California’s Groundwater Rule Could Mean Opportunities, Not Penalties

Near Bakersfield, the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District plans to set up procedures for land retirement and water trading with the goal of putting property owners in the driver’s seat on groundwater management.

Crews work to construct a new diversion facility on a canal operated by Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District, which will be used as part of a larger project to recharge groundwater in the district. Photo Courtesy Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District

Communities across California are struggling to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the state’s first comprehensive attempt to rein in wanton groundwater depletion. Through the formation of so-called groundwater sustainability agencies, some areas plan to set quotas on water extraction and fine property owners who pump too much (in most areas, farms are the biggest groundwater users).

Although the law does not require these agencies to actually achieve groundwater sustainability until 2040 at the earliest, the focus in some groundwater basins is clearly a punitive one. One agency taking a slightly different approach is the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District, located near Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The district’s groundwater was ranked by the state as critically overdrafted, like much of the San Joaquin Valley. But rather […]

Full article: California’s Groundwater Rule Could Mean Opportunities, Not Penalties