Mid Kings River GSA directs staff to pursue four‑well pilot to help dry domestic wells
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
The GSA directed staff to pursue a pilot domestic‑well mitigation program (up to four sites) and to return with final costs and a contract; consultants presented an approximate planning cost of about $96,000 per replacement well.
The Mid Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency directed staff on Dec. 16 to move forward with a pilot well mitigation program to address dry domestic wells and return with finalized per‑well costs and contract terms.
Staff said Self Help Enterprises identified four households currently receiving supplied water and recommended drilling three replacement wells and connecting one household to city water. Consultant Amir Hussain told the board Self Help’s budget estimate included about $13,000 in administrative fees plus about $83,000 in project costs for pumps, treatment, hauling and temporary supply — "somewhere in the neighborhood of about $96,000 a well," he said, a planning figure the board called surprising and asked staff to refine.
Board discussion focused on program design, ownership and equity. Several board members argued the GSA should prevent perverse incentives (for example, a homeowner intentionally using the program to increase property value) and asked whether pro‑rata owner contributions or liens on property sales would be applied. Staff said some mitigation programs elsewhere initially included pro‑rata clauses but that state reviewers have pushed back; the pilot will test approaches and the board will later review final terms.
Procurement and local preference: board members expressed a preference for keeping work and dollars local, though staff said Self Help was proposed for the pilot because it has relevant experience and can help stand up the program quickly; future RFPs will be open to local bidders.
Next steps: staff said they had sufficient direction to negotiate a pilot agreement with Self Help and will return with individual estimates for each household and a proposed agreement; the board emphasized it wanted a limit of no more than four pilot wells in the initial phase.
Quote: "We would be looking somewhere in the neighborhood of about $96,000 a well," Hussain said when summarizing the estimate. Resident and board members pressed for clarity on what elements were included and whether costs could be reduced for shallower wells.
Budget note: staff characterized the presented numbers as planning estimates and said final per‑well costs will be provided to the board before any contract is executed.