MEETING NOTES: Kings County Water District focuses on development
• Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative.
Meeting: Kings County Water District board of directors
Date: 10/2/2025
Agenda: CLICK HERE
Main Topic: Development in the City of Hanford
Kings County Water District General Manager Dennis Mills informed the board that he met with City of Hanford staff to discuss proposed developments being planned near district-owned Smith Basin and other basins within the city at its Oct. 2 meeting.
That development plan near Smith Basin will need approval from the district and Peoples Ditch Company before the plan goes before the city council, Mills told the board.
Another proposed development near the Hanford Christian School on Flint and 12th avenues includes widening the road, which would impact a section of Peoples ditch.
The city currently works with Peoples Ditch Company and the district to deliver excess water from the Kings River through about 125 acres of basins throughout the city in order to sink water.
A basin Mills refers to as the Leland Basin, located north of east Leland Way, might be abandoned. The basin is leased from the owner with shared payments from the district and Peoples Ditch.
“So they (the city) were fine with us abandoning the section of the ditch up to the terminal basin,” Mills said.
Additional development along 12th and Houston avenues, will require the district and Peoples Ditch to move a nearby canal underground, Mills said.
In the past, fences were built around the canal but that would invite garbage thrown over the fence and into the ditch. “It’s pretty awful to deal with,” Mills said.
“We’ve shifted more towards; if you want to develop along the ditch, you have to underground it,” he said.
The funding to create an underground pipeline would come from the developers, Mills told SJV Water.
In the meantime, the district will work closely with Peoples Ditch and city staff.
Private recharge
Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) advisory group member Mark Tos contacted Mills to discuss creation of a private recharge basin, which was a first, Mills said.
“This is the first guy that’s walked in and said ‘I intend to start building this,’” Mills told the board.
The inquiry comes months after the GSA board approved a private recharge policy, which allows landowners to sink surface water in order to get groundwater credits that can be used to increase their pumping allocation.
“I think whatever he does will kind of set the model; there’s other guys talking about it,” board member David Stanfield said.
Stanfield is also in the GSA’s advisory group.
Mills told SJV Water that landowners will need to speak to the district since it manages surface water in the area.
How to attend: The Kings County Water District meets at 2:30 p.m. on the 1st Thursday of each month at their district office located at 200 Campus Drive. The next board meeting is set for Nov. 6.
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