The drought provocateurs and what’s coming next

California agriculture squanders 80% of our usable water and provides 2% of California’s $3.2 trillion economy. SGMA passed to halt aquifer over-pumping and to bring groundwater basins into balance by 2040. 85% of Californians depend on groundwater for some portion of their water supply while Chico is 100%.

California’s water supply comes from groundwater at 40%, snowpack at 33% and rainfall at 27%. In drought years groundwater provides 60%, our most valuable water resource. Agriculture consumes the largest portion of usable water at 80% while municipalities use 10% and industry 10%.

Groundwater shortages are caused by the biggest user, agriculture at 80%. It was agriculture that drained Tulare Lake, once the largest lake west of the Mississippi. Central Valley agriculture has overpumped itself causing subsidence of over 30 feet. Agriculture has caused millions of dollars of infrastructure damage from over-pumping aquifers. Corcoran has subsided 11.5 feet causing damage to roads, bridges and canals. Arbuckle has subsided 2 feet in nine years.

In 2018, Proposition 3 was rejected containing $750 million to repair the Friant-Kern Canal, damaged by agricultural overpumping which created 10 feet of subsidence. Agriculture created this calamity and tried to hustle taxpayers to pay for their greed.

Butte County supervisors are preparing to give our public groundwater to TWD which is controlled by the county’s largest corporate farms. SGMA was created to control groundwater over-pumping by agriculture and our Supervisors may be gifting it to the private entities which SGMA is attempting to regulate.

— Dave Garcia, Oroville