Last November, we reported that Geoff Vanden Heuvel spoke at the 2025 Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Anaheim. Video of his presentation is now available and can be viewed here.

There has been a flurry of recent activity related to water issues. On December 2, the federal Bureau of Reclamation released “Action 5” which are updated rules that will govern pumping water from the delta.  The delta is the 1,150 square mile area located east of the Golden Gate Bridge where the great rivers that drain the Central Valley meet the salt water from the San Franciso Bay. This area is home to 500,000 acres of farmland and many sloughs and channels that contain im

Yesterday, at the 2025 Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Anaheim, Geoff Vanden Heuvel – Vice Chair of the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley and Director of Regulatory and Economic Affairs for the Milk Producers Council – delivered a compelling presentation on the future of California’s agricultural water supply. His talk, “Water Stewardship for Resilient Agriculture,” underscored both the historic roots and current fragility of the state’s water system, while calling

The State Court of Appeals issued two rulings this week on the Kings County Farm Bureau (KCFB) lawsuit against the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board). KCFB filed suit over actions the State Board took in April of 2024, which placed the Tulare Lake Subbasin in probation under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). You can read the press release on the Appeals Court decision from KCFB here. You can read some news stories about the decisions here and h

On September 17, 2025, the State Water Resources Control Board will consider placing the Kern Subbasin on Probation. Last February, the State Board considered this issue and decided there was enough progress being made to give the Kern GSAs a little more time. They set a date of September 17 to reconsider the issue.

For the month of August, there has been a lot going on in California water. My job for Milk Producers Council is to be the dairy industry’s eyes, ears, and advocate on water supply. I participated in a number of meetings this past week and I thought I would share a bit of what I learned.   Subsidence has been a problem in California ever since we began using large capacity wells to do irrigation. The DWR document describes the...

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) recently released a document on subsidence and how to stop it. When groundwater is pumped, particularly from wells deep underground, the ground above can sink, as the clays between the aquifer and the ground surface compress. This phenomenon of the ground surface sinking is called subsidence.   Subsidence has been a problem in California ever since we began using large capacity wells to do irrigation. The DWR document descr

The State Water Resources Control Board has significant control and authority over how water flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The Delta is essentially the valve through which Northern California surface water passes through on its way to the ocean. A limited amount of that flow is diverted to the aqueducts for use in the Central Valley, Southern California and the Bay Area. For a number of years, the State Water Board has been in the process of updating t

Tucked away in the Big Beautiful Bill is a billion dollars of grant money to pay for “construction and associated activities that restore or increase the capacity or use of existing conveyance facilities constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation or for construction and associated activities that increase the capacity of existing Bureau of Reclamation surface water storage facilities. The loss in water was split almost equally between the federal Central Valley Project and the

Despite executive orders from President Trump and Governor Newsom directing state and federal agencies to do all they can to provide fresh water supply to California's people and farms, more than 300,000 acre-feet of fresh water became salt water over the last 60 days as pumps sat idle in the Delta due to outdated and highly dubious environmental regulations. The loss in water was split almost equally between the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.

Despite the fact that California has very full Northern California reservoirs and plenty of capacity in the major aqueducts and space to store water south of the delta, the state and federal delta pumping plants sit virtually idle, allowing tens of thousands of acre-feet of fresh water to flow out to the ocean every day. As the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley pointed...

A well-attended panel discussion on water for dairy operations was part of the program for the California Dairy Sustainability Summit...

Semitropic Water Storage District in Kern County approved paying its share of the planning and permitting cost for the delta tunnel this...

I attended two separate Kern Subbasin GSA board meetings this past week. The Kern folks are ready for their hearing. A tremendous amount...

On February 10, 2025, flows from the Sacramento River through the Delta were increasing following a series of storms in Northern California.