Scant number of Lemoore area growers attend first well registration session

• Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative.

Only about nine growers out of 150 farming entities showed up last week to a well-registration workshop held by the South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA).

The agency has been working to register wells for growers with 70 or more acres since it passed its registration and metering policies last September.

Groundwater agencies in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, have been steadily increasing requirements for farmers to register and meter wells in the wake of a state probationary finding last April.

State sanctions under probation include requiring growers to meter wells, register them at $300 each per year, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. Probation lasts for a year while state and local managers try to work up an adequately protective groundwater plan for the region. If that doesn’t happen, the state can then step in and mandate its own pumping restrictions.

A lawsuit has kept the state from being able to institute those probationary sanctions.

Meanwhile, groundwater managers throughout the subbasin are working with growers on local well metering, registration and reporting programs.

South Fork Kings, one of five groundwater agencies in the Tulare Lake subbasin, originally set a deadline for registration at the end of 2024, but amended the policy. All wells in its boundary will need to be registered by July 1, according to manager Johnny Gailey. 

The sparse attendance at last week’s workshop was actually beneficial to those who did attend as they received one-on-one attention on how to set up an account, select their parcels and register their wells with Watermark, the groundwater agency’s accounting database.

Claudine Contente, a 3rd generation dairy farmer, arrived at the workshop with a tablet in hand. 

Contente’s family dairy spreads across three GSA’s including North Fork Kings, Mid-Kings River and South Fork Kings. She previously registered her wells under North Fork’s policy and was familiar with the process, but still attended the workshop.

“I just wanted to come and make sure I don’t mess anything up,” Contente said. 

A second registration workshop will be held March 26 at 10 a.m. at Lemoore College in conference room 253. It’s recommended to bring a laptop or tablet and well information. 

Gailey was optimistic the morning event might work better with the grower’s schedules. 

“Hopefully we do better then,” Gailey said. 

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