Greater Kaweah GSA Final Draft Rules and Regulations Comments due Today!

Greater Kaweah Final Draft Rules and Regulations

Today, August 5th is the last day to turn in formal comments on this version of the Rules and Regulations! Comments may be Emailed to:

eosterling@greaterkaweahgsa.org

This current draft version of the Rules and Regulations was a rushed job and has significant errors in the document. Greater Kaweah growers need to submit comments today and at the very least ask that the Stakeholder committee be allowed to review this draft as it presents a significant change from the prior draft document. Approving this document in the current form without significant stakeholder input does not provide growers enough opportunity to weigh in. Please forward this to any other Greater Kaweah GSA growers that you know of so they have an opportunity to weigh in. It may be the last chance!

At the last Greater Kaweah Board Meeting on July 22nd the Amended Groundwater sustainability Plan was approved for submission to DWR before the July 27th deadline. This was a huge undertaking that has consumed most of the GSA's in the San Joaquin Valley since they received the letters from DWR informing them of the incomplete status of the GSPs that were submitted. 

After this a Draft was presented of the final revision of the Rules and Regulations for groundwater pumping in the Greater Kaweah GSA. This draft showed significant revisions from the previous version, including a shift from restricting transfers by a fixed distance to restricting transfers based on 39 zones shown in the maps below. The pink area represents Greater Kaweah GSA, green area East Kaweah GSA and the grey area is Mid Kaweah GSA.

Zone Map Created during GSP update process

Each category of water allocated would have different rules based on the zones as shown in the chart below

The tier 1 and tier 2 allocations will also be reduced over time as shown in the table below. This table is straight out of the draft and the numbers do not seem to add up. I believe the intention here is to lower the tier allocation for each period by the percentage in the Total Allowable Overdraft column. I have added the last column to show how much Tier 1 and Tier 2 water (in inches would be available for these periods with the reductions.

Transfers Require Having  Registered Flowmeters on both ends

Although both the Stakeholder commitee recommended, and the GKGSA board of directors have indicated that this would not be a requirement at this time the draft document language still requires flowmeters to transfer groundwater allocations. additionally the following language was added:

For all wells constructed after the date of the first adoption of the GKGSA Rules and Regulations, flowmeters satisfying the conditions and criteria prescribed by this Section 2.02 shall be the only permissible means for measurement of groundwater extraction.

This means that after the rules are adopted that all new wells may only use flowmeters as the measurement for groundwater extraction and may not elect to use landIQ data.  

Land Owner defined in draft as Fee Title Owner

No Provision for "Farm Unit"

The implication of this definition without specifically allowing for shared usage of water on a "Farm Unit" basis that we had previously requested in written comments will severely impact a large number of farmers in the GKGSA. If a piece of land is farmed that is in a Trust and it is part of a larger ranch that has slightly different legal ownership, and movement of water between the parcels will trigger the transfer provisions and leave behinds noted above resulting in a loss of allocation. This will also adversely affect any farmers that have leased ground and need flexibility to transfer water allocations. If you have a ranch made up of leased parcels with different fee title ownership, any movement of water allocation between them will trigger the transfer losses. This will put small farmers that are leasing ground or farming for a family farm with multiple legal fee title owners at a disadvantage to large landowners in the GKGSA.

Surface Water Rechargers may transfer credits anywhere within the  GKGSA without penalty

While this provision may seem like a great incentive to encourage recharging surface water, those entities with existing water rights will have a huge advantage over groundwater only farmers in their ability to capture and recharge surface water. this will only widen the divide between the haves vs. the have nots in the GKGSA. Those who have access to surface water are not restricted to the same limitations in transferring a recharge credit as those who are pumping the Sustainable Yield.

Due Date for Water invoices will hamper Farmers Tax Planning

The draft Rules have the water invoice due 30 days from the invoice date. Having the due date codified in the Rules and regulations will restrict the GSA from allowing flexibility in collecting fees in a way that gives the farmer a choice in which tax year to pay the bill.  

Owners must elect in which order to use the categories of water 30 day prior to the end of each quarter , or default to the order of the Rules and Regulations

This may not seem like a big deal right off the bat, but if you are considering transferring water, the sustainable yield allocation would have the least amount of restriction in transfers. That means you would have to remember 4 times a year to elect to use your categories of water in a different order than the default to have the sustainable yield left over to transfer. 

Precipitation is not being included in the Categories of Water to be accounted for in the Online Dashboard

Although the dashboard currently has a placeholder for accounting for precipitation I feel that it should also be listed in the rules and regulations so we can be sure that the precipitation number is available to see and not just netted out of the ET number that gets used. The accounting should be transparent for all users!

If any of these issues bother you, this Friday, August 5th is the last day to turn in formal comments on this version of the Rules and Regulations! Comments may be Emailed to:

 eosterling@greaterkaweahgsa.org.

Please Forward this email to anyone that may find it useful!