Groundwater.

(1) Existing law authorizes a local agency whose service area includes a groundwater basin that is not subject to groundwater management to adopt and implement a groundwater management plan pursuant to certain provisions of law. Existing law requires a groundwater management plan to include certain components to qualify as a plan for the purposes of those provisions, including a provision that establishes funding requirements for the construction of certain groundwater projects. This bill would establish a groundwater monitoring program pursuant to which specified entities, in accordance with prescribed procedures, may propose to be designated by the Department of Water Resources as groundwater monitoring entities, as defined, for the purposes of monitoring and reporting with regard to groundwater elevations in all or part of a basin or subbasin, as defined. The bill would require the department to work cooperatively with each monitoring entity to determine the manner in which groundwater elevation information should be reported to the department. The bill would authorize the department to make recommendations for improving an existing monitoring program, require additional monitoring wells under certain circumstances, and require the department, under prescribed circumstances, to perform groundwater monitoring functions for those portions of a basin or a subbasin for which no monitoring entity has agreed to perform those functions under this program. (2) Existing law requires the department to conduct an investigation of the state's groundwater basins and to report its findings to the Governor and the Legislature not later than January 1, 1980. This bill would repeal that provision. The department would be required to conduct an investigation of the state's groundwater basins and to report its findings to the Governor and the Legislature not later than January 1, 2012, and every 5 years thereafter.