Letters to the Editor: How California’s big farms kill effective groundwater management

To the editor: California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was enacted in 2014. Ten years later, wells in the San Joaquin Valley are still going dry, water quality is poor, and land subsidence is still happening. (“California cracks down on another Central Valley farm area for groundwater depletion,” Sept. 21)
Water use in the Central Valley is a complicated topic. However, there are two identifiable reasons why a sustainable groundwater management system has not been adopted.
First, in multi-party negotiations over water use, if one party is satisfied with the status quo, there will be no meaningful, enforceable and verifiable agreements. Large-scale agriculture is more than satisfied with the status quo, because it can pump water faster and from deeper wells than smaller farms and communities. Large-scale agriculture can still pump water long after other wells have gone dry.
Second, there is a generational difference in attitudes between the old farmers and new ones.
The older generation operates according to the old adage, “You’ve got to make hay when the sun shines.” The rising generation, on the other hand, understands it should plan for generations after it. Its members want people in the future to be able to farm just as their parents did.
Unfortunately, so far, power and influence still rest with the older generation. Therefore, it’s hard to get meaningful, enforceable and verifiable agreements on groundwater use.
Jim Holloway, San Clemente
Greg Collins, Visalia
The writers are retired longtime city planners and co-authors of a book on water use in the San Joaquin Valley.
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To the editor: A farmer is quoted as saying that the groundwater law is bringing changes “at a breakneck pace.”
California’s groundwater management law went into effect in 2014. Water agencies have had 10 years to come up with acceptable plans. They do not have to be fully implemented until 2040.
How is that a “breakneck pace”?
Meanwhile, several large agribusiness farms have sunk wells 2,500 feet below ground level and deeper. It would seem like the plan is to pump out all of the groundwater and walk away with the profits from the pistachios and almonds, leaving somebody else to deal with the disaster created.
The state Water Board must vigorously enforce the groundwater law, assuming that it is not hamstrung by the courts.
Noel Park, Rancho Palos Verdes