Salinas groundwater agency receives $10 million from DWR

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has awarded more than $10 million in funding to the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency (SVBGSA) through the Sustainable Groundwater Management (SGM) Grant Program to support implementation of SVBGSA’s state-mandated groundwater sustainability plans in four subbasins in the region.

The $10,393,900 grant will fund various regulatory activities such as groundwater data collection, groundwater model enhancement and community engagement and outreach within four of the six subbasins the SVBGSA manages:

• Langley Area Subbasin: Overlaying Prunedale, this subbasin includes 17,600 acres of land.
• Eastside Subbasin: Sitting east of Highway 101, this subbasin stretches across 57,500 acres and is mostly agricultural land. It includes parts of Salinas and Gonzales.
• Forebay Subbasin: This subbasin is made up of 94,000 acres of mostly agricultural land. It includes Soledad and Greenfield.
• Upper Valley Subbasin: Covering King City and San Lucas, this subbasin stretches down past the Monterey County border into San Luis Obispo County. It contains 237,670 acres of land, most of which is designated agricultural.

Utilizing the state grant, SVBGSA is planning to install new monitoring wells and conduct tests to gather more information about the specific characteristics of the aquifers, concentrating on the areas where groundwater monitoring is lacking.

The funding also supports expansion and enhancement of groundwater extraction monitoring and well registration, which are necessary actions to understand, model and manage the Salinas Valley Basin.

The Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency was created in 2017.