One of the hardest things to explain about the San Joaquin Valley groundwater crisis is that the people being asked to change today did not make all the decisions that brought us here. Most of us inherited this water system. We inherited the reservoirs and canals, the deep wells, the productive farmland, and the expectation that when surface water could not carry us, groundwater would. For a long time, it did. We also inherited the consequences. Every generation solves the problems it can see. The people who built California’s water system saw fertile soil, growing communities, an unpredictable climate, and water that needed to be captured, stored, and moved. They built extraordinary systems. They made agriculture possible on a scale few could have imagined, and they helped turn the San Joaquin Valley into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. Those decisions created tremendous value. They also created the conditions the next generation would inherit. That is the part of inheritance we do not always talk about. We receive what earlier generations built, along with the responsibility for what those decisions eventually set in motion. How the San Joaquin Valley Groundwater Crisis Reached Us Groundwater became the dependable reserve beneath the Valley. When surface water was limited, wells kept crops alive. They supplied rural homes and communities. They helped agricultural operations survive drought, uncertain deliveries, and years when there simply was not enough water available from other sources. The decision to pump groundwater often made sense in the moment. One well did not create the groundwater crisis. One orchard did not cause the land to sink. One agricultural stakeholder pumping through one dry year did not place an entire basin into overdraft. Over decades, thousands of reasonable individual decisions accumulated into a regional problem. The reserve became a regular supply. Wells became deeper. Permanent crops expanded. Communities and local economies became increasingly dependent on water that could not be replenished as quickly as it was being used. Eventually, the math caught up with us. This history matters because conversations about groundwater often become a search for someone to blame. Blame may give us a simple story, but it does not give us an accurate one. The groundwater crisis developed through public policy, infrastructure investment, agricultural markets, population growth, drought, surface-water limitations, and generations of reliance on the aquifer. The Valley benefited from that system. California benefited from it. Families across the country benefited from the food it produced. Now the consequences have also become shared. When the Groundwater Bill Reaches the Table SGMA did not create the groundwater bill. SGMA is what happened when California could no longer ignore it. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires local agencies in high- and medium-priority basins to develop and implement plans to achieve groundwater sustainability. On paper, that means bringing groundwater use and replenishment into balance over time. On the ground, it means something much more immediate. It means registering and monitoring wells. It means reporting groundwater use, paying assessments and extraction fees with money already stretched tight, working within pumping allocations, investing in recharge, and making difficult decisions about which land can remain in production. Those decisions reach far beyond a water balance. They reach farm budgets, property values, family operations, agricultural jobs, schools, local businesses, and the future of rural communities. This is where I do my work as a water consultant. I work in the space between what SGMA says on paper and what it asks people to do in real life. I have watched a room change as people begin to understand what an allocation could mean for their land. I have heard the questions that come after a new fee is explained. I have listened as stakeholders try to calculate what compliance will cost, how much water they may have available, and whether the operation they planned to pass forward can survive the transition. These questions are practical: Can I keep my trees alive? Can I afford the fees? What happens to land that no longer has enough water? What will this mean for the next generation? Underneath those questions is something we rarely name in technical reports. There is grief in SGMA. There is grief in realizing that land may not hold the same future it once promised. There is fear in being handed responsibility for a problem generations in the making. There is anger when people feel blamed for participating in a system that public policy, markets, infrastructure, and communities spent decades building together. There is also the weight of knowing that something has to change. That is the human side of SGMA. Paying attention to it makes implementation stronger. People are more able to participate in difficult change when they understand why it is happening, what will be asked of them, and whether their experience has a meaningful place in the process. This work requires technical expertise. It also requires clear communication, patience, trust, and the willingness to stay in the room when the conversation becomes uncomfortable. What Will the Next Generation Inherit? The decisions we make now will eventually belong to people who are not yet sitting in our meeting rooms. They will inherit the groundwater levels we leave behind. They will inherit our recharge projects, conveyance systems, monitoring programs, fees, allocations, and land-use decisions. They will inherit the land that remains productive and the land that transitions to something new. They will inherit the strength of our rural communities and the economic opportunities that remain after this period of change. They will also inherit the way we chose to make these decisions. They will know whether the State and local agencies provided clear direction. They will live with the consequences of whether agricultural stakeholders were given usable information and realistic options. They will inherit the trust we built, the trust we spent, and the relationships we either strengthened or allowed to break apart. This is why the difficult conversations matter. Our generation did not create the entire groundwater bill. It still arrived at our table. Our responsibility is to open it, understand how it accumulated, and decide how much we can responsibly pay without forwarding an even larger balance to the people who come after us. That will require changes in groundwater use and an investment in recharge, storage, conveyance, data, and infrastructure. It will require planning for land transition and the economic effects that follow, and that the State, local agencies, agricultural stakeholders, and rural communities to remain at the same table. It will also require compassion for the people being asked to carry out one of the most consequential changes the San Joaquin Valley has faced. Every generation leaves an inheritance. The generations before us left extraordinary water systems, productive land, and communities built through ingenuity and hard work. They also left consequences that became clearer with time. Now it is our turn. We have an opportunity to leave a recovering aquifer, thoughtfully managed land, viable agriculture, and rural communities with a future. We can leave the next generation a better understanding of water, responsibility, and the true cost of waiting too long to act. The bill came to us. What we do with it will become our legacy. See you at the table, Julie

SGMA is going to change the San Joaquin Valley. It will change what we grow, where we farm, who can remain in agriculture, and what happens to land that has been productive for generations. Its effects will move through farmworker families, agricultural businesses, schools, local governments, and rural communities. Groundwater sustainability is necessary. The consequences of achieving it will be enormous. We have spent years talking about how to balance the aquifer. We now need an equally serious conversation about what will happen to the Valley above it. The Change Will Be Visible The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires local groundwater sustainability agencies to bring high- and medium-priority groundwater basins into balance. The California Department of Water Resources gives these agencies 20 years to mitigate overdraft and avoid undesirable results. Twenty years sounds like a long time. For a family deciding whether to plant an orchard, purchase land, drill a well, replace equipment, restructure debt, or bring the next generation into the operation, the future is already here. The decisions being made today will accumulate across thousands of parcels. Eventually, they will become visible across the landscape. Research suggests the scale could be staggering. Estimates indicate that between 500,000 and 900,000 acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland may leave intensive irrigated production as groundwater reductions take effect. That is difficult to picture as a single number. It will appear one orchard, one field, and one family decision at a time. Trees will be removed. Some fields will be fallowed. Some land will transition to lower-water crops, groundwater recharge, habitat, flood management, community buffers, or other uses. The familiar patchwork of orchards, vineyards, dairies, row crops, irrigation systems, packing houses, and agricultural communities will change. This is a physical reshaping of the San Joaquin Valley. Water Decisions Become Community Decisions Every groundwater decision eventually reaches someone’s life. A pumping allocation affects what a landowner can grow. A fee affects the financial margin of an operation. A reporting requirement creates new administrative work. A reduction in production affects farmworkers, truck drivers, equipment dealers, repair shops, crop advisors, processors, and local businesses. Agriculture is an interconnected regional system. When land leaves production, the consequences travel through that system. Fewer acres can mean fewer jobs, fewer purchases from local businesses, less product moving through nearby facilities, and less economic activity circulating through rural communities. The effects can reach schools, healthcare providers, fire districts, local governments, and community organizations. Some communities will experience these pressures gradually. Others may feel them quickly, especially in areas where agriculture provides a large share of local employment and business activity. Groundwater planning has therefore become economic planning, land-use planning, workforce planning, and community planning. The Valley needs to prepare accordingly. Water Will Influence Who Can Remain Agricultural operations are entering this transition with very different resources. Some have surface-water supplies, multiple parcels, financial reserves, professional staff, and the ability to invest in new technology. Others have limited water options, narrow financial margins, and little capacity to absorb another cost. These differences will influence who adapts, who sells, who consolidates, and who leaves agriculture. Small and family-run farms face particular challenges. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources research describes the role small farms play in local employment, rural economies, culturally significant food production, and pathways from farm labor to farm ownership. It also identifies the disproportionate challenges these operations may experience under new groundwater requirements. As groundwater becomes scarcer and more expensive, agricultural land may become concentrated into fewer hands. That changes the ownership map of the Valley. It also changes who holds influence, who has access to opportunity, and whether a young farmer can still find a way into agriculture. SGMA will shape the next generation of landowners as surely as it shapes groundwater use. Fallowed Land Remains Part of the Valley Land does not stop affecting a community when irrigation stops. Fallowed acreage still requires management. The condition of that land can affect dust, weeds, pests, fire risk, neighboring properties, roads, air quality, and public health. The question reaches beyond how many acres will be retired. We must decide what will happen to those acres afterward. California’s Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program supports regional projects that reduce reliance on groundwater and provide water-supply, economic, habitat, climate, and community-health benefits. That work offers a beginning. Some land may support groundwater recharge. Some may provide habitat or flood protection. Some may remain in agricultural production with crops requiring less water. Other parcels may need entirely new approaches based on their location, soil, infrastructure, and relationship to surrounding communities. Every project will require planning, funding, maintenance, and local knowledge. Land repurposing cannot become a polite phrase for walking away from agricultural acreage. The Valley needs a clear plan for the land that changes and the communities living beside it. The Valley’s Infrastructure Is Also Human When we talk about protecting infrastructure, we usually picture canals, roads, bridges, wells, and water systems. The San Joaquin Valley also depends on human infrastructure. It depends on the people who know how to farm difficult ground, manage water, repair equipment, operate processing facilities, organize crews, maintain canals, move crops, and keep rural businesses open. It depends on relationships built across generations. Once that knowledge and capacity disappear, rebuilding them is difficult. A closed repair shop, dismantled packing facility, lost workforce, or family farm sold after generations cannot simply be restarted when conditions improve. The Valley’s future depends on protecting the people, skills, businesses, and relationships that will still be needed in a water-limited future. There Is Grief in a Changing Landscape Agricultural land carries history. It can represent the work of parents and grandparents, years of sacrifice, lessons learned, and the hope that a child or grandchild will continue what the family built. A field map can also be a family timeline. When water limitations place that future at risk, people experience real loss. They may grieve trees, income, land, independence, identity, or the future they expected to pass forward. They may experience anticipatory grief as they watch the landscape change and wait to learn what will happen to their operation. At public meetings, that grief may appear as anger, distrust, repeated questions, silence, or withdrawal. These responses carry information about how people are experiencing SGMA. Grief literacy helps agencies and leaders understand the human meaning beneath those responses. It supports communication that is clear, respectful, and grounded in the reality people are facing. Technical planning alone cannot carry a transition of this magnitude. People need time to understand what is happening, consider their options, and make decisions that may affect the rest of their lives. State Leadership Must Match the Scale of the Change Local groundwater sustainability agencies have been given responsibility for implementing SGMA. Many are attempting to manage enormous technical, legal, financial, and community challenges with limited staff and resources. They need the State to remain actively engaged. State leadership includes timely plan reviews, clear policy direction, consistent feedback, dependable funding, practical land-transition programs, economic-development support, and coordination across agencies. The State must also recognize the cumulative effect of its decisions. A regulation may be evaluated individually in Sacramento. Landowners and communities experience the combined weight of pumping restrictions, fees, reporting requirements, water-quality rules, land-use changes, market pressures, drought, and rising production costs. That cumulative burden influences whether an operation survives. The State has acknowledged the need for a proactive and supportive role. DWR’s 2026 Vision for the San Joaquin Valleyrecognizes the interconnected pressures facing agriculture, communities, and ecosystems, along with the need for difficult land repurposing. That recognition must become sustained action. California created the mandate. California must help manage the future that mandate is creating. What Kind of Valley Are We Creating? SGMA In the San Joaquin Valley Twenty years from now, the success of SGMA will be measured through groundwater levels, storage, subsidence, water quality, and the condition of the aquifer. Its legacy will also be visible above ground. We will see it in the land that remains in production. We will see it in the crops that are grown. We will see it in the condition of retired agricultural land. We will see it in who still owns and farms the land. We will see it in the strength of rural businesses, schools, and communities. We will see it in whether younger generations can still imagine a future here. Groundwater sustainability matters. The future of the San Joaquin Valley matters, too. Both belong in every serious conversation about SGMA implementation. We need to look beyond the next fee, allocation, hearing, and reporting deadline. What will this Valley look like? Who will still be able to live and work here? What will happen to the land? What do we want to preserve? What are we prepared to create together? Those are the questions beneath SGMA. They may become some of the most important questions the San Joaquin Valley has ever had to answer. See you at the table, Julie

I Am the Farmer People Say They Want to Protect I am the kind of farmer people often say they want to protect. I farm 40 acres of walnuts. That sentence sounds simple until you understand what lives underneath it. Forty acres is not a corporate department. It is not a water team. It is not a compliance office. It is not a staff of consultants sitting around a conference table waiting for the next requirement to interpret. Forty acres is a kitchen table and a young man who leases the land. His first lease. It is a stack of mail. A pump. A field. A crop. A family. A property tax bill. A water bill. A power bill. A broken line. A deadline. A notice that may or may not make sense the first time you read it. I did not enter farming through a strategic business plan. I entered through loss. One day, the land was part of my life. Then suddenly, after the death of the farmer, it was my responsibility. That is the part policy rarely understands. Laws are written for categories: Landowner. Grower. Stakeholder. Groundwater user. Domestic well owner. Small farmer. But real life does not arrive in categories. It arrives all at once. Forty Acres Is a Kitchen Table, Not a Compliance Department When people talk about agriculture, they often talk in big numbers. Acres. Acre-feet. Allocations. Fees. Basins. Subbasins. Sustainability timelines. Reporting deadlines. Those numbers matter. I know they matter. But behind every number is a person trying to make the math work. On a 40-acre farm, there is not much distance between the policy conversation and the kitchen table. A decision made in a meeting shows up later as a letter, a fee, a form, a deadline, or a new question I have to figure out how to answer. Sometimes it is not one big thing that breaks people. Sometimes it is one more thing. One more bill. One more report. One more repair. One more requirement. One more system to learn. One more meeting to attend. One more acronym to understand. One more place where you wonder if you are already behind and no one told you. That is the reality of small farming. It is not romantic or simple. It is a 40 acre test of SGMA and the small farmer. It is paperwork, risk, weather, labor, repair bills, market prices, power bills, compliance deadlines, and the constant pressure of trying to keep something alive that does not take a season off because you are tired. Farming Already Comes With a Bill at Every Step Before SGMA ever enters the conversation, I am already paying to farm. I pay for pruning. I pay for spraying. I pay for fungicides, mite sprays, herbicides, and pesticides. I pay for fertilizer. I pay for labor. I pay for harvest. I pay for repairs. I pay when a water line breaks. I pay when the well needs attention. I pay when equipment fails. I pay electrical bills that can take your breath away, and I pay standby charges for the privilege of having power available when I need it. I also have another part-time job worth of reporting to do: nitrogen management reporting. water reporting. compliance reporting. Forms, deadlines, records, and requirements that do not prune a tree, fix a pump, harvest a walnut, or pay the next bill. That is what people outside farming often miss. The cost of farming is not one cost. It is a thousand cuts, and a prayer that at the end of the year the harvest will cover the costs. Every step has a bill attached to it. Every decision has risk. Every repair comes at the wrong time. Every crop year carries uncertainty before the first new regulation ever lands in the mailbox. And then SGMA arrives as one more thing. Then SGMA Arrives as One More Thing for a Small Farmer SGMA, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, was created for an important reason. Groundwater has to be managed. Anyone paying attention in the Central Valley knows that. We have seen the signs. We have seen wells struggle. We have seen land sink. We know the old way cannot simply continue forever without consequence. I am not arguing against groundwater sustainability. I am not arguing against planning. I am not arguing against responsibility. I believe domestic wells matter. I believe subsidence matters. I believe long-term water planning matters. I believe the future of California agriculture depends on whether we can figure this out. But I also believe we have to be honest about what implementation feels like on the ground. Because SGMA does not arrive on an empty desk with extra money waiting for it. It arrives on top of everything farming already costs. It arrives after the spray bill. After the power bill. After the broken line. After the fertilizer. After the labor. After the well repair. After the nitrogen management reporting. After the crop price disappoints you. After the bank still expects to be paid. After the farm has already asked everything it can ask from the person trying to hold it together. And then there is one more requirement. One more deadline. One more meeting. One more portal. One more notice. One more cost. That is the 40-acre test. Not whether I care about sustainability. I do. The test is whether a farm like mine can survive the cost of farming and the cost of compliance at the same time. I Am Not Against Groundwater Sustainability I want to be very clear about this. This is not an anti-SGMA argument. This is not an anti-agency argument. This is not an anti-large-farmer argument. This is a witness statement from a 40-acre walnut farmer who is living close enough to the ground to feel how these policies land. There is a difference. From far away, implementation can look like process. From the ground, it feels like capacity. Consisder the following questions: Who has the staff to track every deadline? Who has the money to hire the consultant? Who has the time to attend every meeting? Who understands which agency is asking for what? Who knows which form matters? Who can absorb another fee? Who can make a mistake and survive it? Those are not abstract questions. Those are survival questions. And they matter because the system may be neutral on paper, but it is not neutral in practice. The System May Be Neutral on Paper, But It Is Not Neutral in Practice When the same requirement lands on two very different farms, it does not create the same burden. For one operation, a new report may mean forwarding an email to the office manager. For another, it may mean sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, trying to figure out what the notice means while the rest of the bills are still waiting. For one operation, a consultant is part of the annual budget. For another, a consultant may be the money that was supposed to pay for repairs, fertilizer, labor, or the next spray. For one operation, a new fee may be frustrating. For another, it may be the thing that tips the fragile math sideways. None of this is a character issue. It's scale. And scale matters. A larger, better-resourced operation may have people who can interpret the rules, attend meetings, track changing requirements, apply for grants, analyze options, and plan years ahead. A smaller farm may have one person doing everything. That does not make the smaller farmer less responsible. It makes the burden different. When we pretend the burden is the same because the rule is the same, we miss the reality of how implementation actually works. The 40-Acre Test Is About Capacity The 40-acre test is about capacity. Not just land capacity. Human capacity. Financial capacity. Administrative capacity. Emotional capacity. There are five questions that need to be answered. Can a small farm absorb another layer of regulation without losing the ability to function? Can the farmer understand what is being asked without hiring someone every time a new letter arrives? Can the farm pay for compliance without sacrificing repairs, labor, crop health, or basic operating needs? Can the person responsible for the land keep up with the pace of change while still actually farming? Can small farms survive a transition that requires time, money, technical support, and administrative muscle many of them simply do not have? These are the questions we should be asking before small farms fall behind. Not after. Because once a small farmer is confused, behind, discouraged, or financially underwater, the damage has already begun. Local Control Only Works If Local People Can Participate I still believe local control matters. In fact, I believe it more now than ever; however, local control only works if local people can actually participate. It has to mean people understand the process before they are expected to comply with it. It has to mean notices are written in plain language. It has to mean meetings are understandable. It has to mean phone calls are answered. It has to mean office hours, real outreach, patient explanations, and enough repetition that people who are busy, overwhelmed, grieving, aging, farming, working, or caring for families still have a chance to catch up. Communication is not decoration. Communication is infrastructure. If people do not understand what is happening, they cannot participate in local control. They can only react to it. And reaction is not the same as trust. Small Farms Cannot Be Talking Points If California says small farms matter, then small farms cannot only matter in speeches, grant language, outreach materials, and public meetings. They have to matter in implementation. They have to matter in timelines. They have to matter in fee structures. They have to matter in how notices are written. They have to matter in how reporting systems are designed. They have to matter in how agencies communicate. They have to matter in how much support is available before a farmer is already behind. A small farm does not have unlimited administrative muscle. It does not have unlimited cash flow. It does not have unlimited time. Sometimes it has one person trying to hold the whole thing together. That does not mean groundwater management is wrong. It means implementation has to be honest about who is carrying the weight. Are We Protecting Small Farms, or Filtering Them Out? These are the questions I cannot stop asking: are we protecting small farms? Or are we quietly filtering them out? Are we keeping track of how many small farms go under in the name of protection? If the only farms that can survive sustainability are the farms with enough money, staff, infrastructure, and technical support to absorb the process, then we have to be brave enough to name what is happening. We may not be saving small farms. We may be designing a future only the best-resourced farms can survive. I do not believe that is the stated goal and I do not believe most people working on groundwater policy want that outcome, but outcomes are not measured by intentions. They are measured by what happens on the ground, and on the ground, the pressure is real. The Future Has to Have Room for Farms Like Mine I am not asking to be excused from the future. I am asking whether the future has room for farms like mine. I am asking whether a 40-acre walnut farmer can comply, adapt, understand, participate, and survive without being buried under costs and complexity. I am asking whether small farms will be part of California’s groundwater future, or whether we will praise them in public while making it nearly impossible for them to remain. I believe groundwater has to be managed. I believe local control matters. I believe domestic wells matter. I believe agriculture has to change. I also believe the people closest to the land need to be part of shaping what comes next. Not as an afterthought. Not as a checkbox. Not as a category in a report. As real people with real bills, real fields, real responsibilities, and real limits. That is the 40-acre test. And I am living it.

What the May 1 Deadline Revealed About SGMA Implementation The May 1 groundwater reporting deadline did more than ask people to submit information. It revealed a gap. A gap between a State-level compliance process and the real-life capacity of many of the people expected to use it. On paper, the requirement may have seemed straightforward: report groundwater extractions through the State’s GEARS system, provide the required information, meet the deadline, and avoid potential fees or penalties. On the ground, it looked very different. Stakeholders were trying to understand an unfamiliar reporting system, locate correspondence IDs, gather well information, estimate pumping, interpret exemptions, understand fee waivers, and figure out what might happen if they made a mistake. Many were doing this while farming, working, managing families, handling repairs, paying bills, and trying to keep up with the constant stream of SGMA-related information already coming at them. That distinction matters. Because the May 1 deadline did not simply test whether stakeholders could report groundwater use. It tested whether the State’s compliance systems matched the reality of the people expected to use them. It revealed that the SGMA groundwater reporting system had real issues. Stakeholders Are Not Compliance Departments One assumption underneath this process deserves to be named. Farmers and landowners are not government agencies. They are not all large corporations with compliance departments, IT staff, attorneys, engineers, and administrative teams ready to interpret each new requirement. Some operations have that kind of support. Many do not. Many stakeholders are individual landowners, family operators, retired property owners, small parcel holders, and people who have spent their lives managing land, crops, equipment, irrigation, repairs, weather, markets, payroll, and family obligations. They are deeply capable people. That does not mean they live inside online reporting portals or regulatory language every day. Some stakeholders did not own a computer. Some tried to handle the entire process from their phones. They were reading State notices, entering well information, retrieving correspondence IDs, trying to understand exemptions, estimating pumping, and worrying about penalties on a screen small enough to fit in their hand. That is not a lack of effort. That is the reality of implementation. A process that may look manageable from inside an agency can become something entirely different when it lands at the kitchen table, in the pickup, at the shop counter, or on the phone of someone trying to complete it between irrigating, repairs, work, caregiving, and the ordinary demands of daily life. This is not a story about people refusing to participate. It is a story about the gap between the process and the people being asked to carry it. A Portal Is Not the Same Thing as Support in SGMA Groundwater Reporting A reporting portal may be necessary. Data may be necessary. Deadlines may be necessary. But a portal is not the same thing as support. When a complex online system is paired with deadline pressure, possible penalties, unfamiliar terminology, and inconsistent answers, the result is not confidence. The result is confusion. And for many people, that confusion becomes fear. That fear was real. People worried about fines. They worried about late penalties. They worried about fee waivers. They worried about missing information, technology problems, reporting mistakes, and whether they would be punished for not understanding a process that was difficult to navigate from the beginning. Then the deadline passed, and people started hearing different answers. Some heard there was another week. Some heard penalties would not begin right away. Some heard reports would not even be reviewed until much later. Depending on who they talked to, the answer sounded different. For stakeholders trying to comply, that kind of inconsistency is not a minor inconvenience. It is destabilizing. It creates stress at the exact moment when people most need clarity. And it raises a fair question: What was all that anxiety for? That question should not be dismissed as frustration. It should be understood as a signal. When people are told a deadline is serious, then later hear that there may have been more room than they understood, trust takes a hit. When people hear different answers depending on who they ask, trust takes a hit. When people feel like they rearranged their lives around a deadline that was later explained differently, trust takes a hit. SGMA cannot afford to keep spending trust like it is an unlimited resource. Confusion Should Not Be Mistaken for Apathy One of the laziest stories told about SGMA is that rural stakeholders simply do not want to participate. That is not what is happening. Confusion should not be mistaken for apathy. A person who does not understand a portal is not necessarily refusing to comply. A person who asks the same question twice is not necessarily being difficult. A person who hesitates before submitting information may be trying to avoid making a mistake that could have financial consequences. The questions stakeholders are asking are practical because their lives are practical. What do I have to report? What if I do not have a meter? What if I do not know exactly how much I pumped? What if my well serves more than one parcel? What if I think I qualify for an exemption? What if I make a mistake? What happens if I miss the deadline? Those are not the questions of people who do not care. Those are the questions of people trying to participate in a system that feels complicated, high stakes, and unfamiliar. Underneath those questions is a deeper one: Can I trust what I am being told? That question matters more than any single deadline. Trust Is Part of Implementation This is the part of SGMA implementation that does not show up neatly in technical reports. A reporting deadline may look like a date on a calendar. A penalty may look like an enforcement tool. A waiver may look like an administrative process. A portal may look like access. But on the ground, those things become phone calls, rumors, family conversations, missed work, late-night worry, and a growing sense that nobody is quite sure which answer is final. That is not a side issue. That is implementation. Groundwater sustainability depends on participation. Participation depends on trust. Trust depends on clarity. This does not mean every requirement will be easy. It does not mean people will like every rule, fee, deadline, or reporting obligation. SGMA was never going to be simple, especially in basins already under serious pressure. But people can handle hard rules better than unstable ones. A hard rule gives people something to organize around. An unstable message creates rumor, frustration, and eventually disengagement. You Cannot Build Groundwater Sustainability on Panic The May 1 deadline should be understood as more than a reporting date. It showed what happens when a complex State process reaches people who are willing to participate but not always equipped with the same tools, time, technology, or administrative support that the process seems to assume. That distinction matters because SGMA will require much more from these communities in the years ahead. More reporting. More decisions. More adaptation. More participation. More trust. And trust is not built only by passing laws, creating portals, or setting deadlines. Trust is built when people can understand what is being asked of them, why it matters, what happens next, and whether the answer they receive today will still be true tomorrow. That is the lesson. If SGMA is going to work, the State’s systems must account for the people who actually have to use them. Not only agencies. Not only professionals. Not only large operations with staff and support. But individual landowners, family operators, retired property owners, small parcel holders, and rural stakeholders trying to navigate one of the most consequential water laws in California history. People are trying. The question is whether the system can meet them with enough clarity, consistency, and humanity to keep them at the table. Because you cannot scare people into trust. And SGMA needs trust to survive. See you at the table, Julie

A well registration process can look simple on paper. You enter your information. You verify your parcel. You upload what is needed. You submit the form. Done. But paper is not real life. What looks simple from the outside can become complicated very quickly when it reaches a rural kitchen table, a stack of old paperwork, or the hands of someone who has spent a lifetime working hard but not living online. That is one of the quiet problems inside SGMA implementation. The system assumes people already know. When Policy Reaches the Kitchen Table The system assumes people know what SGMA is. It assumes they know what agency they belong to and why it matters. It assumes they understand the difference between the State, the County, a local water district, and a GSA. It assumes they know where to find parcel numbers, how to open a portal, how to upload a photo, and how to manage passwords they may never have needed before. It assumes they know where to begin, but a lot of people do not. And that does not make them careless or unwilling. It makes them human. I keep thinking about the kind of woman who rarely appears in California’s water headlines. Not the caricature. Not the villain. Not the simplified story. I mean an older rural woman sitting at her kitchen table with a letter in front of her, reading the same paragraph more than once and still not being sure what it is asking her to do. Maybe her husband used to handle these things and now he is gone. Maybe she has the land, the responsibility, and the paperwork, but not the digital confidence people now take for granted. Maybe she is willing to comply but does not know who to call first, or what questions to ask, or whether asking those questions will make her look foolish. That is where policy gets real: not in Sacramento, not in a report, not in a hearing room. At the kitchen table. SGMA Outreach Begins With Access When people talk about access, they often mean whether information is publicly available. Is the notice posted? Is the website live? Is the meeting open? Is the form online? But access is bigger than availability. Access is whether someone understands what the notice means. It is whether they know the deadline applies to them. It is whether they can find the paperwork, use the technology, and trust the process enough to participate. It is whether they know there is a real person on the other side who will help them without talking down to them. A policy can be public and still be practically inaccessible. That is one of the most important truths California needs to understand if it wants groundwater management to work. A fancy letter from the State in the mail is not the same as understanding. A hard to navigate website is not the same as access. A portal is not the same as participation. A Public Notice Is Not the Same as Understanding In water policy, there is often an assumption that once information has been distributed, the job is done. The notice went out. The website was updated. The meeting was held. The deadline was posted. But that is only one part of the job. It is not the same thing as helping people make sense of what they are being asked to do. In my work around SGMA outreach, I have seen how fast confusion can turn into fear. A person receives a letter and immediately worries they have missed something important. They hear a new term and do not want to admit they do not understand it. They are told to register, report, verify, or upload, but no one has translated the process into the language of their actual life. That is where people start to shut down. Not because they do not care, but because they are overwhelmed. And overwhelmed people do not always raise their hands and ask for help. Sometimes they go quiet. Sometimes they put the paper aside. Sometimes they wait too long. Sometimes they hope someone else will explain it later. Then that silence gets misread. Why Silence Is Often Misread One of the easiest mistakes in implementation is assuming that silence means resistance. Sometimes it does. Sometimes silence means confusion. Sometimes it means grief. Sometimes it means distrust. Sometimes it means someone is embarrassed that they do not understand the process. Sometimes it means they do not have the technology they need. Sometimes it means the person who used to handle the paperwork is no longer there. Sometimes it means they are already carrying too much and this new demand feels like one thing too many. Remember that bad narratives create bad strategy. If the story is that people are not responding because they are defiant, then the answer will be more pressure. If the story is that rural communities do not care, then the answer will be more enforcement. If the story is that everyone should already know what to do, then the answer will be more notices, more portals, and more frustration. If the story is more honest, the strategy can be better. People are not just data points inside a groundwater system. They are human beings trying to understand changing rules with real consequences attached to them. That is why the human side of SGMA matters. The Hidden Assumptions Inside Groundwater Policy SGMA is often discussed through technical language. Overdraft. Reporting. Allocations. Subsidence. Monitoring. Sustainability. Those words matter. The technical side matters. But there are hidden assumptions underneath implementation that do not get talked about nearly enough. The system assumes time. It assumes digital literacy. It assumes stable internet. It assumes access to printers, scanners, smartphones, and email addresses. It assumes emotional bandwidth. It assumes trust. It assumes a person has enough familiarity with government language to know whether a letter is informational, urgent, or legally important. Those assumptions may seem small to the people designing the system. They are not small to the people trying to live under it. This is especially true in rural communities, where land, water, age, family history, and personal loss are often intertwined. The person opening that letter may not just be a landowner. She may be a widow. She may be the daughter now helping aging parents from a distance. She may be trying to protect the only piece of ground her family has left. She may be doing her best in a system that was not designed with her in mind. That is why this work has to be more human than procedural. Outreach Is Infrastructure I believe this with my whole heart now. Outreach is not a side task. It is not fluff. It is not something you add at the end to say you checked the box. Outreach is infrastructure. It is the bridge between policy and participation. It is the work of helping people understand what is being asked of them, why it matters, and what they need to do next. It is how trust gets built in communities that have every reason to be cautious. It is how confusion becomes clarity. It is how fear softens enough for someone to ask a question out loud. If California wants meaningful participation, it has to stop treating outreach like a courtesy and start treating it like part of the solution. Because groundwater management does not succeed just because a rule exists. It succeeds when people can actually participate in what the rule requires. Participation Begins With Trust Participation does not begin with a portal. It begins with trust. It begins when someone feels safe enough to ask, “Can you explain this to me?” It begins when a person on the other side of the table says, “You are not stupid. This is confusing. Let me walk you through it.” It begins when people realize they are not being dismissed, blamed, or talked down to. That kind of trust is not sentimental. It is strategic. Without it, people disengage. With it, they begin to participate. This is where California’s groundwater conversation needs to grow up a little. If we really want local management, local responsibility, and long-term sustainability, then we have to care about the conditions that make participation possible. We have to care about whether people understand. We have to care about whether they feel included. We have to care about whether the process is usable by the people it is meant to reach. A Better Way to Implement SGMA I am not arguing against groundwater management. I am arguing for better implementation. I am arguing for a version of SGMA that recognizes the real lives of the people being asked to live under it. I am arguing for outreach that meets people where they are. I am arguing for patience, clarity, and local trust as foundational practical tools, not soft ideals. If California wants SGMA to work in the San Joaquin Valley, it cannot design only for the most connected, most informed, most digitally fluent participants. It has to design for the older woman at the kitchen table. It has to design for the widow sorting through paperwork. It has to design for the small landowner who does not see herself in the public conversation at all. The system cannot assume people know. Ithas to help people understand. That is the work. That is the human side of SGMA. And that is where real implementation begins. I'll see you at the table, Julie

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

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.

SGMA is often described as a long-term groundwater planning law. In practice, it shows up as a series of real-world changes that farmers are already navigating. Implementation is not a single moment or mandate. It is a rolling process that plays out differently across regions, shaped by data gaps, local capacity, infrastructure limits, and the pace of coordination. Understanding what SGMA means for California farmers requires looking beyond policy language and focusing on how groundwater management is unfolding on the ground. SGMA Implementation Is Not Uniform Across California One of the first realities of SGMA implementation is that there is no single experience. Each groundwater basin faces different conditions, levels of data availability, and organizational capacity. Some basins have long histories of coordination and monitoring. Others are building systems in real time. This uneven starting point affects how quickly plans move from paper to practice. Timelines, requirements, and expectations vary, which can create confusion for farmers who operate across multiple areas or hear conflicting information from neighboring regions. Data, Monitoring, and Uncertainty Are Central Challenges SGMA relies heavily on groundwater data, yet many basins are still refining how that data is collected, interpreted, and applied. Monitoring networks are expanding, models are being updated, and assumptions are tested against real conditions. For farmers, this can feel like decisions are being made while information is still evolving. Changes in models or measurements can shift management approaches, sometimes with little warning. The challenge is not data itself, but the uncertainty that comes with building systems while they are already in use. Infrastructure Limits Shape What Is Possible Groundwater sustainability is influenced by more than pumping. Aging canals, constrained recharge capacity, surface water variability, and land use limitations all affect what basins can realistically achieve. In some areas, recharge opportunities are limited by soil conditions or infrastructure gaps. In others, surface water access is unpredictable or insufficient. These constraints complicate implementation and require tradeoffs that are often difficult and expensive. Local Agencies Are Learning While Implementing Local groundwater sustainability agencies carry significant responsibility under SGMA, often with limited staffing and resources. Many agencies are simultaneously refining plans, responding to regulatory feedback, coordinating with neighbors, and communicating with stakeholders. This learning-while-doing environment can result in revisions, delays, and changing approaches. For farmers, this means policies may feel unfinished or in flux, even as expectations move forward. Costs, Compliance, and Operational Impacts Are Still Taking Shape Another implementation reality is that costs and operational impacts are not always fully known at the outset. Monitoring programs, reporting systems, mitigation planning, and administrative needs require funding, which is often addressed incrementally. Farmers are weighing these evolving costs alongside market pressures, labor challenges, and climate variability. Understanding how SGMA-related expenses may affect operations over time is an ongoing concern. Why Farmer Engagement Matters During Implementation SGMA implementation is shaped through local decisions, not fixed outcomes. Participation helps surface practical concerns, test assumptions, and keep management approaches grounded in operational reality. Engagement does not require agreement on every issue. It provides a way to ensure that groundwater management reflects how farming actually works on the ground and to reduce unintended consequences. What SGMA Implementation Means Going Forward SGMA implementation is a long process marked by adjustment, coordination, and learning. The challenges farmers face are not signs of failure but indicators of how complex groundwater management has become. Understanding these realities helps farmers navigate uncertainty, anticipate changes, and stay informed as local decisions continue to take shape.

Why blaming farmers for sinking land won’t fix California’s water crisis A recent Newsweek article traced sinking property values in the Central Valley to one cause: groundwater pumping. The headline was clear. The numbers were dramatic. The takeaway was simple. And like most simple stories, it left out the truth that matters most. When people settle into one version of a story, they stop asking better questions. But in places like ours, those questions are still alive—and still waiting for answers. What the Public Is Hearing About Land Subsidence in California Here on the ground, we’ve seen the damage. Pavement cracking. Wells failing. Families forced to leave—farms facing impossible decisions. But what else is true? Surface water deliveries have been reduced or eliminated across the Valley, even during wet years. Recharge infrastructure sits behind permitting delays. Groundwater became the only survival option for many regions. The tap was shut off. The bucket got blamed. What Else Is True About Land Subsidence in California The UC Riverside study behind the article added valuable data. But it didn’t tell the full story: It didn’t explain why recharge was delayed. It didn’t reflect the layers of compliance playing out in real time. And it didn’t ask how communities are supposed to navigate SGMA while policies shift faster than support is built. Farmers are being asked to adapt, and they are. But adaptation takes clarity, time, and trust—three things that policy alone can’t deliver. There's So Much More To the Story Groundwater use became a last resort, not a first choice. Domestic well users and growers are responding to the same system, not opposing each other. Housing continues to be approved in critically overdrafted basins. Many GSAs are operating on minimal staff and budget while trying to meet the state’s expectations. Transitional pumping limits are going into effect before outreach and mitigation are fully in place. What We Should Be Asking Why were floodwaters sent to the ocean while recharge basins sat idle? Why are enforcement deadlines moving faster than the infrastructure needed to meet them? Why are other groundwater users left out of the public narrative? Who benefits from telling only one side of the story? How do we build trust when communities are still grieving unspoken losses? What kind of future are we shaping, and who is shaping it? What It Will Take California needs more than compliance. It needs coordination, conversation, and common sense.It needs stories that reflect complexity, not just blame.It needs leadership that includes those living at ground zero. Because the ground is sinking. But the narrative doesn’t have to. See you at the table, Julie

For eight years, I’ve walked alongside widows through the quiet aftermath of loss. That work shaped me. What I didn’t expect was that it would also prepare me for a new kind of grief; one rising in rural California as wells run dry, farmland changes hands, and families face a future they never planned for. What do widows and water have in common? More than you’d think. The Work I Never Expected For the past eight years, I’ve lived in the world of widowhood, not only as a guide, but as someone who has had to rebuild from the rubble. The death of my husband, Jason, broke something wide open in me. And in that break, something else began: a calling, a path, a steady pull toward work that mattered. I’ve sat with women and men in the thick of their losses. I’ve helped them clear out homes, redo paperwork, and relearn how to breathe inside a life they didn’t choose. I’ve lived that work with my whole heart. Grief has been my home ground. Grief as Preparation Lately, I’ve found myself walking into different rooms: water board meetings, stakeholder sessions, advisory circles. My boots are now dusty with the language of groundwater, drought, and agricultural transition. And to my surprise, it doesn’t feel like I’ve stepped away. It feels like I’ve stepped further in. There is a correlation between widows and groundwater. Grief taught me how to sit with uncertainty. How to stay when there’s nothing to fix. How to listen for the truth beneath the surface. Those are the very same skills the water world needs right now. The Ache Beneath the Policy In rural California, the ground is sinking. Wells are going dry. Families are being asked to reimagine the future of their land. And beneath all the modeling and policy language, something else is rising. Grief. . It’s not always visible. It’s rarely acknowledged. But it’s there. Ambiguous loss lives here, too. The kind that comes in silence. The kind that lingers in legacy. Expanding, Not Leaving I’m not leaving the work I’ve done with widows. That work is sacred. It shaped me into someone who lives and loves with a depth I didn’t have before. Widowhood taught me how to hold pain with reverence and how to walk alongside people through the unthinkable. That work will always live in me. What’s unfolding now isn’t a departure. It’s an expansion. A quiet opening into a new chapter where grief is still present, just expressed through different stories. I’m making space for both. And I’m showing up with the same steady hands. Listening Beneath the Surface There was a phone call. Then a meeting. Then, a seat at a table I never expected. I showed up not as an expert, but as someone who understands what it means to lose the life you planned, and still find a way forward. If I’ve been quiet, it’s because I’ve been learning. Listening for the stories behind the spreadsheets. Finding a new language that still speaks to what I’ve always known: the human part matters most. Thank you for walking with me. See you at the table, Julie

For many people, the word "probation" sounds like a warning—a heads-up that something needs to change. But under SGMA, probation isn’t a soft landing. It’s a hard shift. And the reality of what happens next can catch entire communities off guard. What SGMA Probation Actually Triggers In April 2024, the Tulare Lake Subbasin in Kings County was placed on probation by the State Water Board. This designation didn’t come with much fanfare, but the consequences were immediate and steep: Every groundwater user in the basin had to report their pumping. Most extractors were required to install meters. New fees went into effect: $300 per well, and $20 for every acre-foot of water pumped. These stringent measures prompted the Kings County Farm Bureau to file a lawsuit against the State Water Board in May 2024, challenging the probation designation and associated fees as overreach. For operations already under pressure, these costs weren’t just frustrating—they were financially devastating. Why It Caught So Many Off Guard SGMA was written to prevent long-term harm. But when the solution arrives without enough time, local input, or practical support, it creates new harm in its place. What probation looks like on paper is very different from how it lands on the ground: Compliance becomes confusing. The rules keep shifting. The tone changes from collaboration to enforcement. What It Looks Like in Real Life The people navigating it aren’t sitting in policy meetings. They’re growers, landowners, small towns, and workers trying to adapt in real-time. They're figuring out how to register wells, pay the fees, and keep their operations going. They're the ones calling water districts and Farm Bureaus, asking, “What do I do next?” And that’s where the real work begins—helping people understand what’s required, what’s possible, and how to make decisions that hold up over time. Not with panic. With strategy. More Than Policy: A Personal Impact Probation may be a regulatory tool. But for those living through it, it’s deeply personal. It touches everything: Financial decisions Planting schedules Family stress Employee hours Long-term planning Where We Go From Here SGMA will continue to evolve. More basins may face probation. What we do now—how we respond, listen, and lead—will shape whether this season becomes a breaking point or a turning point for California agriculture. I'll see you at the table, Julie Martella

Across the Tulare Lake Subbasin, groundwater users are watching closely as the State Water Board proposes changes to how SGMA enforcement is funded. The new fee structure has far-reaching implications, not just for how much stakeholders will pay, but for what that money supports, and how decisions are made. This moment isn’t just about rates. It’s about trust, accountability, and the future of local voice in groundwater governance. What the State Is Proposing Under the current fee model, basins under SGMA probation pay: $300 per well $20 per acre-foot (AF) of groundwater pumped The proposed SGMA fee structure introduces tiered pricing based on usage volume. It’s meant to create fairness between small and large users, but the early numbers raise serious questions. The 20 AF exemption is gone. Small landowners previously excluded from fees would now be included and are expected to collectively contribute over half a million dollars. For large pumpers, fees increase sharply. A small number of users would carry a disproportionate share of the cost, even though no public data shows how enforcement expenses are calculated or if they align with actual basin needs. The intent may be equity. The outcome feels more complex. A Key Detail from the State’s SGMA Fee Structure Presentation In a recent State Water Board meeting, officials confirmed that stakeholders in the Tule Subbasin are being charged for State staff time spent in other basins, including Kaweah, Kern, and Chowchilla. There is: No itemized breakdown showing how staff hours or enforcement costs are allocated No confirmation that fees collected in one basin stay in that basin No publicly accessible tracking system for SGMA-related charges This isn’t a matter of mistrust, it’s a matter of visibility. And for communities already navigating drought, uncertainty, and compliance fatigue, that lack of clarity is significant. Why Tulare Lake Is Still Exempt (for now) Unlike Tule, the Tulare Lake Subbasin is not currently paying SGMA fees. That’s because of an active legal challenge filed by the Kings County Farm Bureau. That lawsuit is doing more than protecting landowners from immediate costs. It’s also: Delaying probation in this basin Requiring the State to clarify the goal posts of SGMA Creating space for critical questions to be asked and answered It’s a procedural pause, but one with real community impact. Enforcement Without a Roadmap Probation under SGMA was originally framed as a temporary corrective process: a step toward improved sustainability. But once a basin enters enforcement, the path forward is unclear: There’s no defined checklist for returning to local control No process for adjusting fees once progress is made No shared understanding of how long probation is expected to last That ambiguity puts local agencies and landowners in a holding pattern, paying into a system without a clear end point or destination. What This Means for Local Stakeholders These changes are unfolding quickly. For stakeholders in Tulare Lake and across the region, this isn’t just about dollars and data, it’s about governance, transparency, and participation. This moment highlights a critical need for: Clear and accessible explanations of SGMA-related costs Equitable distribution of program expenses A transparent path from enforcement to resolution A seat at the table for the communities most affected Why Strategic Communication Matters Now The work of community engagement isn’t just about raising concerns. It’s about asking better questions, translating policy into plain language, and building frameworks people can actually act on. That’s what the lawsuit is doing. That’s what stakeholder meetings can do. And that’s what this moment still makes possible. SGMA was intended to preserve local control.That only happens when local voices are respected, and when those voices show up with clarity, confidence, and a clear understanding of what’s at stake. See you at the table, Julie Martella