Water: diversion and use: groundwater.

(1) Existing law generally prohibits the state, or a county, city, district, or other political subdivision, or any public officer or body acting in its official capacity on behalf of any of those entities, from being required to pay any fee for the performance of an official service. Existing law exempts from this provision any fee or charge for official services required pursuant to specified provisions of law relating to water use or water quality. This bill would expand the exemption to other provisions relating to water use, including provisions that require the payment of fees to the State Water Resources Control Board (board) for official services relating to statements of water diversion and use. (2) The California Constitution requires the reasonable and beneficial use of water. Under the public trust doctrine, the board, among other state agencies, is required to take the public trust into account in the planning and allocation of water resources and to protect the public trust whenever feasible. The board and the California regional water quality control boards (regional boards) are required to set forth water quality objectives in state and regional water quality control plans. Existing law establishes the Water Rights Fund, which consists of various fees and penalties. The moneys in the Water Rights Fund are available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the administration of the board's water rights program. This bill would authorize the board to issue, on its own motion or upon the petition of an interested party, an interim relief order in appropriate circumstances to implement or enforce these and related provisions of law. A person or entity that violates any interim relief order issued by the board would be liable to the board for a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $5,000 for each day in which a violation occurs. These funds would be deposited in the Water Rights Fund. (3) Existing law authorizes the board to investigate all streams, stream systems, lakes, or other bodies of water, take testimony relating to the rights to water or the use of water, and ascertain whether water filed upon or attempted to be appropriated is appropriated under the laws of the state. Existing law requires the board to take appropriate actions to prevent waste or the unreasonable use of water. Under existing law, the board makes determinations with regard to the availability of recycled water. This bill would authorize the board, in conducting an investigation or proceeding for these purposes, to order any person or entity that diverts water or uses water to submit, under penalty of perjury, any technical or monitoring report related to the diversion or use of water by that person or entity. By expanding the definition of the crime of perjury, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would authorize the board, in connection with the investigation or proceeding, to inspect the facilities of any person or entity to determine compliance with specified water use requirements. (4) Existing law authorizes the board, upon the submission of a petition signed by a claimant to water of any stream system requesting a determination of rights among the claimants to that water, to enter an order granting the petition. After granting the petition, the board is required to investigate the stream system to gather information necessary to make a determination of the water rights of that stream system. This bill would authorize the board to initiate a determination of rights under its own motion if after a hearing it finds that the public interest and necessity will be served by a determination of rights. (5) Existing law declares that the diversion or use of water other than as authorized by specified provisions of law is a trespass. Existing law authorizes the administrative imposition of civil liability by the board for a trespass in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which the trespass occurs. Moneys generated by the imposition of civil liability under these provisions are deposited in the Water Rights Fund. This bill would provide that a person or entity committing a trespass may be liable in an amount not to exceed the sum of $1,000 for each day in which the trespass occurs and $1,000 for each acre-foot of water diverted or used other than as authorized by those specified provisions of law. (6) Existing law, with certain exceptions, requires each person who, after December 31, 1965, diverts water to file with the board a statement of diversion and use. This bill would establish a rebuttable presumption, in any proceeding before the board in which it is alleged that an appropriative right has ceased or is subject to prescribed action, that no use required to be included in a statement of diversion and use occurred unless that use is included in a statement that is submitted to the board within a specified time period. The bill would require a person who files a statement of diversion and use, and certain petitions involving a change in a water right, to pay an annual fee, for deposit in the Water Rights Fund. The bill would include as recoverable costs, for which the board may be reimbursed from the fund upon appropriation therefor, costs incurred in connection with carrying out requirements relating to the statements of diversion and use and the performance of duties under the public trust doctrine and provisions that require the reasonable use of water. (7) Existing law authorizes the board to issue a cease and desist order against a person who is violating, or threatening to violate, certain requirements, including requirements set forth in a decision or order relating to the unauthorized use of water. Any person who violates a cease and desist order may be liable in an amount not to exceed $1,000 for each day in which the violation occurs. Revenue generated from these penalties is deposited in the Water Rights Fund. This bill would authorize the board to issue a cease and desist order in response to a violation of certain requirements relating to the unauthorized diversion or use of water or of a reporting or monitoring requirement established under a decision, order, or regulation adopted by the board pursuant to various provisions of law, including the public trust doctrine. The bill would increase the civil penalties that apply to a person who violates a cease and desist order by subjecting a violator to a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed the sum of $2,500 for each day in which the violation occurs and $2,500 for each acre-foot of water diverted or used in violation of the cease and desist order. The bill would impose civil liability, in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which a violation occurs, for a failure to comply with various reporting or monitoring requirements, including requirements imposed pursuant to the public trust doctrine. The bill would authorize the board to impose additional civil liability, in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which a violation occurs, for the violation of a permit, license, certificate, or registration, or an order or regulation involving the unreasonable use of water. Funds derived from the imposition of these civil penalties would be deposited in the Water Rights Fund. The bill would require the board to adjust for inflation, by January 1 of each year, beginning in 2011, the amounts of civil and administrative liabilities or penalties imposed by the board in water right actions, as specified. The bill would require that, in a proceeding before the board in which it is alleged that an appropriative water right has ceased, or is subject to prescribed action, there would be a rebuttable presumption that no use occurred on or after January 1, 2009, unless that diversion or use was reported to the board within six months after it is required to be filed with the board. (8) 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. (9) 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. (10) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. (11) These provisions would only become operative if AB 39, AB 49, SB 12, and SB 458 of the 2009–10 Regular Session of the Legislature, relating to water use and resource management, are enacted and become effective on or before January 1, 2010.