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California Senate Passes Groundwater Management Plan

California Department of Water Resources

With days to go before the end of the legislative session, the California Senate passed a groundwater management plan Wednesday. Katie Orr reports from Sacramento.

Forty percent of California’s water comes from groundwater, yet the state has never had a plan to manage it. That could soon change if a measure approved in the Senate makes it through the rest of the legislative process.

The bill would require local governments to set up groundwater management agencies. The agencies would have five years to implement a management plan.

The need for management is widely acknowledged, but Republican Senator Tom Berryhill says this bill has been rushed.

Berryhill: “And I think, to be fair, that we should come back the first of the year, have hearings, completely vet this thing so make sure that we don’t make mistakes and do this thing right.”

But Democratic Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson says the groundwater bill has been debated for months and it’s time to act.

Jackson: “In California we say we haven’t had a groundwater policy for 100 years, why start now? I say we start now. We should have started a long time ago.”

The bill passed on a 26 to 11 vote. It must now be taken up by the Assembly.

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