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California water — and how we see it

Source: sjvwater.org

Kings County groundwater agency approves budget based on hypothetical revenue

Fetched 2026-07-01 08:00 from sjvwater.org

Reading Summary (AI-generated)

Reading Summary: Kings County Groundwater Agency Approves Hypothetical Budget

Key Facts

Who Is Affected

Policy/Legal Angle

Blog Angles

  1. Governance dysfunction as a funding crisis: Empire Westside Irrigation District’s repeated tabling of board expansion is directly undermining the GSA’s ability to pass a Prop. 218 election — is one district effectively holding the subbasin’s SGMA compliance hostage?
  2. Voluntary fees as SGMA workaround: Can a “voluntary” pumping fee realistically fund a mandatory regulatory program? What precedent does this set for other underfunded GSAs across the San Joaquin Valley?
  3. Domestic wells as the casualty: If the dry well mitigation program gets cut due to budget failure, which specific communities lose access to well repairs — and does this compound the equity concerns that got the subbasin placed on probation in the first place?

Full Text

Kings County groundwater agency approves budget based on hypothetical revenue

A Kings County groundwater agency recently approved a $2.1 million budget – the minimum it will need to adhere to state regulations – based on a future assessment election that even its own manager doesn’t think will pass.

The South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) approved the plan on June 18. It hinges on the county continuing an agreement to loan the GSA money as an advance on existing land assessment fees that are set to expire in 2028.

A Proposition 218 election to set new land assessment fees, which has yet to be scheduled, is expected to fail, according to South Fork General Manager Johnny Gailey. Meanwhile, growers may be asked to voluntarily pay a pumping fee as part of an “innovative revenue stream” being considered.

All of which makes the recently approved budget hypothetical at best.

Gailey said he believes landowners will reject any proposal to increase fees because they don’t feel represented on the board. He referred to a long-running, as yet unsuccessful, effort to add two seats to the five-director board to represent northern parts of the GSA.

“I believe that if we do a Prop. 218 before we have two more board seats up here, we’re going to be throwing that money away,” Gailey told the board at the June 18 meeting, referring to the cost of holding a Proposition 218 election.

At the request of growers, South Fork began the process of adding two seats to the board last year. South Fork is made up of five different agencies, each of which must approve the amendment.

But one agency, the Empire Westside Irrigation District, keeps tabling the issue , according to Gailey.

Being able to fund programs is crucial as the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, is finally uniting in an attempt to write a new cohesive groundwater plan that will lift the region out of probation. The Water Resources Control Board placed the subbasin on probation in 2024 for lacking an adequate plan that would protect domestic wells and stop subsidence, among other things.

Under probation, farmers are required to meter their wells, register them at $300 each, report extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. Reporting extractions began May 1, but fees have been held off pending an ongoing legal action .

As part of the new subbasin plan, South Fork will be expected to hire its own consultants to assess its water situation and implement programs such as repairing domestic wells harmed by excessive agricultural pumping.

Assuming funding comes through, South Fork’s budget includes:

“If we don’t get some sort of loan for well mitigation, I’m going to cut well mitigation, we’re just not going to do it,” Gailey told the board.

In order to have enough cash for those costs, Gailey said it would take an “innovative revenue stream” to even out the budget. The GSA could ask its pumpers to pay a voluntary $16 per-acre-foot fee for using “sustainable yield,” he said.

South Fork’s sustainable yield, or the amount that can be extracted without causing negative impacts, was set at . 86 acre feet per acre of land .

Board member Ceil Howe Jr. said that the additional bill would be a burden on growers.

“That’s still a lot of money; $1.7 million dollars coming out of the grower’s pockets but nothing on the other side coming back other than a partial water supply compared to what they had before,” Howe said.

Doug Freitas, who sits on the grower advisory committee, asked the board if charging farmers for pumping water was legal and questioned what water rights growers had if the GSA was charging for groundwater usage.

South Fork’s legal counsel Ken Richardson explained that the GSA has authority under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to charge a pumping fee.

“You have an usufructuary right,” Richardson explained. “You don’t own that water, the state owns the water of the state. You got a right to use it. They got a right to charge you for that use.”

Freitas was not happy with that response.

“I don’t even think we’ll get off probation to tell you the truth,” he said. “It seems like an awful lot of money to be burdened on just the growers.”