By Monserrat Solis, SJV Water
The South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) approved a pumping allocation during a Jan. 15 board meeting. The policy will allow Lemoore-area pumpers to extract a base amount of .86 acre feet per acre of land.
“I think it’s a necessary evil, but it scares me and it’s going to be real expensive and I don’t know how long it’s going to last. I don’t think it’s sustainable for the farmer. It might be sustainable for the groundwater, but it’s not sustainable for the farmer,” Board member Ceil Howe said before the vote.
The pumping allocation policy is just one piece of the puzzle to ensure that the GSA complies with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which aims to have local entities bring aquifers into balance by 2040.
Pumpers that disregard the base allocations and overpump will pay $500 per acre foot above the base and will see a reduction in next year’s allocation. A pumping fee for the base allocation will also be set by the board at a later time.
However, fees and penalties will not be charged for the 2026 water year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2025 to Sept. 30, 2026.
“We’re going to let people start getting used to this. We’re going to let people understand it,” engineering consultant Amer Hussain told the board.
That means that by October 1, 2026, pumpers must be ready to pay the pumping fees and penalties.
South Fork’s grower advisory group spent more than a year crafting the policy until landing on the 19th version that eventually passed.
“The growers, the committees, we really spent a lot of time on this,” South Fork grower advisory member Steve Jackson told the board. “It was a long process.”
When the GSA issued its draft pumping allocation policy in October, it had set its base amount at .66 acre feet per acre of land. That amount increased to .86 after South Fork growers learned of neighboring Mid-Kings River GSA’s proposed pumping allocation of 1.43 acre feet per acre of land.
South Fork farmers strongly opposed Mid-Kings’ allocation, which was approved by its board Dec. 16. Grower advisory member Doug Freitas feared that Mid-Kings farmers would essentially use South Fork farmers’ groundwater.
Water managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, are inching toward coordination, but disagreements about the methodology used for pumping allocations among the region’s five GSAs continues.
A similar lack of agreement delayed a coordinated groundwater plan in April 2024, prompting the state Water Resources Control Board to place the region on probation.
Under probation, farmers are required to meter and register their wells at $300 each, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped to the state Water Resources Control Board.
Those sanctions were paused due to a lawsuit, but are expected to begin in May.
