By Don A. Wright
The East Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency held its Technical Advisory Committee meeting on Friday, May 8, 2026 at the Lindmore Irrigation District boardroom in Lindsay and at three other noticed locations. It’s been a bit since we dropped in on the East Kaweah GSA and watching them on Zoom is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. This has all the makings of a great meeting. Watching in on the pre-meeting banter, audio was off, you can still see three or four engineers and a couple of possible Certified Public
Accountants and a farmer or two. You can tell by the way they dress. Farmers wear short sleeve plaid shirts. Engineers and CPAs wear polo shirts or non-plaid button down shirts. Attorneys often wear ties. Reporters wear red-long-underwear with a blue cape under their suits and horn-rimmed glasses. Gets really hot in the summer.
The Meeting
The meeting began with the audio off, that should be a red-face-o-rama faux paw but we got on with it anyway. General Manager Michael Hagman got it up and running by 8:35am. There was minimal public comment and the minutes were approved.
Engineer Kait Palys gave the committee an update on a domestic well being considered for mitigation. She said Self Help Enterprises is participating in this program. The well was in tremendous disrepair and some well mitigation before the recent sale of the property had already taken place which negated either some or all of the mitigation available under the Kaweah Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Palys and Hagman both stated they didn’t believe this well will qualify for the mitigation program funding and participation. The committee agreed to recommend to the EKGSA board to deny the claim on this well and to upgrade the policy to include situations similar to this.
Palys said there isn’t much of a Sustainable Groundwater Management Act update because there have been enough updates in the past to get some of the slow motion portions started earlier this year. She said the Department of Water Resources has been meeting with subbasins experiencing subsidence and will continue to do so as they work out best management practices.
Flying Dragon
Hagman said they are waiting for the second draft from the Lakes and Streams Assessment permit process issued by the State Department of Fish & Wildlife. The Flying Dragon is a piece of property EKGSA is looking to develop as a recharge facility. I was recently coming home on Highway 99 from the Duarte Nursery Friends Day event near Modesto when a group, or perhaps gang, of motorcyclists went zipping between the slower moving vehicles stuck in the two-lane section north of Madera. More than a dozen of them defied death and common sense squeezing past big and little rigs. But they all had a patch on their vests that read, “Flying Dragons, Oakland.” Sounds like an opportunity for EKGSA to enter into a public/private project.
Prop 218 Election & Other Matters
Hagman said the 218 vote needs to be postponed at this time. That is often the wiser course to follow with this type of election. California’s Proposition 218 was passed in 1996 and requires a public agency to hold an election before raising rates. Since all of the irrigation and water districts are political subsets of the State of California with boards that take the same oath to protect and defend the constitution as the President does, it follows that GSAs must also adhere to the restraints of a 218 Election. Sarah Bardeen presents an interesting twist on how 218 directly impacts water agencies in a Public Policy Institute article on the subject. What happens is a district or agency will propose a rate increase, produce an engineering report to justify the increase and hold a vote. It is expensive, time-consuming and a distraction from the daily chores of running a water entity. And if the vote fails income stagnates but not expenses. Sounds familiar to private businesses, a pity the state legislature doesn’t have to be held accountable in a similar manner.
Engineer Matt Klinchuch gave the volumetric report and Hagman gave the Land IQ report. The actual evapotranspiration, ET is 67,230 a/f since October 2025. He expects by the end of the year this number will exceed 200,000 a/f. At 8:59am the meeting went into closed session for one item. Go be good to each other and yourselves.
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SGMA The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 calls for the formation of Groundwater Sustainability Areas within Basins and Sub-basins to develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans.
EAST KAWEAH GSA 315 E. Lindmore Street, Lindsay, CA 93247. Telephone 559/562-2534. Mailing address PO Box 908 Lindsay, CA 93247
Members: County of Tulare, City of Lindsay, Exeter ID, Ivanhoe ID, Lindsay Strathmore ID, Lindmore ID and Stone Corral ID
Board: David Roberts-Chair, Craig Hornung-Vice Chair, Steve Milanesio, Joe Ferrara, Brian Watson, Larry Micari, Mike George, Paul Buldo Joe Soria, Terry Peltzer & Scott Reynolds.
Staff: Michael Hagman – Executive Director, Chris Hunter – Program Manager
DWR Listing: Basin San Joaquin Valley, Sub Basin Kaweah 5-022.11
