Boswell-run groundwater agency agrees to work with other Kings County agencies after nemesis is fired
Subsidence from over pumping is still a problem in the Tulare Lake subbasin covering most of Kings County.
Opinions on how much sinking is too much are still sharply divided. As are views on how much pumping is too much and whether groundwater can be moved from one area to another.
Yet, the El Rico Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) voted June 9 on several measures it expects will reunite the fractured region. That includes an effort to write a single, subbasin-wide groundwater plan rather than each of the five GSAs writing their own.
What’s changed?
One man was fired from a water district in the northern reaches of the county.
“The reason for breaking up is now gone,” said El Rico Board President Jeof Wyrick at the June 9 meeting. He referred to Dennis Mills, former manager of the Kings County Water District.
In 2024, Mills who, at the time was also manager of the Mid-Kings River GSA, refused to approve a last-minute groundwater plan ahead of a hearing before the state Water Resources Control Board, California’s groundwater enforcement arm.
Mills said El Rico – which is controlled by the powerful J.G. Boswell Farming Company – had insisted the plan allow for another 10 feet of sinking, which Mills said would never fly with the Water Board.
He refused to approve the draft plan.
Without a new plan to consider, the Water Board put the region on probation, which comes with stiff reporting and fee requirements and is the first step to the state possibly taking control of local pumping.
El Rico’s response was swift and scorching.
It pulled out of the subbasin-wide effort to write a single plan, choosing to write its own, and publicly named Mills as the reason for the region’s predicament.
“There was a whole lot of work and effort done by the people at this table to make a plan that was hijacked by that individual over an ego,” El Rico Board member and Boswell employee George Wurzel said at a May 2024 meeting.
The Kings County Farm Bureau piled on, sending a letter to all water users demanding resignations from Mills and all the Mid-Kings board members.
“Your failures have violated the law and the trust of your constituents, friends and neighbors,” the Farm Bureau letter states.
The Kings County Water District left the Mid-Kings GSA, which fell apart and was re-formed under the county with County Community Development Director Chuck Kinney as its new manager.
Each GSA was left to rework its own groundwater plan without state consultation as the state refused to meet with local managers after the Farm Bureau sued the Water Board.
Eventually, Kings County Water District board members were replaced by a new board, which fired Mills in April.
“We still have our internal squabbles but we were the only ones with a separate chapter because of the former Kings County Water District manager and that doesn’t appear to be a problem and Chuck’s on board with it and recommends it,” Wyrick said at El Rico’s June 9 meeting. He referred to the subbasin-wide groundwater plan rewrite.
The “separate chapter” Wyrick mentioned is El Rico’s portion of the last-minute 2024 plan that was never reviewed by the Water Board. That chapter allows for six more feet of subsidence beneath Corcoran and 10 feet more of sinking in the Tulare Lake bed.
Also at the June 9 meeting, El Rico approved a $614,204 contract with Luhdorff and Scalmanini, an engineering consulting firm, to work in coordination with Geosyntec, the engineering consulting firm representing the Tulare Lake subbasin’s other four GSAs.
The firm will hold monthly meetings with all five GSAs, Geosyntec and the Water Board, respectively. It will also host up to four public workshops to receive feedback from growers.
El Rico also approved a contract to hire Stacie Ann Silva, who founded Altum Aqua Logic, as the subbasin’s liaison with the Water Board. Her $10,000-per-month fee will be split between the five GSAs based on acreage.
Mid-Kings approved Silva’s contract at its meeting, held the same day as El Rico.
“I think it is really important that the Tulare Lake (managers) decided they needed to come together and that they probably needed a third party to help them through this,” Silva told SJV Water.
