Sonoma County supervisors approve rules for new wells

A divided Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a new policy governing well permitting and oversight.

The regulations — passed 3-2 — are designed to align with more stringent state groundwater standards and court rulings.

They will require certain high-volume users to comply with new monitoring requirements and, in some cases, to pass a closer study of potential environmental impacts.

Those applications falling under the closer analysis will also pay thousands of dollars more — up to eight times the existing rate for an over-the-counter well review.

The process is meant to give the county a way to gauge the potential impact of new wells on the region’s major rivers and feeder streams, considered public trust resources

The regulations will take effect on May 18, the same day the county’s moratorium on well drilling expires.

Permit Sonoma, the county’s permitting and planning department, must now work on implementing the new regulations and is expected to provide an update next year.

That process will include revising online applications to reflect the new rules, processing a backlog of permits and developing a path and guidelines for analyzing public trust impacts, said Robert Pennington, a geologist with Permit Sonoma.

The department also is expected to outline what additional staff and funding outside of fee collection it might need to carry the new program forward.

Under the policy, new wells within a certain distance of the county’s major rivers and tributaries — in a designated area covering more than 300 square miles — could be subject to the higher level of regulations and well monitoring, called a Public Trust Review.

Wells exempt from the more stringent process include those using no more than 2 acre feet of water annually and those outside of the designated Public Trust Review Area. (An acre foot is 326,000 gallons, or about the amount of water used by up to two average California households in a year.)

A Public Trust Review would require a deposit of $5,568, equivalent to 32 hours of work by an engineer or biologist, according to county staff.

Those exempt from the stringent review would pay the existing rate for over-the-counter review ― between $625 to $750 ― and an additional $763 to $818 for inspections.

About half of the wells permitted by the county over a five-year period since 2017 would have been subject to the tougher rules had they been in place. More than 40,000 wells are estimated to exist countywide, according to Permit Sonoma.

Supervisors Susan Gorin and Chris Coursey, board chair, voted against the new regulations, citing the same concerns that inspired their “no” votes two weeks ago when the proposal came before the board.

They felt defining low water use as up 2 acre feet of water was too high a threshold, and felt the county should expand its metering requirements beyond wells using more than 5 acre feet of water.

“I think we’ve missed the opportunity to do more,” said Coursey. “We’ve missed the opportunity to collect more data with metering. We are allowing too much extraction without knowing when and where it’s happening.”

The county’s permitting department is planning to launch a voluntary program for those with low-use residential wells to participate in metering.

Residents and environmental advocates voiced similar concerns and called the county’s regulations vague in how they would effectively track and mitigate overdrafting of groundwater.

“There has been no evaluation as to whether that amount of water has an impact on public trust resources,” said Jessie Maxfield, who worked on the county’s policy technical working group.

Mike Martini, a local vintner and former Santa Rosa mayor who served as co-chair on the policy working group, said he worried the board was hearing “a lot of one-sidedness” not reflective of all the people who worked on the effort.

“All of the conversations — these were all talked about at the poilcy and technical working group,” Martini said.

A now-settled lawsuit filed in 2021 by the Coastkeeper Alliance prompted Sonoma County to launch the push for new regulations.

Supervisors Lynda Hopkins, David Rabbitt and James Gore, who formed the board’s supportive majority, said they were a step in the right direction.

Hopkins cited high housing costs as her reason for supporting the 2-acre-feet definition, noting that some people may need to add accessory dwelling units or start growing their own food to alleviate the high cost of living.

“This is not a perfect ordinance,” Hopkins said. “This is a hell of a lot better than what we have right now, which is nothing.”

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.