The State - News from Feb. 7, 1985

The state Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento dismissed charges of massive waste and misuse of underground water resources by Kern County--but a staff report warned that the county is overdrawing its underground water by 290,000 to 600,000 acre-feet per year, and may face long-term loss of agricultural production due to the rising cost of pumping irrigation water from a sinking water table. The report came in response to a complaint against Kern County water practices filed in 1981 by Citizens for a Better Environment, a San Francisco-based conservation group that asked for a moratorium on well-drilling and new irrigation projects. The staff report, however, said efficiency of water use in the Kern basin “is quite high” and declined to recommend the moratorium, suggesting instead that the overdraft might be corrected by importing more water from other regions.