Residential well owners won’t be charged water use fees in Paso Robles basin (2025)

Domestic well owners pumping from the Paso Robles groundwater basin will not be charged water use fees for at least five years.

A consultant is developing a water rate structure for groundwater use, which the newly formed Paso Robles Area Groundwater Authority will eventually review. If approved by the authority, the rate structure will be sent to farmers and other commercial groundwater users for a vote.

The first public draft of the consultant’s rates included a water use fee for de minimis users, who draw up to 2 acre-feet of water annually from a domestic well for household purposes. An acre-foot is enough water to cover a football field in a foot of water.

However, the consultant will no longer include fees for de minimis users in the rate structure, San Luis Obispo County groundwater sustainability director Blaine Reely announced at the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Authority’s inaugural meeting on Monday.

Instead, only those who use groundwater commercially, like farms, vineyards and breweries, could be charged use fees, Reely said.

More than 60 people attended the meeting and most celebrated the fact that domestic well owners won’t be charged for their water.

“They didn’t cause the problem, and there’s no reason to include them in trying to reach the solution,” J Lohr Paso Robles regional vineyard manager Steve Carter told The Tribune.

The fees are part of an effort to establish sustainable pumping levels in the basin.

The Department of Water Resources designated the basin as “critically overdrafted.” In fact, in 2024, people pumped 25,500 acre-feet more water than was returned to the basin, according to the most recent annual report.

If passed, the fees will fund programs designed to balance the basin along with administrative tasks like monitoring wells and completing annual reports.

The approved rates could not be increased for five years, Reely said. After five years, the authority could vote to increase, decrease or remove the rates.

San Luis Obispo County, the city of Paso Robles, the Shandon-San Juan Water District and the Estrella-El Pomar Creston Water District formed the authority to support implementation of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan, which outlines how to achieve basin sustainability by 2040.

The San Miguel Community Services District did not join the authority, and its constituents will not be charged water use fees, Reely said.

Rural residential well owners won’t be charged for water

SCI Consulting will no longer include de minimis water users in its proposed rate structure.

That’s because pumpers will be charged for water consumption rather than extraction.

Water consumption is the proportion of pumped water that isn’t returned to the basin. On a farm, this includes water that evaporates or is absorbed by the crops.

The majority of water drawn from a rural domestic well makes its way through the pipes, travels to the septic system, then returns to the basin, Reely said.

“What doesn’t get returned to the groundwater basin is negligible,” he said.

As a result, it doesn’t make sense to charge domestic well owners for water consumption, he said.

Originally, SCI Consulting expected that California law would require the authority to charge de minimis users for their water.

According to Proposition 218, if an agency charges some customers for a service like water, all customers must pay a fee proportional to the benefit that they receive from the service.

Proposition 218 would have applied to domestic well owners if the fee was charged for water extraction — because they technically benefit from extraction as they have water to shower, wash dishes and do laundry.

But because households operating on wells return the majority of their water to the basin through a septic system, they don’t benefit from their water consumption, so it doesn’t make sense to charge them for it, Reely said.

“They’re not really taking advantage of that resource. They’re returning it,” he said.

Jardine area resident Chuck Ott agreed that domestic well owners should not be charged fees. In fact, he urged the authority to codify the decision so that domestic well owners can avoid fees in perpetuity.

Still Waters Vineyards owner Paul Hoover said he’s glad domestic well owners won’t be charged for water use, but he’s worried that they will lose a seat at the table if they aren’t paying a fee.

Reely, however, told The Tribune that the authority would not have the power to revoke a property owner’s right to use their water because they don’t pay a fee.

New report shows overpumping continues in Paso Basin

Pumping from the Paso Robles groundwater sub-basin continued at unsustainable levels last year — with agriculture extracting more water than domestic well owners and municipal water systems combined, according to a new report.

Basin users pumped 75,100 acre-feet of water in 2024, up from 63,600 acre-feet in 2023 — an 18% increase, according to the latest annual report for the basin.

That’s far from the estimated sustainable yield of 61,100 acre-feet per year. In fact, people pumped 25,500 acre-feet more than was returned to the basin in 2024, the report said.

This is the eighth year in a row that pumping exceeded the sustainable yield.

Agriculture consumed 70,900 acre-feet, or 94% of total water pumped in 2024, the report said.

Meanwhile, municipal public works systems consumed 1,044 acre-feet while small public works systems, golf courses and rural domestic wells combined consumed 3,134 acre-feet.

Municipal users’ water consumption decreased by 90 acre-feet, or 7.9%, in 2024, while public water systems and rural domestic users together increased their use by 258 acre-feet, or almost 9%, last year.

Agricultural users increased their pumping by 19%, or 11,300 acre-feet, in 2024, the report said.

Of agricultural pumping, vineyards extracted the most water. The 34,533 irrigated acres of vineyards above the basin pumped 58,585 acre-feet of water, the report said.

Alfalfa, meanwhile, required the most water per ace, with 1,789 irrigated acres pumping 6,074 acre-feet, the report said.

San Luis Obispo County enjoyed more rain than usual last winter, with about 21 inches recorded at the Paso Robles Weather Station in 2024.

This was a few inches more than the long-term average of 14.5 inches, the report said.

But the county still didn’t receive as much rain as it did during the 2022 winter storms, Reely said.

“Even though we got a lot of good rainfall, we didn’t get great rainfall.” he said. “There just wasn’t as much natural precipitation that was making its way into the soil profile, and so the farmers had to supplement with irrigation.”

The county also endured heat spells that required farmers to apply more water to their crops.

During the 2024 growing season, there were 36 days that reached at least 100 degrees, while in 2023, there were only 24 days with temperatures higher than 100 degrees, the report said.

Additionally, the number of irrigated acres in the Paso Basin increased from 2023 to 2024 — which required more water, Reely said.

Reely said he’s confident that participating agencies will bring the basin back into sustainability by 2040 — especially now that the Joint Powers Authority is moving forward with water use fees.

“The solution is we have to reduce pumping,” he said. “It’s achievable.”

Reely hopes the fees will motivate growers to make their operations more efficient so they can reduce their water use. Meanwhile, those fees will fund programs designed to balance the basin, he said.

This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 12:26 PM.