At its Aug. 13 meeting, the SVBGSA Board of Directors selected Portfolio 3A as the preferred suite of projects and management actions in the Integrated Implementation Strategy (IIS), following information from the Advisory Committee and staff.
The SVBGSA’s IIS serves as a roadmap that integrates technical work into policy aimed at achieving and maintaining sustainable groundwater in all six subbasins. The decision follows years of work by SVBGSA staff and technical consultants who researched and presented groundwater modeling results, economic analysis, cost estimates and evaluation criteria grading at a series of meetings.
The selection of Portfolio 3A came with support from the agricultural communities in northern and southern Monterey County. The portfolio includes:
- Small Brackish Groundwater Recharge Project (BGRP) with partial direct delivery and partial injection
- Castroville and Eastside recharge basins
- Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project optimization
- 10% agricultural demand management
- Deep Aquifers demand management
- Corral de Tierra demand management
This portfolio substantially addresses seawater intrusion, provides reliability through a diversified supply source, balances cost and effectiveness, allows for continued evaluation and refinement of portfolio components, and supports analysis of alternative source options and contingency projects.The estimated capital cost to implement Portfolio 3A is slightly over $1 billion with an ongoing annual operations and maintenance price tag of nearly $75 million.
Though the Board selected the portfolio, it doesn’t authorize individual projects or commit funding. Each project and management action in the selected portfolio will require separate planning, environmental review, permitting, finance and further approvals at future Board meetings.