Resources
News items, technical and related project reports, FAQs, and documents will be posted here, as they become available.
General FAQs
The Sutter Groundwater Subbasin is generally described as being in the “central portion of the Sacramento Valley Groundwater Basin” in DWR’s Bulletin 118 (California’s Groundwater). It is bounded on the north by the confluence of Butte Creek and the Sacramento River and Sutter Buttes, on the west by the Sacramento River, on the south by the confluence of the Sacramento River and the Sutter Bypass, and on the east by the Feather River and the eastern boundary with the Sutter-Yuba County line.
SGMA defines groundwater sustainability as “the management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without causing undesirable results.” What does this mean? A sustainable groundwater basin is one in which the water use is balanced with the water replenishment from rainfall, surface water, and other sources and water quality is maintained to meet all designated beneficial uses.
The earth has limited supplies of water. Groundwater and surface water are essentially one resource, physically connected by the water cycle, in which water evaporates, forms clouds, and falls to the ground as rain or snow. Some of this precipitation seeps into the ground and becomes groundwater that moves slowly into an underground aquifer. If there is no precipitation, then there is no water returning to the groundwater basin and the groundwater supply is not “recharged” or refilled.
The Sutter Subbasin has been managed for many years under the Sutter County Groundwater Management Plan to ensure the quantity and quality of groundwater in the county is sustained. The nine GSAs that manage the basin are currently collaborating on a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (or GSP) in accordance with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
