What is SGMA?

California decided groundwater needed a plan

For most of California’s history, groundwater was effectively unregulated. Landowners could pump as much as they wanted from wells on their property. During the historic drought from 2012 to 2016, that approach failed visibly — basins dropped, wells ran dry, and land started sinking.

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), passed in 2014, changed that. It requires each priority groundwater basin in the state to be managed locally — by a new kind of agency called a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), or a group of them — operating under a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP).

Mid-Kings River GSA is one of those agencies. We manage the northeastern portion of the Tulare Lake Subbasin.

Four levels of responsibility

1. The State (DWR + State Water Board).The Department of Water Resources prioritizes basins and reviews plans. The State Water Resources Control Board steps in if a subbasin isn’t meeting its sustainability goals — including by placing a subbasin on probation.
2. The subbasin. Each groundwater basin is divided into subbasins. The Tulare Lake Subbasin is one of the largest in California, spanning Kings, Kern, and Tulare counties.
3. The GSAs. Each subbasin is managed by one or more local agencies. Our subbasin has five GSAs. Mid-Kings River GSA covers roughly 152 square miles in the northeast.
4. The GSP. Together, the GSAs in a subbasin produce a single Groundwater Sustainability Plan. The plan sets the sustainability goals and the policies used to reach them.

Six things SGMA tracks

SGMA doesn’t just say “use less water.” It identifies six specific undesirable results that GSPs have to prevent or mitigate:

• Chronic lowering of groundwater levels
• Reduction of groundwater storage
• Seawater intrusion (not applicable here, but relevant statewide)
• Degradation of water quality
• Land subsidence (ground sinking)
• Depletion of interconnected surface water