(With thanks to Leo Winternitz, Executive Director of the Water Forum, Ed Winkler, Executive Director of both the Regional Water Authority and the Sacramento Groundwater Authority, and League Director Jay O’Brien, former Chair of the Sacramento Metropolitan Water Authority, now the Regional Water Authority, for suggested corrections and editing).

1. General. Notwithstanding our location at the confluence of two major rivers, water for our rapidly growing population is fast becoming a critical commodity. In Sacramento County there are 18 water purveyors and the Cities of Sacramento, Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom and Galt that need reliable water supplies. Many public water districts and private water purveyors are dependent on groundwater for their entire water supply, and their wells provide over half our water. The rest depend on surface water, derived from the American, Sacramento and Cosumnes Rivers, Folsom Reservoir, and some small streams in the County. To assure a reliable water supply, in 1988 the Board of Directors of the Sacramento County Water Agency established Zone 13 to levy an assessment for the purpose of undertaking studies and planning projects and activities in the unincorporated county. The assessment is paid as part of the County’s Annual Tax Bill, as a Levy on Property, titled: Water & Drainage Studies, Code 0443. The Zone 13 Benefit Assessment amounts to about $2 million per year. Now, Zone 13 includes the newly formed cities of Citrus Heights and Elk Grove. Not included in Zone 13 are the Cities of Sacramento, Folsom, Galt and Isleton. Activities funded by Zone 13 consist of developing and implementing long range engineering plans related to local, state, and federal flood control projects, water resource management, water supply development, water conservation, and drainage water quality.

2. Water Forum. In October 1991 the City of Sacramento, County and Sacramento Water Agency formed the City-County Office of Metropolitan Water Planning (CCOMWP), and charged it with developing a comprehensive area-wide water supply plan. The Office was established as a City budget unit organization to track costs and expenditures in the City’s accounting system. The Office was originally financed by a 50 - 50 split between the City and County. In 1993 CCOMWP assembled four stakeholder interest groups, called the Sacramento Area Water Planning Forum (Water Forum) to develop a water supply plan for the area through year 2030. The Water Forum activity was later combined with the CCOMWP, and is financially supported by eight entities. Fifty-one percent of the funding is derived from the County’s Zone 13 assessment, and the rest of the funding is obtained from the Cities of Sacramento, Roseville, and Folsom, and from Placer County Water Agency, San Juan Water District, SMUD, and El Dorado County Water Agency. In addition, there is a Habitat Management Element budget whose contributions come from the City and County of Sacramento and San Juan Water District. The Water Forum Final Agreement, completed on April 24, 2000, recognized that we can only meet water needs through 2030 by conjunctive (mixed) use of both surface and ground water, coupled with implementation of additional water conservation measures.

3. Water Needs. With normalization and projected levels of urban conservation the estimated need for water from all sources will be 855,014 acre-feet per year at ultimate County build-out.

4. Groundwater. The Water Forum Environmental Impact Report states the Sacramento County groundwater basin’s useable groundwater is divided into shallow and underlying deeper aquifer zones separated by a discontinuous clay layer. The Sacramento basin has been divided into three areas, the North Sacramento Area north of the American River, the Central Sacramento Area between the American and Cosumnes Rivers, and the Galt Area south of the Cosumnes River. Each is a hydrological anomaly resulting from overdraft, characterized by a cone of groundwater depression. However, the lower and principal groundwater aquifer, the Pliocene Mehrten, is a contiguous formation underneath nearly the entire Sacramento basin. One of the Mehrten outcrops surfaces under Nimbus Dam and most of Lake Natoma, making it an important source of replenishment to the groundwater supply in the Mehrten to the west. The hydrological anomalies, and the diversity of water agencies in each area, resulted in a decision to establish and manage each sub basin as a separate entity. As a result of Water Forum studies, to preclude further overdraft, each area was assigned a sustainable annual yield, defined as the amount of groundwater that can be safely extracted from the groundwater basin over a long period of time, while maintaining acceptable groundwater elevations. The yield for each is 131,000 acre-feet for Sacramento North, 273,000 acre-feet for Central Sacramento, and 115,000 acre-feet for Galt, for a total of 519,000 acre-feet per year. The annual recharge is approximately 474,000 acre-feet. To manage the groundwater basin Sacramento County and the Charter Cities of Sacramento and Folsom, responsible under law with groundwater management, established the Sacramento North Area Groundwater Management Authority in August 1998 to handle the north area. This year the organization was renamed the Sacramento Groundwater Authority (SGA). SGA will fully cooperate with the two southern areas, when established. The Groundwater Authorities cannot restrict pumping, but they are authorized to assess pumpers who have surface water available, and continue to pump to the detriment of the safe yield of the basin.

5. Groundwater Quality. Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations contains standards for drinking water quality. Groundwater in the Sacramento North Area presently meets Title 22 drinking water quality standards. In aquifers of the Central Sacramento and Galt areas, Title 22 requirements are met with the exception of iron and manganese. Neither poses health hazards, but could result in odor, taste, and color problems. Where the problems are encountered the water is treated. However, within Sacramento County nine sites have been identified as having significantly locally contaminated groundwater. These include four US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund sites: Aerojet Corporation, Mather AFB, McClellan Park, and the Sacramento Army Depot. The other sites are Kiefer Landfill, the abandoned PG&E site adjacent to the Sacramento River near Old Sacramento, the Southern Pacific Railroad yards in downtown Sacramento and the City of Roseville, and the Union Pacific Railroad yard in downtown Sacramento.

6. Political and Legal Considerations. Surface and groundwater rights are vastly different. Surface water rights are governed by statewide statutes, and water delivery by federal and state contracts. Groundwater ownership is identified with the overlying land and groundwater management control is vested in the Sacramento County Water Agency (SCWA), created as a legal entity by an Act of the State legislature, and the Charter Cities of Sacramento and Folsom through use of their police powers. The Act provides mechanisms for SCWA to levy assessments and for creation of “zone councils” to which the Agency can delegate responsibilities for water planning, water development proposals, and zone budgets, as examples. However, the Agency, governed by the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and the Cities of Sacramento and Folsom, retain regulatory rights. When considering groundwater management the Forum applied three standards i.e., what is simplest; most efficient; and given political realities, what can be implemented expeditiously. Further, they sought a structure that could use existing authority and institutions to avoid the need for new bureaucracies. It was agreed the most practical and expeditious way was to ask SCWA and the Charter Cities to delegate their existing groundwater management authority to the three locally identified areas, and to appoint representatives of water agencies affected to each. The delegation would include authority to levy assessments to manage the groundwater basin. Assessment approval would be subject to all requirements of the law, including full public notice and hearings.

7. Surface Water. Increased surface water diversions will be needed to serve planned growth through 2030. A major agreement of the Water Forum is to ensure that sufficient water supplies will be available to customers needs while minimizing diversion impacts on the Lower American River in the drier and driest years. Diversions above the H Street bridge in average and wetter years will increase from the current level of about 216,500 acre-feet annually to about 481,000 acre-feet. This represents a significant portion of the annual flow of the American River that averages about 2.6 million acre-feet. Actions to meet needs while reducing diversion impacts in drier years include conjunctive use of the groundwater basins consistent with sustainable yield objectives; utilizing other surface water resources; reoperation of reservoirs on the Middle Fork of the American River; increased conservation during drier and driest years; and reclamation. In addition, plans are being considered for another water treatment plant in Placer or Sacramento County using Sacramento River water to supplement the American River supply. To handle agreements for water supply through 2030 in the North Sacramento Area, the American River Basin Cooperating Agencies (ARBCA) was formed. This sunset organization prepared a Regional Master Plan for construction of facilities necessary for conjunctive use north of the American River, using the Water Forum agreements as its basis. The infrastructure cost for these facilities is estimated to be over $1 billion.

8. Conjunctive Use. To establish conjunctive use, surface water must be supplied to water purveyors dependent on well water. CALFED has been slow to plan new water storage reservoirs, and no new major sources of surface water are on the horizon. Water use must be determined under existing water rights, and within the requirements of water contracts, to efficiently use the existing surface water supply. The current strategy for meeting increasing demands for water while satisfying the principles of the Water Forum Agreement involves sales of surplus surface water to those on wells and balanced use of surface and groundwater to maintain recommended groundwater sustainable yields. To do this both legal and physical changes are necessary to prescribed places of use for surface water, and cooperative agreements are needed covering new treatment and distribution systems built to move water throughout the area. The newly formed Regional Water Authority (RWA), in conjunction with SGA, is responsible for coordinating all efforts to implement regional projects; and assuring cooperative agreements conform to law and the over 200 Water Forum Agreements.

Joe Sullivan, Executive Director