Kings County stragglers face fines of $100 per well for not registering

• Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative. 

In an effort to prod stragglers, a Kings County groundwater agency approved charging penalties to Lemore-area well owners who don’t register with the agency by April 30.

“We have to get these wells registered. We have to do something to get over the hump” Frank Coelho Jr., chair of the South Fork Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) grower advisory group, told the board at its Feb. 18 meeting. 

The board agreed and approved a $100 per well late fee for landowners who aren’t registered by the deadline.

So far, the GSA has received well registrations from about 67% of landowners.

The registration and penalty policies apply to wells that pump more than two acre feet per acre of land. Owners of domestic or abandoned wells won’t be subject to the penalty for registering late.

“We’d prefer to have all the wells registered, but for now the wells that are pumping are our biggest concern,” said South Fork’s General Manager Johnny Gailey.

Last year, the GSA held two workshops, offering one-on-one attention to set up an account with Watermark, South Fork’s well registration database.

“I’d rather it be on a local level than the state,” domestic well owner Cynthia Dias told SJV Water at one of the workshops of divulging her well information.

She referred to the Water Resources Control Board, which placed the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, on probation in 2024.

Probation requires landowners to register their wells with the state at $300 each, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. Those sanctions were held at bay for more than a year under a preliminary injunction. But that was thrown out and landowners will have to begin reporting extractions May 1.

In the meantime, local GSAs are making a push to register wells on their own as they tweak and finalize groundwater plans in hopes they will pass muster with the state in an attempt to avoid probation.

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