By the Soquel Creek Water District Staff
The Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin is shared by Soquel Creek Water District (SqCWD), Central Water District (CWD), the Santa Cruz Water Department (SCWD), and thousands of private wells and small water systems in Santa Cruz County. Prior to SGMA, basin management efforts had been handled by the Basin Implementation Group (BIG) that was made up of representatives from SqCWD and CWD. In 2015, the decision was made to expand the BIG to include the other groundwater users in the basin, so the City of Santa Cruz, County of Santa Cruz, and three private well owner representatives joined the group and the name was changed to the Soquel-Aptos Groundwater Management Committee (SAGMC).
In order to become the GSA for the basin, however, this group needed to form a new agency with the power to plan for and implement the required Groundwater Sustainability Plan. The group chose to come together as a Joint Powers Authority (JPA), with two members of the governing boards of each agency and three private well representatives serving on the board of the new organization. Once all four agencies signed on to the Joint Powers Authority, the BIG and the SAGMC were formally dissolved, and on March 17, 2016, the group had its first formal meeting as the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency (MGA).
Over the next several years, this agency, composed of staff from each member agency and a small staff of its own, will work with stakeholders and interested parties from all over Mid-County Santa Cruz to create a Groundwater Sustainability Plan that will allow our overdrafted groundwater basin to recover the deficit created over a 20+ year period and remain sustainable into the future. Unlike previous local groundwater management efforts, the new agency will be working under a deadline. If the plan is not completed and accepted by 2020, there is great likelihood that the state will step in and take over groundwater management activities in our basin.
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The MGA will notify the state of its intent to manage the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin as its GSA in May, and a public hearing will be held at the MGA meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2016. For more information, please visit www.midcountygroundwater.org