By SJV Water
The state Water Resources Control Board will consider sending the Chowchilla subbasin back to another state agency for evaluation of its revised groundwater sustainability plan.
If Chowchilla makes it back to the arms of the Department of Water Resources (DWR), it will be the first of seven San Joaquin Valley subbasins considered for enforcement action to have made that full U-turn.
The recommendation to send Chowchilla back to DWR will be considered at the Water Board’s June 3 meeting.
In an assessment released Friday, Water Board staff said Chowchilla’s four groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) adequately addressed deficiencies.
“The GSAs show a greater commitment to protecting drinking water users and improved groundwater management,” the assessment stated.
Those improvements include:
- New groundwater level goals to avoid drinking water impacts after 2040.
- A domestic well protection program that addresses water quality impacts in addition to impacts from lowering groundwater levels.
- Revised groundwater level goals that shouldn’t cause additional land subsidence
after 2040. New objectives to eliminate further subsidence and plans to limit subsidence impacts in the basin on the way to sustainability by 2040. The GSAs considered critical infrastructure when setting subsidence goals in the 2025 GSP. - More robust management practices that should lead to sustainable groundwater use. For example, the GSAs committed to more adaptive and stricter groundwater management actions that will likely be necessary for the basin to reach sustainability.
Under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), overdrafted regions had to come up with an adequate groundwater plan that would protect domestic wells, stop land sinking and bring aquifers into balance by 2040.
The plans were evaluated and tweaked by DWR. But if they still couldn’t past muster, the regions were sent to the Water Board, SGMA’s enforcement arm. One of the hammers used by the Water Board is probation, under which farmers must meter and register wells at $350 each, report extractions to the state and pay $20 per acre foot pumped.
If an adequate plan couldn’t be produced after a year under probation, the Water Board could step in and set its own pumping limits for the subbasin.
The Water Board has already placed two valley subbasins on probation, including Tulare Lake, which covers most of Kings County, and the Tule subbasin, which covers the southern half of Tulare County’s flatlands.
The Kings County Farm Bureau sued the state and has so far been able to stave off probationary sanctions in the Tulare Lake subbasin. Probationary sanctions are just getting under way in the Tule subbasin.
The Kaweah subbasin, which covers Tulare County’s northern flatlands, was given a reprieve when the Water Board canceled its probationary hearing as staff found it was making good progress on its plan.
The Water Board held Kern’s probationary hearing in February but gave water managers until June to come back with several tweaks to its plan before issuing its ruling.
The Chowchilla and Delta-Mendota subbasins were to come before the board next. The Pleasant Valley subbasin just received an inadequate designation for its plan in February.
Water Board staff will accept public comments on the Chowchilla assessment document via email to SGMA-Chowchilla@waterboards.ca.gov with the subject line: “Comments – Chowchilla Subbasin” until noon on Friday, May 23.
