California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
As required by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the Department of Water Resources released a list of critically overdrafted basins throughout the state. When a basin has had too much water pumped from it, there are negative effects, such as groundwater depletion, land subsidence and seawater intrusion. In order to qualify as “critically overdrafted,” a basin had to have one or more of the negative effects.
When the list was initially constructed last summer, basin managers and their counties were notified of the problem.
The majority of the critically overdrafted basins are located in the Central Valley:
- Eastern San Joaquin
- Soquel Valley
- Pajaro Valley
- 180/400 Foot Aquifer
- Los Osos Valley
- Cuyama Valley
- Merced
- Chowchilla
- Madera
- Delta-Mendota
- Kings
- Westside
- Kaweah
- Tulare Lake
- Tulare
- Kern County
A handful of critically overdrafted basins are located in Southern California:
- Oxnard
- Pleasant Valley
- Indian Wells Valley
- Borrego Valley
