Community Involvement

Importance of Community Involvement

SGMA requires a communications plan to reach and involve the community and stakeholders around the Groundwater Sustainability Plan. The District recognizes that this is a critical aspect of ensuring that this process is transparent, engaging, effective, and fully available to the members of the community. Overall community engagement, which includes involvement of diverse social, cultural, and economic elements of the population within the basin area, helps the District to best consider the full range of interests of all beneficial uses and users of groundwater, as the Plan moves forward.

The general goals of the District’s community engagement efforts are to:

Inform and educate the public about water and groundwater resources, the need for and benefits of sustainable groundwater management, and the process of producing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan
Engage and promote informed, productive feedback from stakeholders, the community, and groundwater-dependent users
Emphasize engagement within the diversity of social, cultural, disadvantaged, and economic elements of the affected community
Respond to public concerns and provide accurate and up-to-date information

To do this, the District is producing and distributing informational fact sheets, providing specific website resources on SGMA/GSP, utilizing social and traditional media, and conducting a number of community workshops around key issues and milestones in the GSP preparation.

Interested community members are encouraged to sign up to receive email updates including notices of upcoming community workshops. The workshop schedule will also be posted on this website.

Although not required by SGMA, the District values the contributions of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), to assist in reviewing and contributing to the technical aspects of the GSP as its elements are produced. The TAC is made up of individuals selected to represent GSP-related subject areas, including but not limited to environmental, technical, and land use planning fields. This diverse group of experts in their respective fields will be responsible for reviewing the GSP scope of work, draft products, and materials prepared by consultants, analyzing them, and providing recommendations to the GSP Technical Team to develop a technically-sound GSP.

San Benito County Water District

Technical Advisory Committee

North San Benito County Groundwater Sustainability Plan

Name	Organization
Benny Young	County of San Benito
Garrett Haertel	San Benito County Water District
Jeff Micko	Micko Consultants
Abraham Prado	City of Hollister
Roger Pierno	Valley Water
Stan Pura	Mission Ranches
Don Ridenhour	San Benito County resident / PE
Paul Rovella	Johnson, Rovella, Retterer, Rosenthal & Gilles, LLP
Bob Swanson	Bob Swanson Ranch LLC
Greg Swett	San Benito County Farm Bureau
Drew Lander	General Manager Sunnyslope County Water District