Under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), one of the key responsibilities of the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency (MGA) was to develop, adopt, and submit to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) a Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin (Basin). DWR has classified the Basin as a high-priority groundwater basin in critical overdraft due to the ongoing threat of further seawater intrusion into Basin groundwater supplies. As a result, the Basin’s GSP was due to DWR by January 31, 2020.
The MGA Board of Directors unanimously adopted the final GSP after a public hearing on November 21, 2019. All written comments received on the draft GSP can be found here: Responses and Comments Received on the Draft GSP. The adopted GSP was submitted to DWR on January 30, 2020. Information on the Basin GSP and comments received by DWR can be found on the SGMA Portal. Individual GSP sections and appendices can be found at the bottom of this page.
An 8-page Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin Groundwater Sustainability Plan Summary provides a concise overview of the Basin GSP.
Full Text Groundwater Sustainability Plan
DWR Assessment and Approval of the Basin GSP (June 3, 2021)
- Assessment Letter (on DWR Portal)
- DWR Letter of Approval and Statement of Findings
GSP Periodic Evaluation
SGMA also requires a full evaluation of a GSP to be completed no longer than every 5 years following adoption of the Basin GSP. This is referred to as a Periodic Evaluation (PE). Information on the MGA PE can be found on the GSP Periodic Evaluation page.
Individual GSP 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