Governance of the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) switched hands abruptly on Monday evening, as it and the Kings County Water District (KCWD) officially parted ways.
The changing of the guard happened during a Mid-Kings GSA special board meeting held in conjunction with the Kings County Board of Supervisors and the Hanford City Council. The final action of KCWD’s representatives – Barry McCutcheon and Ernest Taylor – was approving the reworked joint powers agreement that reduced Mid-Kings GSA’s membership to two member agencies, the city and the county.
State Intervention Led to Schism
It was a contentious departure. McCutcheon and Taylor also serve as directors of the KCWD. The board of that agency voted on July 9 to end membership in the state-mandated Mid-Kings GSA. The decision to leave was described by McCutcheon as an attempt to evade the fallout from the entire Tulare Lake Basin – including the Mid-River GSA – being placed on probationary status by the State Water Resources Control Board. The KCWD will apparently attempt to form its own GSA, allowing it to deal directly with state officials.
It is not clear the move will work. Meanwhile, pumping fees and monitoring requirements the state imposed on Mid-Kings GSA water users have been temporarily blocked by an order from the Kings County Superior Court. The Mid-Kings GSA’s probation will last one year. During that time, the state expects the agency to compose a workable groundwater sustainability plan (GSP).
The year of probation began April 16.
At the same meeting on Monday, Mid-Kings GSA general manager Dennis Mills and legal counsel Ray Carlson both resigned their positions. Mills serves in an identical role for the KCWD, as does Carlson.
Water Users Disappointed by Kings Water’s Exit
During the last minutes McCutcheon served as Mid-Kings’ board president, farmer, landowner and “pumper” Mike LaSalle let McCutcheon and Taylor know exactly how little he thought of their departure and the decisions leading up to the less-than-amicable end of cooperation.
“I mean that’s like being invited into somebody’s house, to a friend, and he insults you, and you get mad and you leave, and on the way out the door you throw a stick at dynamite in the house,” he said. “Come on, guys, you can do better than that. So that’s all I’m going to say.”
LaSalle then left the podium. However, with his prior commentary, he summed up the decisions that led to the schism of the agencies. He began by recalling how the GSA spent $1 million on a consulting group to help write their GSP.
“I was very impressed with the work that they did,” he said. “I remember the last meeting where they gave their final report, and what they had concluded by looking at 30 years of data is that the overdraft in our GSA was about four acre-feet per acre per year.”
His quick mental arithmetic had LaSalle thinking growers would have to cut irrigation to prevent overpumping. The consultants said that would not be necessary with some changes in the way KCWD handled water.
“Every so often there’s wet years with plenty of flood release water, and most of it goes the ocean, so if we could just increase the total number of acres that the King’s County Water District has as sinking basins and take advantage of those wet years to sink water, we can sink enough water to balance the books,” he said. “And their opinion and conclusion was they didn’t recommend that we needed to cut or water pumping.”
Did Kings Water Need to Cut and Run?
LaSalle seems to believe the board of KCWD cut its ties with the Mid-Kings GSA too quickly. He described the details of SGMA – the State Groundwater Management Act – and the decades of time and repeated opportunities the law allows for the state’s menagerie of GSAs to comply with the its requirements.
“I think what that tells you is that whoever drafted this legislation understood that our economic system in this Valley is very dependent on agriculture, and cutting back on water pumping is going to probably have economic consequences,” he said.
He also reminded those attending the meeting that it took the state two years to return its evaluation of the original Mid-Kings GSP. More time passed as Mid-Kings worked on a revision, followed by seven more months of delay by the state before the plan was finally rejected.
“If you look at the Department of Water Resources’ behavior, they too do not show any urgency,” LaSalle said. “So I was absolutely shocked when I saw this notice of this meeting, that because of certain actions taken by the Kings County Water District, that we now need to consider changing the structure and putting the King’s County Board of Supervisors on our JPA.”
The need to distance itself from the Mid-Kings GSA became even less urgent when the court intervened to stop state-imposed pumping and well registration fees. The temporary restraining order comes from a lawsuit filed by the Kings County Farm Bureau. It challenges the notion that the Mid-Kings GSA is being forced by the state to enact a working GSP now, rather than giving them the time the law allows to complete the task.
The suit is ongoing.
New Mid-Kings Board Promises Working Conservation Plan
As the leadership of the Mid-Kings GSA officially dissolved itself – the board has not held a meeting since April 23 – the Hanford City Council convened its portion of the meeting. After accepting the reworked JPA, the council appointed Vice Mayor Mark Kairis to represent the city at Mid-Kings meetings.
The rest of the Mid-Kings board will consist of the five Kings County supervisors. According to the revised JPA, the county will be responsible for the day-to-day operations. Specifically, the county will oversee the implementation of measures intended to comply with SGMA. Chuck Kinney, Kings County’s community development director, will act as Mid-Kings general manager.
The newly seated board briefly discussed hiring new legal counsel. Their selection was Diane Freeman of Kings County County Counsel’s Office.
Doug Verboon, chairman of the Board of Supervisors and now chair of the GSA, promised those who use the water in the Mid-Kings GSA would have a say as the agency works to comply with the requirements of SGMA.
“We’re not going to make the decisions,” he said. “We’re going to ask the community to come up with an ad hoc committee at a later date. We’re going to have people with shallow wells, deep wells, surface water, no-surface-water white areas, all come together with the guidelines the state gave us, and we’ll vote on that to make it work for our community.”
Their motivation is simple and clear.
“We don’t want to limit agriculture in our county,” Verboon said. “We need as much money as we can make from agriculture here in Kings County.”