Current and former political leaders, water managers and environmental advocates descended on Sacramento Monday to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), its first ever attempt to regulate groundwater use.
The law was passed by former Governor Jerry Brown in 2014 during a multi-year punishing drought to protect California’s overpumped aquifers.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR,) which is the agency that oversees the law’s implementation, organized Monday’s event.
What they said:
Karla Nemeth, director of DWR:
“Central to our efforts are the communities. The communities that are working so hard to roll up their sleeves and essentially address a challenge that had been decades and decades in the making. Those folks are the true leaders moving into the future and the true leaders that are going to ensure our success.”
Edmond G. (Jerry) Brown, Jr., former Governor of California:
“As you propound new rules and new laws you get a reaction. In fact, I’m amazed at how little of a reaction to the groundwater management act…the opposition is relatively tame.”
“In a time of deep skepticism of distant experts you are in a regime of that very nature. You have to have facts, you need science, you’ve got to follow the science.”
Karen Ross, secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture:
“Every step of the way where there was opposition, the people leading the opposition were also at the table.”
“We talked about land use, it is also a sacred right of local authority. And we still have not truly grappled with the land use implications and being as strategic as possible to be able to grow this healthy food in a changing climate.”
Aaron Fukuda, executive manager, Mid-Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA):
“I remember in 2019, I was at a meeting and I was told by another water agency to sit down and shut up because it’s gonna turn wet again so don’t worry about it…And then we hit the second big drought and there was silence, generally speaking.”
“I think there’s been a shift. It’s been, ‘Let’s wait, let’s wait, let’s wait,’ to, ‘we better solve this today, our window’s collapsing.’”
Nataly Escobedo Garcia, water policy coordinator, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability:
“Since 2012, 5,739 domestic wells have gone dry. When plans started rolling in in 2020…those plans were gonna put 9,000 domestic wells at risk of being dewatered and nearly 1,000 public supply water systems at risk of being dewatered. And even in these historic wet years these last two years, we’ve still seen domestic wells continue to go dry.”
“A lot of folks just saw this as another law with more loopholes that they had to jump through. Another law that might not protect the water in their home and for some a law that didn’t come soon enough and didn’t protect the water in their home. But in spite of this, communities have worked to shape the implementation of this law.”
Wade Crowfoot, Secretary, California Natural Resources Agency:
“Our economy, whether you’re in the Central Valley or the Central Coast, really most parts of the state, is going to rely on maximizing the durability of our groundwater supply. Our groundwater aquifers are the cornerstone of that durability.”
“The way SGMA is constructed and the leadership we’re seeing at the regional and local level is a paradigm shift in California. It’s a recognition that the answers to a lot of our resource challenges are not found in Sacramento or Washington D.C. but across California where people actually understand the conditions best.”
Geoff Vanden Heuvel, director of regulatory and economic affairs, Milk Producers Council:
“If you look at who’s organized in the valley, Westlands is organized, Friant Water Authority is organized, Delta-Mendota Water Authority is organized. But that leaves literally millions of acres completely unorganized. We needed to pass SGMA and we need to do groundwater management, no doubt about it.”
“It’s a miracle to be where we are to be completely honest with you. That by 2017 we were actually able to put all this land into GSAs.”
Dorene D’Adamo, Vice Chair, State Water Resources Control Board:
On The the recent cancellation of the probationary hearing for the Kaweah subbasin: “The sense was just doing a quick red flag review, that they seemed to be on the right track. We felt that it was important utilizing our discretion to just put the pause on things, cancel the hearing, spend the time to thoroughly go through the plan and, fingers crossed, hopefully we will be meeting at some point next year to have a review and if things go well we’re gonna send everything back to Paul (Gosselin) and his team over at the DWR.”
