LA Superior Court rules on Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin boundaries
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge confirmed that the Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin is one connected basin—not separate subbasins—allowing for the groundwater adjudication to move forward following a year-and-a-half of delays and litigation. … The Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin is one of California’s 21 critically overdrafted basins that was required under the 2014 California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to create a groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) and corresponding groundwater sustainability plan. After the California Department of Water Resources approved the sustainability plan, which called for a 60 percent water use reduction in 20 years, agricultural corporations Bolthouse Farms and Grimmway Farms filed a groundwater adjudication against every landowner in the Cuyama Valley in August 2021.