Episode 62: Reflecting on SGMA after ten years
“The easy part is done. As strange as that may seem, the hard part is just beginning. Now we are really getting traction on implementation and dealing with demand reduction”
A conversation with Deputy Director for Sustainable Water Management Paul Gosselin (CA Department of Water Resources) about California's groundwater governance and progress towards sustainability goals. Released November 22, 2024.
guests on the show
Paul Gosselin
Paul Gosselin was appointed California’s Deputy Director for Sustainable Water Management (formerly Statewide Groundwater Management) on July 9, 2021. In this capacity, Gosselin oversees the Sustainable Groundwater Management Office (SGMO) and the Division of Regional Assistance (DRA). SGMO is responsible for the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) and other statewide groundwater management activities. DRA supports the management of California’s water resource through various assistance offerings. It includes two branches in Sacramento and four regional offices in Red Bluff, West Sacramento, Fresno, and Glendale. Gosselin has extensive experience in local groundwater management, and environmental regulations and leadership.
Gosselin joined the Department after serving 13 years as Butte County’s Director of Water and Resource Conservation. He managed Butte County's State Water Project Table A allocation, investigated and reported on groundwater conditions, implemented the Groundwater Management Plan, fostered regional partnerships through the Northern Sacramento Valley Integrated Regional Water Management and other water resource activities. Gosselin led Butte County’s drought response as chair of the Butte County Drought Task Force, while also leading sustainable groundwater management efforts through the implementation of SGMA. He oversaw the development of three Groundwater Sustainability Plans and was administrator of two Groundwater Sustainability Agencies. Gosselin has a passion for advancing innovative scientific approaches. He was an early adopter and collaborator of innovating technologies to further understand geologic conditions important to groundwater management. His leadership paved the way for the statewide initiative to map groundwater basins with airborne technologies.
Prior to Butte County, Gosselin was Chief Deputy Director at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation from 1999 to 2007 and was Assistant Director for Enforcement, Environmental Monitoring and Data Management from 1993 to 1999. During his tenure, he developed regulatory programs to protect surface and groundwater quality. From 1989 to 1993, he was the Director of Regulatory Services for the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture.
Gosselin received a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry and a Master of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts.
TRANSCRIPT
Sam Sandoval
Today, we are excited to have the opportunity to talk with Paul Gosselin. I am really looking forward to talking with Paul today. We have been discussing SGMA with many different people from many different perspectives. This year is the 10 year anniversary of SGMA, and I think is a good time for me, for us, to reflect on what SGMA, what the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act has done or has not done for California. What are the accomplishments? What are the challenges? How was the implementation? What now? What is he as a scientist or as a bureaucrat, how does he see SGMA going into the future? So as you can see, we have a lot of questions. I do have a lot of questions, and Paul, I have talked with him a couple of times, and he has been quite open to talk with also. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with Paul. What about you?
Mallika Nocco
I just want to welcome our listeners from all across the country and the world, and just give a touch of a primer on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, in California, which was a very important piece of legislation. I know that when I started learning about California's groundwater governance, I was very shocked that there was actually no groundwater policy or regulation in place at all, basically until 2014, in a place with a semi arid Mediterranean climate and many, many, many crops use irrigation, many, many folks using water. You could just pump groundwater. You had to pay for the energy.
Of course, you had to pay for all of the well construction and the drilling, so there were costs related to that, but you didn't have to actually pay for the water. And there wasn't regulation on the water that was being used, which I just found to be shocking, until 2014. So in 2014 the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was passed, and it is a 30 to 40 year process. So now we are about 10 years in, and we're going to be reflecting and thinking about what has worked. Because I know Faith can talk about how many other states are thinking about enacting similar policies or constantly refining groundwater policies. So, yeah, Faith, what are your thoughts 10 years in?
Faith Kearns
It's hard to believe it's been 10 years. On the one hand, it feels like that time has flown by, and at the same time, that's a pretty long time to be able to stop and take an assessment of what has really happened. And you know, I'm in Arizona now, and it's where I grew up, and it's been interesting, because when California was going through the process of passing SGMA, there was a lot of reference to Arizona's groundwater management policy, which passed in, I think, 1980 and so, you know, it was considered a very progressive regulation at the time, but what has come to pass now, 40 years later, is that it was really concentrated on the more urban areas of the state, places that were growing very quickly and had the largest populations, and so largely left out rural parts of Arizona.
Now there's an interest in, what are we going to do to protect our groundwater in more rural parts of the state? And so now Arizonans, I think, are looking to California and the groundwater management there. And so it's this really interesting back and forth in my lifetime of who's doing the most progressive groundwater management. And so I'm really excited to just have this time to hear from Paul, and think through some of these lasting concerns that people have had around SGMA, the timeline, the definition of sustainability, the management units, the representation, all of that kind of stuff, participation, which I know remains a thorny issue. So, yeah, just thinking about some of the challenges remaining, but also some of the progress that's been made with SGMA and what it means for groundwater management, honestly, probably globally, because California has such a reliance on groundwater in so many ways, like so many other places do. So yeah, just looking forward to time to think about it.
Sam Sandoval
This is an experiment that is still happening. We still have a long way to go, but it is good for us to reflect on what has been accomplished. Where are the places where we still have a lot of work to do? So without further ado, let's talk with Paul.
Bienvenidos, a Water Talk today. We're excited to have the opportunity to talk with Paul Gosselin. Paul is the Deputy Director for Sustainable Water Management at the California Department of Water Resources, with over 30 years of experience in groundwater management and environmental regulation. Paul oversees the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act or SGMA. Prior to joining DWR, he served as the Director of Water Resources Conservation in Butte County, where he led sustainable groundwater efforts, regional partnerships and drought response initiatives. Paul holds degrees in biochemistry and chemistry from the University of Massachusetts. It's been 10 years since SGMA was passed, and this is a 10 year reflection on it. So we're really looking forward to talking with Paul today. Bienvenido, Paul!
Paul Gosselin
Thank you for inviting me here today. Really excited to be here.
Sam Sandoval
Well, you have a long career in water management. Can you share with us your path to the California Department of Water Resources and how you became the Deputy Director of Sustainable Water Management.
Paul Gosselin
As I've aged, my career has taken a lot of twists and turns. As you reference, I'm from Massachusetts. You might still pick up my little accent that comes through from time to time. I went to UMass. And after I graduated, I went to work for the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture in the Pesticide Bureau, and I was a field inspector. And then what happened was, we had some groundwater contamination along the major agriculture area in the Connecticut River Valley. And this was a surprising thing for the agency. So we worked, I worked, with a task force with the Department of Environmental Protection and Public Health, and we developed a groundwater strategy for water quality, dealing with agricultural water quality impacts. And this was about 1985-86 just to date myself, so that really got me involved in water issues.
From a water quality standpoint, I had gone back to get my Master's in chemistry and focused my research on some follow up work on some studies we did on looking at some of the corn herbicides that were reaching groundwater, and I was trying to look at some predictive modeling on how to predict the pathways of those degradants to groundwater. And so that really got me going in water. Worked on nonpoint source policy in Massachusetts. And then long story short, ended up meeting my future wife, who was from California, and I had been with Massachusetts for a long time, and then came out to California in 93 just as Cal EPA was being formed, and went as Assistant Director for the Department of Pesticide Regulation.
And so that was in 93 and then in 1999 I was appointed as Chief Deputy Director at Pesticide Regulation under Governor Davis, stayed until 2007 and then went to Butte County to be the Director of Water Resource Conservation. And that got me out of water quality and more into water resource management, which was very exciting, looking at the local level, which was really important. And then I was tasked with managing three basins in the county, doing all the contracts. So then SGMA came in. I won’t really get into the throes of the details on that.
I was in Butte County from 2007 to 2021 then I joined DWR as Deputy Director. So it was really exciting for me to come full circle back to the state, having that local experience working for a board, a county board, and just the dynamics and difficulty and challenges of implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. So that's a quick snippet on my career.
Mallika Nocco
Yeah, that's quite a career, and quite a shift from the East Coast and what you were doing through to what you're doing now. It's been really interesting. So this year is the 10 year anniversary of SGMA, which was signed into law on September 16, 2014 and went into effect on January 1, 2015. Thinking back and looking back over the past 10 years, what do you see as some of the key accomplishments of SGMA, and what milestones or successes stand out in terms of statewide groundwater management in California?
Paul Gosselin
I mean, 10 years, a lot of effort and time went into this. It seemed to go by fast, but thinking back this law was one of the most profound changes in California water law in a generation. You know, very complicated structures. Governor Brown, at the time, his intent was to have this locally managed with some state oversight. So it really created a different approach on how the state set up a law where usually we would come down and prescribe locally what we expect to have happen.
This law is different, where it's local discretion on making the management decisions, but under state oversight. So it was intriguing how the law got put in place, and how do you define sustainability? So instead of defining sustainability, we defined what we don't want to have happen. So all these pieces got put in. And what was intriguing was it's like a Rube Goldberg machine. You flip the switch on January 1, 2015, and hope all those pieces work.
I think 10 years in, there have not been major amendments to the Act, and really a lot of the functioning of the Act has worked well. So I think one, it served us well as a pathway to sustainability. The commitment of local agencies, agriculture, community groups, academia, to fulfill the promise of SGMA has been one of the most remarkable things. People knew the difficulty that this was going to bring to achieve sustainability, and people leaned in and really doubled down on wanting to have this work. And it's more than just checking the boxes on all the deadlines which have been met, and they were considerable. Really demonstrated the commitment that people had. But really at the end result, what we have now, far better than we had, let's say, in 2014, is data, information, a lot more ability for us to make decisions and local agencies to make decisions on sustainability with the data sets we have that are light years ahead of where we were 10 years ago.
Another important thing is collaboration. You know, one of the challenges for SGMA was not the technical aspects. You know, that's always going to be there. Water managers in California are incredibly smart and creative, the success of implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is really about those relationships and coordination within a basin. Local agencies, whether they're individual or they form a new GSA through a joint powers agreement, have to view implementation on a basin wide scale. So that's different. If you're sitting in an agency and you have a certain jurisdiction, but you're really looking for the betterment of the entire basin, not just the betterment of your individual agency, that's a huge change. And we've found a lot of that cooperation has really, really taken hold.
I think other aspects too that have really changed is the acknowledgement of groundwater sustainability agencies for their stewardship of all groundwater uses and users, and that was a major emphasis of the Act, including domestic wells and others, where agencies are looking now to have that commitment that they are going to mitigate domestic wells and take responsibility for managing the basin in a way that avoids undesirable results for all groundwater uses and users.
But there are many, many success stories. I think the intent to advance recharge is also something that has just really gone off the charts. So a lot of efforts have been moving that way, which is very encouraging, as well as the other side of the coin. On demand management, a lot of agencies are putting some really strong efforts forward on a difficult topic, on demand management for groundwater, which has never been done before on this scale in California. So those are just top of mind, some of the accomplishments we've had.
Sam Sandoval
Yeah, thank you, Paul, and I've heard you many times that you also come to the table saying that you're a groundwater well owner. That you used to have that on your property, and that also relates to how you're seeing these things and looking at this policy as not only becoming managers, but stewards of groundwater resources, that these agencies become stewards. Speaking of that, can you talk about the implementation of SGMA, how it has unfolded in California, and if there are any of these local agencies, groundwater sustainability agencies, where you have seen notable progress?
Paul Gosselin
I think the 100 or so basins that are responsible for SGMA, I think each one of them has unique facets and success stories that we can all point to. I think even the basins that are under state board jurisdiction, because we found their plans inadequate, I think there are success stories in every basin, going back to that commitment and trying to address some huge challenges within basins, and they're all very unique.
I remember working at the county, and we were saying hey, we need local control. The state needs to not get involved in our business, because they're complicated and I think coming to the state, seeing the entirety of the complexity at the basin level really instills that local discretion is so critically important.
But really what we've seen and success across the board is again, the efforts on recharging, trying to find basin wide solutions, trying to do creative things to achieve groundwater sustainability, but also try to balance the need of agriculture and trying to be creative. And in some of those efforts, the demand reduction efforts that are going on now, this really speaks to local discretion, because there's creative ways agencies are working with the agricultural community on finding that pathway on reducing the demand in the basin in a way that reflects what's best in that basin, but it's still achieving that sustainable yield to avoid undesirable results.
I just want to highlight, too, the deadlines that were met on agency formation. We have over 300 groundwater sustainability agencies formed in the state, huge new agencies with enormous powers. Agencies submitted their plans on time, and even when we did our initial review, some were incomplete. We found deficiencies. They responded in six months with amendments to address those deficiencies.
So up and down the line, the implementation is really progressing along. I think the annual reports we've seen have been enormously helpful for providing us with a statewide perspective on changes in storage and other actions going on. So all in all, I think, given where we're at, I've been viewing this as the end of the beginning. We're very happy about the progress and the trajectory that sustainable groundwater management is going.
Sam Sandoval
At the beginning of this response, you mentioned some of these local agencies, one of these GSAs, now the water boards have stepped in. So for audiences that are not that familiar, can you explain the inadequacy process and the probation and state intervention for these agencies?
Paul Gosselin
Yes. So one important facet of the Act was to one, not just have local agencies have local responsibility like they had in groundwater management plans, but to also have some expectations and consequences if deadlines weren't met or if they weren't on track towards sustainability, which was an important thing to have consequences so we could ensure that we can get to groundwater sustainability. So the legislature worked out that both the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Resources Control Board would have a role in this oversight.
The Department was tasked with two roles. One was developing the regulations and evaluating whether a basin was on track for sustainability and reviewing their plans, but also providing local assistance in a variety of ways, and I can speak to that in a bit. Both of those are very important dual roles, because it's really incumbent upon us to assist local agencies towards compliance. So even though we do reviews and we have some decisions that are not favorable for some basins, it's also helpful for them to understand what they need to do, and it also is important for us when we did the initial review of plans, and the law required that when basins approve their plan, they immediately start implementing it, submit it to the Department, and we have two years to review.
And the reviews, one, it's more than just us telling them either they did it well or not. It's also instructive for us about where we may need to increase our assistance or develop additional guidance, and we've seen that over and over again.
So the initial plans were reviewed, and the standard we used was substantially compliance, because we know no plan is going to be perfect. They're going to adapt and change over time, but we wanted to make sure that the plan was complete, that there was a plausible path towards sustainability, but mostly that there were sustainable management criteria. How were they going to manage the basin to avoid undesirable results? And so basins that met that were approved, I would say conditionally, because we have corrective actions and other things we're going to expect them to do.
But then some basins had some deficiencies that precluded our approval, and under our regulations, we notified them, and we gave them six months to resolve those deficiencies. And for those basins, we had many, many consultation meetings with them explaining what our review looked at, leaving them at least some guidance on how to resolve it. First go around for critically overdrafted basins, we had, I believe, 13 basins that were incomplete. Seven of the 13 actually were approved, they did resolve deficiencies with corrective actions, and then six did not, and under the law, when we find that they did not, we have a determination that's called inadequate, and that then brings them over to the jurisdiction of the State Water Resources Control Board, who is the the enforcement entity for a Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
And so when basins are inadequate, the Board can consider placing them in probation. And that's a formal process. And when that happens, they start gathering data, information on pumping extraction. These fees are associated with their cost, and then if the issues are not resolved, the board has to wait at least a year. They can impose what's called the interim plan. And basically, the local discretion is somewhat taken away, because the board is going to probably use what tool they have, and that's just going to be demand reduction, and that's a pathway us, the Board and agencies do not want to go, because the state cannot and will not bring basins into sustainability. That has to be done and can only be done by local agencies, just because of the complexity of it. So that that's the process. It's a matter of eventually, basins will come back to us from State Board intervention, hopefully sooner than later, and we'll be back on track.
Faith Kearns
I was wondering if you could keep going that route, just again, thinking about this 10 year anniversary, what do you foresee, looking into the future, as the main challenges that are still out there to really get to sustainable groundwater levels? Somewhat related, I'm just curious because our podcast is now national, and not just California, if you would have any lessons learned or just thoughts about other states or other areas because groundwater is an issue all over the world. What have you learned in California that might be applicable for a management structure or whatever in other places?
Paul Gosselin
Yeah, we have kept track and have good dialog with other states on their approaches. A lot of other states go the traditional route of having the state be responsible from the top down, whether it's well permitting, groundwater allocations, a lot of this is managed at the state level. And every state's different, but California is so large, just geographically, and so diverse, you would need local agencies to carry out the act. So I think for us, it is a little bit different.
I think also we're still at the end of the beginning, and we're entering the implementation phase. And what I've also told people is, the easy part is done, as strange as that may seem, and the hard part is beginning, because now we're really getting traction on implementation, and we're dealing with demand reduction largely.
I think also understanding that there is going to be a limitation, an upper bound to how much recharge can actually help support basins. Basins cannot recharge their way out of big deficits. And that's going to be a difficult, difficult task.
I think another aspect looking ahead, the effects of climate change have really solidified over the last four or five years, where we're repeatedly getting historic dry periods, historic wet periods, and this is just creating enormous challenges looking ahead, but the structure is going to allow agencies to adapt to these extremes, to be resilient when plan implementation takes hold in 2040 and 2042 but some of the challenges we're facing in the future, one is funding for local agencies.
A lot of these agencies are relatively small, and just to keep the lights on and meet the requirements, we have annual reports, hold meetings, other situations, cost money, and a lot of these agencies haven't had experience with fee structures. And in California, there's a set process under what's called Proposition 218, where it gives challenges to local people about fees. So we've been assisting local agencies to navigate that, because we really need them financially ready to carry out this work.
Three other policy issues that are coming up that are going to cause plans to change dramatically. One is depletion of interconnected surface waters. This is a guidance document we're preparing. It was one of the sustainability indicators, and it's a methodology that really isn't well established yet for groundwater managers. So we've been developing a guidance document that will come out by the end of the year on how to address depletion of interconnected surface water, even the ones we've approved, have not adequately addressed it, largely because there was no guidance established. But that's going to be something that's going to start to be implemented in 2025, and that is going to cause many basins to have to adjust how they're managing the basin, which may lead to more demand reduction.
Similarly, subsidence was another indicator in the Act, and largely again, we have some areas in California that have some very severe subsidence circumstances that are causing the state, local agencies and the federal government to spend billions of dollars to just keep pace of the repairs, to conveyance, to flood control, levies, highways, gas lines, the high speed rail and military bases, you know. So subsidence is a major issue. And the other concern with subsidence is, even if it's abated immediately, you're going to have residual subsidence occurring for a decade or more.
Think about it like you’re traveling down the highway at 100 miles an hour, and you slam the brakes, you're going to be screeching and for a good while down the way. So we're coming out with a best management practice document and regulations and draft by the end of the year on subsidence, and we're going to expect some really aggressive action on subsidence from the local agencies.
Faith Kearns
I guess the one other thing we haven't addressed yet is the issue of disadvantaged communities and groundwater equity. I know that's been an ongoing discussion since the Act was first established. I'm just wondering where you are on that issue right now, and what the state has been doing. And just as a quick follow up, I'm really curious what the operation is here - how many people are working on this? Because, as you've been talking, there's so much technical assistance, and so it just sounds like an incredible need across the board, and you must have, I hope, some help.
Paul Gosselin
Yeah, I'll take the disadvantaged community issue first, and they're one of the considerations that you have to put in your plan, you have to ensure that all groundwater uses and users, including disadvantaged communities, do not have undesirable results. So sustainability was not what you're aspiring to, but what you wanted to avoid, which was, I think, a really creative solution to a difficult definition. So this is something we have been doing somewhat related to SGMA, but also tracking well vulnerability. We've done a lot of drought work, analysis, looking at disadvantaged communities, and working with our partners at the State Water Resources Control Board on solutions for the 1000s of people who are without water.
So one, there's also a drought component, and the counties, through another law, are establishing a drought task force. There's also another component that I had hoped we would make a lot more progress on to date, and that's the alignment of local land use planning efforts and groundwater sustainability plans. Again, land use decisions are water decisions, where you place and zone people is going to result in a water demand and ensuring that you where you place homes or issue wells are going to be in places that have groundwater sustainability. All those pieces tie in to ensuring that everybody in California has a human right to water and the Act will help along that way.
In terms of resources, I will say the Department is the lead for implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, but there's a broad statewide effort from a number of agencies who have different pieces. Again, our partners at the State Water Resources Control Board have an enormous partnership with us, but the Department of Conservation has a multi benefit land repurposing program. And what this is, it's a block grant for communities to evaluate, how are we going to transition the 1000s of acres of ag land that are going to go out of production in the San Joaquin Valley for the community? How are we going to decide and form a pathway for the community for the future? So that's enormously important.
I should point out, the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is projected to have maybe as many as a million acres of agricultural land going out of production, and that's going to have enormous impacts on communities, jobs, the environment. So planning ahead and having some pathway for how those acres are going to be repurposed is critically important. The Department of Food and Ag is also a great partner, as well as other agencies, Department of Fish and Wildlife.
But in the Department, we do have a Sustainable Groundwater Management Office, and there's roughly 60 people there. We get support from our Office of General Counsel, the financial assistance branch, who does all the grants, as well as others. So it's a real statewide team effort on this. I think we've been blessed the last 10 years to have a pretty good amount of state bond funds as well as general fund funds, which was an unusual circumstance.
There's been about a billion dollars over the last 10 years invested in the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. About half of that was local assistance grants that went out to local agencies. So really that was instrumental in getting local agencies the resources to put together their plans. We've been issuing implementation grants now, so a lot of the projects the agencies are doing are being supported by the grants. But as we stand now, the general fund is not what it has been, and we're in pretty lean budget times, and there's going to be budget reductions over this year.
Local agencies have fee authority, which is expected. That's what's going to keep them going, knowing that these budget times come and go, we have lean times ahead, but I think we've created a very solid foundation, and we'll be able to continue with implementation and supporting local agencies through our local assistance and these other initiatives with our resources. So it's a lot, but I think circumstances allowed us to have this influx of resources the first 10 years, which was a blessing.
Sam Sandoval
Paul, I think this is good for the broader audience, someone listening from outside of California, of all the different things that went into the law and then the different challenges that you've been able to sort out. I mean, when you start talking about drinking water, most of it addressing disadvantaged communities and now having meetings in different languages with a real time translation that speaks of subsidence, funding, interconnected surface water and groundwater. Speaking of that, I always think that there should always be a two way conversation. It is always, it's never a one way conversation. And in this one, it was earlier this year that part of your team was presenting the development of SGMA guidance for depletions of interconnected surface water. I want to point it out, because basically, it's not that you finish it and publish it, you've been presenting it and addressing it in a way that you're also receiving feedback. So can you talk with us more about this work, and how is it going?
Paul Gosselin
Yeah, so you know, big topic, the depletion of interconnected surface water is one of the six indicators, also tongue in cheek called the six Deadly Sins, of poor groundwater management. What agencies have to look at is lowering your groundwater levels, loss of storage, water quality, seawater intrusion, subsidence and depletion of interconnected surface waters, these are the indicators they have to look at when they're putting their plans together.
Depletion of interconnected surface water, I think everyone recognized that, yes, when you pull water out, if it's interconnected it's coming from the creek and stream. But you know, the methodology on how to measure that, and then monitor it and management strategies was really not well established. So when the law was put in, it actually said that the State Board could not intervene on that indicator until 2025 and it was recognized that there needed to be some development of guidance. And so we learned, I mean, agencies took a reasonable approach. Many took real, reasonable approaches on looking at this stream reach, taking a look and inventorying what their groundwater dependent ecosystems are, or other key users of the surface water, looking at shallow monitoring wells nearby, but generally, none of those were adequate. And we knew the complexity of this new topic for many managers, starting with putting out what the state of the science is on this.
We did that through a series of papers just to set the foundation for the discussion on, okay, here's the science. Now, how are you going to manage and this is really where the art comes in, because no regulation is solely based on taking a scientific principle and throwing it into a regulation. You know, there's things such as the ability to carry it out and being able to monitor and take action.
So this is where we're having a dialogue now, with a whole variety of partners and interest groups on approaches on how to address this. I'm very excited about it. I think it's going to be challenging, but we're going to be looking to get this done by the end of the year, and have good guidance that will give some options to agencies that may be well funded and have a lot of data to those that may be much smaller economies of scale to make sure they each have a pathway to address depletion of interconnected surface waters.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much, Paul, this has been super informative, and we usually end all our podcasts on a question by asking what else you might like to share if we missed anything, and also just how we and the folks listening can support the work that you're doing.
Paul Gosselin
In addition to disadvantaged communities and other community groups that need to be really part of the process, we've also heard and understand that a lot of small growers have not really been too involved in the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act process, and these are the most vulnerable growers, just because of their economies of scale. So as demand reduction comes down, these are the growers that are going to face the most severe challenges.
We've been putting efforts together to help provide information and other guidance to those growers on how they can participate and be part of the process. And they're really going to be part of the solution too, because agriculture in California being so heavily regulated, they're also the most innovative. If given flexibility on achieving the goal, time and time again, they'll meet that. So we want to work with growers, large and small, to make sure that we can achieve sustainability, but hopefully minimize the amount of acres that have to go out of production,
Sam Sandoval
And perhaps a follow up there. So Paul, how did you envision the future of groundwater management in California? So, what is your vision looking ahead of groundwater management?
Paul Gosselin
So the future is really exciting. We may have been the last state in the west to have a statewide groundwater law, but I think ours is on track to actually be successful, and I'm absolutely confident that groundwater sustainability is going to be achieved in 2040 in those critically overdrafted basins, in 2042 everywhere else. And what that's going to mean is in the face of increasing climate change and weather whiplash in California, there's going to be certainty where basins are being managed, whether it's in a severe drought or wet year.
That's going to provide certainty for communities with wells, whether you're on a domestic well, community well, for agriculture, knowing where the basin is going to be for their agricultural production, as well as the environment, and not depleting creeks and streams through groundwater extraction. So all of that is going to be climate change resiliency when this is implemented, and provide a lot more certainty for the future. And, certainty is enormously helpful for any community development and for agriculture and the environment.