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4.8 – Water Draft Environmental Impact Report February 2021 14800 W. Schulte Road Logistics Center 4.8-4 State Sustainable Groundwater Management Act On September 16, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a three -bill legislative package—AB 1739 (Dickinson), SB 1168 (Pavley), and SB 1319 (Pavley)—collectively known as SGMA. This act requires governments and water agencies of high- and medium-priority basins to halt overdraft and bring groundwater basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. SGMA also allows the State to intervene and implement fees if local agencies do no satisfy certain requirements by the statutory deadlines. SGMA empowers local agencies to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to manage basins sustainably and requires those GSAs to adopt Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) for crucial groundwater basins in California. Per SGMA, once adopted, a basin must be brought into sustainability (i.e., balanced levels of pumping and recharge) within 20 years. For critically over-drafted basins, GSPs were required to be adopted by January 31, 2020. For the remaining high- and medium-priority basins, GSPs must be adopted by January 31, 2022. On February 11, 2019, DWR published the final Basin Boundary Modifications, which provided an updated delineation of the Tracy Subbasin (of which the Project site is located within) and designated it as a medium priority basin, meaning that a GSP must be adopted by January 31, 2022. The Tracy Subbasin is managed by seven GSAs in the region, including Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, Banta- Carbona Irrigation District, City of Lathrop GSA, City of Tracy GSA, County of San Joaquin GSA, Stewart Tract GSA, and the West Side Irrigation District (Tracy GSAs 2020). Specifically, the Project site lies within the jurisdiction of the County of San Joaquin GSA. The Tracy Subbasin GSAs (Tracy Subbasin Partners) are seeking to collectively develop a single GSP (Tracy Subbasin GSP) by using grant funding and have selected San Joaquin County as the lead agency for coordinating the Tracy Subbasin GSP development among the Tracy Subbasin Partners. According to draft documents that will compose the Tracy Subbasin GSP, local agencies have collaboratively managed groundwater resources in the Tracy Subbasin for decades. As a result of these efforts, groundwater resources in the Tracy Subbasin are already sustainable. The Groundwater Sustainability Plan is expected to provide a roadmap to continue to the sustainability of the region’s groundwater supplies. California Statewide Groundwater Elevation Monitoring Program On November 4, 2009 the State Legislature amended the Water Code with SBx7-6, which mandates a statewide groundwater elevation monitoring program to track seasonal and long -term trends in groundwater elevations in California's groundwater basins. To achieve that goal, the amendment requires collaboration between local monitoring entities and Department of Water Resources (DWR) to collect groundwater elevation data. In accordance with this amendment to the Water Code, DWR developed the California Statewide Groundwater Elevation Monitoring (CASGEM) program. The intent of the CASGEM program is to establish a permanent, locally-managed program of regular and systematic monitoring in all of California's alluvial groundwater basins. The CASGEM program relies on the many, established local long -term groundwater monitoring and management programs. DWR's role is to coordinate the CASGEM program, to work cooperatively with local entities, and to maintain the collected elevation data in a readily and widely available public database.