Farmers need to help set groundwater rules

Within the next five years, unprecedented rules for use of groundwater will take effect in California, affecting not only farmers and ranchers, but also cities and other communities that get their water from wells.

Before that happens, rules and the methods for governing groundwater use have to be developed, Fresno attorney Gary Sawyers told a group of farmers and others with an interest in water rights Monday afternoon during a luncheon at the International Agri-Center Social Hall in Tulare.

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Those rules being developed under the California’s Sustainable Ground Management Act wisely aren’t coming down from state agencies and handed down to communities, farms and ranches, he said.

Instead, the plan is for “groundwater sustainability agencies” to be formed in each water basin in the state — some comprised of city and county agencies, some comprised of water and irrigation districts and some a mix — to manage and develop rules for groundwater use, said Sawyers, who specializes in water rights law.

“Each plan will be different, because each basin and sub basin is different,” he told the crowd gathered gathered for a luncheon and his keynote speech.

Among the concerns for many farmers in the room is that SIGMA might force them to meter their groundwater and then restrict how mach they can use, a practice that already occurs in most western states except California.

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“It’s terrifying. It puts everything we do at risk,” said Steve Wilbur, who grows pistachios, walnuts, cotton and livestock feed crops for his dairy southwest of Tulare.

Adding to that fear is that farmers don’t have a lot of information about what’s coming, he said.

Some restriction on how much water farms and communities pump from their wells seems likely in the Valley, as over pumping has long been a problem here, and a common goal of the groundwater sustainability agencies — or “GSAs” — will be to make groundwater sustainable in each basin and sub basin.

That includes taking action to ensure wells continue supplying water for future generations and that the water is clean enough for agricultural use or drinking.

Those GSAs will have to form by June 30, 2017. If the deadline is missed by any water basins, the California Department of Water Resources could take over governing them and impose its own rules and policies that may not work as well as plans developed by people who live and work in these regions, Sawyer said.

The GSAs also would have to develop within just over four years rules unprecedented in California for groundwater use that will affect not only farmers and ranchers, but also cities and other communities that get water from wells.

Individual home wells will not be affected by SGMA.

The GSAs will have to develop groundwater sustainability plans for their respective basins. In critically-overdrafted basins — which includes much of the Valley — the deadline is Jan. 31, 2020, while others would have to have their plans in place by Jan. 31, 2022.

And if those plans aren’t completed and approved by the DWR by those deadlines — even if they’re delayed by lawsuits — the state agency could opt to take over managing those basins, Sawyer said.

He noted that limiting water use isn’t the only option the GSAs would have to improve well sustainability, as imposing fees for high water use and voluntary fallowing of crops are among the tools they’ll have to work with.

Sawyer’s speech was the first of several planned training events planned by Horizon Nut Company, a pistachio growing and processing business based near Tulare.

Creating the GSAs and developing the sustainability rules will be costly, with groundwater analysis alone likely to cost about $1 million for some groups, and they’ll have to come up with the money to pay for it, Sawyer noted.

“It’s going to be a fair amount of money,” said Tulare Councilman Craig Vejvoda. Tulare formed a GSA with the city of Visalia and the Tulare Irrigation District a couple of months ago.

He estimated the cost of researching, developing and imposing a sustainability plan at “north of” $1 million.

“But we may get grant money,” to offset some or all of those costs, Vejvoda said. “It’s an expensive undertaking, but we have to do it.”