SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL ARTICLE POSTED MAY 22, 2017, by Jessica York: APTOS >> Emerging from the heavy fog with a staccato roar, a low-flying helicopter lowered a nearly 3,700-square-foot fiberglass frame onto Seascape Park Monday morning. Click here to read the rest of the article on the Sentinel website.
Soquel (May 10, 2017) – At its May 18, 2017 board meeting, the Board of the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency (MGA) will review the proposed planning process, schedule, and structure to establish a public committee to develop the agency’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP).
If approved, the proposed GSP Development Committee may include agricultural users, small water system management, institutional users, business interests, environmental interests and water utility rate payers within the Mid-County Basin boundaries.
Santa Cruz County (January 30, 2017) - This past summer the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency (MGA) participated as a case study for a Stanford University report called "To Consolidate or Coordinate: Status of the Formation of Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA)s in California." The report notes that the MGA is the only basin thus far to coordinate multiple agencies to govern a GSA. The MGA has been viewed as a model agency for leading the way for GSA development and demonstrating collaboration.
Key findings of the report include:
A new page on the MGA website has been created to provide information to Private Well Owners. The page includes ways to stay informed, a link to a survey, and FAQs. The new page is called "Private Well Owners," it's under the Community Involvement dropdown, and can be reached by clicking here.
The Regional Water Management Foundation, a subsidiary of the Community Foundation, announces the hire of Darcy Pruitt as senior planner to support the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency, created earlier this year.
Pruitt will be the lead planner to the groundwater agency in developing its groundwater sustainability plan for the mid-county basin.
At the Groundwater Resources Association (GRA) of California's 2016 Conference and 25th annual Meeting on September 28-29, 2016 in Concord, CA, HydroMetrics WRI presented a poster on our local inter-basin coordination for SGMA featuring our basin boundary modification requests in Santa Cruz County.
Below is an excerpt from the abstract and to download the poster, click HERE.
On July 1, 2016, the mid-county groundwater basin boundary modification request was approved by the Department of Water Resources. The draft-approved boundaries for Bulletin 118 will be posted on-line and included in the Basin Boundary Assessment Tool ( https://gis.water.ca.gov/app/bbat/) for your review. The Department will be holding public meetings to present these results and hear any final comments on July 12th through 15th; see Basin Boundary webpage for details
The State has received the MGA request to be the Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) and has posted the notice on their website: http://www.water.ca.gov/groundwater/sgm/gsa_table.cfm. We are currently in the process of our basin boundary request which redefines the area we are requesting to manage to be one basin; however, currently this one area is split amongst four DWR-recognized basins. Thus we are listed four times for these four corresponding basins.
By Matt Orbach
Originally posted at the Soquel Creek Water District Website
By Samantha Clark, Santa Cruz Sentinel
POSTED: 03/29/16, 5:13 PM PDT
SANTA CRUZ >> Under a historical law passed in 2014, water agencies in California must replenish troubled basins by 2040.
But the state and local water managers have different maps that say which basin belongs to which agency. Years ago, the Department of Water Resources separately defined the boundaries for basins that now require management under the new law.
