By Monserrat Solis, SJV Water
A Kings County water district blamed for leaving a key groundwater agency in the beleaguered Tulare Lake subbasin in tatters last year may want to stitch a new partnership.
“I’d like to take the temperature of the (GSA) board and see what we can do to get back involved with that,” Kings County Water District Board Member Paul Gillum said during the district’s March 6 meeting.
He referred to the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which the Kings County Water District left in the dust after a chaotic and contentious break up last summer.
Gillum’s comment raised eyebrows in the room but wasn’t discounted out of hand. Fellow Kings County Water District director Chip Mello allowed there could be room for such a conversation in 2026 as the board is currently focused on updating its groundwater plan and policies.
Doug Verboon, a Kings County Supervisor and member of the Mid-Kings River GSA, echoed Mello’s “take-it-slow” approach.
“It hasn’t been a year since they quit,” Verboon told SJV Water. “Let us do what we’re doing without any other conflict, and then when we get a nice plan in place that’s accepted by the state, then we can turn it over.”
The Kings County Water District had been part of the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) along with the City of Hanford and County of Kings.
After several contentious meetings packed with farmers angry over proposed fees and pumping caps, the Kings County Water District called it quits on the GSA.
The perceived lack of transparency still rankles some growers.
“I’m a community leader, but I’m also a farmer and those are my decisions being made. I was insulted the last time when they didn’t even consider us,” Verboon said of the previous GSA’s actions.
The new Mid-Kings GSA created a farmer advisory group to go over the previous GSA policies and vet them moving forward.
“There were meetings,” Mello said during the March 6 meeting in defense of how the previous GSA set those policies. “But there was minimal stakeholder involvement.”
“We lost the public going as fast as we did,” agreed Kings County Water District General Manager Dennis Mills.
In fact, there were very loud and angry calls for the entire former Mid-Kings GSA board and general manager to resign.
The current Mid-Kings GSA board is building the community’s trust and Verboon wants it to stay that way – for now.
In the future, Verboon said he’d be open to hearing from the Kings County Water District. He invited the district to speak at the GSA’s meetings, on the record.
“Everything needs to be up front and transparent,” he said. “I’m open to it, but it has to be a decision made by the people.”
When the Kings County Water District voted to leave the Mid-Kings GSA, it disintegrated the joint powers agreement and left the county to pick up the pieces.
The change was more than just an administrative headache.
That part of the Tulare Lake subbasin includes land where farmers are mostly groundwater dependent, without surface water from rivers or state or federal projects. That severely limits options for how to best manage the aquifer under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which mandates overdrafted regions bring aquifers into balance by 2040.
Without surface water supplies, groundwater dependent farmers face the most significant pumping cuts. Kings County Water District does have surface supplies.
Kings County Water District’s exit also came on the heels of a probationary finding by the state Water Resources Control Board. Under probation, farmers have to meter and register wells at $300 each per year, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. That’s on top of fees and restrictions imposed by local groundwater agencies.
Those state sanctions have been paused pending the outcome of a lawsuit against the Water Board by the Kings County Farm Bureau.
A “big mistake”
The Kings County Water District board agreed to neither approve nor deny the 2024-25 budget after delaying action on the document for three consecutive meetings.
The board members tabled the budget twice since January for being “unbalanced” and questioned why a budget was up for approval three quarters into the year. Mills said the budget was held to give the new board a deciding vote.
Newly elected directors Gillum and Andrew Brazil told Mills that they disagreed with approving a budget for a year they didn’t serve. Gillum argued that the yearly budget should not be considered during the last quarter of the year.
“That already makes no sense. So it doesn’t matter what we do at this point. We just have to call it a big mistake,” Gillum said.
“I don’t think that any of us should even be bothered with this anymore,” Mello said. “The efforts really should be spent on thinking about the 2025-26 budget.”
The board asked Mills to start discussing the 2025-26 budget by May.
A vacant seat
The Kings County Water District board also received director Michael Murray’s resignation due to health issues. Murray served on the board for 40 years, General Manager Mills said at the March 6 meeting.
“He professed a lot of faith in the remaining directors and wished you guys well,” Mills said of Murray’s resignation letter.
The board will hold an application period for the vacant District 2 seat, which covers an area west of 10th Avenue and north of Lacey Boulevard. A map of the district’s boundaries can be found here.
The board will review the applicants and nominate a candidate at its April 3 meeting. The board has 60 days to appoint a representative
