Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: groundwater adjudication.

Assembly Member Papan's groundwater management legislation modifies California's judicial procedures for groundwater basin adjudications to align more closely with sustainable management requirements. The bill revises timelines for legal challenges to groundwater sustainability plans, requiring actions to be filed within 90 days of agency decisions while allowing sustainability agencies to seek plan validation within 180 days of adoption.

The legislation mandates consolidation of legal actions against groundwater sustainability agencies when basins undergo adjudication, prioritizing review of sustainable yield determinations before other issues. Courts are prohibited from approving judgments that permit pumping beyond a basin's sustainable yield as established in validated sustainability plans. The bill also requires judges presiding over these cases to be assigned by the Judicial Council rather than drawn from counties overlying the affected basins.

For comprehensive groundwater adjudications, courts must now consider existing sustainability plans before imposing physical solutions and ensure judgments do not impair agencies' ability to achieve sustainable management. The legislation defines specific criteria for evaluating impacts on sustainability goals and includes provisions to protect water access for small farmers and disadvantaged communities during adjudication proceedings.