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Latest News
When you’re done, you’re done. And the Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) is done. The district recently issued its new groundwater plan — purposely without coordination among the other groundwater agencies in the Tule subbasin. In the San Joaquin Valley water world, that’s the equivalent of going rogue. Especially as the Tule subbasin…
Noting that Kern County residents could suffer “urgent impacts” to their drinking water from continued agricultural groundwater overpumping, staff at the state Water Resources Control Board announced Thursday they are recommending the entire Kern subbasin be put on probation. Probation is the first step toward a possible state pumping take over. A hearing before the…
• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water
Four large agricultural water districts have kicked in an initial $580,000 to pay for water projects in several communities dotting the vast farming areas of western Fresno County. The funding amount will remain the same until the districts revisit the program in three years. The four districts – Central California Irrigation District, Firebaugh Canal Water…
Farmland valuations continued their downward trajectory in Kern County, in some cases dropping a whopping 47.6% over the first six months of 2024, according to the second quarter Kern County Ag Land Values report put out by brokerage firm Alliance Ag Services LLC. Some farmland has dropped back to, or even below, 2005 prices. “I…
State officials, advocates and residents gathered in Porterville on Monday to celebrate the five-year mark of a state drinking water program born of the crippling 2012-2016 drought. That’s when the entire community of east Porterville went dry – for months. There was no government program available to help and nonprofits could only do so much….
• by Sonia Lemus, freelance for SJV Water
Meeting: North Kern Water Storage District board of directors. Date: July 16, 2024 Agenda and board packet: CLICK HERE General Manager Dave Hampton said fencing costs jumped from an average $2,300 a month to $10,457 in July as the district fenced off some of its groundwater wells and has had to repair damage to fencing…
• by Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
The first steps toward possible state control of groundwater pumping in Kings County were derailed under a ruling issued July 15 that said the Water Resources Control Board had overstepped its bounds by requiring meters on wells. The temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction were issued by Kings County Superior Court Judge Kathy Ciuffini in…
A somewhat new groundwater authority held its first meeting Monday with a mandate to represent Kern County lands not covered by existing water districts. The so-called “non-districted lands” within the Kern subbasin (the San Joaquin Valley portion of Kern) had sort of been previously represented by the Kern Groundwater Authority KGA. But the KGA has…
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