The Central Coast Branch Presents

The Disconnect Between Groundwater Legal Systems and Groundwater Hydrology: What Changes Should Be Made to Groundwater Law to Better Reflect the Physical Environment?

David Sandino, Esq.
Senior Staff Counsel California Department of Water Resources

PRESENTATION:

Groundwater is essential to meet California’s consumptive and environmental water needs. In dry years, as much as forty-five percent of the state’s total consumptive water use is satisfied by groundwater. Groundwater overdraft, land subsidence, water quality degradation, and seawater intrusion are major groundwater problems that occur in certain regions of the state and present challenges to sustainable groundwater management. Effective groundwater legal systems are essential to address these problems and manage groundwater sustainably. Groundwater use has been managed and regulated historically based on real property concepts under the correlative rights doctrine. This form of groundwater management has resulted in the adjudication of the groundwater rights in some groundwater basins, and has provided a management tool for these basins. In 2014 California adopted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which confers significant authority to local agencies. SGMA implementation will ultimately have to rely on sound groundwater legal systems to achieve its sustainability goals. Some aspects of the groundwater legal systems do not accurately reflect the physical environment, posing challenges for effective groundwater management. For instance, groundwater law developed independently of surface water rights laws, and does not fully reflect the interconnection between groundwater and surface waters. Likewise, groundwater legal systems have failed to adequately model how groundwater quality may be impaired in the environment or in some cases have exempted groundwater degradation from regulation all together. This presentation will review groundwater legal systems, describing areas where they do not accurately reflect the physical environment and pose problems for effective groundwater management. The presentation will propose changes to groundwater legal systems that better reflect the physical environment with the goal of improved groundwater management.

SPEAKER BIO:

David Sandino served as Chief Counsel for the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) from 2006-2010 under an appointment by Government Arnold Schwarzenegger and currently serves as senior staff counsel. He has worked on significant water, environmental, tribal, and energy issues during his twenty-five year career with the Department. He also served as General Counsel for the Central Valley Flood Control Board from 2000-2004. The Department operates the largest state-built water system in the United States, which delivers water to 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. His academic career has centered on teaching professional and undergraduate natural resource courses. He has taught water law, environmental law, renewable energy law, real property and local government law at Texas Tech University School of Law, Boyd School of Law at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Santa Clara University School of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, Golden Gate University School of Law, Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, University of Redlands, and Sacramento State University. Mr. Sandino also created and teaches courses for environmental professionals on California water law and policy, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and tribal water law. He received a distinguished teaching award from the UC Davis Extension for his contribution to natural science education. He received a 1999 Fulbright Fellowship to teach in Russia, where he taught international environmental law at the Moscow State Academy, and he is an active member of the Fulbright Association. He is on the Board of Editors of California Environmental Law Reporter, and he has written numerous articles about natural resources issues. He has been a frequent speaker and lecturer on water, tribal, and environmental issues at universities, conferences and seminars. He is a graduate of the Santa Clara University School of Law, King’s College (London), and UC Davis.

MEETING COSTS:

Registration closes at 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 1, 2019.

Members: $25.00
Non-Members: $30.00
Students: $10.00

If you have questions about the meeting, please call Dan Detmer at 805-525-4431 or email him at dand@unitedwater.org.