OCWD Management Area
Existing monitoring and management programs in place today enable OCWD to sustainably manage the groundwater basin. Since its founding in 1933, OCWD has developed a managed aquifer recharge program, constructed hundreds of monitoring wells, developed an extensive water quality monitoring program, installed seawater intrusion barriers, and doubled the volume of groundwater production while protecting the long-term sustainability of the groundwater resource. OCWD’s management of the OCWD Management Area will continue to provide long- term sustainable basin management that is able to adapt to changing conditions affecting the groundwater basin.
1.6.1 Sustainable Management: Water Levels
OCWD manages the basin for long-term sustainability by maximizing groundwater recharge and managing basin production within sustainable levels. Long-term groundwater level trends demonstrate the undesirable result of “chronic lowering of groundwater levels indicating a significant and unreasonable depletion of supply” is not present. Hydrographs representative of long-term water levels in the basin are shown in Figure 1-6. These hydrographs demonstrate that groundwater levels in the OCWD Management Area are being managed at long-term sustainable levels. Chronic lowering of groundwater levels is not anticipated to occur in the future in the OCWD Management Area due to OCWD’s management programs .
1.6.2 Sustainable Management: Basin Storage
OCWD manages basin storage within an established operating range of up to 500,000 acre-feet below full condition. Maintaining basin storage within this range protects the basin from detrimental impacts such as land subsidence, chronic lowering of groundwater levels and chronic reduction in storage. OCWD manages groundwater pumping such that it is sustainable over the long-term; however, in any given year pumping may exceed recharge or vice versa. Thus, the amount of groundwater stored in or withdrawn from the basin varies from year to year and often goes through multi-year cycles of emptying and filling, which typically correlates with state-wide and/or local precipitation patterns and other factors.
BASIN 8-1 ALTERNATIVE 2022 UPDATE
Executive Summary 1-10
Appendix F - 76
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