Next month, the state Department of Water Resources plans to finalize its rankings of basins and sub-basins that will need to produce groundwater management plans by early 2022. Next spring, DWR plans to finalize boundaries for 43 basins where local agencies requested changes before writing their plans.

Meanwhile, agencies overseeing critically overdrafted basins must have their sustainability plans finished in about 15 months—by Jan. 31, 2020.

It's all part of implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014, which launched a multi-year process for bringing California groundwater basins into sustainability.

"Local communities are really making very good progress in implementing SGMA, but as they get further into the details, it is increasingly evident that some areas are grappling with significant challenges that will be difficult to resolve," California Farm Bureau Federation Senior Counsel Jack Rice said. "And for everyone, uncertainty about the cost of the plan and what exactly will be required remains an issue."

For some basins, the uncertainty involves potential changes in both basin priorities and boundaries.

One constant has been the focus on the 21 basins and sub-basins listed as critically overdrafted. Those face the earliest deadlines for completion and implementation of groundwater sustainability plans, or GSPs.

But DWR may reduce the number of high- and medium-priority basins, for which GSPs must be finished by Jan. 31, 2022. The state had earlier classified 127 basins as medium or high priority, and may reduce that number to 109 next month. But although the net number of basins declined, some basins that had been classified as low priority have been reclassified as medium or high—meaning they will require GSPs.

Agencies overseeing many of the basins reclassified as a higher priority raised concerns with the accuracy of the data used to determine the reprioritization.

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