The Open and Transparent Water Data Act.

Existing law imposes on the Department of Water Resources various duties with respect to water in the state. Under existing law, the State Water Resources Control Board administers a water rights program pursuant to which the state board grants permits and licenses to appropriate water. Existing law regulates water transfers and authorizes a permittee or licensee to change the point of diversion, place of use, or purpose of use due to a transfer or exchange of water or water rights if certain conditions are met. This bill would enact the Open and Transparent Water Data Act. The act would require the department, in consultation with the California Water Quality Monitoring Council, the state board, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, in accordance with a specified schedule, to create, operate, and maintain a statewide integrated water data platform that, among other things, would integrate existing water and ecological data information from multiple databases and provide data on completed water transfers and exchanges. The act would require the department, in consultation with the California Water Quality Monitoring Council, the state board, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, to develop protocols for data sharing, documentation, quality control, public access, and promotion of open-source platforms and decision support tools related to water data and to submit to the Legislature a report on those protocols. The act would require a recipient of state funds through a grant or contract for research or a project relating to the improvement of water or ecological data to adhere to those protocols or be ineligible for state funding. The act would create the Water Data Administration Fund. The act would specify that moneys in the fund would be available, upon appropriation, to the department, the state board, or the Department of Fish and Wildlife for the collection, management, and improvement of water and ecological data for the purposes of the act.