[Sen. Pavley] – A legislative package by Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) to sustainably manage California’s groundwater was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The three-bill package including SB 1168 (Pavley), SB 1319 (Pavley) and AB 1739 (Dickinson) will initiate groundwater sustainability planning and programs for California’s most distressed groundwater basins. The bills define local responsibilities and give local agencies the authority necessary to manage groundwater sustainably and ensure no groundwater basin is in danger of being permanently damaged by overdrafting.

“California will no longer be the only Western state that does not manage its groundwater,” Pavley said. “The cost of doing nothing is the biggest economic gamble. Thousands of homes and small farms cannot keep pace with the race to drill deeper and deeper wells.  The bills take a balanced approach – they protect property rights and incentivize local control.”

Groundwater makes up about 40 percent of California’s water in normal years and up to 60 percent during droughts. Three of four Californians rely on groundwater for at least a portion of their drinking water.

Unlike surface water from lakes, rivers and streams, California’s groundwater is not systematically managed or regulated. Groundwater is being pumped faster than it can be replenished, a condition known as “overdraft” that causes sinking land (“subsidence”), damage to infrastructure, increased costs for farmers and residents who have to drill deeper wells, water contamination, impairment of underground water storage and other problems.

The bill package creates a framework for local and regional groundwater management, providing for the creation of local and regional groundwater sustainability agencies throughout the state.  The bills focus on high priority basins that are subject to the most critical conditions of overdraft.

The bills draw upon the proposals of the California Water Foundation and the Association of California Water Agencies, and the Brown Administration’s groundwater management proposal.  The proposals were also informed by the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee’s informational hearing on groundwater held this March, hearings of the bills in both the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee and the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife, and four public stakeholder meetings held in July.

The package of bills were supported by over 100 interest groups, including water agencies, environmental groups, labor organizations, groundwater and engineering firms, environmental justice advocates, individual cities and counties, family farmers, local chambers of commerce, and other interests groups. The bills were further supported by more than 75 individual scientists.

There is also widespread public support, with more than 70 percent of Californians in a recent poll supporting a comprehensive groundwater approach.

“These bills take the much needed steps to preserve and restore a limited and indispensable resource—groundwater,” Pavley said.

Fran Pavley represents about half of the Santa Clarita Valley in the state Senate.