A few weeks ago, the California Water Resources Control Board placed five Kings County agricultural water agencies on probation for failing to adequately manage groundwater supplies in the Tulare Lake Basin , which were seriously depleted due to excessive pumping.
This is the state’s first major enforcement action under the Groundwater Management Act, passed a decade ago, to protect aquifers that farmers have used to supplement or replace the water from reservoirs that are closed during periods of drought.
In some areas, so much groundwater was pumped out that the land above it collapsed, a phenomenon known as subsidence.
The board’s April 16 action not only subjects Kings County agencies to fees and stricter oversight, but sends a message to irrigators across the state that they must take elimination seriously overdrafts after having had a decade to adopt aquifer management plans.
The reduction in groundwater use is not an isolated event, but rather an important part of the state’s stated intention to reduce the share of water devoted to agriculture – about three-quarters of overall human use – as the state adapts to the effects of climate change.
As if to mark that goal, federal water managers told San Joaquin Valley farmers that despite two wet winters, they will receive less than half of their contracted water allocations during this year’s growing season .
In recent decades, when surface water from reservoirs failed to meet demand, farmers drilled deep wells to tap aquifers. With the measures taken by the National Water Board to combat groundwater, it is inevitable, according to experts, that some fields must be taken out of production.
The Public Policy Institute of California, which closely monitors management of the state’s water supply, has estimated that at least 500,000 acres of farmland will be fallowed when the groundwater law is fully implemented. implemented.
What land will be affected, what will happen to unused acreage, and the financial impacts are questions that loom over groundwater reduction.
A day after the Water Board’s crackdown in Kings County, a hint of those problems emerged when the Assembly’s Utilities and Energy Committee approved legislation that would allow farmers whose Access to groundwater is restricted to more easily convert their fields into solar energy farms.
Assembly Bill 2528, carried by Rep. Joaquin Arambula, a Fresno Democrat, would allow affected farmers to remove their land from Williamson Act conservation contracts and use it for solar energy production without pay the high cancellation fees provided for by current law.
The six-decade-old Williamson Act gives farmers significant reductions in their property taxes in exchange for making long-term commitments to keeping land in agricultural production.
Arambula told the committee that “many farm owners are at risk of losing access to water, which is essential to their ability to cultivate their land (and) this confluence of water and water sustainability needs clean energy demand gives us the opportunity to develop an approach that meets multiple economic and environmental objectives.
The bill is supported by the solar energy industry and the Western Growers Association, which generally represents large farmers. However, the California Farm Bureau, which counts many relatively small farmers among its members, opposes it, saying the bill could harm the farmland conservation goal of the Williamson Act.
The division between the two agricultural groups means that as groundwater is reduced, there will be a rush to convert fields to fallow. Some farmers are already striking deals with solar interests that would be even more lucrative if they could cancel their contracts under the Williamson Act without paying hefty cancellation fees, which could reach 25% of land value.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
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