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Cataloging San Joaquin Valley water projects is a huge and ever-changing task

• by Monserrat Solis, California Local News Fellow
Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative.  It seems like an impossible task, cataloging all – or at least most – of the various water projects underway and planned in the San Joaquin Valley including new recharge basins, canals, connections and more. But…
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Westlands Water District teams up with democrats on massive solar project

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water
The powerful, and politically right-leaning Westlands Water District recently teamed up with left-leaning democratic assemblymember Esmeralda Soria on renewable energy.  Her bill, AB 2661, was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom last month and will allow Westlands in western Fresno County  to oversee the generation, storage and transmission of solar energy.  Within Westlands, about 130,000 acres…
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New UC Davis clinic hopes to give small valley farmers some legal fire power to defend their groundwater stake

• by Hannah Frances Johansson, freelance for SJV Water
Nicole Larson is afraid for small farmers. Before enrolling as a law student at University of California, Davis, she served a term on the Turlock City Council where she was appointed to a committee that would decide how to get local farmers to cut back on groundwater pumping. “Everyone agrees that something needs to change,”…
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Application deadline for fallowing program for Tule basin farmers extended to Sept. 30

• by Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
The deadline to apply for the Tule Land and Water Conservation Trust’s land fallowing program has been extended to Monday, Sept. 30.  More than $1.2 million is available to growers in the Tule subbasin, which covers the southern half of Tulare County’s flatlands, to participate in the third year of the program.  Those funds come…
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Ten years after the law known as SGMA changed California’s water world, what’s next?

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water
Monday marked the 10-year anniversary of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, (SGMA) which aims to bring severely over pumped aquifers back into balance by 2040.  Even with more than $1 billion already spent, two groundwater subbasins on probation and enforcement actions being challenged in court, some state officials say the hard part is just beginning. …
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State budget cuts having “profound” impact on water agencies from state to local levels

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water
The impacts from California’s financial problems are starting to be revealed as some water agencies are implementing serious cutbacks.  During its August board meeting, staff at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board announced they are trimming the operations budget by 5% because of state budget cuts.  Meanwhile, San Joaquin Valley groundwater managers are…
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Rural Kings County families have a 50-50 chance their well is contaminated with nitrates

• by Monserrat Solis, California Local News Fellow
Editor’s note: Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship initiative. There’s about a 50-50 chance the tap water that 10,000 rural Kings County residents are drinking is contaminated with nitrates. That’s a type of salt that can be toxic, even lethal to newborns, causing what’s commonly…
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Fresno State study examines how water recharge could help or harm disadvantaged communities on a regional scale

• by Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
A study examining the benefits and drawbacks of building groundwater recharge basins near rural communities is underway in Merced, Madera, Tulare and Fresno counties. The two-year study is a spinoff of an earlier feasibility study focused solely on Fresno County, and both are spearheaded by the California Water Institute at Fresno State University.  “Floodplains and…
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