Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans, except as specified. Existing law requires the department to periodically review the groundwater sustainability plans developed by groundwater sustainability agencies pursuant to the act to evaluate whether a plan conforms with specified laws and is likely to achieve the sustainability goal for the basin covered by the plan. Existing law requires a groundwater sustainability agency to evaluate its groundwater sustainability plan periodically.

Existing law authorizes a groundwater sustainability agency that adopts a groundwater sustainability plan to file a court action to determine the validity of the plan no sooner than 180 days following the adoption of the plan, as provided. Existing law provides that actions by a groundwater sustainability agency are subject to judicial review, except as provided.

This bill would instead authorize groundwater sustainability agencies to file those actions within 180 days following the adoption of the plan. The bill would also authorize, for any groundwater basin in which a comprehensive groundwater adjudication was filed prior to January 1, 2025, a party that has timely appeared in that adjudication to file an action on or before March 2, 2026, under specified circumstances. The bill would require a legal challenge to an action or determination by the groundwater sustainability agency to be filed within 90 days of the action or determination.

Existing law requires a court, in an adjudication action for a basin required to have a groundwater sustainability plan pursuant to the act, to manage the proceedings in a certain manner, including in a manner that minimizes interference with the timely completion and implementation of a groundwater sustainability plan.

The bill would prohibit a court, in an adjudication action filed after January 1, 2025, for a basin required to have a groundwater sustainability plan pursuant to the act, from establishing a safe yield or sustainable yield for the basin that exceeds the sustainable yield of the basin as established in a valid groundwater sustainability plan for the basin, except as provided. This prohibition would not apply to a comprehensive adjudication in which a court has issued a final determination on the basin’s safe or sustainable yield prior to January 1, 2026.

Existing law provides that an action against a groundwater sustainability agency that is located in a basin that is being adjudicated is subject to transfer, coordination, and consolidation with a comprehensive adjudication, as appropriate, if the action concerns the adoption, substance, or implementation of a groundwater sustainability plan, or the groundwater sustainability agency’s compliance with the timelines in the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

This bill would require an action against a groundwater sustainability agency that is located in a basin that is being adjudicated to be consolidated with a comprehensive adjudication if the action concerns the adoption, substance, or implementation of a groundwater sustainability plan, or the groundwater sustainability agency’s compliance with the timelines in the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The bill would also require the court hearing the consolidated action to try the cause of action for judicial review of the groundwater sustainability plan’s determination of a basin’s sustainable yield before trying any other issue in the action.

Existing law authorizes a court to enter judgment in an adjudication action for a basin required to have a groundwater sustainability plan if, in addition to other criteria, the court finds the judgment will not substantially impair the ability of a groundwater sustainability agency, the State Water Resources Control Board, or the department to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and to achieve sustainable groundwater management.

This bill, among other things, would provide that a judgment substantially impairs the ability of those entities to comply with the act and to achieve sustainable groundwater management if it permits more total pumping from the basin annually or on average than the sustainable yield of the basin established in the latest groundwater sustainability plan or plans that have received a determination from the department that the plan or plans are likely to achieve the sustainability goal for the basin and have been validated by a final judgment or by operation of law when no validation action was filed.