Larry Walker Associates presented the GSA's water year 2024 Groundwater Sustainability Plan annual-report status and preliminary findings to the board.

Audra Bardley, the consultant presenter, told directors that the basin saw above-average precipitation for water year 2023 and 2024 and that, overall, basin conditions were in good shape compared with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act's sustainability indicators. "Every year, the GSA is required by DWR to submit an annual report by April 1st," Audra Bardley said, adding that the report covers Oct. 1, 2023 through Sept. 30, 2024, and that staff planned to submit a draft to the technical advisory committee on Feb. 24 ahead of the April 1 DWR deadline.

Bardley summarized monitoring work: the GSA's representative monitoring point network showed generally good spring recovery, the agency replaced two lost monitoring sites with nearby wells when permission was revoked or a site was destroyed, and three additional sensors/telemetry installations improved data coverage. She noted two concerns: a mid-basin site that had multiyear lows likely caused by nearby pumping, and a northernmost Redwood Valley site that stayed below the measurable objective for the year despite above-average rainfall. Bardley emphasized that a single site below objective is not itself an "undesirable result" as defined in the GSP; an undesirable result requires more than one-third of representative monitoring points to fall below minimum thresholds for two consecutive years.

GSA staff and board members discussed the potential need to revisit thresholds for sites affected by changed local conditions. Sean White, GSA staff, said that recent local pumping and a new nearby well explained the shift at one site and that revising thresholds during the GSP periodic update would likely address the discrepancy. "There's a new Millview well literally less than 20 feet away from that site," Sean White said; he added that updating baseline conditions during the next GSP revision should normalize the results.

Staff reported that water-quality sampling was collected in December 2023 and that new samples were taken the week of the meeting; final data will be included in the annual report. The board received the presentation as an informational item; no formal action was required.