California Water Market Clearinghouse.

Existing law, the Costa-Isenberg Water Transfer Act of 1986, requires the Department of Water Resources to establish an ongoing program to facilitate the voluntary exchange or transfer of water and implement the various laws that pertain to water transfers. The act requires the department to create and maintain a list of entities seeking to enter into water supply transfers, leases, exchanges, or other similar arrangements and to maintain a list of the physical facilities that may be available to carry out water supply transfers. The act requires the department to prepare a water transfer guide with prescribed components. This bill, on and after July 1, 2018, would establish the California Water Market Clearinghouse as an independent office within the Natural Resources Agency for the purpose of making the water transfer and exchange process more transparent and more efficient and to enhance access to voluntary water market transactions, as specified. This bill would require the clearinghouse, on or before December 31, 2018, to create a centralized water market platform on its Internet Web site that provides ready access to information that has been provided about water available for transfer or exchange and information about the process for transferring or exchanging water. The bill would require the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to convene a Water Market Clearinghouse Task Force, composed as prescribed, and would require the task force to make recommendations to the clearinghouse, as specified. The bill, on or before December 31, 2018, would require the clearinghouse to consider and act upon the recommendations submitted by the task force in order to establish administrative procedures under which state agencies would more expediently act upon proposed water transfers or exchanges and would prioritize projects that provide environmental and community benefits or have a demonstrated history of minimal potential impact to other legal water users or instream beneficial uses. The bill would require the clearinghouse to work in collaboration with other state agencies to make necessary changes in the rules and regulations governing water transfers and exchanges. This bill would require all transfers or exchanges of water occurring on or after January 1, 2020, that require conveyance across the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or result in conveyance of water from one watershed to another to be submitted to the clearinghouse and processed, as specified, and would require the payment of an administrative fee to the clearinghouse for this processing, as specified. The bill, on or before December 31, 2018, would require the agency to create an Office of the Water Transfer Advocate within the clearinghouse and to appoint an advocate.