Groundwater: pumped hydroelectric energy storage systems: Joshua Tree National Park.

Existing law provides for the management and monitoring of groundwater. Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans, except as specified. Existing law authorizes a local agency, as defined, to adopt and implement a groundwater management plan for a groundwater basin designated as a low- or very low-priority basin by the department. Under existing law, the State Water Resources Control Board and the 9 California regional water quality control boards regulate water quality in accordance with the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act and the federal Clean Water Act. This bill would require a person who extracts or uses water from a groundwater basin within 20 miles of Joshua Tree National Park for purposes of construction and operation of a closed-loop pumped hydroelectric energy storage system to submit to the state board any plans, technical reports, or monitoring data reports related to groundwater required under any license for hydroelectric generation issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The bill would require those materials submitted to the state board to include certain other information relating to groundwater monitoring and environmental impacts. The bill would require the person to report the materials to the state board on the same schedule and in the same manner as provided in the license. The bill would make a person who fails to timely submit those materials subject to a penalty of up to $10,000 per day, as assessed by the state board. The bill would require the state board to review the materials and would authorize it, if it concludes the person is not in compliance with its hydroelectric generating license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to petition the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of the license. The bill would prohibit the extraction of groundwater in excess of maximum allowable change thresholds, as defined, by a pumped hydroelectric energy storage facility unless the extraction is permitted following consideration of an action or project that requires discretionary approval by a state or local governmental entity. The bill would subject extraction of groundwater beyond those thresholds to civil liability in an amount not to exceed $10 per gallon of excess groundwater extracted, with the aggregate penalty not to exceed $1,000,000. The bill would establish the Joshua Tree National Park Environmental Protection Fund and would require civil penalties imposed under the bill to be deposited in the fund. The bill would make moneys in the fund available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to mitigate the environmental harms caused by the extraction or use of water from a groundwater basin within 20 miles of the boundaries of Joshua Tree National Park for purposes of construction and operation of a pumped hydroelectric energy storage system.