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time getting to within sustainable yields. And then our ever-vacillating hydrolo- gy is a challenge, and we go through these weather extremes. We need to be more and more able to capture the water when we have the wet times so that we can balance out the really dry times. How does California’s hydroclimate whiplash impact how you approach this work? If you go back a long time, we’ve man- aged for a fair amount of that through creating the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, the system of dams and reservoirs where we can store a lot of that water and then move it where needed when we’re able. With climate change in the hydrology, reducing the snowpack and more atmo- spheric rivers, we need to be able to really take advantage of those opportunities. Hopefully, with the Sites Reservoir and with the efforts to create those groundwa- ter recharge basins, we’ll be better able to capture the water in wet years and then be able to rely on that in the dry years. California agriculture is used to that because it’s been our history. It’s getting worse, but we’ve always had that kind of variability. So, I think they understand that, and they’re as good as anybody and probably better than anybody else at how to manage around those uncertainties.
Groundwater Management Act imple- mentation and supporting the locals with that ongoing. We have what looks to be a very strong El Niño coming, which could bring with it flood, drought and opportu- nities for groundwater recharge that we really need to take advantage of. How much is agriculture part of your day-to-day thinking in this position? It’s a huge part of what we do. Our mis- sion is to sustainably manage the water resources of the state of California, and a huge part of that is agriculture and sup- porting the $60 billion a year farming and ranching economy. The priority projects I mentioned— every one of those has a key tie into ag- riculture. It really would be hard to sep- arate the two because so much of what we do is really an important connection to agriculture and maintaining our Cal- ifornia agriculture. Many farmers have faced challenges as they work to implement California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act mandates while simultaneously dealing with drought conditions. How are you
California Department of Water Resources Director Thomas Gibson speaks at the California Water Plan advisory committee meetings in Los Angeles last month.
thinking about this issue of water access for farmers? And what solutions do you see there? It’s a real challenge for California ag now and into the future of, how much farming can we sustainably maintain? We want to be able to sustain as much as we can, but at the same time, getting the groundwater use in the sustainable yield under SGMA— it’s a long-term problem that’s just now sort
of coming into focus. Through groundwater recharge ef- forts, through the water plan and through projects like the HRL (Healthy Rivers and Landscapes), we’re looking for ways to maximize the water supply everywhere we can. Then, modernizing our infrastructure so that, as much as possible, we can move the water to where it’s most needed. So those are all key activities that we’re work- ing on to try to maintain as much ongoing agriculture as possible while at the same
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September 16, 2026 Ag Alert 5
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