Board finds that subbasin’s latest plans are on track to meet sustainability goals once final deficiencies are addressed
Press release from the State Water Resources Control Board:
The State Water Resources Control Board [Wednesday] approved a resolution to return the Kern County Groundwater Subbasin to the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) jurisdiction under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), ending the possibility of probation for the subbasin in the state intervention process.
The State Water Board’s vote came after substantial public comment during today’s hearing for the board to decide whether to designate the subbasin as probationary. The board postponed this decision in February to allow groundwater sustainability agencies more time to finalize significant progress in their sustainability plans.
A staff review of local agencies’ new plans, submitted in June, found that the subbasin’s 20 agencies substantially, but not completely, addressed deficiencies in prior plans to achieve groundwater sustainability goals by 2040. Among the new provisions that fully address prior deficiencies, the plans now include basin-wide approaches to setting appropriate management criteria for groundwater levels and quality. It also ramps down subsidence prior to 2040, with no additional subsidence after 2040.
“We applaud the progress that the Kern County Subbasin’s groundwater agencies have made with their latest plans towards meeting sustainability goals,” said State Water Board Chair E. Joaquin Esquivel. “The subbasin is the largest and one of the most important in the state, and the good coordination among local agencies toward a successful resolution of issues in their plans is a model for how achieving sustainability under SGMA is designed to work. The State Water Board is here to partner with the subbasin as it begins the critical work of implementation.”
Local agencies within the subbasin submitted revised groundwater sustainability plans to the board in early September that are still undergoing staff review. With respect to issues still outstanding, the board adopted language into its resolution requiring that the return of the subbasin to DWR’s oversight be contingent on staff’s completed review of the revised plans and confirmation that its local agencies have:
- provided an adequate mitigation program for drinking water wells impacted by any constituent of concern identified in the plans—including 1,2,3-TCP— when concentrations exceed minimum thresholds due to groundwater management activities.
- provided an adequate mitigation program for state small water system wells impacted by groundwater management activities.
- eliminated a provision in plans that causes non-districted areas in the subbasin to become unmanaged areas for groundwater sustainability.
Once these requirements have been addressed, staff will finalize the subbasin’s exit from the state intervention process by letter to DWR, likely this fall. Returning the subbasin to DWR’s oversight will ensure that the local agencies continue to effectively manage the subbasin’s groundwater.
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The Kern County Subbasin is a critically overdrafted and geologically complex groundwater subbasin in the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley with an area of about 1.78 million acres. It is managed by 20 local agencies, and its groundwater is primarily used for irrigated agriculture and drinking water.
Enacted in 2014, SGMA established a new framework for local groundwater management to achieve long-term sustainability. Under SGMA, local agencies in subbasins are required to achieve long-term sustainable management of their groundwater within 20 years of implementing their plans, which is 2040 for critically overdrafted subbasins.
Under SGMA, agencies in over 90 groundwater basins submitted plans to DWR by 2022 showing how each subbasin planned to manage its groundwater supplies sustainably. Since 2023, DWR has referred seven basins with inadequate plans to the board for the state intervention process, which is intended to be temporary: lasting only until local agencies demonstrate that they are ready to sustainably manage their respective basins.
To date, the board has placed the Tulare Lake and Tule subbasins on probation and returned the Chowchilla basin to DWR oversight. The Kaweah, Delta Mendota and Pleasant Valley subbasins remain in the state intervention process.
For more information about the Kern Groundwater Subbasin, please visit the State Water Board’s Kern County Groundwater Subbasin webpage.
