WHAT IS SGMA What is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)?

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), signed into law in 2014, provides a framework for long-term sustainable groundwater management across California. SGMA applies to all California groundwater basins and requires that local and regional authorities in designated medium- and high-priority groundwater basins and subbasins form a locally-controlled and governed Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), which will prepare and implement a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) or submit an Alternative Plan. In the case of the Mission Creek Subbasin, the region’s water purveyors had already developed a Water Management Plan (the 2013 Mission Creek/Garnet Hill Water Management Plan) which was submitted to the State under SGMA. Of the 109 medium- and high-priority basins identified by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the Mission Creek Subbasin Alternative Plan is only one of nine approved alternative plans under SGMA.