Four priority groundwater recharge and community resilience projects are being finalized for state submission in April, with approval anticipated around May 2026. The MLRP Plan adoption has been delayed to later this year after DOC requested revisions to define land repurposing areas and refine scoring/plan elements. Upcoming outreach (including May 6 and potentially May 19) will provide program updates.
Four priority projects will be submitted to DOC in April 2026: Pastajero, Los Gatos, Westside Cooling Center, and Section 21 Recharge. Overall, projects submitted by the priority deadline requested about $18.7M vs $7.7M available ($7.3M for implementation). Two alternates (Rock & JK Farms, Panoche Creek) will be submitted to DOC in summer 2026. Papa's Project scoring was deferred to a later side meeting.
Initial CVP allocation opened at 15%; staff expects it to rise as March pumping data and conditions evolve. Reclamation announced $540M in California non-reimbursable funding under the Big Beautiful Bill (incl. $235M DMC, $200M Friant-Kern, $50M San Luis Canal, $40M Shasta planning). Board suggested staff to draft land-stewardship-linked allocation rule changes; a draft could return April or May.
Groundwater pumping remains well below the district's roughly 1.8 million acre-feet in groundwater credits, though transitional pumping limits restrict how quickly those credits can be used. Monitoring shows mostly healthy aquifer levels district-wide, with localized concerns along the southeastern boundary likely linked to neighboring pumping. Subsidence is stable, though one southeastern benchmark has exceeded the annual minimum threshold, attributed largely to neighboring pumping activity.
The district expects initial water allocations of 15-25% in late February, with potential to reach 50% if precipitation continues, while an outdated Port Chicago regulation led to about 35,000 acre-feet in export cuts and could have caused far larger storage impacts. The approved 2026-2027 budget reduces O&M rates to $42.02 per acre-foot and land charges to $21.89 per acre. The board also approved a subsidence policy and advanced clean energy infrastructure planning.
