Horizon provides clients with expert services for obtaining and maintaining appropriative water right permits in California. We work with clients and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), Division of Water Rights, to conduct the necessary due diligence to process water right applications and change petitions, or to take an existing permit to license. Typical requirements of water rights processing may include regulatory permitting, CEQA compliance, Water Availability Analyses, Public Trust Resources Analyses, and/or resolving protests on applications or petitions. Our experience includes topics such as place of use, purpose of use, point of diversion or re-diversion, instream beneficial uses, water transfers, and considerations related to other legal users of water and the public trust. Horizon also assists clients in maintaining existing water rights by conducting annual water supply accounting and reporting to the Division of Water Rights.

Horizon also prepares Water Supply Assessments per requirements of Senate Bills 610 and 221. These laws require that projects demanding a significant quantity of new water assess the availability of supplies, as part of the CEQA process or otherwise. Our experience includes evaluating water supply sources, existing entitlements, water rights allotments, production amounts, existing demands, and infrastructure needs. Based on this information, Horizon assesses current and projected water availability and determines the sufficiency of the supply to meet projected demand. Where supplies are insufficient to meet demands, we assist our clients in developing practical mitigation measures. Horizon has experience assessing a wide range of water supply sources, including surface water, groundwater, State Water Project, supplies from wholesale water suppliers, and other contracted sources of supply.

Horizon assists clients with a variety of water resource planning issues, including developing guidance documents for water conservation, water recycling/reuse, and water smart development. We have helped develop Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) plans and have also assisted organizations seeking grant funds through the State IRWM program. We are skilled at supporting counties and cities with water- and stream-focused conservation elements and providing policy evaluations and CEQA compliance and other regulatory support for developing general or specific plans. Horizon also helps clients with watershed and reservoir management plans, including sediment reduction, dredging, and reuse or disposal efforts.

Horizon provides groundwater management services, including evaluation of groundwater and surface water interactions, groundwater support for wetland and aquatic resources, and regulatory and management needs. We are experienced at evaluating impacts and/or benefits of various projects to overall aquifer storage, localized cones of depression and effects on nearby wells, and regional issues such as subsidence and recharge. We also provide environmental compliance support for projects involving aquifer storage and recovery, in-lieu groundwater recharge, and groundwater well siting and development.

We support our clients in complying with the requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Horizon staff are well versed in several of the requirements of the SGMA, including developing and notifying the formation of a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), developing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), and providing various basin outreach, basin coordination, and Department of Water Resources notification procedures. Horizon helped with the formation of the Kern River Groundwater Sustainability Agency and continues to support the agency through the GSP development process.