Prop 1 Sustainable Groundwater Planning Grant Program – Counties with Stressed Basins Grant

The County of Fresno was awarded $500,000.00 from the Proposition 1 Sustainable Groundwater Planning (SGWP) Grant Program’s Counties with Stressed Basins Grant to develop a Kings/Westside Groundwater Basin Boundary Monitoring Program.

The Proposition 1 SGWP funds were made available to counties with stressed groundwater basins to do the following: 1) update or develop County groundwater ordinances to improve sustainable management of groundwater, and 2) update or develop plans that protect basins and their beneficial uses and help facilitate basin-wide sustainable groundwater management or actions that will lead to the update or development of such plans.

This project was completed in July 2018.

PROJECT: Kings/Westside Groundwater Basin Boundary Monitoring Program

This project was developed through a collaborative process between the County of Fresno, Westlands Water District, Kings River Conservation District, and local agencies with groundwater authority. The purpose of this project is to improve groundwater monitoring at the boundary between the Kings and Westside Groundwater Subbasins by 1) installing no less than four groundwater monitoring wells, 2) develop a countywide Ordinance that would protect designated monitoring wells from being destroyed, and 3) adding private wells to the monitoring network by seeking permission of the local well owners.

Benefits of this project include having a common set of wells to be monitored on either side of the boundary between the subbasins, provide new groundwater data for water balance analysis, and inform decisions related to groundwater sustainability.