A Sonoma County judge has ruled that the county violated state environmental law in its recent attempt to draft a controversial ordinance that would regulate well and groundwater use across a wide swath of the region.
Superior Court Judge Bradford DeMeo's ruling leaves the county's 16-month-old rules in limbo and raises questions about how permitting new wells will affect rural residents and farmers living in an area of more than 300 square miles, nearly one-fifth of the county.
The county did not disclose the immediate impact on those permit applications, and a county spokesman said the ruling is still under review..
The ruling is the latest development in a long-running legal battle between the county and environmental groups who say the pumping of large amounts of groundwater is harming rivers and aquatic life. They argue the county needs to study those effects more thoroughly and develop stricter regulations to protect public natural resources.
“Our ultimate goal is to bring the system into balance so that surface water rights holders receive their fair share of the river’s water, groundwater pumpers have a sustainable amount of water to pump, and aquatic life and public trust resources like salmon have the water they need to survive,” said Sean Boswell, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance.
The Sacramento-based environmental group filed the lawsuit alongside locally-based Russian Riverkeeper on May 24, 2023, shortly after the Board of Supervisors approved the ordinance in April.
In a 40-page ruling handed down last week, Judge DeMeo found that the county had not adequately considered the new ordinance's impacts on local waterways and groundwater supplies, as required by California's Public Trust Doctrine, and that the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act by arguing that its policy was exempt from environmental review.
The ordinance aims to bring the county into compliance with the state's Public Trust Doctrine, which requires local governments to protect certain waterways for public uses, such as commerce, recreation, navigation, habitat, etc. In Sonoma County, affected waterways include the Russian River, Petaluma River and Sonoma Creek.
Sonoma County has about 40,000 wells and about 23,000 parcels that rely on groundwater from private wells as their primary water source, according to the county's permitting department website.
Environmentalists have long pointed to the cumulative impacts of groundwater use, including on river flows and the wildlife they support.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit argued that county officials did not make sufficient efforts to comply with state regulations and did not adequately analyze the effectiveness of the well ordinance in protecting natural resources.
Bothwell of the California Coastkeeper Alliance and Russian Riverkeeper Executive Director Don McEnhill said the county's process requires more detailed analysis and data collection on the impacts of groundwater pumping.
“I think that was missing,” Bothwell said. “There just wasn't any data to really develop a long-term plan and it seemed like the county just wanted to rush and get something on the record.”
The ordinance in question has a rocky history: It was drafted in response to a 2021 lawsuit by the California Coastkeeper Alliance that halted well drilling for six months. It took nine months for the new ordinance to be passed.
In December 2022, the county agreed to pay $325,000 to settle the 2021 lawsuit.
Under the revised policy, new wells that use more than two acre-feet of water per year within the designated public trust review area (which covers 313 square miles, or 18 percent of the county) must comply with new monitoring requirements and undergo a more thorough review process, in which applicants must provide additional information, including water use estimates, construction details and hydrogeological reports.
Wells exempt from the more stringent procedures include wells that use 2 acre-feet of water or less per year and wells that are located outside designated public trust review areas. Residential wells that use up to 2 acre-feet of water are also exempt from meters.
The county struggled to pass the ordinance, largely due to a divide between environmental groups, who wanted broader, stricter regulations, and farmers and rural residents who worried the tougher regulations would be burdensome.
Critics of the policy said it was vague in defining how counties would effectively track and mitigate groundwater overpumping and questioned how counties would determine how much water use required strict review.
The commission was similarly divided when it voted 3-2 to adopt the ordinance.
Supervisors James Gore, Linda Hopkins and David Rabbitt voted in favor, but Supervisors Susan Golin and Chris Coursey voted against the policy, taking issue with how the county defined low water consumption and what they felt was an inadequate plan for collecting water use data.
In his ruling, Judge DeMeo criticized the county for failing to conduct a thorough analysis and show both that the ordinance effectively protects public waterways and that it is exempt from environmental impact review under CEQA, the state's fundamental environmental law.
“The only evidence here is that (the county) was told that the proposed amendments could have significant cumulative impacts, but that insufficient evidence made it impossible to determine that,” DeMeo wrote. “Faced with concerns, (the county) appears to have decided not to obtain the evidence and analysis it was told it needed, and thus 'considered' the issue.”
County communications director Paul Gullikson said the county is “evaluating” the impact of the ruling.
“It is still under review and the board will decide how to respond and whether to appeal, but we have no further comment at this time,” Gullickson said.
McEnhill said he expects the county to revisit the ordinance and invest in a deeper analysis.
“There is a path forward to proceed with permitting wells, but certain conditions must be met to avoid those impacts,” McEnhill said. “We think there is a way to make that happen, so we're hopeful that this lawsuit will lead the way.”
Staff writer Emma Murphy can be reached at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter: @MurphReports.