San Antonio Creek Valley Groundwater Basin Groundwater Sustainability Plan

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), effective as of January of 2015, created a new
statewide framework for managing California’s groundwater at the local level through the formation of
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs). SGMA requires the development and implementation of a
Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) for each groundwater basin in the state that has been designated as high or medium priority. A GSP presents strategies for maintaining or bringing a groundwater basin into a sustainable condition within the next 20 years. SGMA exempts de minimus pumpers (e.g., individual domestic well owners who extract up to 2 acre-feet per year [AFY]) from most of the SGMA requirements and does not require metering.

The San Antonio Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency (SABGSA) was formed in 2017 for the purpose of sustainably managing groundwater and developing this GSP for the San Antonio Creek Valley Groundwater Basin (Basin). The SABGSA member agencies are the San Antonio Basin Water District and Los Alamos Community Services District. The Basin occupies approximately 123 square miles in western Santa Barbara County (see Figure ES-1). It is bounded on the north by the Casmalia Hills and Solomon Hills, on the east by the San Rafael Mountains and a watershed divide separating the adjoining Santa Ynez River Valley groundwater basin, on the south by the Purisima Hills and Burton Mesa, and the west by the approximate western boundary of Barka Slough.

This GSP describes the physical setting of the Basin; quantifies historical, present, and future water budgets; develops quantifiable management objectives that account for the interests of the Basin’s beneficial groundwater uses and users and identifies a group of projects and management actions that will allow the Basin to achieve sustainability within 20 years of plan adoption. This document also includes the list of references and technical studies, documentation of the stakeholder engagement process undertaken in the development of this plan, and several supporting appendices.

Due to size, the file has been divided. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6