Before You Call Us Pumpers: The Human Side of SGMA

There is a word I keep hearing in California water conversations.

Pumpers.

I understand why the word is used.

In groundwater management, the State is looking at extraction, reporting, sustainability, and compliance. From a technical standpoint, a “pumper” is someone who pumps groundwater.

But words matter.

They shape the story.

They shape what the public sees.

They shape who gets blamed.

And they shape who gets forgotten.

When California talks about farmers, landowners, and rural residents as “pumpers,” something human gets stripped away. A pumper is a function. A pumper is a data point. A pumper is a number on a report.

• A farmer is a person.

• A landowner is a person.

• A widow trying to understand what her husband used to handle is a person.

• An older man trying to register a well without email, internet access, or a computer is a person.

• A daughter helping her father navigate a system he does not understand is a person.

This is the part of SGMA that often gets missed.

California does not only have a groundwater problem. California has a narrative problem.

For years, the public story around water has often been told in simple terms: farmers use too much water, farmers are the problem, farmers are the villains draining California dry.

That story is easy to repeat because it gives people someone to blame.

It is also too thin to carry the truth.

Yes, agriculture uses water.

Yes, groundwater pumping has consequences.

Yes, the Central Valley has hard questions to answer about sustainability, land subsidence, domestic wells, crop choices, and long-term water use.

Responsible groundwater management matters.

But when the story stops at “farmers are the problem,” we lose the ability to understand what is actually happening on the ground.

• We lose the small landowner trying to understand a letter that showed up in the mail.

• We lose the older farmer who does not have an email address.

• We lose the widow who is suddenly responsible for decisions she never expected to make.

• We lose the family operation trying to keep up with new rules, new portals, new deadlines, and new costs.

• We lose the people who are not trying to avoid responsibility. They are trying to understand what responsibility now requires.

In my work around SGMA outreach, I have seen this up close.

I have sat across from people who want to do the right thing but are overwhelmed by the process. They are being asked to navigate online systems, parcel records, verification codes, photo uploads, reporting requirements, and deadlines. For some, that may feel simple. For others, it is a wall.

One older landowner comes to mind.

He wanted to comply. He wanted help. He was anxious and worried. But the first step required an email address. He did not have one. His wife had handled that part of their life, and she died. His phone was old. He did not have a computer. To move forward, he needed help from family.

That moment has stayed with me because this is the face that disappears when policy becomes a headline.

This is the person hidden inside the word “pumper.”

And this is why language matters.

When the public is taught to see farmers only as villains, every solution can start to sound justified before anyone asks how it lands on real people.

When the State sees people only as pumpers, implementation can become a matter of collecting data, enforcing deadlines, and measuring compliance.

But SGMA will not succeed through data alone.

It (SGMA) will succeed when people understand what is being asked of them, why it matters, and how they can participate without feeling erased before they even sit down at the table.

Bad narratives create bad strategy.

If the story is too narrow, the strategy will be too narrow.

If the story ignores grief, age, digital access, rural culture, family structure, and trust, then the strategy will miss the very people it needs to reach.

That does not mean groundwater management should stop.

It means implementation has to become more human.

SGMA is not only a water policy. It is a human transition.

It is changing how people understand land, inheritance, farming, water rights, responsibility, and the future of rural California. It is asking people to participate in systems that many of them did not create and do not yet understand.

That takes more than regulation.

It takes outreach.

It takes education.

It takes patience.

It takes local trust.

It takes people willing to sit at the table and explain the same thing more than once.

It takes recognizing that compliance is not just a form someone fills out. Compliance is often the result of someone finally feeling safe enough, informed enough, and supported enough to take the next step.

That is the human side of SGMA, and that is the side I believe California must understand if it wants groundwater management to work.

I am not writing this to deny the seriousness of our water crisis.

I am writing this because the seriousness of the crisis requires a better story.

A truer story.

A more complete story.

The San Joaquin Valley is not a cartoon villain in California’s water debate. It is a region full of people carrying responsibility, uncertainty, history, grief, pride, fear, and grit.

It is farmers and farmworkers.

It is families and retirees.

It is widows and widowers.

It is small landowners and large operations.

It is people who know the land, depend on the land, and are now being asked to reimagine their relationship with water in real time.

That cannot be understood from a distance.

It has to be witnessed.

It has to be listened to.

It has to be told honestly.

Before you call us pumpers, come sit at the table.

Come meet the people living inside this policy. Come understand what happens when a statewide law reaches a rural kitchen table.

Then we can talk about groundwater.

Then we can talk about responsibility.

Then we can talk about sustainability.

Then we can talk about what it will really take to save the San Joaquin Valley, one honest story at a time.

I'll see you at the table,

Julie