A Groundwater Sustainability Agency is one or more local governmental agencies that implement the provisions of SGMA. A local agency is defined as one that has water supply, water management or land management authority. GSAs assess the conditions of their local basins, adopt locally-based sustainable management plans to create drought resiliency, and improve coordination between land use and groundwater planning.

All Groundwater Sustainability Agencies must be formed by June 2017.

Forming a GSA, then developing and implementing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), will require both start-up and ongoing costs. As part of the GSA formation, the agencies will determine how to share costs for developing and implementing the GSP. GSAs may also take advantage of grants and other funding opportunities, such as Proposition 1 bond funds, to help create and implement a GSP.

Under SGMA, GSAs are empowered to:

• Adopt rules, regulations, ordinances, and resolutions to implement the Act
• Monitor compliance and enforcement
• Require registration of groundwater extraction facilities (wells)
• Require appropriate measurement devices and reporting of extractions
• Investigate, appropriate, and acquire surface water rights, groundwater, and groundwater rights into the GSA;
• Acquire or augment local water supplies to enhance the sustainability of the groundwater basin
• Propose and collect fees
• Adopt and fund a groundwater sustainability plan according to existing laws

The GSA may use a number of management tools to achieve sustainability goals. The specific tools and methods the GSA will use to achieve sustainability will be determined in discussion with stakeholders and identified in the GSP.

It is also important to note that SGMA requires local agencies to acknowledge Groundwater Sustainability Plans when a legislative body is adopting or substantially amending its General Plan. General Plans must accurately reflect the information in the Groundwater Sustainability Plan with regards to available water supplies.

As public entities, the local agencies joining together to form a GSA will review the formation process and GSP adoption process as part of their regularly noticed public meetings. The agencies also anticipate conducting workshops and creating other opportunities for input.

Each GSA must decide on the which governance structure to adopt. Common governance structures for GSAs include the use of a Memorandum of Agreement or a Joint Powers Authority.

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) is the agency responsible for oversight of the GSAs and GSPs formation. DWR has a list of regulations, objectives and actions formulated to assist local agencies and GSAs with the preparation and implementation of GSPs. Under law, all regulations adopted by DWR only become effective only upon approval by the California Water Commission. Under a limited set of circumstances, the State Water Board may intervene if local efforts to form a GSA or prepare a viable GSP are not successful. 

The regulations require that all GSAs coordinate with adjacent GSAs in a given basin. This coordination will occur through additional discussions with neighboring agencies as GSAs are formally developed, and the GSPs will describe how the adjacent GSAs will work together to achieve groundwater sustainability. 

Not directly. However, this new groundwater management framework acknowledges the connectivity of surface water and groundwater, and that they are to be managed as “a single resource.”