Board hears hours of public comment on proposed domestic well mitigation fee; staff directed to return revised resolution

Madera County staff presented a proposed domestic well mitigation fee for the Madera Subbasin during the county’s Groundwater Sustainability Agency session on July 8 and received extended public comment and board discussion before directing staff to return a revised resolution for formal action.

Stephanie Nagneson, director of the Department of Water and Natural Resources, summarized staff’s recommendation: a limited rate that the GSAs would apply to enrolled acres in the county GSA, using penalty revenue to discount the fee. Staff presented an illustrative number of roughly $67 per enrolled acre averaged over the first three years; after accounting for billed penalty revenue and an alternate averaging approach presented to the GSA committee, staff recommended a $59 per enrolled acre rate for 2025–26 with an annual financial check‑in to reassess the rate.

Nagneson described the principal assumptions behind the staff calculation: an assumed mitigation cost of $35,000 per well (an estimate based on recent well bills and driller quotes), a 10% program administration allowance, and a county‑GSA proportional share of 73% derived from hydrology and water‑budget modeling through 2040. Staff said the denominator used in the calculation was approximately 88,000…