A lunch of pozole, chips and homemade salsa awaited a group of residents – including ranchers, farmers, and shop and restaurant owners – who had gathered at folding tables in a community center to talk about an issue that greatly concerns them: the depletion of their groundwater.

The meeting in late June provided an opportunity for people to share their fears not only with their neighbors but also with three visiting state lawmakers and a senior water official from Sacramento.

“We are a committed community,” said Lynn Carlisle, executive director of the Cuyama Valley Family Resource Center. “We are a committed community. But we need help.”

The Cuyama Valley north of Santa Barbara is one of the areas in California where the groundwater level rapidly fallingand where water must continue to be pumped out at high pressure to irrigate thousands of hectares of farmland.

Like other regions, the Cuyama Valley has developed a state-mandated plan to address overextraction under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. But while that plan is just beginning to take effect, disagreements over how to address the water shortage have led to a bitter legal battle.

A group of agricultural landowners sued other property owners across the valley in 2021, asking a judge to determine how water rights should be divided. That case, called water allocation, sparked a wave of opposition and prompted residents to organize a boycott by carrot-growing companies, which are the valley's largest water users. Participants hung signs and banners reading “Boycott Carrots” and “Stand with Cuyama against corporate greed.”

As the meeting began, some residents said the lawsuit would cost them thousands of dollars in legal fees. Others said they feared the lawsuit could undermine the parallel process to limit pumping rates under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

“We know SGMA is not perfect,” Carlisle said. “We want it to work.”

She said residents organized the meeting to tell lawmakers how the groundwater law is impacting and “how it is currently being challenged and potentially jeopardized.”

Attendees included State Senator Monique Limón (D-Goleta), Rep. Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara) and Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger).

Brenton Kelly, a community mediator, said groundwater levels in parts of the valley have dropped by about 150 metres over the past half century, citing data showing “consistent withdrawal of more than double the natural recharge”.

The local plan envisages a reduction in water consumption by up to two-thirds by 2040. But five years after implementation, says Kelly, there has still not been a significant reduction in pumping capacity.

On lunch tables decorated with olive branches, organizers laid out a packet of paper with numbers and graphs. A color-coded map marked areas where supplies were rapidly depleting in red and orange. It read: “The big pumps are draining us dry.”

“We basically have the power dynamic of David versus Goliath, with two powerful forces in control,” Kelly said. “And then we have a disadvantaged community trying to preserve its natural resources.”

He was referring to two of the world's largest carrot growing companies, Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms, as well as other companies that lease farmland to them. The two farming companies withdrew from the lawsuit last year, while other landowners remained as plaintiffs in the case, which is pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The organizers of the meeting stated that representatives of the companies were not invited.

At the entrance to Charlie Bosma's ranch in the Cuyama Valley there is a sign calling for a carrot boycott.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Ella Boyajian, who helped organize the boycott, said many people viewed the companies' lawsuit as an unfair attempt to impose cuts on others and an affront to the shared values ​​of this close-knit community.

She said the lawsuit appears to “run counter” to the goals of the state's groundwater law.

“Now we have a trial that promotes everyone's self-interest,” Boyajian said. “And we're all fighting for our little piece of the pie, the groundwater.”

The case has prompted many in the community to hire lawyers. Boyajian said for some, the mounting bills are causing financial hardship, forcing them to sell cars or postpone their retirement plans.

Even the local school district was forced to hire a lawyer, and Superintendent Alfonso Gamino said legal fees totaled over $28,000.

Pistachio and lavender farmer Dave Lewis said he and other small farmers are facing legal fees of up to $50,000 and are concerned that falling water tables could lead to dry wells.

“The water level is dropping very quickly,” said Lewis. “That's because of the big pumps.”

He expressed concern that water allocations would likely be calculated based on past consumption, which would benefit large-scale farmers but harm his small farm.

“I'm just a little guy,” he said, “so I trust the government and the authorities to protect me. And right now I have no feeling for that.”

Pam Doiron, a cattle ranch owner, said the litigation has “imposed enormous overhead costs on us that are unsustainable.”

“If our water usage is cut because of the ruling, we will no longer be able to raise livestock here,” she said.

Doiron said it was sad that while local residents were working on a solution to reduce water use, large Bakersfield growers were “working behind the scenes to undermine the Sustainable Groundwater Agency and the livelihoods of our Cuyama families.”

Grimmway Farms has said It is not in favor of curtailing the water rights of schools or small private water consumers. The company withdrew from the case as a plaintiff in October.

Bolthouse Farms has said The company's decision to withdraw from the lawsuit in August was “due to our commitment to sustainability” and to reducing its water consumption.

One of the remaining plaintiffs is Bolthouse Land Co., a subsidiary of Bolthouse Properties, which spun off from Bolthouse Farms in 2005.

Daniel Clifford, vice president and general counsel of Bolthouse Properties, said the decision by other growers to challenge the basin's boundaries “delayed the decision by nearly a year and a half and ultimately cost every groundwater user, including the school district and the water district, unnecessary time and money.” He was referring to pistachio growers and a large vineyard owned by a subsidiary of Harvard University's investment company.

“Sustainability requires a basin-wide approach in which all groundwater users participate equally in water savings,” Clifford said in a E-mailadding that the company supports a “scientifically and legally appropriate” groundwater sustainability plan.

Robert Kuhs, an attorney representing plaintiffs Diamond Farming Company, Lapis Land Company and Ruby Land Company, said the local groundwater authority voted to impose cuts on farmers in the central part of the valley and the lack of regulated pumping capacity in other areas “impacts sustainability and disproportionately burdens certain landowners.”

Kuhs said in a E-mail that the companies had requested that the court determine their water rights and ensure that “all commercial agricultural pumps participate in the rebates.”

The Cuyama Valley is one of nine areas in the state where such cases are pending.

During the meeting, some residents accused the carrot farmers of over-irrigating their fields with sprinklers and letting the water run into the ditches.

“They waste a lot of water, I've seen it,” farm worker Veronica Espinosa López said in Spanish. “I think there should be management, for them as well as for us in the community.”

She also expressed concern that in recent years farmers have hired local farm workers for shorter periods of time and therefore earned less.

Farmworker Veronica Espinosa Lopez speaks at a recent community meeting in New Cuyama.

(Ian James / Los Angeles Times)

Long-time resident Roberta Jaffe, who Dry cultivation of grapes on a 2-hectare farm, said in the past, water allocation was often based on historical usage, “which means the biggest pump operators will benefit the most,” while small farmers who save water are likely to be penalized.

During the discussion, farmer Jim Wegis pointed to state water official Paul Gosselin and asked, “We have presented a plan. You have made adjustments to it. … Will you support him if he goes to court?”

“That’s a trick question,” Gosselin replied, drawing laughter from the entire room.

“We are following a number of these decisions very closely for a variety of reasons,” Gosselin said. The goal is to “keep the SGMA's promise of local control and basin balancing.”

The implementation of the law is currently entering its most difficult phase, he said.

“This is where things are getting serious,” Gosselin said. “And you are all at the forefront of this change that will fundamentally change the way water is managed.”

Paul Gosselin, deputy director for sustainable groundwater management at the California Department of Water Resources, speaks at a community meeting in New Cuyama.

(Ian James / Los Angeles Times)

Lawmakers said they wanted to help find solutions.

“I think we're faced with a really difficult decision that a policy has done this – a policy that should help and a policy that can help,” Limón said.

“And so I think we're going to take this issue back to figure out how we need to correct the policy,” she said. “We're leaving with a deep awareness of the challenges that lie ahead.”