By Monserrat Solis, SJV Water
Two neighboring Kings County groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) released draft pumping allocation policies recently but had a hard time getting feedback from residents and growers at recent workshops.
Not because growers and residents didn’t want to talk. They did. Just not about the pumping allocations.
A combined 70 people attended the Mid-Kings River and South Fork GSA workshops Nov. 12 and 14, respectively. Attendees had plenty of questions and comments about government mandates, surface water supplies, fallowing programs, pumping fees, Corcoran clay compaction and more.
But feedback on the draft pumping allocation policies was limited.
“It’s a challenge to stay on topic,” Kevin Ruble said at the end of the South Fork workshop. Ruble sits on advisory committees for both GSAs.
These pumping allocations will restrict what farmers can extract as part of the GSAs’ efforts to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). And are vital to the region’s attempt to claw its way out from under state scrutiny.
The Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, was put on probation in 2024 for lacking a cohesive groundwater plan that protects domestic wells and keeps land from sinking, among other deficiencies. Probation typically comes with onerous reporting and fee requirements.
Those measures were held off by a preliminary court injunction that was recently lifted. Growers are now facing a May 1 deadline to begin reporting water extractions. The underlying lawsuit against the Water Resources Control Board by the Kings County Farm Bureau is ongoing.
GSA managers are hoping to be able to show state regulators they are taking SGMA seriously and working toward an acceptable groundwater plan. Setting pumping limits is foundational to that effort.
Yet, right off the bat, there has been conflict as Mid-Kings set its “sustainable yield” pumping allocation at 1.43 acre feet per acre of land, more than double that of South Kings, where the allocation is .66 acre foot per acre of land.
“Sustainable yield” is the amount that can be extracted without causing negative impacts. The GSA’s policies also set transitional pumping caps, which are buffer amounts above sustainable yield that will decrease to 0 by 2040 when SGMA mandates aquifers be in balance.
At the Mid-Kings workshop, grower Todd Neves asked about the probability of success of Mid-Kings’ allocation and whether the GSA would get a chance to change it if it weren’t approved by the Water Board.
Consultant Amer Hussain told Neves that Mid-Kings’ allocation was on the “upper end” compared to neighboring GSA’s and he feared water managers would get only one chance to make their case to the state.
While the lawsuit held probation sanctions at bay, it also kept local water managers from being able to consult with state regulators as plans have been changed and tweaked over the past 19 months.
“We’ve had zero communication with the state over the last year. Plus, we have no feedback on our previous plan,” Hussain told the Mid-Kings crowd.
Hussain and water managers are keeping a close eye on subbasins that have had successful groundwater plans such as Kern and Kaweah in order to follow the Water Board’s direction.
“What we are trying to do, though, is look at our new plan and modify it in ways to to match what Kern and Kaweah did when they got out of probation.”
