San Joaquin Valley – Kaweah
Statistics
- Basin Name
- San Joaquin Valley – Kaweah
- Basin Number
- 5-022.11
- SGMA Basin Priority
- High
- Critically Overdrafted
- Yes
- Hydrologic Region Name
- Tulare Lake
- Counties
- Kings
At-A-Glance
Located in California’s Tulare Lake hydrologic region, the San Joaquin Valley – Kaweah subbasin is 441,004 acres in size. This High priority basin is home to an estimated 271,618 people (2010 value). It has approximately 7474 wells, of which approximately 224 are water supply wells. Groundwater accounts for approximately 90.12 percent of the basin’s water supply.
Basin Notes
2003: Bulletin 118 basin description
2014: CASGEM basin prioritization – high
2016: Basin boundary modification approved with Tulare Lake subbasin 5-022.11
2018: Draft priority – high. Groundwater level and subsidence comments:
- CRITICAL OVERDRAFT. 1) CASGEM/WDL/GWIDS: Longterm hydrographs show groundwater level decline. Source: DWR 2) The continued pumping of groundwater has resulted in an overdraft of the groundwater basin, that is, more water has been pumped from the basin than has been recharged into the basin on a long-term basis. Even though over 3 million acre-feet of surface water has been imported into the District over the past 30 years in an effort to supplement local surface water supply and reduce dependence on groundwater, the average depth to groundwater within the Plan Area has continued to drop. – Source: Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District.
- Sources: 1) Current Land Subsidence in the San Joaquin Valley, USGS; 2) 2014 – Land Subsidence from Groundwater Use in California, California Water Foundation / James W. Borchers / Michael Carpenter, Luhdorff & Salmanini, April 2014; 3) Progress Report: Subsidence in the Central Valley, California, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, NASA 2015-16
2018: Final Basin Prioritization: Basin priority remains unchanged at high priority.
2019: December 18: Mid-Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Plan published
2020:
- January 31 – Greater Kaweah GSA submitted GSP to the Department of Water Resources;
- January 31 – Mid-Kaweah GSA submitted GSP to DWR
- January 31 – East Kaweah GSA submitted GSP to DWR, per DWR. Adopted GSP not online yet but they are working on it, per EKGSA. Sept 2019 draft is available
May 14 — A Review of Groundwater Sustainability Plans in the San Joaquin Valley, Public Policy Institute of California
2022: January 28 – DWR notifies basin GSAs that their GSPs do not set acceptable sustainable management criteria for dealing with lowering groundwater levels, subsidence and impacts on surface waters, among other metrics.
July 27 – East Kaweah GSA submits a revised GSP; Greater Kaweah GSA submits a revised GSP; Mid Kaweah GSA submits a revised GSP
2023: May 3 – GSPs deemed inadequate by DWR