Growers in the San Joaquin Valley are grappling with the reality of three regulatory programs launching at the same time. Each adds new water quality requirements and varying levels of monitoring and reporting.
Tess Dunham, an attorney with Kahn, Soares & Conway, shared her thoughts on the programs during a webinar Wednesday hosted by Maven’s Notebook, a blog on California water.
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The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, Dunham explained, is not meant to resolve water quality and drinking water issues, but aims to avoid creating new ones. CV-SALTS and the Irrigated Lands Program, under thee Central Valley Water Board, do intersect with water quality. Dunham hoped that allowing more local control of the programs will lead to better integration across them. She said there has been a lot of discussion about how to combine the monitoring efforts and avoid duplication.
“There has to be coordination,” she said. “Or we're going to have chaos.”
(Top photo: California Department of Water Resources)
