By Monserrat Solis, SJV Water
The Tri-County Water Authority has a foot in each of the two groundwater basins now under state probation and is scrambling to find a path to compliance in each.
Tri-County covers lands in both the Tule and Tulare Lake subbasins, in the southern portions of Kings and Tulare counties, respectively. Both those subbasins have been placed on probation by the state Water Resources Control Board for having inadequate groundwater sustainability plans.
Probation requires farmers to meter and register their wells at $300 each, report extractions and pay the state $20 per acre foot pumped. That’s on top of fees they already pay their groundwater agencies and water districts.
In the Tulare Lake subbasin, probationary sanctions have been paused while a lawsuit wends its way through the court system.
But that also means Water Board staff aren’t communicating with local water managers to help them develop groundwater plans that meet state expectations.
“That communication is key to success in exiting probation, so we definitely need that communication,” Tri-County Executive Director Deanna Jackson said.
In the Tule subbasin, water managers are scrambling to revamp groundwater plans in hopes they meet Water Board expectations.
“I’m in a crunch time to have these management plans done and we’re not there yet,” Jackson said.
Most growers in the Tule subbasin must start measuring extractions starting Jan. 1, 2025. Extraction fees will be due April 1, 2026 if groundwater plans are not remedied. Some Tule subbasin agencies are exempt from the reporting requirements.
Jackson said Tri-County is focusing on key programs within its boundaries, such as fallowing land and registering wells.
Tri-County covers 117,247 acres overall, with 69,006 in the Tule subbasin and 48,241 in the Tulare Lake subbasin. It has already fallowed 43,741 acres in Tulare Lake, leaving 4,500 acres in production.
It is pursuing grants to fallow another 10,000 acres mostly in the Tule subbasin, Jackson said.
“That’s probably a very low number of what’s actually going to happen,” Jackson said of how the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is expected to alter farming in the San Joaquin Valley. “We’re looking at 700,000 acres total coming out in the valley.”
Tri-County is also trying to get greater traction on its well registration and extraction reporting program.
By mid-December, however, growers had only registered 15 wells with Tri-County. Jackson said she hoped to get “a few hundred wells” registered through January.
“We have some work to do,” she said.
Farmers haven’t been eager to register their wells, either because they want to keep that information private, or they just don’t know about Tri-County’s policy, which states all non-domestic wells are required to be metered and pumping amounts reported to Tri-County.
“We all know the elephant in the room, there’s just gonna have to be balance and we just need time,” said Brandon Spain, a grower in the Tri-County area and regular attendee of the authority’s advisory group, which met Dec. 17.
