BECKWOURTH — This month’s regular meeting of the Board of Directors for the Sierra Valley Groundwater Management District (SVGMD), held on Monday, July 17, at the Sierra Christian Church in Beckwourth from 6 pm to 7:30 pm, opened with a report by the District’s metering technician, Jay Herbert. As it happened, his data showed July’s depth to water below ground surface at both the ten representative monitoring wells within the Sierra Valley Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) and at another fourteen historically monitored wells drawing water from the Sierra Valley aquifer was less than the District’s GSP goal for all but two of the wells. Moreover, the gap between the GSP goals for these two wells, both in the vicinity of Calpine, was very slight.

Next, after approving a well permit application for the Sierraville Public Utility District’s proposed Railroad Spring project, the Board also approved three out of the four companies who responded to the Board’s request for Statements of Qualifications concerning GSP implementation work expected to commence in late 2023 and 2024.

Consideration of the GSP implementation funding and other grant applications were the next items on the Board’s agenda. As for the $5.450 million application to the California Dept. of Water Resources (CDWR) for assistance with GSP implementation, including data collection and management, annual reports, five-year updates to the GSP, projects and management actions, plus grant administration, the Board was told the final award amount would be announced by CDWR in October and agreements signed by January 2024.

Meanwhile, a $1.547 million grant proposal focused on agricultural irrigation efficiency and recharge in the Little Last Chance area is due for submission to the Plumas Watershed Forum by July 28, 2023. Having just received a draft proposal on July 17, the Board authorized the Board’s chairman, Einen Grundi, to sign the final document prior to its submission.

As for Resolution 23-05, the document authorizing the SVGMD to enter into a $809,076 grant agreement with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife for the purpose of planning and acquiring necessary permits for a groundwater recharge project on private and public land in southwest Sierra Valley near Smithneck and Badnaugh Creeks and the town of Loyalton, members the Board had serious reservations because the agreement’s Project Statement noted the “Sierra Valley supports one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the Sierra Nevada Mountains” providing “critical habitat to over 230 bird species” and plays “a crucial role in freshwater wetland carbon sequestration,“ and “The purpose of this Project is to increase availability of shallow groundwater to this meadow system and to domestic wells as well as improve climate resiliency.”

Since, according to more than one member of the Board, these statements mean the project is not a deep aquifer recharge effort the District supports, the Board decided to form a committee charged with changing the concept of the grant to make it concentrate on the injection of surplus water into the areas of the aquifer being depleted by agricultural irrigation. As Board member Dave Goicoechea said, “Enhancing a meadow is not a recharge project.”