Who wants to reduce their groundwater pumping by 60 percent?
I guess that question only works if you rely on a well pumping water out of the Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin. And I’m sure absolutely nobody really wants to pump 60 percent less water out of the ground every year, because that’s a lot!
But Big Carrot—yeah, BIG Carrot—really really really doesn’t want to. In fact, they don’t want to so badly that they filed an adjudication lawsuit against “all persons claiming a right to extract or store groundwater” in the basin.
Everyone includes the Cuyama Unified School District, a district that was in financial straights until last year. The district expects to spend upward of $20,000 this year to defend its right to use the only water source available to its students against Big Carrot.
The self-aggrandizing “world’s largest producer of carrots,” Grimmway Farms, and a company that rather ironically believes that “making one better choice each day is something we can all do,” Bolthouse Farms, conjoined their corporate powers into the worst choice two years ago by filing that lawsuit. Now at 150 defendants—aka Cuyama Valley residents—strong, the lawyers’ fees are probably not a problem for the carrot industry giants, but they aren’t easy for everyone else.
And what about this groundwater sustainability plan that local residents spent five years developing in good faith with their carrot kingpin neighbors? Who knows. There really isn’t good precedent in the courts for complying with this kind of thing. This is new territory.
Locals are rightly concerned about their future and emptying their pockets to try to protect themselves from losing out.
In defense of itself and its actions, bummer basin-user Bolthouse said that it hadn’t sought to “reduce the amount of water available” to Cuyama basin residents and it recognizes its responsibility to help achieve basin sustainability.
However, bummer Bolthouse and grubby Grimmway sought to separate the area where they’re pumping water into a different basin. Meaning? Well, they didn’t really get into that, but my best guess is that the two biggest pumpers in the basin are aiming for the water that their overhead sprinklers pull out of the ground to not have to be part of a basin labeled as one of the most overdrafted in the state. Therefore, the Department of Water Resources’ required 60 percent pumping reduction wouldn’t apply and the conniving carrot carousel can continue to pillage the groundwater supply until there’s nothing left.
Everyone else’s water will be fine. It’s like magic!
We’re just trying to “set fixed guidelines for all overlying landowners’ water usage going forward,” Bolthouse said. Yeah. Nothing to see here!
This isn’t Bolthouse’s first adjudication rodeo. In 2000, the carrot peddler filed an adjudication—aka a quiet title lawsuit—against the city of Lancaster, a handful of water districts, and some community services districts that rely on the Antelope Valley water basin. The case involved thousands of parties and stretched into 2021.
Sounds fun, amirite?
In an area where the average household income is below $33,000 and everyone relies on groundwater, paying attorney fees for decades to protect the right to a life source sounds like a penance that only commercial interests can weather. The first phase of the process starts Aug. 7.
The Canary stands against Big Carrot and never liked the orange veggie anyway. Send alternative eats to [email protected].
