By Monserrat Solis
Kings County Supervisor Doug Verboon traveled to Sacramento on Tuesday, April 7, to plead for an additional year to work on groundwater plans in the region saying local managers were “betrayed” when the state refused to meet with them for a year while a legal issue played out.
He said local agencies, including the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), need that time to, among other actions, hold Proposition 218 elections to raise funding so they can implement plans to decrease pumping, increase recharge and fund domestic well protection programs.
“We feel we were kind of betrayed a little because we were promised that we’d have working staff for two years to work with us,” Verboon told the Water Resources Control Board.
Instead, Water Board staff ceased speaking to, or meeting with, groundwater managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, for more than a year starting in 2024.
The silent treatment was prompted by a lawsuit filed against the Water Board by the Kings County Farm Bureau after the Water Board placed the region on probation in April 2024.
Under probation, farmers must meter and register wells at $300 each, report extractions to the state and pay the state $20 per acre foot pumped. The Farm Bureau, which obtained a preliminary injunction holding off those sanctions, alleged the Water Board exceeded its authority under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
The injunction was overturned in late 2025 but Water Board staff quickly set a deadline of May 1, 2026 for Kings County farmers to begin reporting extractions and paying the pumping fees.
But Water Board staff didn’t begin meeting with local water managers until earlier this year.
Kings water managers have previously said the lengthy ghosting by Water Board staff was especially unfair since the GSAs weren’t party to the lawsuit and the lack of communication came at a critical time as they were working to revamp their groundwater plans.
In that time, most Kings County GSAs have implemented their own pumping allocation, well registration and reporting policies.
“Give us a year and we’ll prove to you that we’re doing the right thing,” Verboon said on Tuesday at the Water Board meeting.
But, he warned, it will be difficult to maintain momentum if GSAs are competing with the state for landowner fees.
“We’re not going to be able to get a 218 passed to fund (projects) ourselves if the state is taking $20 an acre foot out of our county,” he said.
Water Board members did not directly respond to Verboon’s request because that issue was not on the agenda for the April 7 meeting. For the Water Board to make a decision, the request would need to be added to a future agenda.
“It is unclear if the verbal comments at yesterday’s board meeting were a request for an exclusion (from probation reporting and fee requirements) or a request for an additional delay of the (May 1) reporting deadline,” Water Board spokesman Edward Ortiz wrote in the email about Verboon’s comments.
