Sustainability Plan

Under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), one of the key responsiblitites of the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency (MGA) is to develop, adopt, and submit a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) for the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin (Basin).  The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) classified the Basin as a high priority groundwater basin in critical overdraft because of the ongoing threat of further seawater intrusion into Basin groundwater supplies. As such, the Basin’s GSP was due to DWR by January 31, 2020.

MGA staff, with support from technical and facilitation consultants and sustained public input from the GSP Advisory Committee and Basin stakeholders, prepared the draft GSP. The MGA Board of Directors accepted the draft GSP at its publicly noticed July 18, 2019 board meeting and opened a public comment period that ran from July 18, 2019 to September 19, 2019. The MGA received more than 170 comments on the draft GSP from 23 commenters. Comments were received from state and federal resource agencies, non-governmental organizations, and members of the public.

The MGA Board of Directors established a Temporary Board Committee to direct staff in the MGA’s response to comments. The Comment Committee reviewed all comments, discussed revisions to the GSP with staff, and recommended revisions to improve the GSP’s content and clarity. The Comment Committee then worked with MGA staff to oversee preparation of individualized letters to address each comment received on the draft GSP. The MGA’s responses to comments received are compiled in Responses and Comments Received.  (The comments are included at the end of this compiled document.)

MGA staff also prepared a GSP comparison document to catalog the changes made in response to comments received. This comparison shows text edits and strikeouts made between the July 2019 draft GSP and the November 2019 GSP.  

The MGA Board of Directors unanimously adopted the final GSP after a public hearing on November 21, 2019.  The adopted GSP was submitted to DWR for approval on January 30, 2020.  On February 19, 2020, DWR posted the Basin GSP at the following link: https://sgma.water.ca.gov/portal/gsp/all. 

The DWR Public Comment Period on the Basin GSP is currently open. Due to ongoing health and safety concerns, DWR recently extended the public comment period to June 3, 2020.

New! An 8-page Mid-County Groundwater Sustainability Plan Summary provides a clear and concise overview of the Basin GSP.

Groundwater Sustainability Plan submitted to DWR January 30, 2019:

• Groundwater Sustainability Plan 

Individual Sections and Appendices

• Report Cover, Acknowledgments
• Signature Page
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Section 1 Introduction
• Section 2 Plan and Basin Setting
• Section 3 Sustainable Management Criteria
• Section 4 Projects and Management Actions to Achieve Sustainability Goal
• Section 5 Plan Implementation
• Section 6 References and Technical Studies
• Section 7 Acronyms
• Section 8 Glossary
• Appendices
• Appendix A – Basin Point of Contact and Mailing Address
• Appendix B – Summary of Public Comments on the Draft GSP
• Appendix C – Summary List of Public Meetings and Outreach
• Appendix 1-A Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement
• Appendix 2-A. Communication and Engagement Plan
• Appendix 2-B. Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin Groundwater Flow Model: Water Use Estimates and Return Flow Implementation (Task 2) Memorandum
• Appendix 2-C. Municipal Return Flow Memorandum
• Appendix 2-D. Soquel-Aptos Groundwater Flow Model: Subsurface Model (Task 3) Memorandum
• Appendix 2-E. Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin Conceptual Model Update Memorandum
• Appendix 2-F. Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin Model Integration and Calibration
• Appendix 2-G. Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Flow Model: Future Climate for Model Simulations (Task 5) Memorandum
• Appendix 2-H. Comparison of Climate Change Scenarios Memorandum
• Appendix 2-I. Implementation and Analysis of Projects and Management Actions in Model Scenarios as Part of Groundwater Sustainability Plan Development
• Appendix 3-A. Technical Approach for Determining Groundwater Elevation Minimum Threshold for Chronic Lowering of Groundwater Levels in Representative Monitoring Wells
• Appendix 3-B. Hydrographs of Representative Monitoring Points for Chronic Lowering of Groundwater Levels
• Appendix 3-C. Summary of Federal, State, and Local Water Quality Regulations
• Appendix 3-D. Hydrographs of Representative Monitoring Points for Depletion of Interconnected Surface Water
• Appendix 5-A. Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency Evaluation of Private Pumper Funding Mechanisms and Fee Criteria, Raftelis, May 2019

DRAFT Groundwater Sustainability Plan: July 2019

• DRAFT Plan (compiled single document) (42MB, .pdf) 
• Draft Plan - Library hardcopy version (compiled single document) 
• Report Cover, Acknowledgments, Acronyms
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Section 1 Introduction
• Section 2 Plan and Basin Setting
• Section 3 Sustainable Management Criteria
• Section 4 Projects and Management Actions to Achieve Sustainability Goal
• Section 5 Plan Implementation
• Appendix - Groundwater Flow Model: Water Use Estimates and Return Flow Implementation (March 2017)
• Appendix - Groundwater Flow Model: Subsurface Model Construction (November 2015)
• Appendix - Groundwater Model Integration and Calibration (September 2019)
• Appendix - Groundwater Flow Model: Future Climate for Model Simulations (August 2017)
• Appendix - Comparison of Climate Change Scenarios (July 2018)
• Appendix -  Summary of Federal, State, and Local Water Quality Regulations

Responses and Comments Received on Draft GSP

• Responses and Comments Received (compiled single pdf with bookmarks)

Comparsion Document 

• July 2019 Draft GSP and November 2019 GSP compared with edits/strikeouts