Property owners who pump water for their farms or businesses
from the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Basin may soon need to
pay for their groundwater. Right now, they have the opportunity
to protest those fees. Residential well owners, however,
won’t be charged those fees directly — which means they can’t
protest them either, according to Ryan Aston, a consultant who
developed the proposed rates. … The agency will hold a
public hearing to consider the rates on Aug. 1. If a majority
of recipients submit a written protest, the agency can’t
implement the rates. Otherwise, the board can vote to enact the
fees.
The Trump administration will propose the repeal of a landmark
2009 determination that climate change poses a danger to the
public, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee
Zeldin said Wednesday. “EPA has sent to the Office of
Management and Budget a proposed rule to repeal the 2009
endangerment finding from the Obama EPA,” Zeldin told Newsmax.
… The finding provided a legal basis for EPA regulations
on these planet-heating gases, including for its rules
requiring automakers’ to cut emissions from their vehicle
fleets.
Residents in San Benito County have been paying a water tax
since 1977 for imported water, but a civil grand jury report
claims the tax is outdated and should have ended in 2017,
prompting calls for the issue to be put back on the ballot. …
The tax was initially approved to pay off a $19.9 million
federal loan for imported water to address local shortages and
support a growing community. … [San Benito County Water
District General Manager Dana] Jacobson explained,
“Without that water that comes in from the Central
Valley Project from San Luis Reservoir, there wouldn’t
be a high enough quality of water to deliver to the municipal
customers and the agricultural customers as well.” The district
maintains that the tax has no expiration date and funds ongoing
maintenance and operations of the system.
More than 122,500 acres of San Luis Obispo County land could
open to oil and gas leasing if the Bureau of Land Management
revives a management plan developed during President Donald
Trump’s first term. On June 23, the bureau published a notice
in the Federal Registrar announcing plans to prepare a
supplemental environmental impact statement and a resource
management plan that would evaluate the impact of allowing oil
and gas leasing on land and mineral estate managed by its
Bakersfield Field Office. … In 2019, the bureau
published a new supplemental environmental impact statement for
the project. The Center for Biological Diversity and Los Padres
ForestWatch sued again, arguing that the bureau still failed to
address the impact of fracking on air and water
quality and the health of nearby communities. The
State of California filed a related lawsuit against the plan in
2020. … [T]he bureau is developing a supplemental
environmental impact statement to yet again review the impact
of expanded oil and gas production.
On Wednesday, July 9, 2025, Paso Robles Area Groundwater
Authority (PRAGA) held an open house to discuss the possibility
of implementing a new fee for commercial groundwater users.
This added charge will be used to fund the county’s Groundwater
Sustainability Plan in the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin area.
The meeting was held to inform the public of the upcoming
changes while also encouraging questions from them ahead of the
formal hearing scheduled on August 1. … The agency says
the fee will help fund the implementation of the Groundwater
Sustainability Plan, a requirement under California’s
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The collected
revenue will contribute to the management of the basin to
achieve long-term water balance in the region. As per a press
release, this fee will not be applicable to domestic well
owners who use less than two acre-feet of water per year.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
