Crunch time: Groundwater agency with land in two troubled subbasins working double time to try and hold off state sanctions
The Tri-County Water Authority has a foot in each of the two groundwater basins now under state probation and is scrambling to find a path to compliance in each. Tri-County covers lands in both the Tule and Tulare Lake subbasins, in the southern portions of Kings and Tulare counties, respectively. Both those subbasins have been placed on probation by the state Water Resources Control Board for having inadequate groundwater sustainability plans. Probation requires farmers to meter and register their wells at $300 each, report extractions and pay the state $20 per acre foot pumped. That’s on top of fees they already pay their groundwater agencies and water districts. In the Tulare Lake subbasin, probationary sanctions have been paused while a lawsuit wends its way through the court system. But that also means Water Board staff aren’t communicating with local water managers to help them develop groundwater plans that meet state expectations.
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