Code Section

10726.4.  

(a) A groundwater sustainability agency shall have the following additional authority and may regulate groundwater extraction using that authority:

(1) To impose spacing requirements on new groundwater well construction to minimize well interference and impose reasonable operating regulations on existing groundwater wells to minimize well interference, including requiring extractors to operate on a rotation basis.

(2) To control groundwater extractions by regulating, limiting, or suspending extractions from individual groundwater wells or extractions from groundwater wells in the aggregate, construction of new groundwater wells, enlargement of existing groundwater wells, or reactivation of abandoned groundwater wells, or otherwise establishing groundwater extraction allocations. Those actions shall be consistent with the applicable elements of the city or county general plan, unless there is insufficient sustainable yield in the basin to serve a land use designated in the city or county general plan. A limitation on extractions by a groundwater sustainability agency shall not be construed to be a final determination of rights to extract groundwater from the basin or any portion of the basin.

(3) To authorize temporary and permanent transfers of groundwater extraction allocations within the agency’s boundaries, if the total quantity of groundwater extracted in any water year is consistent with the provisions of the groundwater sustainability plan. The transfer is subject to applicable city and county ordinances.

(4) To establish accounting rules to allow unused groundwater extraction allocations issued by the agency to be carried over from one year to another and voluntarily transferred, if the total quantity of groundwater extracted in any five-year period is consistent with the provisions of the groundwater sustainability plan.

(b) This section does not authorize a groundwater sustainability agency to issue permits for the construction, modification, or abandonment of groundwater wells, except as authorized by a county with authority to issue those permits. A groundwater sustainability agency may request of the county, and the county shall consider, that the county forward permit requests for the construction of new groundwater wells, the enlarging of existing groundwater wells, and the reactivation of abandoned groundwater wells to the groundwater sustainability agency before permit approval.