Water managers in Kings County have heard nothing but crickets from state Water Resources Control Board staff for more than a month. While they would like feedback on how to best revise their groundwater sustainability plans, managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin instead are operating in separate silos, tailoring those plans to their own groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) boundaries. … The subbasin was the first of six San Joaquin Valley regions to face scrutiny by the state Water Board, the enforcement arm of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. … Board members voted in April to put the region on probation, which requires well metering, registration, fees and extraction reports. All of that was put on hold after a Kings County judge issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought against the Water Board by the Kings County Farm Bureau. The Water Board has appealed the injunction. Since that injunction, Water Board staff ceased communicating with water managers in the region on advice of legal counsel. 

Other groundwater articles:

• The Sentinel: Opinion: KCFB’s SGMA defense efforts are changing history
• Maven’s Notebook: Fixing California Aqueduct subsidence: A multi-billion dollar problem
• SJV Water: San Joaquin Valley well drillers say they are struggling to meet state air regulations
• Communications Earth & Environment study: Groundwater-surface interaction amplified post-seismic streamflow fluctuation