A Year of Silence. Then Everything All At Once.

This article was orignally published the the KCFB Farm Life Publication

If you have opened a piece of certified mail recently and wondered what it meant, you are not alone. If you attended a state workshop and left more confused than when you arrived, you are not alone. If you have the sense that something significant is happening with your water and nobody has explained it clearly, you are not alone.

Groundwater management in this basin is entering a new and critical phase. Deadlines are arriving. Fees are real. And the rules, as many local water managers recently discovered, have been shifting in ways that weren't always announced in advance.

What follows is an accounting of what has happened, told in sequence, so that every farmer in this basin can see the full picture.

Draw your own conclusions.

1: The State Went Silent

For more than a year, all communication from the State Water Resources Control Board stopped, citing the lawsuit, despite encouragement from the Farm Bureau to keep communication open.

Local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies continued their work: building plans, running models, holding meetings, and making decisions without clear guidance from the state on what was expected or how their work would be evaluated.

Farmers and water managers did what they were asked to do. They moved forward.

2: The State Came Back- On Their Own Terms

When state engagement resumed, it did not appear to be a collaboration. Meetings were difficult to arrange. Communication was limited. When state staff did engage, the message was clear: what local agencies had done was not good enough, and it needed to change.

In the meantime, the state introduced its Best Management Practices on Land Subsidence, a new set of standards that local agencies would be expected to meet.

No roadmap was offered. No path forward together. Just new expectations, and the assumption that everyone would find their way to them.

3: A 46-Page Document Changed Everything

The State Water Resources Control Board issued a 46-page document denying all eight fee-exclusion requests submitted by GSAs in the Tule subbasin, which is also in probation. Every request. Denied.

For local water managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, that document was a wake-up call, not only because of what it denied, but because of what it disclosed. For the first time, the state had put its expectations in writing. What they want, in black and white. Finally.

What the document revealed was significant. The state used its Land Subsidence BMP guidelines to assess the Tule subbasin's water-level settings and measurements, guidelines that had not yet been finalized when the Tule exclusion request was submitted.

Tule submitted their requests in September of 2025. The BMP wasn't finalized until January of 2026.

The goalposts had moved. And nobody had announced it.

4: Local Managers Heard the Alarm

For local GSA managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, the impact of that document was immediate. For months, agencies had been working independently, each relying on their own groundwater models, their own data, and their own approach. What happened to the Tule subbasin changed that.

Basin-wide groundwater modeling will be updated to evaluate sustainable yield by aquifer and by GSA, numbers that every agency in the Tulare Lake subbasin will agree on together.

A critical head study will be conducted across the entire subbasin. The term 'critical head,’ which first came into discussion in January 2026, refers to the groundwater level at which land subsidence is minimized or halted. Simply put, it is the water level that must be maintained underground to prevent land surface sinking. Falling below this level can cause damage to canals, pipelines, roads, and drainage infrastructure. Local agencies are also re-engaging with infrastructure owners to assess current damage and the risks ahead.

If there is a silver lining to what happened in the Tule subbasin, this is it. The alarm bells finally brought everyone in the Tulare Lake subbasin to the same table.

5: Certified Mail Arrived

In early March, landowners across the basin began receiving certified mail from the state: a formal notification of the requirement to register and report wells, along with information about fees.

For many farmers, this was their first direct contact with the state about SGMA compliance while the subbasin is on probation.

Not a workshop invitation. Not a phone call. Certified mail.

6: And Then Came GEARS

The Groundwater Extraction Annual Reporting System (GEARS), the state's online portal for groundwater well registration and pumping reports,  is the system every qualifying landowner is required to use.

When farmers and water managers attempted to access and navigate the system, they encountered significant problems. The system experienced outages. The hotline was either down or, at best, intermittent. Landowner information was missing. In some cases, landowners received incorrect information about their registration status or reporting requirements.

7: The Deadline Is May 1

Regardless of the system's complications, reports of missing or incorrect information, or unanswered questions, the deadline has not changed.

May 1, 2026

For a basin full of farmers navigating an unfamiliar system for the first time, the state has committed to one in-person meeting in April. One.

8: There Is No Grace Period

The landowners in this basin represent the full range of agricultural life: large multi-generational operations, small family parcels, full-time farmers, and part-time landowners. Some have dedicated office staff. Some work alone. All of them have received the same requirement and face the same deadline.

Local water managers brought these concerns directly to state board staff. They asked whether assistance would be available for landowners struggling to navigate the system. They were told there was no option for that. They asked whether there would be any grace period for those unable to meet the deadline.

Their answer was no. The deadline is May 1.

9: The Fees Are Real (and so are the consequences)

Fees are not hypothetical. They are structured, and they are coming. The state has established fees of $300 per well and $20 per acre-foot of groundwater pumped. For a farming operation with multiple wells and significant pumping, those numbers add up fast.

But for farmers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, the fees may not be the worst of it.

If the state determines that a subbasin is not making adequate progress toward sustainability, it can impose an interim plan: stepping in to manage groundwater directly from Sacramento. Local decision-making stops. Local knowledge, local priorities, and local relationships no longer drive the process.

What is also true is that nearly the entire Tulare Lake subbasin qualifies as a disadvantaged community made up of many family farms, small operators, and rural communities already stretched thin by years of water uncertainty.

Local officials,  including county supervisors and grower representatives, will appear before the State Water Resources Control Board in April to make that case directly. They are asking for a one-year delay. They are asking to have the fees revisited and/or forgiven altogether.

They are asking the state to consider who actually lives and farms in this basin before the consequences arrive.

10: The Tule Document Brought Us Together and Revealed How Much Work Remains

The state's response to the Tule subbasin led to an unexpected outcome in the Tulare Lake subbasin. It unified local GSAs and agencies that had been working independently, bringing them to the same table. The collaboration that followed was genuine and essential.

But that document also made clear that the work ahead is greater than previously understood. New policies will need to be developed. Technical standards will need to be established. Agreements that didn't exist before will need to be reached, and they will need to be reached together. The alarm bells brought people into the room. What they found when they got there was a longer road than anyone had anticipated.

That work is underway. And this time, the basin is doing it together.

11: The Dots Are Still Being Connected

Local water managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin are coordinating at a level they have never before. The technical work is moving. The modeling is underway. The questions raised at the April 7th State Board meeting will be on the record.

The road ahead is longer than anyone wanted. The stakes are as high as they get. And the farmers of the Tulare Lake subbasin are just getting started.

Julie Martella is a Kings County farmer and consultant specializing in SGMA implementation, stakeholder communication, and rural community engagement within the Tulare Lake Subbasin.