Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans, except as specified. Existing law authorizes any local agency or combination of local agencies overlying a groundwater basin to decide to become a groundwater sustainability agency for that basin and imposes specified duties upon that agency or combination of agencies, as provided.
Existing law establishes various methods and procedures for a comprehensive adjudication of groundwater rights in civil court.
This bill would state that it is the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation that would establish a deferential standard for groundwater sustainability plans in a groundwater adjudication and consolidate challenges to a groundwater sustainability plan and a groundwater adjudication when both occur in the same basin.