With groundwater levels falling across the Golden State—causing dried-up wells, sinking roadbeds and crumbling infrastructure—the state legislature is considering regulating underground water for the first time.
Californians have long battled over rights to rivers, lakes and other surface-water supplies, but the drought is finally shifting the focus to groundwater, which accounts for about 40% of water used in normal years—and up to 60% in drought years, as other sources dry up.
“Groundwater was kind of out of sight, out of mind,” said Lester Snow, executive director of the California Water Foundation, a nonprofit policy group in Sacramento, and former director of the state Department of Water Resources.
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