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While some growers may see the emerging new state groundwater regulations as a potential burden, Helm, Calif., farmer Don Cameron sees them as an opportunity.Few growers understand California’s groundwater crisis better than Cameron, who farms almonds, walnuts and about two dozen other crops on 7,000 acres on the north fork of the Kings River in the San Joaquin Valley.

Cameron’s Terranova Ranch isn’t in an irrigation district, so he relies entirely on groundwater pumping. In 2011, he used a federal conservation grant to start using flood water from the river to replenish the aquifer beneath his sandy property, and he hopes to someday flood more of his ranch during wet winters to recharge the groundwater supply.

Following a national search to select its top legal officer, the San Diego County Water Authority Thursday named local attorney Mark J. Hattam as general counsel.

A partner in the San Diego office of Allen Matkins, a California-based law firm specializing in real estate, litigation, labor, tax, land use and business law, Hattam will begin his new post March 14.

The water industry in the west has an impressive history of building dams, moving water hundreds of miles to where it’s needed, removing contaminants to assure public health and safety, and developing distribution systems that have set the international standard. These accomplishments aside, twentieth century solutions are becoming less and less viable as disruptors to the status quo fundamentally challenge the way we operate. The types of incremental improvements the industry is used to aren’t adequate to address the twenty-first century challenges we are facing.

There is a lawsuit in San Diego County that is as old as “I Love Lucy.” It was filed the same year a disc jockey coined the term “rock ‘n’ roll,” a gallon of gasoline cost 27 cents, and turn signals were still optional in cars.
And it is still being waged in San Diego federal court today.

In 1951, the U.S. government sued thousands of landowners in and around Fallbrook in a move to secure Camp Pendleton’s water rights. It is the oldest, ongoing civil case in the county.

The Rainbow Municipal Water District board approved the district’s strategic plan at the Jan. 26 board meeting.

A 3-0 board vote, with Jack Griffiths abstaining and Bob Lucy having resigned prior to the meeting, adopted the strategic plan.