By Don A. Wright
The Kern Groundwater Authority Groundwater Sustainability Agency held its Wednesday, April 24, 2024 board meeting in Bakersfield and online with Zoom. The KGA has weathered a few SGMA storms and will most likely have to churn through a few more waves without capsizing before it’s over. The KGA is in the State Water Resources Control Board’s probationary sights.
The Meeting
Chairman Dan Waterhouse called the meeting just a little late, not sure how late as the Zoom link needed work, but it wasn’t much later than the 8:00am scheduled. The minutes were approved, the flag saluted and Attorney Valerie Kincade gave the financial reports and they were approved.
Attorney Report
Kincade gave an update on the Tulare Lake Subbasin probation hearing by the State Water
Board last week. She said it was long with lots of testimony. The impacted GSA told the board how much work they had put into the GSP and how close they were to completing an acceptable plan. She said the State Board members said there wasn’t a plan in hand and without that there was no good actor allowed. They put the subbasin into probation five to zero.
Kincade said there were as more questions than answers in the resolution. How does a subbasin get out of resolution, how much will staff spend and how will it help and how will enforcement work? These were not answered. Kincade said there were many comments for delaying probation. She said the crowd felt let down. Amanda Pearson, attorney for the State Board spoke a bit about the good actor clause – basically if you don’t have an adequate plan there is no good actor clause available.
Someone in the room asked how Tulare Lake thought they could avoid probation without an updated plan. Geoff VandenHeuvel spoke online saying the State Board said time and again the fees were only for recouping probation costs and he expects the State Board staff to come up with a budget.
Kincade said the State Board has a complicated fee structure methodology. VandenHeuvel said not having a completed GSP update was what hurt them. Attorney Dave Cameron said by way of online the 25 percent per month late fee does have a cap of 300 percent of the fee amount.
Legislation
SB1390 is a bill that proports to codify last year’s Executive Order allowing for recharging flood water without permits. This bill isn’t all that. There are strings attached. The Delta
has to be in excess or you may not own the water once it’s banked and you may not be able to pump it.
There is also a bill limiting the permitting of large diameter wells that will require exhaustive reports to prevent that will act as a moratorium. AB2079 was written by, drum roll, urban Assemblyman Steve Bennett, sponsored by DWR. Is Bennett’s position no water usage in California should be allowed without permission from state regulators? That’s a rhetorical question by the way. Bennet has been writing bills to stop any new ag wells in the San Joaquin Valley for a couple years now. I guess the old saying is true – malevolent legislation is written, truly economic destroying legislation is rewritten.
Bennett also has written AB560 that will require the State Water Resources Control Board to be included in the adjudication process. Some folks sure seem to want to interject the State Board into every available nook and cranny of water in California.
You may wonder if I have it in for Bennett. I don’t know him personally but last year when he had a very similar bill that would for all practical purposes halt well drilling he presented it as a way to help GSAs attain their GSP goals and stay in compliance. I asked him if any GSA had requested his help in this matter. He said he didn’t have time to go into the details. I asked him if he didn’t have time to go into the details of his bill that would most likely place a moratorium on well drilling – then who does? Never heard back from him.
Many times I’ve had politicians restate my question so they can give the answer they want. Once I had a conversation with a fellow running for an irrigation district board – who had never even attended a meeting.
I asked, “How are you qualified to sit on this board if you’ve never even attended a meeting?”
He said something like, “If you’re asking me if I have to die to officiate a funeral, I have to say no I do not.”
I responded by telling him I had no interest in his funeral officiating capabilities and redirected him to the question of why he would suddenly want to run for a seat on a board whose meetings he’s never bothered to attend.
There are many ways to not answer questions but ghosting by an office holder, not good at all. At least a “no comment” response acknowledges a question by a living human being has been asked.
GSP Rewrites
With a change in management since Patty Poire retired Kincade is handling things until a new Executive Officer can be hired. Kincade said there needs to be some housekeeping
such as updating names for the process of submissions and distribution of grants. This ties into the Kern Subbasin Coordination efforts as many of the grant funds are distributed subbasin wide. This gets into the grant requirement weeds a bit but there was no action required today.
Other Reports
Stephanie Hearn spoke about the GSP revisions to DWR as required by SGMA. Couldn’t hardly hear her so this half guess half what I could hear. I believe she said the maps are being updated and the white area boundaries are being cleaned up. There was something else about domestic wells. I guess Ms. Hearn’s is I believe with the engineering firm of GEI. Ms. Kincade said this plan is subject to approval by the KGA. There are many challenges as JPAs are involved in this process.
There was no new business but the Kern County Water Agency wrote a letter and that was all that was mentioned under the correspondence item on the agenda. Next was closed session with two matters of potential litigation, it wouldn’t be California water without it. 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.
Staff: Valerie Kincade – Attorney
The Kern Groundwater Authority membership:
Chair Dan Waterhouse – Semitropic WSD, Royce Fast – Kern County WA, Andrew Pandol – Kern Tulare WD, Kim Brown – Kern Water Bank Authority, , Gary Morris – West Kern WD & Rob Goff – Westside District Water Authority. Brandon Morris – Southern San Joaquin MUD, John Gaugel – Cawelo WD, Kevin Andrew – North Kern WSD, Gary Unruh – Rosedale Rio Bravo WSD, Randy Bloemhof – Shafter Wasco ID
www.kerngwa.com DWR Listing: Basin San Joaquin, Sub Basin Kern 5-022.14
