SB 173: Groundwater: de minimis extractors.

Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources that are designated as basins subject to critical conditions of overdraft to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2020, and requires all other groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2022, except as specified. Existing law authorizes a groundwater sustainability agency to require through its groundwater sustainability plan that the use of every groundwater extraction facility within the management area of the groundwater sustainablity agency be measured by a water-measuring device, but provides that these provisions do not apply to de minimis extractors. Existing law authorizes a groundwater sustainability agency to impose fees but prohibits a groundwater sustainability agency from imposing a fee to fund the costs of a groundwater sustainability program on a de minimis extractor unless the agency has regulated the users pursuant to the act. Existing law generally excepts a de minimis extractor from the requirement that a person who extracts groundwater from a probationary basin, as prescribed, or extracts groundwater on or after July 1, 2017, in an area within a basin that is not within the management area of a groundwater sustainability agency and where the county does not assume responsibility to be the groundwater sustainability agency has to file a report of groundwater extraction by December 15 of each year for extractions made in the preceding water year with the State Water Resources Control Board. Existing law defines a de minimis extractor for these purposes as a person who extracts, for domestic purposes, 2 acre-feet or less per year.

This bill would define a de minimis extractor for the purposes of these provisions as a person who extracts, for domestic purposes, 10 acre-feet or less per year.