The Mid-Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency (MKGSA) submitted the 2024 Second Amended Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) in November 2024. Subsequently, the SWRCB canceled the Kaweah Subbasin Probationary Hearing. The MKGSA GSP described the Well Inventory Program as a program to collect more accurate data on the number and use type of wells in the MKGSA. Currently, MKGSA uses the best available data from the Department of Water Resources (DWR) who sources their information from County records. DWR has a database with all wells drilled in the State of California, but the data has not been regularly updated. The database doesn’t take into account wells have gone dry, been destroyed, been converted to different uses, and paved over. The Kaweah GSAs agreed to use the DWR data for the development of the 2024 Second Amended GSPs, but vowed to collect more accurate data for future analysis.
For analysis purposes, we will manually collect data in the field followed by a Well Registration process in
the future. MKGSA in partnership with the Tulare Irrigation District (TID) will be conducting in-the-field groundwater well surveys in the coming weeks. The Well Inventory Program will be cataloging visible wells to improve our understanding of local groundwater wells.
Our goal is to ensure we are using the best available data to manage groundwater.