The so-called Delta Reform Act Legislation of 2009 mandated a policy of co-equal water management. “Coequal goals” intend to provide a more reliable water supply for California and to protect, restore, and enhance the Delta ecosystem. Unfortunately the reliability of irrigation water supply continues to supersede the intention to respect the Delta ecosystem. While the pumps continue to pull unreasonable amounts of water out, the fish populations have all but disappeared in the famous estuary.

In order to achieve the co-equal goals, the state recognized the need to reduce reliance on water exported from the Delta. But that reliance on pumping NorthState water out of the Delta has not diminished. The federal and state water projects were meant to reduce demand on the aquifer system. But demand for groundwater has continued to escalate.

The state has known for decades that valley wells were running dry, streams were leaking into drained aquifers, and that the land surface was collapsing as more water was removed from the ground – most especially in the San Joaquin Valley. Unfortunately, this pattern accelerated in the Sacramento Valley after 2000. In the second decade of the 21rst century California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The goal of this act is “management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon [2015 -2042!] without causing undesirable results.” The undesirable results include “chronic lowering of groundwater levels, reduction of groundwater storage, seawater intrusion, land subsidence, water quality degradation, and depletions of interconnected surface water.” While attempting to maintain a reliable source of rural irrigation and   domestic water is obviously the goal of SGMA in the Central Valley, the act also mentions the need to consider impacts to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs).

There are long-standing plans by the California Department of Water Resources to consider the aquifer system of the northern Sacramento Valley as a source of water for farms and cities south of the Delta. The Department envisions turning the aquifer of our region into a wildly fluctuating reservoir that can be drained during dry periods and artificially refilled during hoped-for wet years with “surplus water”. Water purveyors would like to join this scheme by being the agents of groundwater recharge and subsequent capture of ownership of “water in storage”.

AquAlliance knows that the health of northern Sacramento Valley communities, economies, and the environment rest on a foundation of public trust in a stable watershed owned in common. SGMA requires consideration of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem [GDE] health. I am skeptical of SGMA agencies’ definition of GDEs and their intention to preserve ecosystem integrity. A future blog will follow on GDEs.  

– J.R. Brobeck

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