Groundwater.

(1) Existing law authorizes specified entities, including, among others, local agencies managing a groundwater basin or subbasin pursuant to existing law relating to groundwater management plans or integrated regional water management plans, to assume responsibility for monitoring and reporting groundwater elevations in all or a part of a groundwater basin or subbasin. Existing law requires an entity seeking to assume those functions to notify the Department of Water Resources, and requires the department to determine which entities will perform monitoring functions. Existing law requires monitoring entities to commence monitoring and reporting groundwater elevations on or before January 1, 2012. This bill would add to the list of entities that may assume responsibility for monitoring and reporting groundwater elevations, a local agency that has been collecting and reporting groundwater elevations and that does not have a groundwater management plan, if the local agency adopts a groundwater management plan in accordance with specified provisions of existing law by January 1, 2014. The bill would permit the department to authorize the local agency to conduct monitoring and reporting of groundwater elevations on an interim basis, until the local agency adopts a groundwater management plan or until January 1, 2014, whichever occurs first. The bill would authorize a monitoring entity to report groundwater elevations using specified alternate monitoring techniques for certain groundwater basins and subbasins meeting prescribed conditions. The bill would condition this authorization upon submission of a report to the department and a determination by the department that the monitoring entity may use the alternate monitoring techniques. The bill would require a monitoring entity, every 3 years, to submit to the department information establishing its continued eligibility to use the alternate monitoring techniques. (2) Existing law requires the department to identify the extent of monitoring of groundwater elevations that is being undertaken within specified groundwater basins and subbasins. If the department determines that all or part of a basin or subbasin is not being monitored, the department is required to attempt to contact all well owners within the area not being monitored and determine if there is an interest in establishing a specified groundwater management plan, integrated regional water management plan, or voluntary groundwater monitoring association. If the department determines that there is insufficient interest in establishing a plan or association, and the county decides not to perform groundwater monitoring and reporting functions, the department is required to determine whether existing monitoring wells provide sufficient information to demonstrate seasonal and long-term trends in groundwater elevations. If the department determines that the monitoring wells provide insufficient information to demonstrate those trends, and the State Mining and Geology Board concurs with that determination, the department is required to perform groundwater monitoring functions. This bill would delete the requirement that the State Mining and Geology Board concur with the department's determination regarding the sufficiency of information provided by existing monitoring wells for purposes of the department's performance of groundwater monitoring functions.