By Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
Already heated tensions flared Friday when a southern Tulare County dairy farmer noticed what appeared to be signs illustrating subsidence levels being affixed to a telephone pole across the street from his ranch in the Pixley Irrigation District.
“This sh** has gotta stop. It’s not helping anybody,” said Frank Fernandes, who photographed the activity. He called neighbors and employees at Pixley ID to figure out what was happening, and reported the activity to Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux.
Fernandes also posted the photos, and his frustration, on Facebook.
He wrote in the post that attempts to speak to the people putting up the signs didn’t yield many answers, although one man’s hat offered a clue: Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District (DEID).
According to Fernandes’ post, the man took off the hat and threw it in a truck when questioned.
“DEID thinks it is in their best interest to throw us under the bus to help their own district,” Fernandes told SJV Water. “This was sabotage. This was a hit.”
The photo op was, indeed, orchestrated by DEID to illustrate the level of subsidence in that area, according to DEID general manager Eric R. Quinley. It was based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey and was done in a similar manner to subsidence photos put out by the USGS over the years.
Quinley, who said he and his staff have received threats over the signs, said the photo is just a visual representation of what’s actually happening to the ground from excessive pumping.
But Fernandes’ Facebook post and his heated reaction to the signs illustrate just how deep fractures in the region have become over groundwater as farmers struggle to comply with state directives to reduce pumping.
Farmers in Pixley ID are almost totally reliant on groundwater while farmers in DEID import water from the Friant-Kern Canal, which has been sinking due to excessive groundwater pumping.
Pixley ID farmers face a grim future as pumping allocations are drastically reduced and many must decide how much acreage to retire so they can continue to farm their most productive parcels.
Fernandes said the tense landscape is turning farmer against farmer, and district against district.
“It’s a mess out here!” he said. “We’ve got tree guys going after the dairy guys, each one saying the other is using more water. We’ve got to work together and support each other. This is not helping our cause.”
Quinley said the signs were based on publicly available USGS data and not meant to inflame tensions. They were temporary and taken down after the photo was taken, he said.
“DEID is not sure why taking a photo to visualize data that exists in multiple venues related to the levels of subsidence that are occurring is controversial. Interestingly, DEID did not post the photos. Pixley stakeholders posted the photos.”
Subsidence, land sinking, is the scourge of the subbasin and the main reason for its probationary status with the state Water Resources Control Board. Probation comes with extra extra state scrutiny, including fees and requirements for farmers to report extractions.
Fernandes said most growers want to be part of the subsidence solution but it’s tough to believe the data.
“We all know there is subsidence,” Fernandes said. “We can argue all day long about how big the problem is but the data is all over the place. I’m still a skeptic of how accurate the data is.”
Quinley did not share how or where the photo will be used but said its location, at the intersection of Road 80 and Avenue 120 “is the site of the most significant level of subsidence in the state of California since 1970. And DEID has expressed concerns about subsidence for the better part of a decade.”
Fernandes said the photo op exacerbates already hard feelings between groundwater agencies, which must collaborate to come up with a joint plan under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
“It curls my skin,” he said of the photo. “I don’t want to work with DEID if they’re going to pull that stuff. They’re starting water wars out here.”
Quinley’s view is that Fernandes’ reaction created far more heat than necessary.
“It’s really sad to me because I don’t think Pixley farmers know how much DEID has tried to help them over the years,” he said. “But when I read that post, that doesn’t seem like cooperation and coordination to me.”
