I. RECOMMENDATION:
The City Council acting as the Board of Directors of the Coalinga GSA adopt Resolution No. 4069 adopting the Pleasant Valley Groundwater Sustainability Plan to allow the Pleasant Valley GSA to submit to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) on behalf of the Pleasant Valley GSA.
II. BACKGROUND:
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires governments and water agencies of high and medium priority basins to halt overdraft and bring groundwater basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. Under SGMA, these basins should reach sustainability within 20 years of implementing their sustainability plans. For critically over-drafted basins, sustainability should be reached by year 2040. For the remaining high and medium priority basins (like Pleasant Valley), 2042 is the deadline.
In January of 2020 the City formed the City’s GSA to enable the City to comply with SGMA by having a GSA which covers the territorial jurisdiction of the City and further approved an MOU that set out the basis for cooperation between the City’s GSA and the Pleasant Valley GSA. A similar MOU exists between Fresno County and the Pleasant Valley GSA. A Groundwater Sustainability Plan (“GSP”) was prepared for the entire Pleasant Valley Subbasin by the Pleasant Valley GSA. The MOU provided that the City GSA may provide staff support in applying for grant funding and providing information. The MOU allows the City GSA to avoid the expense of preparing its own GSP where the Pleasant Valley GSA would take the lead on developing the plan.
III. DISCUSSION:
Over the course of the last year and half staff and the City Attorney have been working with the Pleasant Valley GSA to develop the GSP for Pleasant Valley. Since the City has little to no groundwater pumping that would be affected, has surface water imports and a positive balance of 3,000+ acre/feet per year of water, the involvement by City staff was minimal to attending technical committee meetings and providing information and feedback. The largest impact of SGMA will be on the unincorporated areas of the pleasant valley within the basin.
On October 28, 2021 the Draft GSP was released for 90 day public review and comment to all participation GSA's, stakeholders including being posted on the City of Coalinga's website.
On February 3, 2022 the Board of Directors for the Pleasant Valley GSA held a public hearing and subsequently adopted the Draft Groundwater Sustainability Plan. As part of the approval process each GSA has to adopt the GSP by resolution so that they can accompany the GSP when submitted to DWR.
A link to the adopted GSA can be found here under reports: Link to Final GSP
The document is large however, the City Attorney and staff have reviewed the document for SGMA compliance and provided comments (attached) to the board of directors for consideration in the final document. There is no material impact that staff has seen that will impact the City of Coalinga negatively with the adoption of this GSP.
IV. ALTERNATIVES:
- None as it is required that the Coalinga GSA Adopt the GSP in order for it to be transmitted to DWR.
V. FISCAL IMPACT:
None determined. |