GSA board receives demand-management white paper; GM outlines costly seawater-intrusion projects and upcoming 5-year GSP update

The Groundwater Sustainability Agency board voted to receive, subject to editorial changes, a white paper intended to build a common understanding of demand management and its legal and water-rights implications.

The document, delivered by General Manager Curtis Sweets, was presented as an informational primer to help board members and the public discuss options for managing groundwater extraction. “Ultimately, demand management, by its name, is looking at to manage how much water gets extracted from a groundwater basin,” Sweets told the board.

The board’s action came after public comment raised technical questions about a footnote referencing Bulletin 118. Public commenter Mr. Versig said he could not immediately confirm the bulletin reference and told the board, “my recollection is that in the current version of Bulletin 118, there is no such thing as the Salinas Valley Basin.” The board voted by voice to receive the white paper subject to staff supplying a clean, consolidated copy.

Nut graf: The white paper is intended as a nonbinding, informational report to clarify terms, summarize demand-management options and flag legal and water-right ramifications. The board’s vote to receive it formally places the document on record while staff completes editorial clarifications and returns a clean version for the record.

In a related status report, Sweets briefed the board on technical modeling and project options for the seawater-intruded portions of the basin. He said modeling indicates demand management alone will not produce a one-for-one reversal of seawater intrusion because of mixed salt-fresh groundwater and basin geology. Sweets said some modeling runs showed reductions in pumping (cited in discussion as about 30% in one model) do not directly translate into recovery in seawater-invaded areas.

Sweets warned that reversing intrusion likely requires large infrastructure projects and long timelines. “Most of the things that we're talking about are in the hundreds of millions of dollars to a billion dollar range,” he said, and described the Groundwater Extraction Project as the one proposal developed far enough to allow efficacy analysis: it would remove brackish groundwater, treat it, and supply it to cities while helping raise groundwater elevations inland.

He also described aquifer storage and recovery as less promising in modeling due to limited available water at needed times, and said other project concepts (well fields, piping) are under consideration but not yet developed. Sweets asked the board to expect more technical work as the agency prepares for the first round of five-year updates to the Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), which he said will ramp up later this year and continue through next year.

On administrative matters, Sweets reminded board members about Form 700 filings and compliance with the Fair Political Practices Commission timeline; the board was told filings are due April 1. He also noted the white paper had been reviewed by counsel from several agencies and by advisory-committee members, and that the posted version included tracked edits in color to show changes.

The board’s motion to receive the white paper was moved by a board member whose name was not specified on the record and seconded on the floor; Chair Wiggs called for a voice vote and announced the motion carried. Sweets said staff will send a clean PDF and the consolidated Word document with tracked changes to board members and public commenters who requested clarifications.

Ending: The board recorded the receipt of the white paper as an informational item; no regulatory action was taken. Staff said it will return a clean copy with editorial fixes and proceed with technical work on projects and the five-year GSP update.