On Tuesday, April 16, 2024, the State Water Board will hold a public hearing to consider designating the Tulare Lake Subbasin as a probationary basin under SGMA.
A monitoring well will be installed West of Stratford along Laurel Avenue using a sonic drilling method. The well will be 350 feet deep and 4 inches in diameter. This well will allow for water monitoring and sampling, providing missing data about water levels and quality that are necessary for effective implementation of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan.
Fiscal Year 2022 Budget will be presented at April board meeting
A meeting of the Finance Committee will take place before South Fork Kings GSA’s next Board meeting to review the GSA’s 2022 budget. A draft budget will be discussed at the April 15th board meeting and should be finalized and considered for approval at the June 17th board meeting.
Items to consider in preparation of the 2022 budget include costs associated with responding to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) comments on the Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) and a potential Prop 218 election.
In 2020, South Fork Kings GSA adopted the Tulare Lake Subbasin GSP and submitted it to DWR. DWR is now in the process of commenting on GSPs across the state and will complete their reviews by January 2022. South Fork Kings will need to set aside funding dedicated to responding to DWR when the comments are received.
Proposition 218 is a Constitutional Initiative approved by the voters of California in November 1996. It requires new or increased fees and assessments be approved by affected landowners. In 2018, South Fork Kings GSA landowners voted in favor of a $9.80 per acre assessment to cover the costs associated with implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The assessment was favored by 74% of received votes. Each year, the South Fork Kings GSA Board was to set a rate not to exceed the $9.80/acre maximum for the five-year lifespan of the assessment. All landowners within the boundaries of the South Fork Kings GSA, excluding those residing in the City of Lemoore, have been assessed the rate via Kings County tax rolls since fiscal year 2018-19.
The Prop 218 assessment that is in place for SFKGSA is set to lapse in 2023. If the Board decides that another Prop 218 election is necessary, holding an election will need to be accounted for in the 2022 SFKGSA budget.
Following the adoption of a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to submit annual reports to the California Department of Water Resources on April 1st of every year.
The Annual Report serves to inform and update both the State and stakeholders on groundwater conditions and sustainability progress in the entire Tulare Lake Subbasin. GSA managers in the Tulare Lake Subbasin are coordinating to ensure important data is included in this year’s Annual Report. The Report will include information from the Tulare Lake Subbasin’s five GSA’s monitoring networks, data on groundwater extraction, surface water supply, total water use, water quality, and changes in groundwater storage. View last year’s report here.
You can also explore the Department of Water Resource’s SGMA portal here. This portal allows local agencies and GSAs to submit, modify, and view the information required by SGMA, and allows the public to view submitted information and provide comments when applicable.
Preparations are being made to apply for round one of the CA Department of Water Resources (DWR) SGMA Implementation Grant, available to critically overdrafted subbasins. South Fork Kings GSA will work to submit a letter of support on the Tulare Lake Subbasin’s grant funding application for recharge projects that bring basin-wide benefits.
The Subbasin is currently considering which projects in the Groundwater Sustainability Plan, a joint document outlining sustainability in the Tulare Lake Subbasin, to submit for funding. Groundwater recharge projects under consideration are outside of the South Fork Kings GSA but bring a benefit by meeting subbasin-wide sustainability objectives. Groundwater recharge is a primary tactic for improving groundwater conditions by which extra surface water, rainfall and snowmelt, is captured to sink below the soil into the groundwater aquifer.
The SGMA Implementation Grant is funded by Proposition 68, with the first round providing $26 million for critically overdrafted subbasins. The Subbasin has not yet determined its funding request amount. The maximum award is $5 million, and minimum is $2 million.
Another $77 million will be available in round 2 for medium-priority, high-priority, and critically overdrafted subbasins. The South Fork Kings GSA is in the Tulare Lake Subbasin, designated under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to be critically overdrafted.
The Subbasin plans to use $350,000 of the funds to recover a portion of the GSAs’ contributions to finalize development of the GSP, the roadmap to balance groundwater supplies. The remaining $150,000 will be divided among the GSAs to fund GSP implementation activities. The South Fork Kings GSA plans to utilize its portion of the funds to support groundwater level monitoring efforts, a critical data-gathering activity for assessing sustainability progress.
DWR awarded approximately $47 million in total grant funds across the State. Proposition 68, passed in 2018, provides a significant $46.25 million of awarded funds. The additional $1.6 million is provided through Proposition 1, passed in 2014, conditional upon future reappropriation of grant funds in Fiscal Year 2021/22.
The grant is part of DWR’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Grant Program providing funding for sustainable groundwater planning and project implementation through a competitive grant solicitation process. The Subbasin was previously awarded $1.5 million for GSP development in an earlier round of the program’s solicitations.
In addition to the DWR grant program the South Fork Kings GSA Board will continue to pursue other funding opportunities to offset the costs of implementing SGMA. At this time two additional grant funding opportunities are being pursued. An application has been submitted for DWR’s Technical Support Services grant to fund monitoring well installation. The well would provide data on groundwater levels in the deep aquifer zone below the Corcoran clay. A separate application was submitted for a private Climate Resiliency Grant to fund outreach efforts and Aquifer Storage and Recovery pilot testing.
Left to Right: Council Member David Brown, City of Lemoore; Charles Meyer, Stratford Irrigation District; Supervisor Doug Verboon, County of Kings; Vice Chair Ceil Howe, Empire West Side Irrigation District; Scott Mercer, Stratford Public Utilities District
Lemoore,
CA – The South Fork Kings Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (SFKGSA) Board unanimously adopted the Tulare Lake
Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan at their January 16 meeting. The SFKGSA
will use the Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) as a roadmap to balance its
groundwater. For the initial implementation period, the SFKGSA Board is
operating under the assumption of an estimated groundwater overdraft of 38,000
acre feet per year. The GSP includes a full suite of supply enhancement and
demand reduction programs the SFKGSA Board may consider to reduce this
estimated overdraft number.
SFKGSA is the one of five groundwater sustainability agencies within the Tulare Lake Subbasin that have worked together to complete the Tulare Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan. In addition to the SFKGSA, the Mid-Kings River GSA, El Rico GSA, and Tri-County Water Authority GSA have all unanimously adopted the GSP. The Southwest Kings GSA will consider adoption at a special board meeting on January 27. Upon completion of the adoption process, the GSP will be submitted to the State by the deadline of January 31.
Once the Tulare Lake Subbasin GSP is posted to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) web portal, it will be open to public comment for a minimum of 60 days. Public comments will be compiled and considered in DWR’s assessment of the GSP. DWR has two years from date of submission to evaluate and assess the Plan.
The SFKGSA will begin implementing their
GSP immediately after submittal. The SFKGSA Board will begin developing
policies and prioritizing the management actions and projects within the GSP to
be implemented. In addition, the first annual report must be completed and
submitted to DWR by April 2020.
South Fork Kings GSA’s technical consultant, Geosyntec presented at the May 23 Board workshop the proposed well network to be included in the Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Three locations within the SFKGSA service area have been identified. The wells at these locations are where the GSA will measure water levels to report to the State Department of Water Resources.
The wells will provide data from three separate levels in the aquifer from shallow to deep: zones A, B, and C. A-zone wells are located in the shallow perched area of the aquifer within the top 100 feet above the A Clay. The B-zone wells are below the A Clay layer and above the Corcoran Clay, the deepest clay layer. It is an unsaturated aquifer so water levels go up and down. The C-zone are wells installed below the Corcoran Clay. It is a confined aquifer so there is less variation of what is occurring in the aquifer at that level.
The network will use existing wells but will also require the drilling of additional wells to ensure adequate data is collected. Currently, there are seven existing wells in the three locations that are part of the Kings River Conservation District’s monitoring network. There is one well in the A-zone and six wells in the B-zone. Five additional wells will need to be installed to complete the network, two in the A-zone and three wells in the C-zone.
The South Fork Kings is tasked with stabilizing groundwater levels to reach sustainability under SGMA. This means reducing the near 45,000 acre-feet per year of groundwater overdraft in the GSA, an estimation calculated by the subbasin’s groundwater model. A menu of projects and management actions to reduce the groundwater overdraft was presented by the GSA’s technical consultant at the April 18th Board workshop.
A combination of supply-side and demand-side solutions will achieve sustainability. Solutions will either increase available water supply to offset groundwater pumping and/or will decrease the demand for groundwater. The technical consultants outlined specific projects and actions for consideration during these next few years of sustainability planning.
(click to enlarge)
The percentages represent the proportion of overdraft each item will solve. Please note these proportions and management actions are in preliminary draft form.
On the demand side, on farm improvements in irrigation efficiency and water treatment could save an estimated 2,230 acre-feet per year. Land retirement with opt-in incentives and land repurposing, such as solar farms, could yield a savings of 1,340 acre-feet per year.
There is potential to cooperate on supply-side projects that benefit the entire subbasin. One example is cost-sharing for constructing recharge basins on especially suitable soils in surrounding GSAs. Although primarily used by municipalities, Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR), a process in which water is injected into the aquifer for storage and subsequent withdrawal, is being studied for agricultural application. ASR has the potential to reduce overdraft by an estimated 10,258 acre-feet per year.
As the South Fork Kings GSA progresses with its Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), balancing SGMA compliance with economic impacts to the service area is a high priority for the Board. Developing creative solutions and adaptive management actions will ultimately drive sustainability success and secure the region’s water supply for years to come.
SFKGSA’s technical consultant, Geosyntec, has researched and identified wells for consideration as part of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan monitoring network. The wells will provide data from three separate levels in the aquifer, zones A, B, and C. A zone wells are located in a perched area of the aquifer within the top 100 feet above the A Clay. The B zone wells are below the A Clay layer and above the Corcoran Clay. It is an unsaturated aquifer so water levels go up and down. The C zone are wells installed below the Corcoran Clay. It is a confined aquifer so there is less variation of what is occurring in the aquifer at that level.
Additional wells will be considered for the monitoring network, and new wells may need to be installed to ensure there are no data gaps in the network. In addition, data sharing is anticipated with neighboring GSA wells along the outer boundaries of the South Fork Kings GSA area.
