- Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative.
A Kings County groundwater agency that imploded last summer under accusations of secrecy and arrogance has been resurrected with a new feature – an 11-member landowner committee that will look over issues and advise board members.
Nine committee members were appointed at the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency’s Nov. 5 meeting. The GSA will continue to review applications to fill representation gaps in District 2 within the GSA boundary and other industry categories, such as well drillers, a group the board is eager to invite to the table.
The committee is expected to create a bridge between policy makers on the GSA and landowners.
“We desperately need clarity and a path forward,” wrote Summerfield Farms Manager David Stanfield on his application to be on the committee. He was appointed as an ag processor representative.
That sense of needing clarity comes after a rough few months for Mid-Kings.
The agency was blamed by other groundwater agencies in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, for tipping the region into probation under the state Water Resources Control Board because its former manager refused to sign off on a new groundwater plan. That manager said he couldn’t approve the new plan as it called for even more subsidence, land sinking, something the Water Board had already said wouldn’t fly.
Internally, Mid-Kings managers were also accused of making decisions without input from local growers. Things got so bad last summer that the agency ceased to exist after one of its members, the Kings County Water District, left the GSA.
The county had to step in and rebuild the agency, otherwise a huge section of the county, including Hanford and Lemoore, would have been left uncovered by a GSA, which isn’t allowed under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
A key part of the new Mid-Kings GSA was the creation of a committee of advisors.
The nine appointed members included:
District 1 representative
- Garret Gilcrease, Kings County Farm Bureau vice president and grower
District 3 representative
- Mark Tos, owner and manager of Tos Farms
District 4 representative
- Andy Zonneveld, CEO of Zonneveld Dairies Inc., farmer, dairyman and chair of the North Forks Kings GSA rural community advisory committee
District 5 representative
- Chip Mello, Kings County Water District board member and row and permanent crop grower
Agriculture row crop representative
- Karl te Velde, owner of Karl te Velde Farm and Hanford Christian School board member
Ag permanent crop representative
- Brian Medeiros, Kings County Farm Bureau director, Last Chance Ditch Company board member, grower and rural domestic well user
Confined animal operation representative
- Matt Brown, owner of Browns Dairy
Ag processor representative
- David Stanfield, Western Agricultural Processors Association board member and farm manager for Summerfield Farms
Santa Rosa Rancheria representative
- Kevin Ruble, general manager of Tachi Farms, South Fork Kings GSA grower advisory committee member and California Wheat Commission District 6 alternate commissioner
The remaining five applicants not chosen for the committee were appointed as alternates.
Alternates include:
- Keith Caetano, row and permanent crop farmer, domestic well user and confined animal operator
- Julie Martella, farmer and owner of Martella Farms and domestic well user
- Helen Sullivan, owner of Sullincan Farming and Farm Bureau board member
- Mary Lou Silveira, farmer and secretary for the Kings County Republican Central Committee
- Sebastian Silveira, farmer and Gladstone Land Corporation land resources manager
Most of the applicants expressed an interest in helping the Mid-Kings River GSA in its mission to get the Tulare Lake basin out of probation, which requires farmers to register and meter wells and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. Those measures were paused in September, however, per a temporary injunction issued in a lawsuit brought by the Farm Bureau against the Water Board. The Water Board has appealed that order.
Advisory committee members shared a focus on the future, according to their applications.
“We need to work together with a unified understanding and solution in a productive platform with people who listen to other members,” Tos wrote in his application.
There is no set date for the newly appointed committee to meet as of Nov. 26.
- Republication or broadcast of SJV Water content is allowed with our reporter’s byline, SJV Water and the following tagline:
SJV Water is an independent, nonprofit news site covering water in the San Joaquin Valley, www.sjvwater.org. Email us at sjvwater@sjvwater.org
