§ 831.5.Adjudication Action For a Basin Required to Have a Groundwater Sustainability Plan

Many groundwater basins subject to comprehensive adjudication are also subject to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local groundwater sustainability agencies to manage those basins going forward. Section 831.5 connects the litigation to that ongoing management by requiring transparency between the two.

In an adjudication for a basin that must have a groundwater sustainability plan, the court appoints one party to forward every case management order, judgment, and interlocutory order to the groundwater sustainability agency within ten business days of issuance. The agency then posts those documents on its website within twenty business days, except for anything the court has sealed. If a basin has more than one groundwater sustainability agency, those agencies decide together, in consultation with the parties, which one handles the posting.

Subdivision (c) has the court allocate the costs the appointed party incurs in forwarding these documents among the parties, in whatever amount and manner the court considers equitable — consistent with the broader cost-allocation approach this chapter uses elsewhere, such as in §§ 845 and 850.