Over the past several years, California water managers have noticed a pattern emerging in agricultural areas of the Central Valley: Declining groundwater levels have caused thousands of residents’ wells to go dry and the ground to subside, yet counties have continued to grant permits to agricultural landowners to drill new wells and extract even more water.
A bill sponsored by the California Department of Water Resources attempted to address these problems by banning new high-capacity wells within a quarter mile of drinking water wells or in areas where the land is sinking due to excessive pumping.
Despite support from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, the measure was rejected in the Senate last week after facing opposition from the agriculture industry, business groups, local governments and water agencies.
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Among the organizations opposing it — which included the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Farm Bureau Federation and more than 30 other groups representing producers and water suppliers — were The bill stated This is “too restrictive and may hinder ways of achieving groundwater sustainability.”
Christopher Anderson, legislative advocate for the Association of California Water Agencies, told the Senate committee that the bill would impose unworkable mandates and “place an outright moratorium on the approval of new wells, which would harm local economies and fail to address these issues.”
After a brief debate, members of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee rejected the bill by a vote of 5-4.
Assemblyman Steve Bennett (D-Ventura), who introduced the bill, said it aims to close a critical loophole in California’s groundwater law. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, passed in 2014, Local agencies created Many areas of the state were tasked with developing plans to curb excessive pumping, but the task of issuing permits for new wells was delegated to counties.
He said this has created a situation where “while they are trying to regulate the current straws, more straws are coming out.”
In some rural communities, agricultural workers and other residents have noticed that their wells dry up shortly after farmers dug new wells to irrigate crops in nearby fields.
“Many counties are unwilling to protect the wells of the most vulnerable people because they don’t want to compete with the most powerful people who want to build high-capacity wells,” Bennett said. “We’ve been trying to ask people to do something about it, but they refuse. It’s the state’s responsibility to finally say, enough is enough.”
Some such incidents occur in some parts of California Fastest ground water depletion rate in the world, and matters got worse during the last drought.
Scientists have also found that The water demand of crops is increasing Long-term water deficits in the San Joaquin Valley are being made worse by rising temperatures caused by climate change.
Falling water levels in some parts of the valley are causing the ground to sink at a rate of more than half a foot per year. Expensive repairs The cost of construction of embankments, canals and other infrastructure would be borne by public agencies.
“The counties that are approving the most high-capacity wells are the ones with the most land subsidence in California,” Bennett said, referring to counties such as Tulare, Fresno and Kern. “It doesn’t make sense for us to continue to build more — hundreds of thousands of new high-capacity wells — in areas where land subsidence is so high.”
Bennett has introduced similar legislation three times. He said the bill’s rejection this year means the “status quo will remain,” allowing more wells to be drilled while the land continues to subside and water levels drop.
“Too many families, especially in the Central Valley, will have their wells dry because we have refused to act,” he said.
This law was enacted to bring permanent requirements similar to those of the temporary law of 2022 Dry order According to the order issued by Newsom, counties and cities must verify with the local groundwater agency that permitting a new well would not be “inconsistent” with local plans. The order also tells agencies to issue permits only after determining that additional pumping is not likely to disrupt nearby wells or cause subsidence that would harm infrastructure.
recently Report In analyzing the effects of Newsom’s executive order, the Department of Water Resources said local agencies “employed multiple methods to gather relevant information about whether the issuance of a well permit could potentially disturb nearby wells or contribute to land subsidence.”
But the report also concluded that the continued issuance of well permits in sensitive areas, where other wells are threatened and the land is sinking, shows that in many cases the executive order “fails to achieve its goal.”
The report said residents in parts of Fresno, Madera and Tulare counties told state officials they were concerned that the drilling of more agricultural wells was threatening their drinking water, and that pumping for farms “was prioritized over domestic well users.”
In keeping with the goals of the governor’s order, state officials decided to sponsor legislation that would provide stricter guidelines to local agencies.
The bill was supported by leaders of advocacy groups such as the Community Water Center and Clean Water Action, who called for the bill to be passed argued in a letter As things stand, local agencies responsible for groundwater management have no authority to prevent new wells from being dug, resulting in an “uncontrolled race to the bottom.”
Paul Gosselin, deputy director of sustainable water management at the Department of Water Resources, was among those who spoke in favor of the bill during the Senate hearing. He said that according to a report submitted to the state, more than 3,000 domestic wells have dried up across California since 2020.
“Over the past few years, rates of land sedimentation and well drying have been increasing to new historical levels,” he said.
He said last year’s floods cost the state millions of dollars. raising the embankment The bridge protects the town of Corcoran as the ground there has subsided dramatically.
“This is not a hypothetical problem. This is a real-world problem that people are facing,” Gosselin told senators.
Gosselin called it a “drought tolerance bill” intended to complement the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. That law required local agencies in many areas to develop groundwater plans by 2040 and curb excessive pumping.
The bill contained several exemptions, such as allowing replacement wells to be dug, and easing restrictions on drilling within a quarter mile of a domestic well if a local ordinance provides for new wells to prevent them from interfering with existing wells.
But that wasn’t enough to convince opponents. Fresno County Supervisors The bill is called An effort to “fundamentally redirect groundwater management” from the original intent of state law. A group of local agency managers California Groundwater Coalition He said the proposal would add “burdensome requirements.”
Gosselin said the debate on the bill led to a “good exchange of views.”
“There were no votes to continue with the bill,” he said. “We hope the conversation and the issues raised in the legislation will continue.”
He said the Department of Water Resources is continuing other related efforts, including working with local agencies on drought plans and developing a document outlining “best management practices” for preventing land subsidence.
Gosselin said state officials will continue to work with counties and local groundwater sustainability agencies to improve decisions about issuing permits for new wells, to “avoid this continuing cycle of an increase in the number of dry wells during periods of drought.”
Experts expressed different opinions about this law.
“I think this is extremely important,” said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. He added that without such a legislative change, “it allows the continued drilling of deep wells that pump out massive amounts of water.”
“So besides the threat to sustainability, we’re going to see more and more shallow wells going dry,” Famiglietti said.
Famiglietti said opposition to the bill appears to be a “united effort” to drill more wells and delay the ban. He called the opposition by the agriculture industry short-sighted.
“The state cannot achieve its sustainability goals without the leadership of the agriculture industry,” he said. “We want food sustainability, and we need water to grow food for future generations.”
Two agriculture groups, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and the California Climate & Agriculture Network, said in a joint statement, “This is an issue that requires all of us to work together to solve.” Bills supported,
Ruth Dahlquist-Willard, interim director of the University of California’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, said some kind of policy intervention is needed, but “this kind of ‘one size fits all’ approach typically hurts smaller farmers, who have fewer resources to adapt to new policies and must jump through additional regulatory hurdles.”
If a well goes dry on a small farm, under the bill, that farm would be treated the same as a large corporation or hedge fund when they try to replace a well, he said.
Dahlquist-Willard said she hopes that if similar legislation is proposed again, it will include protections for small farms.
