For the first time, California water regulators are taking action against one of the state’s major agricultural regions for failing to take steps to stop excessive groundwater pumping by producers, which has led to rapid declines in water levels and land sinking. Is becoming the reason.
The state Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Tuesday to place the Tulare Lake subbasin on “probationary” status for failing to adopt adequate measures to address chronic overpumping.
For the record:
1:28 pm April 18, 2024A previous version of this article stated that the Tulare Lake Basin was placed on probation for failing to adopt adequate measures to address chronic groundwater overpumping. The Tulare Lake Subbasin, which is part of the Tulare Lake Basin, was the area that was placed on probation.
has caused the groundwater level to fall The ground sank up to 6 feet in some parts of the area over the past decade, and state officials have determined that a local plan for groundwater management will allow the free fall to continue. He says without stronger measures, hundreds of domestic wells are at risk of drying up.
It is the first time that California officials have used their authority to intervene in a community to impose strong measures to curb groundwater depletion, as mandated by the state’s decade-old Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which Required under what is known as SGMA.
“The goal here is to set people up for success locally. “We recognize that this is a really difficult task,” board member Laurel Firestone said before the vote. “When these decisions are so big and so difficult, sometimes it falls on the state to be the backstop, and I think that’s what we need to do.”
Now that the area of the southern San Joaquin Valley has been placed on probation, large agricultural landowners will have to begin reporting to the state how much water they draw from wells and pay fees based on how much they use.
The vote came at the end of a day-long meeting in Sacramento, during which farmers and representatives of local groundwater agencies called on farmers to defer intervention from the State Water Board and improve their local planning to move toward sustainable groundwater management. Requested to give more time.
Farmer Doug Freitas told the board that the “exorbitant costs” would seriously harm the farming community.
“Don’t allow SGMA to kill, steal and destroy our lives,” Freitas said. “We the people of this great state of California want to ask for additional time to address these issues that need to be fixed.”
But board members said the state needs to step in.
“The goal here is to be at least not punitive,” said board Chairman Joaquin Esquivel.
“The reality is that probation is a step,” Esquivel said. “This is a process that is ultimately about local control.”
The State Water Resources Control Board’s action regarding the Tulare Lake area is the first action of its kind to address groundwater overpumping.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The Tulare Lake Subbasin, which is part of the larger Tulare Lake Basin, is one of the Six areas in the San Joaquin Valley Where local groundwater plans have been deemed inadequate by the State.
Under the state’s 2014 groundwater law, the region’s five local groundwater agencies are required to develop a plan to reduce pumping by 2040 and prevent a continued decline in groundwater levels.
But State Water Board employees last year Recommended Probationary Status After observing that the local plan did not include adequate measures to prevent the decline in water levels and the related problem of land subsidence among other problems.
The land is sinking rapidly in the areas around Corcoran city. Corcoran’s flood levees have had to be raised twice in the past decade, including last year, when Long-dry Tulare Lake reappears On thousands of acres of farmland.
“There has been and will continue to be a really severe impact on people,” Firestone said. “While changing and reducing pumping would indeed have serious impacts, doing nothing and continuing the status quo has already had – and will continue to have – real impacts on communities, community infrastructure, livelihoods. And so we’re doing it, I think, because we all believe we have no choice.
The decision represents the first step in a two-step process of state intervention. State officials say they will work with five local groundwater sustainability agencies to collect data and develop a workable plan.
This area will be on probationary status for one year. will own most of the wells Required to start reporting How much they use, while those pumping more than 500 acre-feet per year must meter their wells. will also be the owner of the well required to pay The state charged a pumping fee of $300 per well plus $20 per acre-foot, a measure intended to cover costs related to state intervention.
“The first step we are taking is to get information, to get a handle on what is happening. That’s what probation is all about,” Firestone said. “We have to understand where the wells are, how much is being pumped.”
The goal, state officials said, is to work with local agencies to improve their plans so that state intervention is no longer needed.
But if local agencies fail to address the deficiencies in their groundwater planning, the State Water Board will proceed to a second phase involving stronger intervention. State officials can then consider whether to impose pumping restrictions or issue fines for pumping that exceeds limits.
State officials estimate that local agencies will plan Allow continued decline in groundwater levels Due to this, about 700 domestic wells will be in danger of drying up.
“Groundwater supplies in the Tulare Lake Basin are clearly at risk, and we are acting today to protect this resource because communities depend on it for basic needs, especially drinking water,” Esquivel said. “Our goal is to have these basins managed sustainably at the local level, and we are committed to helping groundwater agencies do this by providing data, guidance, and support as they improve their plans.”
In the hearing room Tuesday, farmers wearing baseball caps and cowboy boots sat mostly in the back, while lawyers and water officials sat near the front.
Many farmers said they understood that managing groundwater is important to the future of the region, but argued that the way the state was intervening could threaten their livelihoods. He said he wants the board to understand how difficult it is to run a farm in California while also dealing with inflation and low commodity prices. Some said regulation making water more expensive could put them out of business.
Garrett Gilcrease, a farmer who said his ancestors began farming in Kings County in 1883, said he worries state intervention could be the beginning of changes that will make survival unsustainable for growers’ businesses. He said he had brought with him a list of his old employees, “but if I can’t farm, I can’t keep them.”
Some said they were worried that fees and other measures could hit small-scale farmers more.
“The water situation in the valley has been neglected for a long time. And now we are facing a crisis,” said Jacqueline Lowe, who farms 44 acres of walnuts.
He said small farms like his are not major culprits. “I think we now have to look at the large corporate farms in Kings County that have altered the natural patterns of waterways for decades, built dams to divert water for their own use, and retained historically excess water. The areas have been drained,” he said.
Industrial-scale agriculture has reshaped the southern San Joaquin Valley over the past century. Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, but it was drained for agriculture generations ago.
The fields across the ancient lake bed have been converted into lucrative plots for tomatoes, cotton, hay and other crops.
Last year, the lake reappeared during one of the wettest winters on record. For For the first time in 25 yearsflood water covered thousands of acres Crops of land, and water rose on lands that had not previously been flooded, where ground subsidence had occurred due to groundwater pumping.
Tulare Lake developed almost as big as lake tahoe For once. But by late January, the lake had retreated, its surface falling below the state’s water elevation sensors.
Most of the lake bed rests on a thick layer of soil which prevents surface water from reaching the aquifer.
Most of the area’s water is used in agriculture. And state officials have estimated that 215,000 acre feet of groundwater drains from the area’s aquifer per year – about 40% of Los Angeles’ total annual water use.
Some producers said the solution to the groundwater problem partly lies in capturing and storing more water from rivers when flow is available.
The area’s largest agricultural land owner, JG Boswell Co., objected to the state’s process, saying in a letter to the board last year that the company is concerned about how the probationary determination “will impact its operations” and that it believes That state officials’ draft report contained misconceptions and “numerous shortcomings.”
Dusty Ference of the Kings County Farm Bureau challenged the “abuse” of the law by the state, saying the intervention would lead to an “economic crisis on fallow agricultural land.”
He described the fees charged by the state as “arbitrary and excessive”.
“SGMA needs sustainability not today, but through 2040,” Ference said. “Let’s take a little more time because we both need to get this right instead of getting into administrative and judicial conflict.”
However, others said they supported state intervention.
“I’m not against the state coming in and giving us guidance,” said Kings County Supervisor Doug Verboon. “We are all going through difficult times.”
Tien Tran, policy advocate for the Community Water Center, supported putting the area on probation.
“More than 700 wells are at risk of drying up and subsidence of up to 6 feet is unacceptable,” Tran said. “This is a critical moment where the State Water Board must follow the law and do the right thing.”
Other advocates said sustainably managing groundwater is a key part of making the region more resilient to the impacts of climate change, and as limits on pumping take effect, some agricultural land could be converted to other uses. Is, such as wetland habitat.
“They’re farming on a lake that they destroyed by pumping and now this lake is trying to rebuild,” said Fred Briones, a member of the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “The ground is slipping beneath their feet.”
State officials said local groundwater plans must contain adequate measures to address potential degradation in water quality associated with overpumping.
By placing this sector on probation, the State Water Board is laying the groundwork for similar measures in other agricultural sectors. In September, the board is set to consider whether to put the nearby Tule Subbasin on probationary status.
Leaders of local groundwater agencies in the Tulare Lake area said they are working on a revised plan that addresses the concerns of state officials.
State Water Board members said they were encouraged to hear that local agencies were making progress in strengthening their plans, but still felt intervention was needed.
After listening to local officials, board member Sean Maguire quipped: “You are guinea pigs. “And apologies for that, but someone’s got to go first.”
