DURHAM — A meeting is planned Wednesday night in Durham on local efforts to keep the state from taking over management of Butte County groundwater.

The meeting is 6-8 p.m. in the Durham Memorial Hall, 9319 Midway,

In September 2014, the governor signed a series of bills passed by the Legislature requiring development of plans to manage the groundwater basins under the state to avoid “undesirable results.”

The move was in response to excessive pumping during the drought that caused a decline in water tables and intrusion of salt water into coastal aquifers.

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act allows local authorities to draw their own plans, as long as they accomplish the objectives of the state law, within deadlines it set.

If the locals don’t do it, the state will step in, take control, and impose its own plan. The county government and water providers here think that’s a bad idea, so they have been working toward the local alternative.

The effort is still in the preliminary stages. The deadline to have plans in place for the groundwater basins beneath Butte County is Jan. 31, 2022.

What’s being discussed so far is a governance structure to manage the plans once they are developed, and what the boundaries of the local basins would be.

Wednesday’s meeting is intended to bring Durham residents up to speed on what’s going on, answer questions and take comments.

Currently, the county and water agencies are leaning toward setting up joint powers authorities to manage the plans. Those are agencies that handle a governing need that crosses jurisdictional lines. An example is the Butte County Association of Governments that handles transportation planning in the county and operates Butte Regional Transit among other things.

JPAs are usually governed by a board composed of representatives from each of the entities included. For example the Vina Sub-basin encompasses the northwest county. The JPA board for it has been envisioned as including a representative from Butte County, the city of Chico and the Rock Creek Reclamation District, as well as an independent agricultural pumper and someone on a household well.

A move is underway to have Durham included in the Vina Sub-basin. If that is approved by the state Department of Water Resources, a representative from the Durham Irrigation District might be added to the JPA board as well.

More information about local groundwater management in Butte County is available at www.buttecounty.net/waterresourceconservation.