State Water Resources Control Board

The holiday season in the Kaweah subbasin got a little more jolly thanks to its formal removal from the state’s groundwater enforcement process on Tuesday.

Appellate court justices heard arguments Tuesday in the highly watched dispute over whether the state exceeded its authority when it placed the Tulare Lake subbasin on probation last year for failing to come up with an adequate plan to protect the region’s groundwater.

The state Water Resources Control Board voted last week to move the Kern subbasin out from under its enforcement purview and back under oversight of the Department of Water Resources.