The Westlands Water District celebrated the completion of the first phase of a major groundwater recharge project, charting a new path that will provide stability in future dry years.

The Pasajero Groundwater Recharge Project, located on 29 acres near Coalinga, is expected to revolutionize the district’s water management.

The big picture: With the completion of the first phase, the Pasajero Project now features a new 30 cubic feet per second transfer switch from the Coalinga Canal and six basins.

• Westlands expects the project to increase recharge capacity by up to 21,000 acre-feet annually.
• The official opening ceremony on Thursday was celebrated by some of the water industry’s most influential people. Among those in attendance were Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, and John Watts, senior counselor of the Bureau of Reclamation. They were joined by Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes and representatives from several local elected officials.
• The California Department of Water Resources provided Westlands with $4 million for the project through its Sustainable Groundwater Management Proposition 68 Grant Program. Westlands also used $2.6 million of its own funds to make the project possible.

Zoom out: Westlands has been working with its farmers to advance groundwater recharge projects over the past few years, which resulted in nearly 400,000 acre-feet of groundwater being recharged last year.

• The district plans to nearly double its charging capacity to 800,000 acre-feet.

Why it is important: The project improves the reliability of Westlands’ water supply in volatile years.

• After years of drought and environmentally compromised water management in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, water availability in California can fluctuate from year to year.
• Farmers south of the Delta had to endure 2021 and 2022, when they received zero percent of their contracted water allotment from the Bureau of Reclamation.
• Last year, the process was reversed because it was a year of historically high rainfall. The result was a 100 percent allocation. This was the first full allocation in 17 years.
• But this year, farmers south of the Delta are receiving only half of the water they were contracted for, even though California had an above-average water year and has officially left the drought behind it.

What we observe: Once the second phase is completed, the Pasajero Project will include up to 10 additional dry wells with a recharge capacity of up to 5,000 acre-feet to transfer surface water directly into the aquifer.

• Phase two will begin in the first half of 2027.
• Westlands has also received $25 million in Inflation Reduction Act grants to fund similar charging projects.
• Westlands plans to construct 3,000 to 6,000 acres of new county-owned recharge ponds and 70 to 80 new wells for groundwater storage and extraction at an estimated cost of more than $100 million. The county plans to achieve these goals by 2035.

What they say: “Surface water is our lifeblood,” said Allison Febbo, General Manager of Westlands. “We cannot survive without our surface water from the Central Valley Project contract. But knowing that supply is currently inconsistent – our reliability is declining – projects like this help us use that water in the wet years and store it in the dry years. This allows us to continue our agriculture and support our local communities and our state and national economies in the long term.”

• Nemeth praised Febbo for her leadership at Westlands in pushing through the Pasajero project and other projects.
• “Everyone should be very proud of General Manager Febbo because I don’t think there’s another water user in the state that’s constantly standing at the door saying, ‘We want to take advantage of the things the state of California is doing,'” Nemeth said.