California water officials [Thursday] recommended putting several San Joaquin Valley groundwater agencies on probation for failing to develop an adequate plan to stop over pumping their severely overdrafted aquifers. The Tulare Lake groundwater basin — which provides well water to residents and hundreds of square miles of dairies and farms, including land owned by agricultural giant J.G. Boswell Company — is designated as critically overdrafted, which dries up wells and causes land to subside. The State Water Resources Control Board staff’s recommendation is the first time that state officials have moved to crack down on inadequate local plans for groundwater pumping in California. Thousands of wells in the Central Valley have already gone dry.

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