By Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
Water managers in southern Tulare County recently agreed to pay $50,000 for a three-month public relations blitz aimed at convincing state lawmakers to pour more money into land fallowing programs to stem subsidence, or land sinking, caused by excessive groundwater pumping.
“The time to play in the sandbox with other GSAs in the subbasin is likely over,” Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairies, told board members of the Pixley and Lower Tule River groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) during their October meetings.
“It’s time to make your own knives and sharpen them.”
Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairies, encouraging Tulare County water districts to engage in a public relations campaign about subsidence in the region.
She encouraged the boards to hire Calkin Public Affairs of Sacramento to create a narrative of how farmers are working on subsidence in order to give lawmakers “cover” to authorize more Proposition 4 funding for land retirement programs, such as LandFlex.
“You have stepped up to handle the subsidence issue. It’s time to make your own knives and sharpen them,” she said. “Otherwise you’re going to be left behind.”
She referred to pumping allocations in Lower Tule which have ramped down to 1.85 acre feet per acre and Pixley at 1.41 acre feet per acre for 2025. Those amounts will continue to drop through 2040.
Both boards voted unanimously to pay for the campaign, which Raudabaugh said would include an effort to “plant” stories with specific reporters, such as Ian James of the Los Angeles Times.
“If he desires to do a story, we’ll have the assets at the ready. We’ll have the facts to back up the fluffy PR campaign,” Raudabaugh said.
That approach puzzled Eric R. Quinley, General Manager of Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District (DEID) and GSA, who has been warning about subsidence for years.
“Why spend money on storytelling if it’s not coupled with tangible results?” he asked.
Quinley’s approach has been to rely on hard data showing the extent and reach of subsidence and take measures in his own district to reduce the risks. That includes investing in 172 miles of pipelines to deliver water rather than open ditches, spending $50 million on 1,000 acres of new recharge basins, buying more surface water and limiting pumping to stay in balance.
That pipeline network, though, has been threatened by subsidence that Quinley says is coming from neighboring districts, particularly to DEID’s west, that still allow too much pumping.
He hasn’t been shy about pointing that out, which hasn’t won him many friends as farmers in the Tule subbasin face the prospect of fallowing up to 70,000 productive acres to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Local agencies must bring aquifers into balance by 2040.
Quinley also gave his own presentation to Tule subbasin farmers and water managers on Oct. 15 where he showed DEID’s subsidence data and answered questions.
“These topics are nothing new, but this is the first time we’ve talked frankly about them,” said grower and Pixley GSA farmer Jim Morehead. “Everybody walks on eggshells in these meetings and nobody’s putting it out there. I’m glad we’re having a frank discussion.”
Not all farmers were so positive.
“In a nutshell, I am the problem,” grower Myron Schotanus said to Quinley. Schotanus owns land on the western edge of the Tule subbasin in Tri-Counties Water Authority GSA.
By 2030, he will be allowed to pump only .22 acre feet per acre, not enough to maintain a crop.
He said farmers had originally been told to aim for sustainability by 2040 “…but here it’s 2025 and I’m getting all the rugs pulled out from underneath me.
“All I’m trying to do is salvage my livelihood just a little bit longer so I can get out,” he said.
Pixley farmer Morehead acknowledged the impossibility Schotanus is facing, “I’m just hoping all of us can have some heart and understanding for each other again. And we are working on this, Eric.”
In fact, farmers have begun a grassroots effort to bypass their own water managers and districts and meet face to face to hash out some of these exact issues.
SJV Water confirmed that a farmer meeting will be held before month’s end, modeled on a similar effort in the Kern subbasin. Those weekly meetings helped Kern develop a new groundwater plan that met with state approval, keeping the region out of probation.
The Water Resources Control Board placed the Tule subbasin on probation in Sept. 2024, primarily because of continued subsidence and damage done to key infrastructure including the Friant-Kern Canal. Probation comes with greater reporting requirements and fees.
Kern has 23 GSAs and one million acres, about twice the size of the Tule subbasin.
“With the managers in the room, it’s never going to happen,” said one organizer who requested anonymity because of the heated atmosphere in the Tule subbasin. “The vitriol of fighting for your district misses the bigger picture.
“I think there is a chance of making it work in the Tule. Thirteen GSAs and 400,000 acres is a lot less to chip away at,” he said of finding a collective solution.
