California’s historic Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) is being implemented across the state.

Every high-priority and medium-priority groundwater basin and subbasin faces different challenges and is using different strategies to create a Groundwater Sustainability Plan. One major step is the selection of a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) to act as the lead agency in this process, a requirement that must be completed by June 30, 2017.

On our California Groundwater Tour Oct. 5 & 6, several experts will speak to the complex GSA selection process.

• Our evening keynote speaker is Lisa Beutler from MWH Global. Lisa is Executive Facilitator of the California Water Plan and manages the SGMA Facilitation Support Services program to help agencies establish a governance structure. She will provide a statewide overview of the governance structure and explore the pantheon of challenges faced by individual agencies.

We will also hear from key personnel at two agencies that are managing this process in markedly different ways:

• Mary Fahey is currently the Water Resources Coordinator for the Colusa County Department of Agriculture and formerly the Colusa Basin Watershed Coordinator for the Colusa County Resource Conservation District.
• Vicki Newlin is the Assistant Director of the Butte County Department of Water and Resource Conservation.

SGMA is only one aspect of this educationally dense tour. We will also have leading experts on subsidence, overdraft, groundwater dependent ecosystems, agricultural pumping, water quality management and more. Tickets are available here.

Tour Director Dan Scott can answer your questions, contact him at (916) 444-6240.