SJV Water is a nonprofit, independent online news publication covering water in the San Joaquin Valley. Lois Henry is the CEO/Editor of SJV Water. She can be reached at lois.henry@sjvwater.org. The website is www.sjvwater.org.
Broad spectrum a letter of JG Boswell Company Vice President Jeof Wyrick accuses SJV Water of misrepresenting the agricultural giant’s plan to deal with subsidence, the sinking of land from over-pumping of groundwater, which has affected vast areas of the San Joaquin Valley, including around the small town of Corcoran.
Wyrick also heads the El Rico Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), which is controlled by Boswell and covers much of Boswell’s land.
El Rico has no plans to sink the Corcoran another 10 feet, according to Wyrick’s Aug. 12 post. in the letter.
Only six feet.
It may be relevant to note that the El Rico plan could lower the Corcoran Dam, which protects the city and two state prisons, by 186 feet. During 2023 floods, the state had to immediately rebuild the Corcoran Dam after it sank to 188 feet.
SJV Water emailed Wyrick. letters asking for comment on the height of the dam in its subsidence plan, but received no response.
In addition to Corcoran, El Rico plans to continue pumping enough of the old Tulare Lake floor to allow it to sink up to 10 feet. But that area is four miles from Corcoran, Wyrick said in the letter.
“El Rico expresses its disappointment in your misrepresentations and careless reporting,” Wyrick’s letter stated.
The letter was approved by El Rico’s seven-member board, which includes four current Boswell employees and one retired Boswell employee.
Wyrick was responding to an SJV Water article published in July about other Kings County GSA managers trying to keep the region’s sediment to less than six feet. The article was republished by several other news organizations.
Amer Hussain, a consulting engineer who represents three of the five GSAs in the Tulare Lake subbasin and is also listed as the manager of the groundwater sustainability plan, has said in several public meetings that the 6-foot drawdown goal would be more difficult if the El Rik required up to 10 feet of drawdown.
SJV Water reached out to El Rico CEO JJ Westra by phone for comment before publishing this article, but did not receive a response.
“If any of you would read the subsidence plan, these facts would be obvious,” Wyrick’s letter said, indicating the location of the projected 10 feet of subsidence versus six feet.
Wyrick also took issue with satellite maps presented at various GSA and Hussain technical meetings that show land elevation across the region but are essentially blank within El Rico’s boundaries. In some presentations, those maps had question marks over El Rico’s land.
In El Rico, Wyrick’s letter states that there are several depositional reference monitoring sites that are surveyed annually by the Kings River Conservation District. Satellite images likely do not show land elevations in much of El Rico’s territory because there is no infrastructure there, he writes.
Land elevation maps of Kings County show where the land sinks, except for the El Rico Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which almost exclusively includes JG Boswell Farming Company lands. El Rico said it intends to allow enough pumping to sink the bottom of Tulare Lake, including the town of Corcoran, another 10 feet.
“Once again, it is clear that the reporter and commenters have not read the El Rico GSA plan,” the letter states.
The letter goes on to criticize Kings County Executive Doug Verboon and the Mid-Kings River GSA for various issues.
Wyrick is correct on two points regarding the SJV Water article.
El Rico’s sinking plan allows it to sink up to six feet below the Corcoran and up to 10 feet in the lake bed. In addition, the plan identifies several existing and proposed ground-based sedimentation monitoring sites.
SJV Water regrets any deficiencies in previous reports.
The information from the El Rico recession plan would certainly have been included in the July article if it had been provided or even easily found.
Wyrick’s reference plan is 2024. in April part of the rewritten Tulare Lake Subbasin Comprehensive Groundwater Sustainability Plan.
However, this 2024 The plan was not approved by all five GSAs in the subbasin, so it was never reviewed by the Water Resources Control Board until 2024. in April
The probationary period is subject to strict state supervision and additional fees. Those sanctions have been stayed pending the conclusion of a lawsuit filed against the Water Board by the Kings County Farm Bureau.
Wyrick’s link plan is not available on El Rico’s website.
It is not available on the Department of Water Resources’ Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) portal, which collects and makes publicly available GSA plans, annual updates, and public comments.
And the plan is not in the “state intervention” tab of the SGMA portal.
After receiving Wyrick’s letter, SJV Water immediately requested a copy of the El Rico subsidence plan from Wyrick, which it eventually sent by “snail mail” even though it was requested in electronic format.
Wyrick said the plan was sent to the state sometime in the past, but it is not posted on any publicly available websites that SJV Water could find.
This is likely due to the pending lawsuit and the fact that almost all communication between the GSA in the Tulare Lake Subbasin and the Water Board has broken down.
Wyrick also notes in his letter that regardless of whether the plan is approved by the state, El Rico has already imposed pumping reporting requirements, restrictions and extraction taxes on its farmers.
Subsidence is one of the main targets of the SGMA, which aims to ensure that local agencies have would balance aquifers, objectives. It is also one of the most difficult problems for water managers and farmers to solve without adding more surface water, because the only solution is to curb pumping, which means less farming.