Department of Water Resources Releases 'Drinking Water Well Impacts' Guidance and 'Water Shortage Planning' Brochure

This bulletin was sent at 04/07/2023 02:02 PM PDT

This is an email from the Department of Water Resources’ Sustainable Groundwater Management Office.

Please do not reply directly to this email; for more information or general inquiries, please contact: sgmps@water.ca.gov.

Department of Water Resources Releases 'Drinking Water Well Impacts' Guidance and 'Water Shortage Planning' Brochure

Today, the Department of Water Resources (Department) released the Considerations for Identifying and Addressing Drinking Water Well Impacts guidance document and technical assistance. This guidance document supports and assists groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) to fully consider and appropriately address potential impacts to drinking water well users during Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) implementation, as they implement and prepare for periodic updates of their local groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs).

An accompanying online toolkit was also launched today and will continue to be updated with a suite of resources as a complementary component to the guidance document. The toolkit includes links to relevant materials, tools, data, and assistance to support GSAs based on topic areas from the guidance document.

Look for the symbol to the right throughout the document, which indicates the corresponding section of the online toolkit:

The Department also released a brochure, called Alignment and Coordination: Water Shortage Planning for Rural Communities and Sustainable Groundwater Management. This brochure encourages voluntary collaboration between counties and GSAs as they coordinate their respective responsibilities for drought and water shortage planning efforts, for rural communities under Senate Bill 552, and the long-term sustainability goals of groundwater basins under SGMA.

These guidance and technical assistance materials align long-term groundwater management actions with more near-term actions to help monitor, analyze, and minimize impacts to drinking water well users, consistent with the state’s Drinking Water Well Principles and Strategies document: English version and Spanish (Español) version.

For questions about this document or accompanying toolkit, email sgmps@water.ca.gov.