The Guardian article fails to include the following facts …
The state’s crackdown—or at least threat of a crackdown—follows years of foot-dragging by the legacy farming families and agribusiness conglomerates that run massive operations in the Tulare Lake Basin to fall in line with state regulations that call for major reductions in groundwater pumping.
Under a 2014 state law, the five water agencies that make up the Tulare Lake sub-basin were supposed to be working as a team to craft a plan for reducing pumping to levels that would stabilize groundwater levels and ease the subsidence as of 2040.
But those water agencies—some of which are run by representatives of the biggest landowners—have made virtually no progress toward that goal. Infighting among agencies was fierce; board members resigned in frustration and water officials wrote accusatory letters to state officials about each other’s failings. The group’s first plan, submitted in 2020, was deemed “incomplete.” Two years later, the group submitted a revised proposal—which was then rejected as inadequate. Source