By Hannah Frances Johansson, SJV Water
A hearing in the lawsuit over groundwater agency fees in Madera County has been postponed until Feb. 27, 2025. It had been scheduled to start Tuesday, Dec. 17.
The lawsuit was filed two years ago by a group of farmers over land assessment fees – some as high as $246 per acre – meant to fund measures to address the region’s groundwater overdraft.
The fees were assessed by the Madera County Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) to implement land fallowing, recharge and other programs to bring the aquifer into balance as mandated by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
Farmers felt the fees were unfair and won an injunction that stymied the fees until the lawsuit is decided. The county believes fees should be paid regardless.
The county’s attorney Kyle Brochard called the farmer’s suit “flawed from the start,” in an email. “Those flaws were pointed out in the beginning and were not fixed, and now cannot be fixed.”
If the lawsuit is dismissed at the next hearing, farmers may be required to repay the two years of fees they have so far avoided.
Without those assessment fees, the GSA has said it is unable to move forward on critical elements of its plan to regulate groundwater.
The state approved Madera’s groundwater plan last year, a big hurdle for the county, but state intervention is still a possibility if the county GSA is unable to implement its plans due to underfunding, according to GSA manager, Stephanie Anagnoson.
Both sides were disappointed by the postponement.
“The uncertainty of what will happen with the fee is causing increasing economic harm to the farmers,” Patrick Gorman, an attorney representing the farmers, wrote in an email.
Land values across the San Joaquin Valley have been significantly impacted in areas without surface water supplies and where groundwater access is increasingly restricted.
