In a remote, dry patch of California farm country, a battle is raging over carrots
A new state law required communities to form local groundwater sustainability agencies tasked with developing plans, which must be approved by the state, on how to manage their basins into the future. The most critically overdrafted basins, including Cuyama’s, were among the first to do so with a goal of achieving sustainability by 2040. Other high and medium priority basins followed.
From the start, Grimmway and Bolthouse participated in the formation of the local groundwater sustainability agency and plan. Grimmway, which has grown carrots in Cuyama for more than three decades, currently farms less than a third of its 20 square miles there and has installed more efficient sprinklers to save water. Seeing groundwater levels decline and pumping costs rise, the company began growing carrots in other states, but doesn’t plan to uproot from Cuyama, said Jeff Huckaby, the company’s president and chief executive.
Until the lawsuit, 42-year-old cattle rancher Jake Furstenfeld said he thought the companies were working with people in town, but not anymore. Before the state’s groundwater law, most groundwater lawsuits were filed in Southern California, where development put added pressure on water resources. Legal experts now expect more cases in areas where farmers are being pushed to slash pumping.
Along the highway, Grimmway’s fields are doused with sprinklers for eight hours and left to dry for two weeks so carrot roots stretch in search of moisture. Critics question the companies’ use of daytime sprinklers, but Huckaby said Grimmway uses far less water than the alfalfa grower who farmed there before.
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