By Lois Henry, SJV Water
About 30 ranchers and residents sat quietly in the Cuyama Valley Family Resource Center recently, hanging on every word from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Highberger as he succinctly laid out the history, the status and the substantial stakes of an ongoing groundwater adjudication started by mega carrot farming companies Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms in 2022.
The farming companies have since dropped out of the suit, but Bolthouse Land Co. remains as a plaintiff.
This adjudication, or lawsuit, “will affect the rights of people who are not even aware of the case,” Highberger said during the Nov. 7 special status conference. “I wanted this chance to alert people in and around New Cuyama that this case is proceeding in downtown Los Angeles, far from your farms, ranches and homes.”
Highberger has already determined the safe yield for the Cuyama basin, which is the amount that can be pumped without causing problems such as land sinking or groundwater levels continuing to drop.
That amount is 20,370 acre feet per year, he said.
Current pumping is between 42,000 and 44,000 acre feet per year, or more than double what can be extracted without putting the basin into overdraft.
Highberger must now determine which pumpers will be allotted how much of that 20,370-acre-foot pie. A trial to determine those rights will be held in the future with another phase looking at where pumping can occur based on the valley’s hydrology. That trial will come after rights are determined.
“Inaction can be very dangerous to your future rights to continue to pump. Let me repeat: Inaction can be very dangerous to your future rights to continue to pump.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Highberger on the risks of not responding to an ongoing groundwater lawsuit in the Cuyama Valley.
But, Highberger warned, there will be cuts. And it will be painful.
To get there, though, the court needs data from all pumpers, specifically every single pumper’s historic extractions. No matter how small.
The court has already sent multiple notices. If responses weren’t forthcoming, well owners received notices that without any information, the court would cut their rights to zero.
“Inaction can be very dangerous to your future rights to continue to pump,” Highberger said. “Let me repeat: Inaction can be very dangerous to your future rights to continue to pump.”
Those notices, in combination with the hearing Nov. 7, were intended to get as much public participation as possible, Highberger told residents.
It seemed to work with about 30 people in the small library, another 60 online and even a few who appeared in person in Los Angeles.
Many residents beseeched Highberger not to base pumping allotments just on historic pumping amounts, but to also look at geography and fairness in terms of which pumpers are causing the overdraft.
An across-the-board cut of 50% to 60%, they said, would devastate smaller farms who aren’t the ones causing the overdraft.
“I’ve watched these carrot guys come in and they do pump a lot of water in that main valley,” said Ventucopa rancher Steve Lundberg, who extracts between two and five acre feet a year. “They started this lawsuit so they could stay here and keep pumping because they didn’t like the GSA rules.”
Lundberg referred to rules approved by the Cuyama Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) that curbed pumping in the center portion of the valley, where the largest pumpers, including Grimmway and Bolthouse, have their operations.
In 2024, the four largest pumpers in that central area extracted 26,094 acre feet, according to Jeff Warren, the GSA’s attorney. Pumping by just Grimmway and Bolthouse, alone, was 22,000 acre feet, he said.
“So, if you’re looking at managing the basin and drawing down pumping, you’re going to look to the area of greatest concern and not go chasing after landowners who are pumping less than 5 acre feet a year,” Warren said.
Richard Zimmer, who represents Bolthouse Land Company, said the GSA “involved a lot of politics” and had not addressed over pumping “legally and in a way that would correct the overdraft.”
He said by curtailing pumping mainly in the central area, the GSA had left 89% of the basin unregulated so the lawsuit “had to be filed.”
For small pumpers, though, Zimmer said there is a “very viable path to settlement.” He said there is an offer to allow all pumpers extracting less than two acre feet a year, and possibly less than five acre feet a year, to take their highest year and make that their rate.
Winnowing out the small pumpers from the lawsuit would protect them from an across-the-board cut and make it much easier for the larger pumpers to hammer out a settlement, he said.
That still wouldn’t address the massive pumping imbalance that exists, according to landowner Brenton Kelly who cited GSA numbers showing the top five pumpers take 128% of the basin’s safe yield on their own while the vast majority of other pumpers account for miniscule amounts.
“Basinwide, size-blind cutbacks would be disastrous and put many small farmers out of business,” he said. “A handful of big operators who have been over extracting the most for the longest, should not be rewarded by shedding their cuts onto smaller users.”
Highberger called the case one of the most important on his docket and engaged with residents on a surprisingly deep level during the Nov. 7 hearing, even sharing his computer screen to show how they can access and file documents with the court.
“I’ve been to your valley,” he said, noting he had stopped for a worship service in Cuyama this past summer. “I care about you people.”
Another status conference is scheduled for Dec. 2.
Three other groundwater adjudication lawsuits are ongoing in California including in the Indian Wells Valley in Kern County’s high desert, Fox Canyon in Ventura County and Borrego Springs in San Diego County.
