By Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
A proposed new agricultural water district could brighten what had been shaping up as a grim future for a number of farmers in the northern part of Tulare County’s flatlands under the state’s groundwater law.
Four private ditch companies are working to form the new district to cover 84,000 acres, 24,000 of which are totally groundwater dependent. Pumping restrictions under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) are expected to severely limit crop production in such groundwater reliant areas.
The proposed Consolidated Water District has indicated it will use land assessment fees to buy surface water and build systems to convey surface water throughout the district.
That’s significant, said Mark Larsen, General Manager of the Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), which covers the area where the new district is proposed.
“Every drop of surface water that is provided for irrigation directly reduces a drop of groundwater pumped,” Larsen said.
The proposal was approved by Tulare’s Local Agency Formation Commission and the Tulare County Board of Supervisors has approved submitting the proposal to a vote of the landowners. That mail-in ballot election will be on May 6.

How to reduce pumping in groundwater-dependent areas, so-called “white lands,” has been a stubborn issue for water managers throughout the state. Land that isn’t covered by a water district is white on color-coded district maps, hence the nickname.
The problem with white lands is that growers there have never paid land assessment fees to bring in water, getting all their irrigation water from pumping. But under SGMA, aquifers must be brought into balance by 2040. In white lands, the only option is to curtail pumping.
So, creation of a water district that includes the white lands is a welcome solution for this slice of the Kaweah basin.
“It’s not going to be the end-all solution, but it will be of some help,” said James Silva of forming a new district. Silva is the general manager of Consolidated People’s Ditch Company and 14 other ditch companies.
“Early on, we had some guys who owned ground with no stock and they got together and wanted to see what they could do to gear up for SGMA,” Silva added. “We decided we would all be better off if we made a district over the top of everyone.”
The only negative, he said, is having to levy fees.
“We can’t form a district without an assessment,” he said.
He said the four ditch companies forming the water district all have pre-1914 water rights to Kaweah River water. Landowners lucky enough to have stock in the ditch companies own river water like “a pink slip for your car.”
Silva said Consolidated People’s was in a position to take the lead because it has the best conveyance system and channel capacity of all the ditch companies. This will allow for future capture of flood flows, especially off the Yokohl Creek, which burst its banks in several areas in the spring of 2023, flooding citrus orchards and filling them with several feet of sediment.
Silva said the Consolidated People’s channel can take up to 2,000 cubic feet per second.
“Yokohl dumps in on us, and it could help with some of the flooding if we were able to build basins in the right locations,” he said. “We can take uncontrolled flows out of Yokohl and send water all the way out toward the (Tulare Lake) bed.”
The proposed boundaries of the new water district are mostly within the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District and the Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA).