Kings County agency may scrap groundwater export policy to avoid lawsuit

A recommendation to toss out a restriction for how far groundwater can be moved out of the South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) will be considered at the board’s next meeting on June 18.

The recommendation was made during the board’s May 21 meeting after South Fork was repeatedly threatened with a lawsuit by John Vidovich, who controls Sandridge Partners, a large landowner in the GSA.

The export restriction, which limits movement of groundwater pumped out of South Fork to within one mile of its boundaries, is part of the GSA’s allocation policy, or how much growers can pump.

South Fork’s Legal Counsel, Ken Richardson, said the board will have to decide whether to separate those issues and if it wants to draft a standalone policy for groundwater exports during the June meeting.

“I will be bringing back an amendment of the allocation policy that will revise that policy to eliminate its export restrictions and develop a specific export policy,” Richardson told the board.

Richardson also shared that wells exporting water outside of the GSA will need to be metered, pending board approval.

South Fork passed its allocation policy of .86 acre feet per acre of land, along with the one-mile restriction, in late January. 

A letter from Sandridge that was sent to South Fork GSA opposing that policy states that it owns substantial acreage in South Fork as well as the Southwest GSA.

“These lands were purchased so that Sandridge could legally pump water to its crops in the adjoining Basin South West,” it states. The one-mile restriction would prohibit Sandridge from moving well water to its crops in Southwest GSA.

Vidovich, who chairs the Southwest GSA board, also felt the amount South Fork allows its farmers to pump is too generous and will contribute to subsidence in the region.

“So that’s one of the reasons we’re going to hire counsel to go after South Fork because we need to make sure that it’s stopped before it happens,” Vidovich said at the Jan. 30 Southwest GSA meeting.