California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) passed in 2014 requires high- and medium-priority basins to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) and develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs). The steps in the GSP development process, shown below, begin with establishing and defining the role of a local advisory committee. Development of the Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin GSP […]

We residents of southern Arizona have a unique relationship with water.  Our water supplies are unseen – pumped from vast underground aquifers or piped hundreds of miles from the Colorado River.  Lacking natural lakes and rivers and with scant rainfall, we invest in backyard pools and irrigated landscapes.  This combination of scarcity and dependency reminds […]

By:  Gary Woodard, Senior Water Policy & Economics Consultant, Montgomery & Associates Arturo Gabaldon, President, Community Water Company of Green Valley Community Water Company of Green Valley (CWC) is a non-profit public service corporation serving customers in Green Valley and Sahuarita for over 40 years.  In July 2015, CWC filed a rate case with the […]

At Montgomery & Associates, our expertise is groundwater.  For more than 30 years, we have helped our clients develop, protect, and sustain this limited resource in arid regions of the western US and South America.  In recent years, as local groundwater supplies are stretched, our clients’ approach to water planning is expanding to all types […]

As a result of this analysis, M&A obtained regulatory approval to use low-flow sampling methods for long-term monitoring, reducing sampling costs by 75 percent. M&A recently had the opportunity to challenge a long-established practice that hydrologists have applied when collecting groundwater samples. This practice, which has been largely driven by environmental regulators, involves “purging” three […]

California’s new funding paradigm for water storage infrastructure requires that projects provide environmental benefits as well as hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of new storage. How will the state reconcile this apparent paradox? The answer is via the Water Storage Investment Program (WSIP). This carefully designed, competitive program includes long-term, state agency oversight to ensure […]

This is Part 1 of two articles on grouted-in pressure transducers. Part 2 will present some case studies to show some innovative applications of this technology. Grouted-in transducers allow the monitoring of pressure heads in multiple aquifer zones — without the costs or regulatory requirements of wells. First introduced in the 1960s, fully grouted pressure […]

Matthew Weber, Ph.D., is a hydrologist and water resources economist who recently joined M&A. During his previous employment at the USEPA, he served as a principal investigator for a study that examines how the public values ecosystem services associated with the Santa Cruz River. This Hydro Note recaps some highlights of this study, which is […]

During the years 1950 to 1980, various chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — including CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-113 — were used in refrigeration and other systems and released into the atmosphere. These substances then passed from the atmosphere to surface water and groundwater via precipitation as part of the hydrologic cycle. The concentrations of CFCs in groundwater in […]

As withdrawals from aquifers increase rapidly in the U.S. and around the world, new technologies must be applied to help manage and sustain groundwater resources. Research clearly shows that many of our critical aquifers are not replenished quickly. Fortunately, considerable progress is being made on one technology for aiding in their replenishment — Managed Aquifer […]