The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has announced the award of over $3.5 million in grant funding to support projects to recharge the groundwater basin and monitor conditions in the Sacramento region’s North American Subbasin.
The grant, awarded to the Sacramento Groundwater Authority (SGA) on behalf of five Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) in Sacramento, Placer and Sutter counties, will fund, among other things:
- Seven new wells that will provide important insight into groundwater levels throughout the greater Sacramento region.
- A unique groundwater well that will allow both monitoring of groundwater conditions and provide an emergency water supply, if needed, within a severely disadvantaged community in Western Placer County.
- A new study to determine the potential for recharging groundwater in Western Placer County.
The groundwater basin—the reservoir under our feet—is one of the Sacramento region’s primary sources for drinking water, especially during drought years, and also provides more than half of the water supply used for agriculture.
“Nurturing the basin is critical to maintaining reliable water supplies for drinking water, agriculture and our environment,” said Jim Peifer, Executive Director of the SGA, which prepared the grant application on behalf of five GSAs: the Sacramento Groundwater Authority GSA, Sutter County GSA, South Sutter Water District GSA, Reclamation District 1001 GSA and West Placer GSA. “DWR’s support will allow us to nurture the basin through increased monitoring and new recharge methods. We look forward to partnering with DWR to implement these projects.”
The grant is part of DWR’s Sustainable Groundwater Management (SGM) Grant Program (Round 2). DWR received 82 applications requesting over $795 million in grant funds. The award will provide over $187 million from the General Fund and Proposition 68.
Learn more about the region’s groundwater resources at SacWaterBank.com.
Read DWR’s press release/announcement here.
About the SGM Grant Program
The SGM Grant Program is funded by Proposition 1, Proposition 68, and General Funds from the State Budget Act of 2021 and Budget Act of 2022. To date, the SGM Grant Program has awarded $139.5 million in three rounds of planning grants for development of Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs), updates/revisions to approved Alternatives to a GSP, and implementation of related projects. In addition, the SGM Grant Program has awarded $176.5 million to critically overdrafted basins for construction and planning projects outlined in or consistent with their adopted GSP or Alternative to a GSP.
The Regional Water Authority (RWA) represents nearly two dozen water providers serving 2.2 million people in the Sacramento region. Our mission is to serve, represent and align the interests of regional water providers and stakeholders for the purpose of improving water supply reliability, availability, quality and affordability. Learn more about RWA at rwah2o.org.