DATE: June 5, 2018
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Director of Utilities & Environmental Services
SUBJECT
Title
Sustainable Groundwater Management: Authorization for the City Manager to Execute a Cooperating Agreement with the East Bay Municipal Utility District for Preparation of a Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the East Bay Plain Subbasin
End
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
That Council adopts a resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute a Cooperating Agreement with the East Bay Municipal Utility District to jointly prepare a Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the East Bay Plain Subbasin.
End
SUMMARY
In June 2017, the State formally designated Hayward as the Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) for the portion of the East Bay Plain Subbasin that underlies the City. The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is the GSA for the remaining portion of the Subbasin. GSAs for medium-priority ranked groundwater basin are responsible for developing and implementing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to sustainably manage the utilization of groundwater within its management area. In accordance with previous direction from the Council Sustainability Committee (CSC) and City Council, staff has negotiated a Cooperating Agreement with EBMUD, under which the parties would agree to work together and share the costs to prepare a single GSP for the East Bay Plain Subbasin. Staff is requesting that Council authorize the execution of a Cooperating Agreement with EBMUD. EBMUD's Board was briefed on the State's latest developments and moved forward with authorizing execution of the Cooperating Agreement on May 22, 2018.
The State is currently going through a process to reprioritize basins. On May 18, 2018, the State released information that could potentially result in the East Bay Plain Subbasin being re-classified as a very low-priority basin, making preparation of a GSP a voluntary, rather than a m...
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