Title
a. Receive a presentation on Assembly Bill 2728 (Soria) Groundwater: De Minims Extractors Fees: Exemption; and
b. Approve sponsoring Assembly Bill 2728 and provide other direction to staff as necessary. (ADDED VIA ADDENDA)
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors:
a. Receive a presentation on AB 2728 (Soria) Groundwater: De Minims Extractors Fees: Exemption; and,
b. Approve sponsoring AB2728 and provide other direction to staff as necessary.
SUMMARY
AB 2728 would allow a local government to exempt “de minimis extractors,” as that term is defined in Section 10721 of the California Water Code, from payment of any fee for groundwater monitoring or management activities that directly benefit parties other than de minimis extractors, and if the benefits received by de minimis extractors occur incidentally and without additional cost to the other fee paying parties.
While de minimis extractors may hold a proportionally large number of wells in any given groundwater basin, their extraction of groundwater is generally, proportionately small. In groundwater basins where the monitoring program is funded by a regulatory fee structured on a per-well basis, the practical effect is regressive: a household drawing two acre-feet per year for domestic use pays essentially the same as an extractor pumping a thousand acre-feet. The financial disparity can be significant, especially for lower-income rural households for whom a flat per-well charge is a material cost.
AB 2728 closes the disparity gap by allowing local governments to exempt de minimis extractors and recover costs from larger extractors who drive the need for Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) implementation. Monitoring program costs do not change. AB 2728 is a proportionality correction, not a new burden, that protects the long-term durability of monitoring upon which all Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) rely.
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION
In 2014, the Califor...
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