Hanford-area growers agree to new fees they hope will hold off further state intervention
A Hanford-area groundwater agency will institute a pair of new fees on landowners to help pay for programs and plans that it hopes will – eventually – get it out from under state scrutiny.
Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) overwhelmingly won approval for a new assessment fee of $26.84 per acre. And the board also approved a pumping fee of up to $19.24 per acre foot.
“I just think that we need to give a lot of credit to the farmers that have put in so much work and so much time to take and work on this and the entire county appreciates this,” Mid-Kings board member Kimber Regan said during the Sept. 29 final hearing on the fees.
Regan referred to the landslide of “pro” ballots that were 83% in favor of the land assessment fee. Of the more than 20,000 ballots mailed to landowners, 2,313 were returned.
The land fee is expected to bring in about $2.5 million a year starting in 2028. That money will go toward Mid-Kings’ general operations and administration costs. Growers will be invoiced starting in Dec. 2027.
The land fee will also fund the GSA’s revision of its groundwater plan that the region hopes will meet state approval in order to get the Tulare Lake subbasin out of state probation.
The pumping fee will bring in $1.8 million in 2027. It will start at $9.23 per acre foot and then jump to $19.24 per acre foot in 2028, bringing in $3.66 million a year.
The pumping fee will pay for pumping-related programs such as Mid-Kings’ water quality and subsidence programs.
The Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, was placed on probation by the state Water Resources Control Board in 2024 for lacking an adequate groundwater plan that would stem subsidence and protect domestic wells, among other issues.
Probation requires farmers to meter their wells and register them annually at $300 each. Farmers must also report pumping to the state and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. That fee would go up to $35 per acre foot if the state rejects the region’s new groundwater plan, expected to be completed in April 2027, and imposes its own pumping plan.
The Water Board has already begun writing its pumping plan, which it plans to release in summer 2027.
That plan will likely include strict pumping limits, or even pumping moratoriums, given the severe subsidence, or land sinking, in the region. A draft pumping plan for the neighboring Tule subbasin includes a pumping moratorium for two miles along the Friant-Kern Canal, which has been sinking due to excessive groundwater extractions.
Also at the Sept. 29 meeting, Mid-Kings approved a five-year budget that included reimbursing $900,000 to Kings County, the City of Hanford and Kings County Water District, which all loaned money to the GSA to keep the lights on.
As of June 30, the county is owed $490,914; the city is owed $157,819 and the district is owed $321,374, Mid-Kings General Manager Chuck Kinney told SJV Water.
Mid-Kings is currently funded by the county and city under an 89%-11% split.
Board member Richard Valle wondered why it would take five years for the county to see the funds it loaned to the GSA.
“It was weighted so that we could get the GSA functioning and moving forward with repayment catching up over time,” Kinney said during the hearing.
