandatory outdoor water restrictions that
began at the beginning of June.
A fast-growing wildfire burning along the border of Amador and
Calaveras counties was poised to become one of the biggest of
the season as it approached 4,000 acres Tuesday, prompting
evacuations and contributing to widespread power outages across
the region. The Electra fire ignited Monday afternoon near
the North Fork of the Mokelumne River and spread quickly amid
dry brush and steep terrain, according to the California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Monterey Peninsula water officials are reporting that not only
did they meet the obligation to provide the agreed-upon amount
of water from the Pure Water Monterey water recycling project,
they were able to bank more than 100 acre-feet in groundwater
reserve. Pure Water Monterey — a project of Monterey One Water,
the area’s wastewater service provider — takes recycled water
that has been treated to a potable level and in a joint effort
with the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District injects
it into the Seaside Groundwater Basin for later
extraction.
California’s water issues may be complicated. But the rainfall
shortage driving the state’s current drought comes down to
basic math. … Over the three-year period that ended June
30, most Northern California cities received only about half to
two-thirds of their historical average rainfall, according to
data that [Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather
Services in Half Moon Bay] compiled. And each passing year
without soaking winter rains has been steadily drying the state
out a little more — further dropping reservoirs, parching soils
and forests and depleting groundwater.
Farmers up and down California are once again facing an
uncertain season ahead of them as a state water curtailment
order issued in August 2021 continues to take its toll on
farming and ranching families. In July 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom
signed an executive order calling a drought emergency and
asking for water conservation. Soon after, farmers and ranchers
in California received curtailment orders from the
California Water Board (CWB) to either immediately or
prepare to suspend their senior water rights. Water
rights are a complicated and century-long system that farmers
and ranchers are all too familiar with — because water is their
lifeline.
Unprecedented dryness across the western United States is
meeting with increasingly warm temperatures to create climate
conditions so extreme that the landscape of California could
permanently and profoundly change, a growing number of
scientists say. The Golden State’s great drying has already
begun to reduce snowpack, worsen wildfires and dry out soils,
and researchers say that trend will likely continue, along with
the widespread loss of trees and other significant shifts. Some
say what’s in store for the state could be akin to the
conditions that drove people thousands of years ago to abandon
thriving cities in the Southwest and other arid parts of the
world as severe drought contributed to crop failures and the
crumbling of social norms.
Santa Barbara County officials on Tuesday celebrated the
completion of a project that will prevent 84 million gallons of
water from being pumped every year from the Santa Maria Valley
Groundwater Basin. Officials gathered at Waller Park at 8:30
a.m. to cut a ribbon signifying the completion of the system
that will use treated wastewater to irrigate the county-owned
park at the southern edge of Santa Maria. Each year, the county
has pumped about 84 million gallons of water — about 300,000
gallons per day — from its on-site well to irrigate the 65
acres of turf at the park, said Scott McGolpin, director of the
County Public Works Department.
When I reminisce about the time I spent at the beach as a kid,
I remember peering into tide pools and splashing in the cool
water of the Pacific. Something I don’t remember — but that now
seems inescapable — is plastic pollution, everywhere. The
difference is not my imagination. Global plastic production has
nearly tripled in my lifetime. Plastics have reached every
corner of the planet, from deep ocean trenches to mountaintops
and even our lungs and bloodstreams. … We need a
multifaceted approach that includes using less plastic and
improving recycling rates. -Written by Dr. Anja Brandon, the U.S. plastics
policy analyst at the Ocean Conservancy and one of the chief
architects of the Senate Bill 54.
For a moment, the first week of summer looked like the prelude
to a vicious fire season in the Bay Area, with blazes ripping
through the hillsides south of Livermore and the ridges
bordering Port Costa. But firefighters managed to quash these
fires quickly, aided by tame winds and a landscape still moist
enough to keep the flames from spreading fast. … From
June 19 through June 27, Cal Fire battled 14 major fires across
the state that torched 10 acres or more, nine of them in the
greater Bay Area region stretching from Sonoma County to the
San Joaquin Valley in the east and south to the Santa Cruz
Mountains.
It’s just a few days into summer, and heat waves have already
toppled records across the globe, from the Russian Arctic to
the muggy Gulf Coast. With July and August — usually the
hottest summer months — still to come, the early extreme heat
offers a grim picture of summer’s growing danger.
… According to a recent survey, a little more than
half of Americans say they have been personally affected by
extreme heat. That number is much higher in California, where
71 percent of the survey respondents say it has affected their
lives, whether through climbing electricity bills or declining
health. After this summer, it may spike higher still.
California’s wildfire season intensifies between July and
October when temperatures soar, vegetation becomes bone dry and
desiccating winds develop. The peak season that has been
marked by devastating blazes and smoky skies in recent years is
approaching fast, and many are wondering just how bad it will
be. The consensus among experts is that the next few
months will see above-average fire activity as has been the
case in recent years amid a changing climate marked by hotter
temperatures and longer dry periods.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
