San Pasqual Valley Groundwater Basin Groundwater Sustainability Plan

The San Pasqual Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency (SPV GSA), which comprises the City of San Diego (City) and the County of San Diego (County), developed this Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to comply with California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) and its requirement to sustainably manage the San Pasqual Valley Groundwater Basin (Basin). SGMA,  which became effective January 1, 2015, provides a framework to regulate groundwater for the first time in California’s history by requiring local agencies to form GSAs and providing those GSAs with the necessary tools to manage ground-water use (California Water Code [CWC] Section 10720, et seq.).

The overarching aim of SGMA is to establish and achieve the “sustainability goal” for the Basin through the development and implementation of a GSP. SGMA defines sustainable groundwater management as “the management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without causing undesirable results” (CWC Section 10721). The GSP is required to include measures to achieve sustainable conditions by 2042. The City Council and the County Board of Supervisors each adopted the Memorandum of Understanding: Development of a Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the San Pasqual Valley Groundwater Basin establishing the SPV GSA as the single multi-agency GSA for the Basin.

The Memorandum of Understanding further clarified the collaborative approach to developing and implementing the GSP with stakeholders’ input. SGMA requires both the County and City to adopt this GSP by January 31, 2022. Similarly, future GSP amendments must be adopted by both the City Council and County Board of Supervisors. While groundwater use in the Basin is currently sustainable, this GSP includes monitoring requirements, established thresholds, and projects and management actions that, once implemented, would ensure the sustainable management of groundwater resources in perpetuity.

Due to size, this file has been divided into six parts.

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6