SUSTAINABLE GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT (SGM) PROGRAM NEWS
October 7, 2016
The California Department of Water Resources provides bi-weekly updates regarding SGM Program information to its stakeholders and interested parties.
 
State Water Control Board Public Meetings on Fee Schedule
SGMA requires the formation of local groundwater sustainability agencies in California’s high- and medium-priority groundwater basins. Sustainability agencies are required to develop groundwater sustainability plans that will bring basins into sustainability within 20 years of plan implementation. If locals are unable or unwilling to sustainably manage their basin, the State Water Board is authorized to intervene. The State Water Board is required to develop a fee schedule for the purposes of recovering programmatic costs related to implementation of SGMA (Water Code §1529.5). The fee schedule will be adopted through emergency regulation (Water  Code §1530). These fees will accompany groundwater extraction reports required to be  submitted by groundwater extractors subject to intervention (Water Code §5202).
 
The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) will be conducting public meetings beginning in October to present the details of their proposed intervention fee schedule and to outline the groundwater extraction reporting requirements for unmanaged areas (Water Code  1529.5 and 5200 et. seq.). The first meeting is October 7, 2016, and the meeting notice is available via this link: http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/gmp/docs/fees/100716_sgma_mtg.pdf
 
The State Water Board is conducting outreach to solicit feedback on the currently proposed fee concepts. The State Water Board has prepared a draft of the fee schedule for discussion purposes. In preparation of the draft concepts, State Water Board staff conducted four stakeholder meetings to solicit preliminary feedback. The purpose of the October 7 meeting will be to provide the general public an opportunity to provide input. The meeting is for the purpose of information gathering only. The feedback provided will be used to inform development of the emergency regulations; the draft regulations will be made available in formal public comment in Spring of 2017.
 
Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) Formation Notification
DWR reviews and track GSA formation notifications and updates the GSA  Interactive Map regularly. The GSA Interactive Map now shows the boundaries of Exclusive GSAs and the statutory boundaries of the exclusive local agencies identified in SGMA.
 
The entire basin must be covered by one or more GSAs by June 30, 2017, or an Alternative Plan that covers the entire basin must be submitted to DWR by January 1, 2017 in order to avoid potential intervention by the State Water Resources Control Board (Water Code Section 10735.2) If a basin is not entirely covered by one or more GSAs by June 30, 2017, then it will be up to the discretion of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to place the entire basin on probation.
 
DWR published its GSA Formation Notification Guidelines for Local Agencies which outlines the information that must be submitted by a local agency(s) after it decides to become or form a GSA(s). DWR will use these GSA guidelines to perform completeness reviews for all GSA notices filed after January 1, 2016. Only complete GSA formation notices will be posted on DWR’s GSA  Formation Table and included on DWR’s GSA Interactive Map.
 
Contacts:
Mark Nordberg, DWR Sustainable Groundwater Management Program (916) 651-9673, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Lauren Hersh, DWR Public Affairs Office (916) 653-2639, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
 
Basin Boundary Modifications
To discuss modification submissions please contact your DWR Region Office Representative:
·         Northern Region Office (Red Bluff) – Bill Ehorn, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
·         North Central Region Office (West Sacramento) – Bill Brewster,  
          This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
·         South Central Region Office (Fresno) – Dane Mathis, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
·         Southern Region Office (Glendale) – Tim Ross, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
Local agencies can locate their respective Region Office Representative by accessing the map-tool here. For more information regarding California’s groundwater basins please visit the Basin Boundary Modifications webpage.
 
Contacts:
Tim Godwin, DWR Sustainable Groundwater Management Program (916) 651-9223, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Lauren Hersh, DWR Public Affairs Office (916) 653-2639, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Facilitation Support Services Available
The Facilitation Support Service Program connects water management groups with professional facilitators to support local public agencies seeking to meet requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), including forming groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) and developing groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs). Facilitation support services from contracted professionals include strategic planning, stakeholder assessments, meeting facilitation, mediation, governance assessment, and public outreach services. Requests for facilitation support services will be evaluated on a regular basis and support will vary based on need and funding availability. DWR continues to accept new applications from local agencies and water management groups for facilitation support services. For more information about applying for Facilitation Support Services, please view the Information for Applicants and Supplemental Information for SGMA Implementation. To discuss applications for Facilitation Support Services, please contact your DWR Region Office Representative:
 
·         Northern Region Office (Red Bluff) – Mary Randall, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
·         North Central Region Office (West Sacramento) – Hong Lin,
          This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
·         South Central Region Office (Fresno) – Charles McKenzie,
          This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
·         Southern Region Office (Glendale) – Brian Moniz, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
Contacts:
Lauren Hersh, DWR Public Affairs Office (916) 653-2639, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tom Filler, DWR Sustainable Groundwater Management Program (916) 653-5272, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
 
Water Available for Replenishment (WAFR) Report
SGMA directs DWR to prepare and publish a report on water available for replenishment of groundwater in California by December 31, 2016. DWR has developed a white paper describing concepts, challenges, uncertainties, and a potential technical approach to estimating water available for groundwater replenishment. Public comments are appreciated and those received will help inform the December 2016 WAFR Report. Please email comments to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.with the following subject line: Public Comments on WAFR White Paper. For more information visit the website here.

Welcome to WAPA

Governor Signs Ag Overtime Bill

Ignoring the pleas of real farmworkers and the agricultural industry, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed AB 1066, the ag overtime legislation. This means that California will have the most stringent trigger of any state in the country for overtime for farmworkers, with 45 states having no overtime protection at all. The Governor signed this bill, supposedly to bring “equality to all workers”, yet taxi cab drivers, commercial fishermen, car salesmen, student nurses, computer programmers, and carnival workers all work without any overtime provisions whatsoever. The Governor signed this ag overtime bill in the same year that minimum wage legislation was also passed that will take California to the highest minimum wage as well as legislation forcing California to adopt additional greenhouse gas regulations for businesses in California. California is the only state in the country subject to such regulations. Today’s signing occurred despite numerous requests by the agricultural industry to meet with the Governor to discuss our concerns. The message is clear. California simply doesn’t care. These provisions will be phased in over the next few years ending with the overtime provisions to be triggered at 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week.

In the Beginning As folks transitioned out of cotton and into tree nuts, the industry recognized the need to have active and effective representation at the local, state and national levels. Having enjoyed such effective representation over the years from the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations, these folks yearned for the same representation in the tree nut processing industry. Issues such as air quality, food safety, labor, taxes, employee safety, and environmental concerns are at the forefront, and there is a significant need for an aggressive and dynamic Association to lead the industry into the next decade and beyond. In recognition of this, the Western Agricultural Processors Association was created in 2009. The Western Agricultural Processors Association (WAPA) shares staff and office space with the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations taking advantage of a unique and opportunistic situation. WAPA is a voluntary dues organization with four shared staff and one dedicated staff person. Regulatory, legislative and legal issues fall under the purview of this new organization for the tree nut processing industry, which includes almonds, pecans, pistachios and walnuts. From air quality permits to conditional use permits, from regulatory hearings on greenhouse gases to federal legislation on food safety, and from OSHA violations to assisting members on hazardous materials business plans, no issue is too small or too large for WAPA. WAPA has assembled one of the best and most capable staffs in the industry, and the results are already starting to show Membership The Western Agricultural Processors Association represents facilities involved in the processing of almonds, pecans, pistachios and walnuts.Membership in the Association is classified as Regular memberships are limited to almond hullers or processors, pecan and pistachio processors, and walnut dehydrators and processors. Associate memberships are limited to any individual or business entity which is not engaged in agricultural processing, but which provides products or services directly related to the agricultural processing industry. WAPA Associate members include, but are not limited to, commodity brokers, accounting firms, and insurance brokers. Organization The Western Agricultural Processors Association is governed by a Board of Directors, elected by its membership.The Board consists of up to 15 members from throughout the state, and throughout the industry.The Board meets on a quarterly basis and conducts an Annual Meeting in the spring of each year.WAPA, in conjunction with the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations, conducts a special training school for its members focused on safety.In combination with the school, the Association holds a Labor Management Seminar for all of the managers. Consulting Services In researching and considering the concept of forming a new organization, the Boards of Directors for the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations instructed staff to perform some of the work on a consulting basis first. The point was to determine the workload from consulting and to determine if there was sufficient interest. In November of 2007, the Association began conducting services under consulting contracts for such services as air quality permits and safety plans.The effort has been so successful that demand has progressed outside the tree nut industry into other agricultural processing facilities, including vegetable dehydration facilities, tomato processing facilities, and wheat mills, as well as cotton gins in Arizona.It was determined by the new Board of Directors of WAPA, that WAPA would maintain the consulting services to provide offsetting income to help with the expenses of getting the new organization up and running.Today, WAPA provides for a long list of satisfied clients in the agricultural processing industry, by providing critical services such as air quality, safety, food safety, and environmental issues (Hazardous Materials Business Plan, Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure Plans, etc.).