SB 6

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law authorizes a local agency whose service area includes a groundwater basin that is not subject to groundwater management to adopt and implement a groundwater management plan pursuant to certain provisions of law. Existing law requires a groundwater management plan to include certain components to qualify as a plan for the purposes of those provisions, including a provision that establishes funding requirements for the construction of certain groundwater projects. This bill would establish a groundwater monitoring program pursuant to which specified entities, in accordance with prescribed procedures, may propose to be designated by the Department of Water Resources as groundwater monitoring entities, as defined, for the purposes of monitoring and reporting with regard to groundwater elevations in all or part of a basin or subbasin, as defined. The bill would require the department to work cooperatively with each monitoring entity to determine the manner in which groundwater elevation information should be reported to the department. The bill would authorize the department to make recommendations for improving an existing monitoring program, and to require additional monitoring wells under certain circumstances. Under certain circumstances, the department would be required to perform groundwater monitoring functions. In that event, prescribed entities with authority to assume groundwater monitoring functions with regard to a basin or subbasin for which the department has assumed those functions would not be eligible for a water grant or loan awarded or administered by the state. (2) Existing law requires the department to conduct an investigation of the state's groundwater basins and to report its findings to the Governor and the Legislature not later than January 1, 1980. This bill would repeal that provision. The department would be required to conduct an investigation of the state's groundwater basins and to report its findings to the Governor and the Legislature not later than January 1, 2012, and thereafter in years ending in 5 or 0. (3) The bill would take effect only if SB 1 and SB 7 of the 2009–10 7th Extraordinary Session of the Legislature are enacted and become effective.