By Lisa McEwen & Monserrat Solis
Ferocious overpumping that has caused huge swaths of the San Joaquin Valley to sink, damaging key water arteries including the Friant-Kern Canal and California Aqueduct must stop, according to the Department of Water Resources (DWR).
It’s one of the main reasons the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was passed in 2014.
After 11 years, though, not much has slowed the sinking, other than a few good, wet years, prompting the state to issue proposed subsidence guidelines that leave no doubt how serious DWR is about the issue.
“We are going to get everyone in the room to put their cards on the table,” DWR Deputy Director Paul Gosselin said during a workshop about the guidelines in Delano on Sept. 10, part of a three stop tour that also included Clovis and Willows.
He said the guidelines will require water managers to deliver hard commitments with timelines and detailed action plans outlining how they will cut pumping, bring in more water to recharge withered aquifers, or some combination. And the plans must be done across boundaries whether that’s counties, subbasins or groundwater sustainability agencies.
The rampant sinking must be addressed regionally, according to the guidelines.
“The finger-pointing will be over,” Gosselin told attendees in Delano. “There will be hands shaken and people will be pointing in the right direction.”
He referred to bickering that’s been almost as rampant as the subsidence.
The bickering has pitted water districts and GSAs against one another in legal squabbles up and down the valley aimed, mostly, at farmers in areas known as “white lands” that aren’t covered by water districts and so rely almost exclusively on groundwater pumping.
- The Friant Water Authority is suing the Eastern Tule GSA for allegedly breaching an agreement to help pay for its share of subsidence damage to the Friant-Kern Canal.
- Farmers sued the Madera County GSA over fees associated with strict pumping allocations.
- Arguments over pumping allotments in the Kaweah subbasin are again rising.
- Kings County water managers are concerned by El Rico GSA’s plans to allow 10 more feet of subsidence in the old Tulare Lake bed.
The stakes are incredibly high with estimates that up to 1 million acres of productive land throughout the valley will have to be fallowed in order to comply with SGMA by its 2040 deadline for managers to have plans in place to pump aquifers “sustainably.”
Of that 1 million acres, up to 600,000 will have to be fallowed in the southern San Joaquin Valley counties of Kern, Kings and Tulare – a huge economic hit.
“The message is we know this is going to be difficult but we are going to expect some pretty good action early on,” Gosselin said. “We will be there shoulder to shoulder with you helping you to navigate these steps.”
Gosselin’s words rang hollow to Kings County growers, Brian Medeiros and Julie Martella, who gave a summary of the Clovis workshop at the Mid-Kings GSA advisory group meeting Sept. 10.
“DWR gives no s**t about the human aspect,” Medeiros said.
He questioned whether DWR’s subsidence guidelines are, in fact, an enforcement order.
“One thing that bothered me was the way Paul Gosselin started saying how, ‘Oh, you know, this is a guiding document. This is going to be a best management practice.’ Then in the other sentence, ‘We’ll make sure that all the GSAs comply with the best management practice.’ So, is it a BMP or is it a mandate?”
Martella said she was frustrated that DWR’s proposed guidelines focus only on infrastructure.
“The thing that bothered me, I told Brian, I almost had tears in my eyes, because what bothered me is that there’s no mention of humans, of the people that live and farm and have a life in the San Joaquin Valley,” Martella said.
Martella is a plaintiff in the Kings County Farm Bureau’s lawsuit against the state Water Resources Control Board over the board’s actions in 2024 that put the Tulare Lake subbasin (which covers most of Kings County) in probation.
Probation is an enforcement action under SGMA that allows the state to issue sanctions against farmers including requiring them to meter their wells and register them with the state at $300 each, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. Those measures have been paused in Kings County by a preliminary injunction issued against the state.
The Tule subbasin was likewise placed on probation later in 2024 but sanctions have not kicked in there yet.
At the Delano workshop, Mid-Kaweah GSA manager Aaron Fukuda asked Gosselin to clarify how exactly DWR would help settle the finger-pointing.
“”There are people who have been doing the right thing,” Fukuda said. “DWR is the arbitrator of the science here, and that’s the finger pointing that’s going on right now. It would be helpful to have you folks at the table as we dive in.”
DWR can’t settle squabbles directly as SGMA requires groundwater plans to be created and coordinated at the local level, according to DWR Assistant Deputy Director Keith Wallace.
“We want to hear what’s going on but that will be challenging in terms of our regulatory responsibility and where local control begins and ends,” he said, adding that DWR scientists and engineers will be “getting into the weeds” of how, where and why subsidence is happening.
“We want to be as much of a partner as we can.”
After the meeting, Fukuda said he appreciated DWR’s efforts.
“I believe they understand that we wish to deal with (subsidence) at the table,” he said.
“We all need to look at what’s happening on the ground in the same light,” said Rogelio Caudillo, general manager of Eastern Tule GSA. “Those are going to be tough conversations.”
Some members of the public wanted to know how DWR would handle GSAs that are continuing to plan for increased subsidence “…in some cases up to 10 feet,” said Barbara Brydolf, a member of the California Native Plant Society, in reference to the El Rico GSA. “Is that much subsidence necessary?”
Gosselin said he wouldn’t speak to any specific plan.
“If it did not hit the mark on continued subsidence, especially if you don’t overlay the impact on infrastructure, it is not consistent with the law and regulations,” he said.
Tekoah Kadara, a resident of Allensworth in Tulare County, asked if GSAs are considering the impacts of commercial farming practices and subsidence on surrounding communities.
“How are we going to take care of the communities that didn’t cause the subsidence?” he said.
Gosselin said DWR’s guidelines aim to help GSAs ramp up engagement with local residents, including small farmers and disadvantaged communities such as Allensworth.
Mid-Kings’ Medeiros said DWR took comments on the proposed guidelines but he held out little hope it would change much.
“The impact on the community means nothing,” he said. “They say they’re worried about the DAC – disadvantaged communities – but then at the end of the day, that’s the ones are going to turn into ghost towns first.”
DWR will continue taking comments on the proposed guidelines through Sept. 22.
The public may submit comments via email to sgmps@water.ca.gov. Or, letters may be sent to:
Department of Water Resources
Sustainable Groundwater Management Office
ATTN: Subsidence BMP
PO Box 942836
Sacramento, CA 94236-0001
