Agency set to make plan to manage groundwater

Officials awarded with $416,000 in grant money to figure better way to handle resource in natural basin

With more than $416,000 in grant money under its belt, Santa Clarita Valley’s newly-formed groundwater agency is ready to begin hammering out a plan to manage the community’s groundwater as expected by state officials.

This week, members of the SCV Water Agency’s Water Resources and Watershed Committee met to discuss the state of local groundwater and come up with a draft plan to present to the SCV Water Agency Groundwater Sustainability Agency— or the SCV GSA—board.

They met because Governor Jerry Brown wants them to put together a plan detailing how they would better manage the groundwater in SCV’s natural basin called the Santa Clara River Valley East Sub-Basin.

In September 2014, at the height of our most recent three-year drought, Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, hoping to have sustainable groundwater management of 127 underground basins across the state by 2042.

To that end, members of the agency’s water resources committee have been working steadily towards that goal.

On Wednesday, they met to discuss—among other things—how the cost of implementing such a plan would be shared among all stakeholders involved. GSA stakeholders The SCV GSA includes representatives of agencies with a stake in local

groundwater, specifically: the city of Santa Clarita, Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, Waterworks District No. 36 and the SCV Water Agency.

To help communities, such as the SCV, assess, manage, cleanup and store groundwater effectively, the state—under Proposition 1—set aside $7.12 billion for improving the condition of water supply projects, including projects aimed at improving groundwater storage and protecting the watershed.

When the local groundwater officials first got together in September, the first order of business was applying for a water bond grant.

In response, the state’s Department of Water Resources awarded the SCV GSA a provisional award of $146,106.

“We anticipate the DWR will make a final award in March 2018 or April 2018,” Dirk Marks, SCV Water’s director of water resources said in a memo to the committee.

Joint-authority

Staffers at each of the stakeholder agencies have been working to come up with a draft agreement that would consolidate their efforts. To that end, such an agreement would call for creation of a collaborative Joint Powers Authority involving each stakeholder agency.

The state requires groundwater sustainability agencies be formed to manage each of its 127 underground basins by June 30. The agency, after it’s approved, will be responsible for developing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan by 2022 that will achieve sustainability by 2042.

If the state’s recent multiyear drought taught local water officials anything, it was the need to conserve water and to take greater care in managing it.

Mitch Glaser, assistant administrator for the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, represents one of the county’s interest in groundwater the groundwater sustainability agency.

Cost sharing

“The cost sharing agreement has not been negotiated yet,” he told The Signal this week. “So, I do not know if the costs will be shared equally among the members.

“Properly managing the Santa Clarita Valley’s groundwater is vitally important,” Glaser said.

“Groundwater management is required by State law, but it also furthers the mutual long-range planning goals of the county and the city that were developed through the One Valley One Vision process.

“The County looks forward to continuing to work with the city, the SCV Water Agency, our unincorporated residents, town councils and other stakeholders,” he said.

Groundwater in the Santa Clara River Valley East Sub-Basin stretches west from Agua Dulce to the Ventura County line and from the northern reaches of Castaic Lake to Calgrove.

Corrective action

In November, Rick Viergutz, principal water resources planner for the now defunct Castaic Lake Water Agency, alerted the community at a public hearing to nasty aspects of groundwater—such as dried up wells and salty content— that are expected to warrant vigorous corrective action.