For the people of Alpaugh and Allensworth
“From what I hear, it’s a done deal,” Denise Kadara told me a year ago about the Atwell Island Water District annexation of lands surrounding, but not including, Allensworth. Denise lives in that small town, serves on the Allensworth Progressive Association and also the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, so I was sure she knew what she was talking about. I also knew that deal needed to be undone if at all possible.
“Done deal” is what I had witnessed at the Jan. 29, 2025 LAFCO meeting approving the annexation. During public comment, Alpaugh Irrigation District’s general manager, Bruce Howarth, questioned the adequacy of noticing for the public hearing, having received his letter only eight days before. He requested the decision be delayed a month in order to bring the issue before his board. He also identified the lack of CEQA review as problematic and questioned the capability of Atwell Island WD to perform the services they were proposing.
These concerns were not discussed by the Commissioners, who heard next from Deanna Jackson, the project’s spokeswoman from Atwell Island. She merely stated how good it would be to be done with the approval process they “had worked on for so long,” and the Commissioners proceeded to grant her wish 5-0.
There were red flags the moment I saw the annexation map. The boundaries form an upside-down, rectilinear U around Allensworth. Although that community clearly would be affected by any nearby surface or groundwater project, neither the Allensworth Progressive Association nor the Community Services District (which provides the town’s water) were on the list of “affected agencies” and thus did not receive the required written notice of the hearing. The wells serving this community lie three miles east of town near the eastern wing of the annexed lands.
The more I learned about the project, the more concerned I became. It seemed that the real purpose was to promote greater “groundwater management” for the rich (i.e., easier manipulation,) which usually results in mismanagement for the poor and not-so-rich, with zero regard for the public interest. In the same way that the management of floodwaters in 2023 protected Boswell’s tomato seedlings in the lakebed while seriously impacting the lake margin’s townspeople in Alpaugh and Allensworth, the annexation provides greater control over groundwater under lands between the two towns by one of the most manipulative landowners in the Tule and Tulare Lake Subbasins, John Vidovich. Through the power of property-weighted voting in water and water storage districts, it likely facilitates his water marketing plans while threatening to deplete the groundwater of those two towns and their smaller landowners, both within and without districts, while eliminating legal recourse.
Those of you who were reading this column a year ago may remember some of the rabbit holes we went down trying to hold the annexation deal makers’ feet to the fire. Some of us met with LAFCO staff in late February (reported here March 12, 2025). On Feb. 28, three entities filed for the reconsideration hearing, which was scheduled for April 2 (March 19, March 26, and April 2, 2025). Some of you attended and spoke during the public comment period of that hearing, for which I still owe you big-time (April 9, 2025). The LAFCO staff had preempted our input, yet narrowly escaped having the approval reconsidered, which could have resulted in undoing the deal, or at least requiring the CEQA evaluation that Alpaugh ID was requesting.
Later we learned that Atwell Island did not even file the CEQA negative declaration with the state until March 13; it was not received by the county clerk’s office until March 24, 2025. LAFCO had published three hearing notices before then declaring that document could be viewed in their office. This was just one of the infractions of the Brown Act that occurred.
There remains one last hope: Alpaugh ID’s lawsuit against LAFCO and Atwell Island WD, which is scheduled to be decided in Tulare County Superior Court on March 16. The issue is whether Atwell Island WD’s claimed exemption from CEQA (and LAFCO’s premature approval of it) should stand or not.
Atwell Island WD’s case for exemption from CEQA is flimsy. Deanna Jackson, their spokeswoman (also director of Tri-County Water Authority GSA,) paints two contradictory pictures. On one hand she says CEQA isn’t required because there are no projects planned, and thus nothing to evaluate. On the other hand, she maintains that without the inclusion of the annexed lands within Atwell Island’s boundaries, the landowners have no hope of receiving needed surface water as SGMA’s pumping restrictions take their toll on farmland values.
Atwell Island WD, however, has no infrastructure for delivering surface water or for storing it when floodwater becomes available. Without that infrastructure or plans to build some, the stated purpose of the annexation is invalid and should have been rejected by LAFCO, not approved. Plans to build such infrastructure would need to be evaluated for environmental impacts on everyone: rural communities, groundwater levels, and wildlife included.
More telling, without projects pending, what was the urgency that prompted LAFCO’s commissioners to ignore Bruce Howarth’s concerns and his request for one month’s extension?
We may never know what purpose is really being served by this annexation. Actually, not knowing would be preferable to discovering the hard way that it has enabled John Vidovich’s water marketing schemes.
Let us hold the Court in the Light, to use a Quaker phrase. There’s more hanging on this decision than meets the eye.
Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes. Send her your thoughts and prayers for groundwater sustainability c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247. This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the Mid Valley Times newspaper.
