Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin Monterey Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan

On September 16, 2014, the California legislature enacted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) whose primary purpose is to achieve and/or maintain sustainability within the state’s high and medium priority groundwater basins. Key tenets of SGMA are the concept of local control, use of best available data and science, and active engagement and consideration of all beneficial uses and users of groundwater. As such, SGMA empowers certain local agencies to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) whose purpose is to manage basins sustainably through the development and implementation of Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs). Under SGMA, GSPs are required to contain certain elements, the most significant of which include: a Sustainability Goal; a description of the area covered by the GSP (“Plan Area”); a description of the Basin Setting, including the hydrogeologic conceptual model, historical and current groundwater conditions, and a water budget; locally-defined sustainability criteria; networks and protocols for monitoring sustainability indicators; and a description of projects and/or management actions that will be implemented to achieve or maintain sustainability.

SGMA also requires a significant element of stakeholder outreach to ensure that beneficial uses and users of groundwater are given the opportunity to provide input into the GSP development and implementation process. This GSP covers the entire Monterey Subbasin (Department of Water Resources [DWR] Basin 3-004.10), which encompasses 30,850 acres (or 48.2 square miles) in the northwestern Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin in the Central Coast region of California (Figure ES-1). The Monterey Subbasin (Subbasin) has been designated by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) as medium priority. As such, the Subbasin is required to develop a GSP by January 2022 and achieve sustainability by 2042. The GSP has been co-developed by the Marina Coast Water District Groundwater Sustainability Agency (MCWD GSA) and the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency (SVBGSA) pursuant to a Framework Agreement. The Framework Agreement outlines the Management Areas to be established within the Subbasin, which are later formalized in this GSP. The Framework Agreement further establishes a basis for information developed by the two agencies to be integrated into a single GSP for the Monterey Subbasin.

Plan approved by DWR 4/27/23.