Conservation & Groundwater Management

Water Conservation 

The New Normal

Water conservation continues to be the cornerstone of our Community Water Plan. Using water efficiently is the “new normal” to preserve our precious resource. Even though we have had some wet winters, we’ve been in a Stage 3 water shortage since 2014 due to the basin's historical overdraft. We maintain the “Biggest Water Rebates Program in the County,” and we encourage you to check out the nearly 30 types of rebates for homes and businesses that will save you water and money.

Groundwater Management

Assuring a Healthy Groundwater Basin

Groundwater is the district's sole source of supply, so proactive groundwater management continues to be a critical component of its efforts. We are working hard to manage our groundwater resources to meet increasingly stringent water quality regulations and our goal of water supply sustainability. We maintain our Monitoring Well Network Program, consisting of over 80 monitoring wells which are sampled for water quality and tracked for water levels in order to track seawater intrusion at our coastline. We are also redistributing pumping away from the coast according to our  Well Master Plan EIR — spreading out pump locations in this way helps reduce seawater intrusion from moving farther inland. We are a member of the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency — a partnership between the City and County of Santa Cruz, Central Water District, and the District — for the purpose of collaborating to meet the California state mandate of sustaining the groundwater basin by the year 2040 under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). 

 Groundwater Sustainability Plan (approved by DWR in 2021)

Annual Reports and Other Documents