Gary Pitzer for Western Water on 10.19.18

In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
Yet in an era when local agencies around the state already are drafting plans to protect groundwater basins from being over pumped, the impact of this appellate ruling depends on who you ask.
In the Scott River case, Environmental Law Foundation v. State Water Resources Control Board, California’s Third District Court of Appeal concluded that counties are obligated to consider the public trust before authorizing new groundwater wells whose extractions might have an adverse impact on trust resources, such as water in a navigable river. Siskiyou County, which was a defendant in the case, has filed a petition for review with the California Supreme Court.
Still, Environmental Law Foundation President James Wheaton sees the ruling as a harbinger, even if its reach is limited to groundwater connected to surface waters and not deep aquifers.
“This opinion, to paraphrase the court, is the public trust case for the 21st century — a monumental decision bringing public trust principles to today’s water issues,” he said. “California’s water future is underground. That is where the real fight is and will continue to be. And this decision brings one of the most powerful legal rules — the public trust doctrine — to that fight.”

Please continue to read the piece in full HERE. 

The Nature Conservancy has recently created a map overlaying GDEs and GSA boundaries. The map allows users to view where GDEs are located in their sub-basin, as well as the dominant species in each GDE. This map is a complement to the iGDE mapping mentioned below, which includes a document explaining the source of the data in the database.
 
If stakeholders, GSAs or consultants are interested in learning more about how to comply with requirements to consider GDEs, we are offering an interactive workshop at the Groundwater Resources Association Western Groundwater Conference. The workshop is on Sept. 26 from 2:30-5pm and registration is required.

If there are any questions related to any of this information, please feel free to contact me or Susan Tatayon, statayon@tnc.org.

From the workshop registration page:
"SGMA empowers local agencies to sustainably manage groundwater to benefit California’s communities, economy, and diverse natural resources.  To do this, SGMA requires local agencies to develop groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) that consider the impacts of groundwater use on a variety of beneficial uses and users including people, business, and the environment.  SGMA also includes specific requirements to identify and consider impacts to groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) in groundwater management.  Recognizing data and resource limitations, The Nature Conservancy has developed a GDE indicators mapping database in partnership with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Department of Fish and Wildlife,  as well as a guidance document designed to help agencies identify where GDEs exist, determine whether potential effects on GDEs are occurring or may occur due to groundwater conditions, and consider GDEs when setting sustainable management criteria.  These tools provide a systematic and defensible approach that takes advantage of local, statewide, and best available scientific information to inform local decision making. This hands-on workshop will walk attendees through the GDE indicators mapping database (hosted by DWR as the “Natural Communities Commonly Associated with Groundwater dataset”) and GDE guidance document.  This is your opportunity to do a preliminary assessment of the GDEs in your basin with support from TNC and other practitioners.  Whether you are a board member on a GSA, a consultant developing a GSP, or an interested stakeholder trying to understand how GDEs fit into GSPs – this is the workshop for you!
MUST BE A REGISTERED CONGRESS ATTENDEE TO ATTEND
There is no additional charge for this workshop but space is limited so please RSVP  in order to save yourself a seat."

​Groundwater pumping chronically exceeds natural recharge in many agricultural regions in California. A common method of recharging groundwater — when surface water is available — is to deliberately flood an open area, allowing water to percolate into an aquifer. However, open land suitable for this type of recharge is scarce. Flooding agricultural land during fallow or dormant periods has the potential to increase groundwater recharge substantially, but this approach has not been well studied. Using data on soils, topography and crop type, we developed a spatially explicit index of the suitability for groundwater recharge of land in all agricultural regions in California. We identified 3.6 million acres of agricultural land statewide as having Excellent or Good potential for groundwater recharge. The index provides preliminary guidance about the locations where groundwater recharge on agricultural land is likely to be feasible. A variety of institutional, infrastructure and other issues must also be addressed before this practice can be implemented widely.

​Please continue to read the research article in full HERE. 

The Migratory Bird Conservation Partnership (MBCP) is seeking proposals from qualified applicants to prepare water budget information for Central Valley managed wetlands that can be used in the
development of Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs).

Proposals
Please keep proposals between 2-4 pages, not including attachments. Proposals should describe your approach to each of the tasks listed below, your rationale, and any recommended changes or additions. A maximum of 10 additional pages of attachments should include a description of the roles and qualifications of key staff, a budget, and relevant work examples. For questions or clarifications, please email both kdybala@pointblue.org and sarthur@audubon.org no later than June 25, 2018.

Proposals should be submitted electronically by June 29, 2018 to:
Dr. Kristen Dybala, Senior Research Ecologist
Point Blue Conservation Science
kdybala@pointblue.org
​
​Statement of Purpose
Produce water budget information for managed wetlands to facilitate representation of wetland water needs in the GSP development processes

More information can be found HERE. 

As general manager of a water district that serves about 27,000 agricultural acres in the southern San Joaquin Valley, Eric Averett knows the solutions to the region’s water shortages are fairly straight-forward.
He speaks of two knobs that valley water users can turn. One controls supply, and the other  demand.
In past years, Averett says he figuratively had his hand slapped by his Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District board whenever he tried to adjust the knob that affected the supply of water to growers. But as droughts, surface water cutbacks and groundwater overdrafts confront districts throughout the Central Valley, all solutions are now on the table.
“Throughout the valley, we’re going to end up turning both knobs in the future,” Averett said during a recent panel discussion on the valley’s water future.
In short, experts believe the only way to bring the valley’s overburdened water supplies into balance will be to increase supply, mainly by making the most of available water, and reduce demand. And part of reducing demand may well be the voluntary fallowing of agricultural land.
“For some of our hardest-hit areas, the idling of agricultural land is going to be a reality,” says Abbey Hart, the agriculture project director for The Nature Conservancy. She adds that growers may see an economic benefit for converting land into wildlife habitat, but the process will have to be well planned. A checkerboard approach to creating habitat won’t work, she says.
“A lot of these species won’t be able to use tiny patches of land,” Hart told about 200 growers and others at the water forum in early May, sponsored by the Almond Board of California.

Please continue to read in full HERE.

The Department of Water Resources in partnership with The Nature Conservancy have recently launched the Groundwater Resource Hub, the go-to place for information on groundwater dependent ecosystems. There are a number of tools on the site, including the database of indicators of groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) and a guidance document to guide groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) to address GDEs in their plans.

Access to the iGDE database can be found HERE. 

by Ellen Hanak, Jelena Jezdimirovic, Sarge Green, Alvar Escriva-Bou

SummaryThe San Joaquin Valley—which has the biggest imbalance between groundwater pumping and replenishment in the state—is ground zero for implementing the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Expanding groundwater recharge could help local water users bring their basins into balance and make a dent in the long-term deficit of nearly 2 million acre-feet per year. The experience with recharge in 2017―the first wet year since the enactment of SGMA―offers valuable insights in how to expand recharge. A survey of valley water districts’ current recharge efforts revealed strong interest in the practice, and a number of constraints. The following actions are needed to better capitalize on future opportunities:

• Clarify rules on water available for recharge. The State Water Board needs to develop an expeditious process for enabling water users to capture surface water when it is available. Beyond the legal aspects of establishing rights for diversion and storage, an essential part of this process is technical: developing a simple, rapid way to determine when river flows exceed water required for environmental purposes and downstream users.
• Evaluate infrastructure capacity. One of the key challenges for expanding recharge is that most available flows are in the northern part of the valley, while most of the overdraft―and best recharge lands―are in the south. In addition, these flows are mainly available for just a few months. A top priority is to evaluate opportunities for improving the use of existing infrastructure (conveyance facilities, surface reservoirs, and recharge basins) and determine where additional investments are warranted. A big bottleneck is likely to be regional conveyance, which is inadequate for capturing and moving high flows to suitable recharge locations.
• Improve recharge on farmland. Active recharge on farmland may be one of the most promising ways to capture water cost-effectively in wetter years, but it is low relative to its potential. Significantly ramping up this practice will require addressing a suite of technical issues and establishing incentives.
• Address regulatory barriers. State and federal agencies need to improve processes for approving construction of new recharge projects, moving recharge water through their conveyance facilities, and enabling more flexibility in where water is stored. Water managers and growers also need guidelines from the state for implementing on-farm recharge in ways that are consistent with water quality rules.
• Strengthen groundwater accounting. Better accounting of water going into and out of groundwater basins is key to sustainable management. It is also needed for developing incentives for growers to recharge, encouraging recharge partnerships, and informing decisions on new investments.

Making the most of recharge opportunities will require high levels of cooperation among a wide variety of stakeholders. Local and regional partnerships―for capturing and moving water efficiently, making new investments, and devising projects that bring multiple benefits―are key to helping the region manage this critical resource over the long-term.

​You can read the report in full HERE. 

via The Nature Conservancy:

California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) established a framework for sustainable, local groundwater management. SGMA requires groundwater-dependent regions to halt overdraft and bring basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. As a result, agricultural land retirement is on the rise in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s largest agricultural region and home to the state's highest concentration of threatened and endangered species. In this assessment, The Nature Conservancy introduces the concept of strategic land retirement and restoration, an approach which seeks to help recover San Joaquin Valley threatened and endangered species by restoring agricultural land that is suitable as habitat and under threat of retirement. The authors identify 2.5 million acres of current agricultural lands that have high potential for restoration, 14% of which was fallowed at least once during the most recent drought. 

From the SJV Greenprint Phase II Summary Report:

"The San Joaquin Valley (SJV) is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions; is a vital link in California’s complex water delivery and transportation systems; provides important habitat to protect biodiversity; and is a center for oil and solar energy production. The region has a unique set of assets and challenges related to its agricultural land, growing population centers, biodiversity, energy production, and water availability.

The San Joaquin Valley Greenprint project grew out of the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint... The Blueprint focused on urban challenges, particularly the relationship of land use to transportation, and developed a set of smart growth principles that should minimize development impacts on the non-urban lands of the Valley. The Blueprint revealed the need for better regional mapping of the Valley’s non-urban areas to assist land use and resource management decisions...

The SJV Greenprint is primarily a collection of maps, assembled as a comprehensive, interactive database that catalogs current conditions and trends related to the region’s resources. The maps and data collected for the SJV Greenprint are publicly available through the San Joaquin Valley Data Basin Gateway (http://sjvp.databasin.org)... The collection demonstrates how these resources are interrelated across political boundaries and how they are changing under the influence of population growth, changing land use practices, resource limitations, and changing climate. 

Phase I of the Greenprint focused on identifying and mapping Valley resources for the eight counties that comprise the San Joaquin Valley, including Kern, Tulare, Kings, Fresno, Madera, Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin Counties... The compiled information includes over 100 datasets related to agriculture, biodiversity, energy, and water resources, as well as supplemental datasets including land use planning, transportation, soils, and land cover...

Phase II of the SJV Greenprint was intended to build on and extend the work in Phase I by demonstrating the real world utility of this information. The Demonstration Projects, described in Section IV, serve as case studies for the use of Greenprint data. A second objective of Phase II was to find an appropriate platform for these curated resources, specifically a host that could provide a user-friendly interface as well as the capacity to update and maintain the data. The San Joaquin Valley Gateway, hosted by Data Basin, was identified as the best platform... A third objective of Phase II was to shed light on key questions and insights into various resource management challenges in the Valley through outreach to experts, regional councils of government, and county planning directors...

Please continue to read the SJV Phase II Summary Report in full HERE.