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State Water Board returns Kern County Subbasin to DWR oversight, conditionally
Summary
After reviewing 2025 GSP revisions and public testimony, the State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to return the Kern County Subbasin to Department of Water Resources oversight if staff confirms three remaining priorities are adequately addressed in the final adopted plans.
The State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Sept. 17 to adopt a resolution returning the Kern County Subbasin to oversight by the Department of Water Resources, contingent on final staff review of the subbasin’s adopted 2025 groundwater sustainability plans.
Board staff told the Board they found “many deficiencies” from earlier reviews were addressed in the 2025 drafts but identified three remaining priority issues that must be resolved in the final adopted GSPs: (1) an adequate mitigation program for drinking-water wells impacted by any constituent for which a minimum threshold is established — specifically including 1,2,3‑TCP; (2) an adequate mitigation program for state small water system wells or domestic wells with more than four service connections; and (3) elimination of a May 2026 sunset provision from the non‑districted Land Authority joint powers agreement (KINDLA) so previously white‑lined areas retain GSA coverage. Board staff said they will confirm those items in the adopted plans before sending a letter to DWR to formally return the basin.
The Board’s action follows an extensive staff presentation on basin conditions and GSP revisions, and multiple panels of local GSAs, community groups and municipal water providers. Staff highlighted basin statistics including average annual pumping of about 1.8 million acre‑feet, average recharge around 1.5 million acre‑feet, and an average overdraft of roughly 344,000 acre‑feet per year — roughly 25% of the basin’s sustainable yield. Staff also summarized technical and programmatic changes in the 2025 plans: expanded monitoring networks, raised minimum thresholds at many representative wells, more detailed exceedance action plans, and a new groundwater quality mitigation track for degraded water.
GSA representatives told the Board they had implemented numerous changes since the February hearing. "We listened, we delivered," Derek Yurosk, chair of the Kern County Subbasin Coordination Committee, told the Board, summarizing the collaborative process that produced the 2025 revisions. Staff and GSAs said some projects and management actions already are in place and that the basin has begun accruing benefits from early implementation.
Community groups and several residents urged the Board to place the basin on probation instead, saying local households in places such as Lost Hills still face contaminated or unreliable tap water and that mitigation and outreach must be enforceable. The Board acknowledged those concerns and the need for continued monitoring and implementation oversight.
Chair Joaquin Esquivel framed the vote as a forward step but not the end of oversight: the Board will only complete the return to DWR if staff confirms the final adopted GSPs match the improvements described in the draft review and adequately resolve the three priority issues. The roll‑call was recorded as unanimous in favor of the resolution.
What happens next: board staff will review the 2025 adopted GSPs to verify the three priority items are addressed; if confirmed, staff will notify DWR and the basin will move under DWR oversight for ongoing evaluation. If the conditions are not met in the adopted plans, the Board retains authority to consider additional actions including probationary designation.
