groundwater

In 2014, the mammoth groundwater management law known as SGMA promised to overhaul water use in the state. A recent conference showed how the rubber is hitting the road.

Groundwater plans, largely serving low-income Latino communities, were deemed inadequate for preventing dry wells and sinking land.

Communities still have dry wells. Restoring groundwater takes decades, with costly, long-term replenishment projects — and ultimately, much less pumping.

Groundwater limits and fees netted $11 million in 2021 from Tulare Co. farmers. Most of that money will pay a share to fix the sagging Friant-Kern Canal. The rest will pay for projects to stem the groundwater free fall that sank the canal in the first place.

An archeologist with the Tejon Tribe has been working closely with the City of Bakersfield and the two Kern County water districts behind the project to make sure the “significant” Native American sites on the ranch are protected.

Managers for all the deficient subbasins will now have six months to address plan deficiencies as outlined by the state and resubmit them to DWR for another review. If the plans are rejected at that time, the state Water Resources Control Board could take over the subbasins and manage groundwater directly, or take other, more punitive actions.

Pumping caps have been, or soon will be, implemented in all three groundwater sustainability agencies in the Kaweah subbasin.

Small farmers struggle as ag titans wheel water for profit.

Local agencies charged with managing groundwater in the coming decades have until January to re-submit their sustainability plans to the state for review.

For more than two decades the small Tulare County community of Tooleville has been without a secure supply of safe drinking water. The simplest solution…