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The SGMA Weekly

The SGMA Weekly

by WaterOne.ai

Government Earth Sciences

Tule Pumping Cuts, McMullin's Rebid, and Fees at the Max — Jul 6, 2026

Lower Tule River Irrigation District staff put numbers on possible pumping cuts — 0.6 to 0.9 acre-feet per acre in the worst-affected subsidence zone — while Pixley consultants peg overdraft at roughly 1 acre-foot per acre per year. McMullin Area GSA hits reset on its Expansion Project with August 5 as the key checkpoint, and Corning Subbasin GSA raises fees to the maximum its existing Prop 218 assessment allows. Plus: why the lower aquifer is the problem child, tightening data deadlines across the valley, and growers pushing back on well-by-well data sharing. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

The SGMA Weekly · Jun 29, 2026 · Friant-Kern's $200M Hits the Ground

After years of slow restoration, federal dollars are about to meet dirt on the Friant-Kern Canal. This week's SGMA Weekly covers four Must Knows and three Trends from the past week of California water-agency board action. In this episode: • Friant Water Authority locks in a real groundbreaking date for the $200M Friant-Kern Canal subsidence fix — Phase 2A bid period July–August, October construction start, formal groundbreaking the week of August 17 • Five districts update their long-range water outlooks — the coast comes in flush (Carpinteria selling $840K of surplus state water with Cachuma at 94%, Amador with a 10–12K AF surplus), the valley sharpens (SSJID facing up to 26% dry-year shortfalls, San Benito's 2045 deficit driven by water quality not supply) • Cross Valley Canal expansion comes down to a tough choice — a parallel canal that keeps 500 CFS flowing during construction, or a widened channel that demands a 140-day shutdown • Golden mussel response moves from emergency awareness to month-by-month operations across the connected canals — Dudek evaluating chlorine dioxide and sodium hypochlorite for the Cross Valley Canal Plus three Trends: 2027 demand-management triggers getting drafted (Colusa, Arroyo Seco, Vina each picking their own logic), GSP five-year periodic evaluations opening public comment windows this summer, and Kern locking in dedicated capital funds for its 50-year-old conveyance assets. Read the full briefings at WaterOne.ai. Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district.

Subsidence Goalposts, Sites Reservoir at $1.36B, $200K Basin Fee — Jun 22, 2026

This week the Department of Water Resources is treating subsidence as "irreparable harm" requiring immediate action — a stance shift surfaced at three different boards this week (Chowchilla, North Kern, Omochumne Hartnell). The California Water Commission lifted Sites Reservoir's conditional funding ceiling to $1.36 billion as a September water-rights decision looms. The State Water Board is floating a $200,000 application fee just to request a basin exclusion — comments due July 10. Plus: Pajaro Valley and Desert Water Agency rate decisions hitting binding action, San Antonio Basin enforcement letters going out, the Tulare Lake sub-basin consolidating to a single state liaison, federal "One Big Beautiful Bill" money landing on Delta-Mendota Canal repairs, and conjunctive-use recharge gaining momentum across three different boards. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

Indian Wells Goes to Trial, Kern Tightens Subsidence Rules — Jun 15, 2026

A California court enters Phase 2 of the Indian Wells Valley safe-yield trial — testing how a court-adjudicated number will line up against a GSA's SGMA sustainable-yield. Kern Subbasin moves to a stricter "critical head" subsidence standard tied to DWR's January 2026 BMPs. Plus: Tule advances a 20-year land repurposing program, Salinas weighs a deep-aquifer pumping moratorium, and the well-registration enforcement era gets real across multiple basins. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

McMullin's $56M Vote, $176M Federal Awards, and a Brewing Aqueduct Cost Fight — Jun 8, 2026

McMullin Area GSA's Proposition 218 election just passed in a landslide to fund a $56M flood capture expansion. The Bureau of Reclamation announced $176M in fresh Aging Infrastructure awards for the Delta-Mendota Canal and O'Neill Pumping Plant, with a $37.5M Kiewit contract approved to start the first canal subsidence fix. And a federal letter to DWR just opened up the larger ~$3B California Aqueduct Subsidence Program cost-share fight. Plus: White Wolf sharpens subsidence rules along the Aqueduct, Salinas Valley faces an August DWR deadline on a controversial brackish project, snowpack collapses to 6% of normal, and federal grant paperwork lags the cash. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

Federal Canal Money, Snowpack Collapse, and Oakley's Data-Center Pause — Jun 1, 2026

Federal canal-repair money just hit California in a big way: $200M to Friant-Kern, $235M to Delta-Mendota, and $50M to the San Luis Canal — totaling $485M+ in OBBB / Bureau of Reclamation investments discussed across this week's board meetings. Meanwhile, the snowpack supplying it all just collapsed to 3.5% of normal in the Tuolumne basin — a depth-of-collapse not seen since 1977. And Oakley extended its data-center moratorium another 10½ months, landing right inside Diablo Water District's service area. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info.

Allocations Climb, Storage Slips, and Southwest Kings Closes Loopholes — May 24, 2026

DWR raised the State Water Project allocation from 30% to 45% on May 15 and Reclamation lifted the CVP South-of-Delta agricultural allocation from 20% to 25% — but statewide groundwater storage still declined by roughly 1.5 million acre-feet in Water Year 2025, with 83% of extractions concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley. Pajaro Valley, Omochumne Hartnell, and Mound Basin all surfaced selective cost-relief signals for ratepayers this week, while Southwest Kings GSA stayed implementation of its allocation policy to close out-of-county and carryover loopholes ahead of a coordinated Tulare Lake single-GSP push targeting Q1 2027. Plus the Prop 4 Climate Bond ($368M statewide, no local match) starts driving real grant-prep across agencies, and the next wave of SGMA fee adoptions and Prop 218 hearings rolls through Yolo, Wyandotte Creek, Mound Basin, Desert Water Agency, Pajaro Valley, and South Fork Kings. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

Tule Interim Plan by the Board, Metropolitan Banking Deal, Karla to ACWA — May 18, 2026

The State Water Board's Tule interim plan is taking shape — staff revealed it could limit allocations to native safe yield only (under 0.25 AF/acre) with a 2-mile pumping moratorium and $20/AF probationary fees. Plus: four Valley GSAs hired Ewell Group to formalize a ~100,000 AF banking deal with the Metropolitan Water District; DWR Director Karla Nemeth departs July 2 to run ACWA; and golden mussels hit peak spawning with Arvin-Edison's Phase 1 copper treatment killing >90% at ~$3M. Trends: AB 2447 (nitrogen-limits bill) held in Appropriations, snowpack collapse compresses delivery windows, and Prop 4 funding prep moves from awareness to project lists. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

Tule Allocation Math Under Audit, GEARS Bug, Prop 4 Push — May 11, 2026

The State Water Board's denial of the remaining Tule Subbasin exclusion requests is opening into a deeper audit — state officials are now questioning local agencies' 34-year rolling precipitation averages, native sustainable yield calculations, and recharge-credit treatment, which could force structural changes to Basin Safe accounting in coming years. Porterville staff also reported the state is backing off the May 1 GEARS penalty after acknowledging a platform bug that doubled extraction totals for many manual filers (no formal State Water Board notice yet — sourced to PID staff). Plus: Kings and Kaweah growers face a compressed irrigation season with Kings River runoff in the mid-40% range, Mid-Kaweah pushes mandatory well registration with an October 31 target deadline, and the Prop 4 funding cycle starts pulling agencies into project-list mode while modeling and consulting costs become budget pressure points across subbasins. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

Kaweah-Tule Banking, $386M Prop 4 Funding, and Turlock's Hockey Stick — May 4, 2026

Four Valley GSAs are in early talks on a Kaweah-Tule groundwater banking concept with Southern California water partners — potentially bringing significant new wet-and-average-year supply into the southern San Joaquin. DWR also outlined nearly $400 million in Proposition 4 groundwater funding with no bond cost share required (draft guidelines fall 2026; applications early 2027). And the Turlock basin's projected "hockey stick" groundwater recovery has arrived two years ahead of schedule. Plus trends on fee authority across Prop 218 / Prop 26 pathways and land repurposing across solar, beneficial-use, and fallowing. Read the full recaps at waterone.ai | Try Chat GSA for instant answers about your district --- AI can make mistakes. Check important info. WaterOne.ai (Mizu Analytics, Inc.) strives to provide timely, accurate, and reliable coverage of water, agriculture, and related issues. However, no guarantee is made as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information presented. All content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or professional advice. Users are solely responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided, and WaterOne disclaims all liability for errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from the use of this site. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.

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