Madera County, which acts as a groundwater sustainability agency for farmlands outside of irrigation district boundaries, was the first agency in California to institute groundwater pumping limits.
Meanwhile, area irrigation districts haven’t implemented pumping restrictions.
That has created what one farmer called an unfair advantage. But there are arguments on the other side that farmers in irrigation districts have paid fees and other costs for years that non-districted farmers haven’t.
This is just one of the difficult issues farmers now face as California’s groundwater law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, edges closer to full implementation in 2040.
