Shhhh!!!! Integrating Water and Land Use Through California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Andrew Fahlund, Senior Program Officer American Planning Association Meeting, September 11, 2018 We advance lasting water solutions that work across communities, economies, and the environment.
2 Credit: Department of Water Resources 3 California’s Water Demands
• 80% goes to agriculture • 30% - 60% comes from groundwater • Groundwater overdraft estimated at 1.8 MAF annually • Surface water overallocated • More than 1 million people without access to reliable safe drinking water • Critical decline of dozens of freshwater dependent species • Significant conflicts – not just fish vs. farms Water Rights and Management
• Water Rights • Pre 1914, Riparian, Permitted, and Groundwater • Public Trust Doctrine • Human Right to Water • More than 4,000 different public agencies – municipal supply, irrigation, quality and health, flood and stormwater • Numerous planning processes – urban, agricultural, ecological, groundwater, and land use • California Water Plan and California Water Action Plan Overdraft in the Central Valley
Credit: Department of Water Resources Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)
• Empowers local agencies to determine an appropriate local goals for sustainability and provides them with the tools to enforce them by establishing a water budgets that avoid long-term harm.
• Requires development and implementation of plans that set water budgets and management requirements which achieve sustainability by 2040.
• Establishes the State as a backstop that directs the State Water Resources Control Board to assume control over any groundwater basin that fails to meet the requirements and schedule of the Act.
Regulates 90% of all groundwater pumped in the State. Credit: Department of Water Resources 7 SGMA as a Land Use Tool?
• 65352.5. REQUIREMENT TO PROVIDE WATER-RELATED DOCUMENTS TO GENERAL PLAN AGENCY (a) The Legislature…declares that…there be close coordination and consultation between California’s water supply or management agencies and California’s land use approval agencies…
• 10726.2. ADDITIONAL AUTHORITIES OF GROUNDWATER SUSTAINABILITY AGENCY (c) Provide for a program of voluntary fallowing of agricultural lands or validate an existing program.
• 10726.8. RELATIONSHIP OF THIS PART TO OTHER LAW (f) Nothing in this chapter or a groundwater sustainability plan shall be interpreted as superseding the land use authority of cities and counties, including the city or county general plan, within the overlying basin.
8 De Facto Linkages to Land Use
• Groundwater Sustainability Agencies may determine sustainable yield and allocate pumping accordingly – usually acre-feet per acre – but nothing in the law shall change fundamental water rights.
• Can GSAs reconcile this potential contradiction?
• Groundwater Sustainability Agencies may establish fees – some propose a low fee for a small amount of water per acre accompanied by much higher fees for any pumping above that level.
• Does this avoid the potential conflict over water rights?
• Does this violate requirements of proportionality of fees?
9 Anticipated Land Retirement: San Joaquin and Tulare Lake Basin
~50% Agricultural land retirement in the most groundwater dependent basins
Image Credit: The Nature Conservancy 10 Managing Land Use Changes
Image Credit: The Nature Conservancy 11 Groundwater Recharge
• Recharge could reduce the amount of necessary land retirement by 200,000 acres • Requires significant investments in infrastructure, more efficient regulation of water rights, and careful planning • Focus on recharge increases the importance of protecting lands suitable for recharge – including urban areas • Optimization - Groundwater Recharge Assessment Tool
12 Other Connections Between Water and Land Use
• Water bonds • Stormwater management • Flood policy • Irrigated Lands Program • Conservation and efficiency standards • Housing crisis • Climate and transportation policy • Fire management
13 Andrew Fahlund [email protected] (916) 414-3303