It is time for accountability when it comes to our groundwater resources. Groundwater pumping is going unchecked in Sonoma County. To date, Sonoma County has failed to fulfill its public trust duties by not considering or mitigating the known impacts of groundwater pumping on our public resources.
How is this currently impacting our community? As we are currently faced with a drought and other climate changes, it is quite important to act now! By allowing groundwater pumping to go unchecked, the County has allowed areas with known interconnected waters to become depleted to the point where our listed species and other beneficial uses are being harmed.
Under the Public Trust Doctrine, the County is obligated to consider and take all feasible actions wherever possible to protect our rivers, streams, interconnected groundwaters, and the wildlife dependent on these waters. This duty to protect our public trust resources stems from a hundreds-year-old doctrine that has steadily evolved into its current version today. In California, this means our State, Counties, and cities are responsible for holding our trust-designated resources in perpetuity for the benefit of the public’s use and enjoyment. These protected resources and activities include commerce, fishing, navigation, recreation, navigable surface waters, non-navigable tributaries of those waters, aquatic resources, birds and other wildlife, and the preservation of trust lands in their natural state for habitat, scientific study, and aesthetic purposes.
To ensure these resources are protected for the public’s use and enjoyment, we are working to get the County of Sonoma to improve their proposed well ordinance amendments so that groundwater pumping is no longer allowed to go unfettered.
Actionable next steps we would like to work towards:
- A method of determining whether a proposed well will impact public trust resources, given current and future conditions.
- A commitment to undertake and complete a study that will evaluate the cumulative impacts for all wells, a way to consider those impacts during the permitting process for new wells, and a way to address the impacts of existing wells.
- Application of scientifically based criteria during the permitting process that will protect public trust resources and be stricter than those criteria required by local Groundwater Sustainability Plans.
- Incorporation of instream flow standards for all Sonoma County creeks to protect public trust resources and be considered when evaluating appropriate mitigation of harms to public trust resources from groundwater pumping.
- A requirement that wells of all sizes be required to comply with specific mitigation measures intended to protect against the negative impacts of overpumping (e.g., requirement to meet water conservation standards, limitations on use based on contribution to cumulative impacts on surface flows, and public trust resources, metering of “emergency” wells).
- A program with a clear path towards restoring instream flows and groundwater use to sustainable levels.
We strongly believe these measures will help ensure public trust resources are protected and help provide protections for domestic wells that are being threatened with going dry. By requiring transparency, monitoring, and effective mitigation measures of all groundwater pumpers in Sonoma County, the public trust resources we all hold in such high importance will be protected.
If you are interested in learning more you can join the Sonoma County Townhall on Well Ordinance Update Informational Town Hall. For more Town Hall meeting dates please visit https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx .
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