State abruptly ends year-long silent treatment for Kings County water managers
- Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative.
The state Water Resources Control Board ended its silent treatment of Kings County groundwater managers Jan. 5, agreeing to meet after a year of zero communication.
The news came as a happy surprise to locals who desperately need state guidance to ensure their revamped groundwater plans are headed in the right direction.
The stakes are high for area farmers after the Water Board placed the region on probation in April 2024. Probation comes with mandates that farmers meter their wells, register them at $300 each, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped.
Those mandates, held at bay for more than a year because of a lawsuit, are expected to kick in starting in May 1.
The only way out of probation is for locals to come up with plans that meet state approval and show how managers will curb pumping to stop land from sinking and protect domestic wells.
Other regions at risk of probation have only gained such approval with significant state interaction.
But, because of the ongoing lawsuit, the state cut off communication with Kings County water managers.
All that has now changed.
“This email (from the Water Board) came out of the blue, but I’m happy and pleased that we’re getting these ongoing conversations,” said Amer Hussain, a consulting engineer who serves as a manager of three groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County.
Water Board spokesman Edward Ortiz wrote in an email to SJV Water that the state’s change of heart toward Kings County GSAs was due to a legal victory by the state.
“Now that the injunction is reversed, we are meeting with all five GSAs, including Mid-Kings,” Ortiz wrote in an email.
The Kings County Farm Bureau had sued the Water Board over the probationary designation, alleging the board had overstepped its authority. It won a preliminary injunction in Sept. 2024 preventing the state from imposing probationary sanctions.
That injunction was overturned in October last year and GSA managers immediately sought meetings with state regulators.
After initially agreeing to meet, Natalie Stork, director of the Water Board’s SGMA division, broke things off again stating in a Dec. 10 email that the Farm Bureau’s lawsuit still stood in the way.
“Regrettably, given the highly contentious litigation, the State Water Board will not be meeting with local GSAs at this time,” Stork wrote to Hussain.
That sparked frustration among GSA board members, including Robert Thayer, a Kings County Supervisor who also sits on the Mid-Kings River GSA board.
“It’s kind of astounding to me that this regulatory board in the state of California isn’t talking to Mid-Kings GSA,” he said during a Dec. 16 meeting. “This is not our lawsuit.
Then “out of the blue,” Hussain got an email from the state on Monday, Jan. 5, reversing course and seeking to meet with GSAs, specifically with Mid-Kings.
Water managers jumped at their chance.
“All the GSA managers made the time to meet Friday,” Hussain told SJV Water. “It gives us an opportunity to get answers from the state and show them the progress we’ve made in the last year.”
He expects to update the Mid-Kings and South Fork Kings GSA grower groups on Jan. 12 about the one-hour meeting with the state.
The Water Board also put out a FAQ Jan. 7 answering a host of questions about what’s happening in the Tulare Lake subbasin.
Meanwhile, the Farm Bureau’s lawsuit is continuing in the Kings County Superior Court and it has petitioned the state Supreme Court to hear the preliminary injunction issue.
