Property owners in the Napa Valley Subbasin got a temporary reprieve on impending fees for pumping groundwater after a vote by Napa County leaders on Tuesday to reduce them.
The Napa County Board of Supervisors, acting as the Napa County Groundwater Sustainability Agency, voted unanimously at its regular meeting to substantially reduce the fees, which range by property type and use.
The fees are part of a statewide campaign to address water basins that are being overdrawn, causing the depletion of future water supplies and sunken earth.
State lawmakers implemented a framework for monitoring and reporting groundwater levels and use with a series of legislation in 2014 known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The Napa Valley Subbasin was identified as a high priority by the California Department of Water Resources. It must be brought into sustainable pumping levels by 2042, meaning no more water is being taken out than is replenished each year.
The fees were adopted at a higher rate for the first time in December after the county created its Groundwater Sustainability Agency, with the lowest amount set at about $38 and the highest at about $130.
The state has been charging fees in the interim that have largely been paid for by the county’s general fund and state grants. The legislation required counties to create groundwater sustainability agencies and empowered them to charge fees to pay for the monitoring program, which will report to the state’s Department of Water Resources.
Variable fee schedule maintained
The new fee schedule maintains the variable rate approved in December based on whether a property is residential or agricultural and reduced each rate by about 55%.
Several commenters representing commercial wine and agricultural businesses told board members that they objected to the rates as they were set, arguing that the county’s stated prioritization of land use for agriculture should make it more evenly distributed between residential users and agricultural users.
The new rates are about $28 per parcel for residential users with wells, and about $45 per planted acre for agricultural users.
Public water system users that draw from the basin will pay a rate of about $58 per acre foot.
The Board of Supervisors voted to implement the new rates and begin collecting them for the current fiscal year, with the first fees set to be included in September property tax bills.
The fees were included on property tax bills to reduce the cost of collecting them, according to the county.
The reduction was offset by a $750,000 expenditure from the Groundwater Sustainability Agency’s budget.