California may monitor San Joaquin groundwater

California might step in to regulate groundwater use in part of the crop-rich San Joaquin Valley, which would be a first-of-its-kind move that comes a decade after lawmakers tasked local communities with carefully managing the precious but often overused resource.

At issue is control over a farming-dependent area where state officials say local water agencies haven’t come up with a strong enough plan to keep the water flowing sustainably into the future. The State Water Resources Control Board was to hold a hearing Tuesday to decide whether to place the region under monitoring, which would mean state, not local, officials would temporarily watch over and limit how much water could be pumped from the ground.

“It’s a huge deal,” said Dusty Ference, executive director of the Kings County Farm Bureau, which represents regional farmers. “What you gain in having local control is the ability to build groundwater recharge projects and some flexibility with how water is used and moved and traded or not.”

Ference said the state board wouldn’t have the local expertise or staff to do this.

The hearing is seen as a test of how California’s groundwater rules are working 10 years after lawmakers passed them. The limits came after years of overpumping and drought led to a host of problems ranging from residential wells running dry to sinking land. The goal was to make the most critically overdrafted groundwater basins sustainable.

Communities have since formed groundwater sustainability agencies and drafted management plans. In the Tulare Lake Subbasin, five local agencies worked on a single proposal, only to see it rejected last year by the state Department of Water Resources over concerns about lowering groundwater levels, sinking land and degrading groundwater quality.