SLO County Planning Commission recommends denial of Paso basin ordinance 

On Dec. 6, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will consider a new ordinance for the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin that's fiercely opposed by the agricultural industry and, as of Oct. 27, all five county planning commissioners.

The SLO County Planning Commission voted unanimously on Oct. 27 to recommend that supervisors deny the new planting ordinance and, instead, extend the existing rules for the basin until 2028.

"This is just a bad idea," 2nd District Commissioner Mike Multari said at the meeting. "This is an ordinance that doesn't really achieve any public benefit that overrides the environmental impacts, particularly those impacts on the groundwater basin."

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• File Photo By Tom Falconer
• NOT RECOMMENDED SLO County planning commissioners are urging the Board of Supervisors to deny a new ordinance proposed for the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin.

The proposed new policy—pushed forward last year by a majority of supervisors—would lift a current moratorium on groundwater pumping in the Paso basin by giving every landowner up to 25 acre-feet of exempted water use per year. The current exemption is 5 acre-feet per year.

While intended to improve fairness and equity over the basin, the ordinance will lead to increased demand on the aquifer and introduce new regulations for farmers triggered by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

"It reminds me of the ag phrase: 'Trying to put lipstick on a pig,'" said Patricia Wilmore, of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance. "This is just a bad idea all the way around."

"The planting ordinance will fundamentally change the relationship between the county and agriculture," added Sarah Kramer, on behalf of the SLO County Farm Bureau.

All five commissioners agreed that the best avenue to solving Paso's groundwater woes is the basin's sustainability plan, a document crafted in response to the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

Local leaders—including elected officials at the county and the city of Paso Robles—are on a board in charge of executing the plan. That board has the power to enact pumping fees, demand pumping reductions, and adopt other groundwater policies.

"They have all the assets that you [county staff] don't," 3rd District Commissioner Kristina Simpson-Spearman said.

Fourth District Commissioner Phillip Henry added that any revised county land-use ordinance for the basin would be doomed by CEQA and the mitigation measures required to address environmental impacts.

"We'll never be able to shed those if we use this as a framework to try to repair it," Henry said.

That's why, he said, the best course for the county would be to keep the existing pumping moratorium until the sustainability plan dictates something different.

Alex Villicana, 1st District commissioner, agreed with ordinance proponents that the current power dynamic over the basin isn't fair. He urged the sustainability agencies to give "serious consideration to getting more landowners involved ... so they actually have skin in the game."

"They shouldn't be locked out," Villicana said. "I agree that [the sustainability plan] is probably the proper framework for it." Δ