Groundwater Management (SGMA)

Groundwater is a shared, limited resource -- once it is gone, it is gone. When too many wells pump too much, the underground water level drops, and the shallowest wells fail first; overpumping also makes water quality worse and sinks the land. One study of Valley groundwater plans projected that thousands of household wells could go dry by 2040, as many as 12,000, and between 46,000 and nearly 130,000 people could lose their main water supply. Many are households that rely on one private well, so when that well fails, they lose their only running water. Advocates say the families who most need groundwater to drink are the ones left with none. The damage to the land can be permanent. In places, heavy pumping in the San Joaquin Valley has dropped the ground more than 26 feet -- a sinking process called subsidence that crushes the underground layers that store water, so the basin can never hold as much again. It also bends and shrinks major canals, cutting how much water they carry and forcing costly repairs. Every year of delay makes this worse. Supporters note that overpumping has been a chronic problem for years, and firm limits are how you protect a shared savings account of water. SGMA is meant to protect everyone who relies on groundwater, including the people who drink it, not just the biggest pumpers. Without enforced limits, they argue, the resource collapses for everyone, including the farms that will still need it later.

Farmers built California's food economy on groundwater, often with little choice, since rivers and rain fall short. In California, the right to pump has long come with owning the land above a basin, and many farm families invested for decades -- planting orchards and drilling wells, trusting the water would be there. Strict new limits pull that ground out from under them. The costs are large and real. One economic study looked at the law together with expected cuts to surface water and found the San Joaquin Valley could lose 42,000 jobs and more than $1 billion a year in worker wages, while city and county governments could lose about $242 million a year -- money that pays for schools, fire departments, and other services. In the eastern Turlock area, which leans heavily on groundwater, about 22,000 acres -- roughly a quarter of the farmland there -- are expected to be fallowed. Reporting on that same study, a California Farm Bureau water expert, Alexandra Biering, said stabilizing the aquifers is critical, but that doing so will be painful for farmers. There are also fairness and property-rights concerns. Groundwater under your land has long been treated as a property right, and the state can limit pumping or override a local plan. Owners say that can upend investments they made in good faith and leave their land and business unworkable. Farmers and their allies argue the goal should be balance: keep farms and rural towns alive while fixing overdraft, and don't cut so deep and fast that you hollow out the towns that grow the nation's food.