Water district accuses east Kern group of dragging feet on groundwater compliance, wants state action
The Kern-Tulare Water District in northeastern Kern County is asking the state to take a closer look at what it says is excessive pumping in a so-called “whiteland” area that is harming its own groundwater supplies.
Representatives of the Eastside Water Management Area (EWMA), meanwhile, say the group is working through a laborious process to get the legal authority and funding to take action on over-pumping.
It was “surprised and disappointed” by Kern-Tulare’s April 20 letter to the Department of Water Resources’ Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) department, a spokesman said at the Kern Non-Districted Lands April 27 meeting where the dispute spilled over.
“We’ve been working for a long time with (EWMA) to get them headed in the right direction to no avail,” said Andrew Hart, who sits on both the Kern-Tulare and Kern Non-Districted Lands boards.
Kern-Tulare is asking the state to impose an immediate moratorium on drilling any new agricultural wells in the EWMA, among a litany of other proposed requirements.
Kern-Tulare is also actively opposing EWMA’s application with the Local Agency Formation Commission to form a water district covering nearly 40,000 acres scattered along the eastern fringe of the valley in Kern.
Part of the problem is that landowners in EWMA increased permanent crop plantings by nearly 5,000 acres on lands in Kern County that are entirely groundwater dependent. Such lands are outside of water district boundaries and called “whitelands” because they are left white on color coded district maps.
But even under SGMA, Kern-Tulare’s letter states, EWMA has used delay tactics to avoid the difficult and expensive task of finding ways to bring in new water or cut landowner pumping.
Taylor Blakslee, a consultant with the Hallmark Group and EWMA’s project manager, said the landowners have not been recalcitrant. He said they have voluntarily paid tens of thousands toward forming a water district so they can assess themselves and use that money to do the very projects Kern-Tulare wants to see.
But the process takes time, Blakslee said during the meeting. EWMA’s attorney Dan Raytis agreed saying it took a full year just to get the legal description right. Now that the process is before the LAFCo, Kern-Tulare’s letter may throw in another monkey wrench.
“The LAFCo process has nothing, nothing, to do with SGMA,” Raytis said. “They (LAFCo commissioners) don’t understand SGMA and don’t need to. But now they want to understand it to see if it has any bearing on this decision.”
He said formation of the water district would give EWMA “the same tools all of you have” to get projects done.
Kern-Tulare District Engineer Vanessa Escobedo disputed that saying EWMA was specifically granted authority in 2020 and again 2022 to institute pumping reduction policies.
“And here we are in 2026 and nothing has happened on demand management to the east of Kern-Tulare,” Escobedo said.
EWMA doesn’t need to be a water district to stem over pumping, she reiterated.
In fact, the Kern-Tulare letter states that if EWMA does form a water district, it could result in more planted acreage and greater pumping without any constraints.
The dispute comes six months after the Kern subbasin got out from under state intervention for lacking an adequate groundwater plan. One of the main deficiencies water managers had to overcome better coordination.
While Kern-Tulare’s letter stresses at several points that it supports Kern’s approved plan, it’s unclear if this controversy could reopen questions about the subbasin’s ability to move forward in a cohesive manner.
SJV Water is an independent, nonprofit news site covering water in the San Joaquin Valley, www.sjvwater.org. Email us at sjvwater@sjvwater.org.
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