A couple of weeks ago, the California Water Resources Control Board put five agricultural water agencies in Kings County on probation for failing to adequately manage underground water supplies in the Tulare Lake Basin that have been seriously depleted due to overpumping.
Farmers in one of the most prominent agricultural communities in the country will likely be living an underwater nightmare for the foreseeable future. Central California’s Tulare Lake is filled past the brim, but with the blessings of an ample water supply also comes a curse: spillage that experts say could continue to drown fields and roadways for years to come.
California’s ongoing floods and very wet year overall will continue to grab headlines, provide great pictures, and break some local records, but overall this year is unlikely to be truly extreme from historical or broader water policy and management perspectives. It can still be a very useful wet year, beyond just having lots of water.
Tom Barcellos has farmed the reclaimed soil of the Tulare Lake Basin for nearly five decades, and he’s rarely witnessed a winter like 2023.
A slew of drenching storms, funneled across the Pacific Ocean as atmospheric rivers, have prompted prolonged flooding in large swaths of the San Joaquin Valley.
