Managing Groundwater Depletions Impacting Surface Water
SECTION 14. MANAGING GROUNDWATER DEPLETIONS IMPACTING SURFACE WATER
The primary surface water feature in the Santa Ana Canyon Management Area is the Santa Ana River. In the Santa Ana Canyon Management Area, the Santa Ana River is a soft-bottomed channel that supports riparian habitat. Riparian habitat is dependent on river water released through Prado Dam, which is predominantly treated wastewater discharged in the upper watershed when storm flow is not present. Groundwater within the Santa Ana Canyon alluvial aquifer is consistently 20 to 30 feet below ground surface and even shallower in the incised portions of the Santa Ana River channel. As described in Section 4, Water Budget, the flow of surface water through the canyon is two orders of magnitude larger than groundwater production. As a result, groundwater production has a de minimis impact on groundwater conditions and the flows of surface water through the canyon. This, in turn, means that groundwater production in the Santa Ana Canyon has a de minimis impact on the groundwater dependent ecosystems in the Santa Ana Canyon Management Area. Therefore, the undesirable result of “depletions of interconnected surface water that have significant and unreasonable adverse impacts on beneficial uses of the surface water due to groundwater conditions occurring throughout the basin” does not apply.
BASIN 8-1 ALTERNATIVE 2022 UPDATE
14-1
Appendix F - 273
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