A New Year Focus: Restoring Our Groundwater

As we start a new year, it’s a good time to step back and review long-term priorities—especially those that don’t change quickly but matter a great deal over time. One of those priorities is groundwater.

Groundwater plays a critical role in our local water supply. It supports reliability during droughts, helps maintain water quality, and provides our region with flexibility as conditions change. While it doesn’t always get much attention, how we manage it today will shape our water future for decades. In many ways, restoring and protecting groundwater is one of the most important long-term commitments we can make as a community.

How We Got Here: A Declining Groundwater Table

Over the past 50 to 100 years, groundwater levels in our basin have steadily declined as more water has been pumped out than has been naturally replenished.

Key facts:

• The groundwater table dropped an estimated 400,000–500,000 acre-feet

• This was the result of long-term overpumping, not any single decision

• For many years, groundwater was essentially being “mined” faster than it could recharge

A Turning Point in 2013

In 2013, local agencies reached a critical milestone in groundwater management. Through a consent decree, enforceable rules were established to regulate pumping, and a Watermaster was appointed to oversee basin conditions and ensure compliance with those rules. Since then, agencies have operated under coordinated, managed pumping limits rather than acting independently.

The result is significant: the groundwater table has stopped falling. The basin is now stable rather than continuing its long-term decline, putting our region ahead of many others in California that are still struggling to halt groundwater losses.

The Long-Term Goal: Returning to 1990 Levels

Stopping the decline was only the first step. For me, the next goal is restoration.

Potential Target:

• Restore groundwater levels to approximately 1990 conditions

• Increase groundwater storage by about 200,000 acre-feet

What does that require:

• Roughly 10,000 acre-feet per year

• Sustained effort over about 20 years

• A long-term, disciplined approach rather than quick fixes

How We Get There

Rebuilding groundwater storage requires multiple strategies working together. This includes expanding advanced water recycling to safely treat more water and return it to the basin, using imported water when available to reduce stress on local groundwater supplies, and storing water underground during wetter years for use when conditions are drier. Each of these tools plays an important role in gradually rebuilding groundwater while maintaining reliability today.

Healthy groundwater levels strengthen the entire water system. They improve reliability during droughts, support better water quality over time, provide flexibility during emergencies, and help ensure long-term security for future generations.

Looking Ahead

Restoring groundwater isn’t fast or flashy work. It takes patience, coordination, and a long-term commitment, and it’s something we’ve been focused on as a community for years. But it’s also some of the most important work we can do to protect our local water supply.

We’ve worked hard as a community to stop the decline, and we’ll continue putting in that work to move groundwater levels in the right direction—so our groundwater basin remains a reliable resource not just for today, but for the generations that will depend on it in the future.