Farm Bureau opposes well ordinance

Tulare County circulating plan up for adoption

A long-awaited proposed ordinance regulating new agricultural wells is getting mixed reviews in the county.

The ordinance has been in the works for more than a year and a draft ordinance is being circulated and will be up for discussion at today’s Tulare County Water Commission meeting in Visalia.

The ordinance will prohibit any new wells on ag land which has not previously been irrigated, such as land used for dry-land farming, which includes a lot of the foothill areas of the county.

Tulare County Supervisors in December directed staff to come up with a draft ordinance which would place a moratorium on the drilling of new ag wells on land currently not in production.

The proposal received a lot of discussion then, with some urging stronger prohibitions against new wells and others saying the restrictions violate a property owner’s rights.

The new ordinance, which is being circulated among stakeholders, only places a moratorium against new ag wells on previously unirrigated land and would be in effect only until the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) goes into effect in 2020.

The Farm Bureau said the draft could be presented to the Board of Supervisors for a first look at a regularly scheduled Board meeting in early September.

Patricia Stever Blattler, executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau, said Friday the organization’s attorneys will be filing comments in opposition of the ordinance.

“It’s a property right infringement. They cannot prohibit a person extracting water on their own property,” she said.

In the draft ordinance, it states:

“The extraction of groundwater for the purpose of irrigating unirrigated land within the County could have adverse economic impacts on the County, including loss of arable land, a decline in property values, increase pumping costs due to the lowering of groundwater levels, increased groundwater quality treatment costs, and replacement of water wells due to declining groundwater levels.”

It further states, “that extraction of groundwater from the proposed water well will not constitute unsustainable extraction of groundwater.”

The ordinance is the product of the five-year drought which ended in 2016, but efforts remain strong to control the pumping of groundwater, especially in the agricultural-rich San Joaquin Valley. The state legislation, SGMA, will restrict pumping in all wells, including in cities such as Porterville.

Stever Blattler said the ordinance is not necessary because the SGMA will do the same thing.

“We’ve already got SGMA breathing down our neck,” he said.

She said not all growers are opposed to the ordinance.

“I have growers with all different opinions. Some feel the rules should be no different than for a residential subdivision. I have other farmers who want to do something to stem the tide (falling groundwater levels),” she said.

The ordinance appears to be what some in the county urged the supervisors to draft. The Community Water Center in Visalia pushed hard for the ordinance.

Tulare County was at the epicenter of the drought with more than 1,600 domestic water wells failing, the majority of those in the unincorporated area of East Porterville. Farmers have had to deepen or drill new wells as they saw their ag wells go dry as well.

Fifth District Supervisor Mike Ennis has supported such an ordinance.

The ordinance would only apply to the unincorporated areas of the county. It also does not restrict the drilling of replacement wells or domestic wells and wells which will not produce more than two acre feet of water a year.

The Water Commission meets at 3 p.m. today at the Board of Supervisors’ chambers at 2800 W. Burrel in Visalia.