A solution for California's water woes

Summary

Short Wave – "A Solution for California's Water Woes" (May 19, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Emily Kwong and independent science writer Dan Charles explore California’s deepening groundwater crisis and the transformative measures underway to address chronic water overuse. The episode examines why California’s aquifers have been shrinking, the impact of new regulations, how communities are adapting—including some innovative and surprising solutions—and the human side of enforcing life-altering water restrictions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

California’s Groundwater Crisis: How We Got Here

• Groundwater Overuse: Farmers in California have historically depended on extensive pumping from underground aquifers, especially in the drought-prone Central Valley.
  • Quote: “They have been pumping so much water, the aquifer has been shrinking.”
    (Dan Charles, 01:02)
• Consequences: Over-pumping has caused wells to run dry and, in some areas, the ground itself to sink—a phenomenon called “subsidence.”
  • Quote: “In some places, the ground itself's been sinking.”
    (Dan Charles, 01:12)

A Seismic Regulatory Shift: The “Great California Groundwater Grab”

• New Restrictions: Local officials are now enforcing limits on groundwater use, marking a dramatic departure from previous “pump at will” practices.
  • Quote: “Some farmers never really believed this could happen... Up till now, that water beneath his feet was just free for the taking, like breathing the air.”
    (Dan Charles, 01:33, 01:52)
  • Farmer Perspective: “We never thought that somehow the government would have control of the water beneath our feet. That was not even a thought.”
    (Laak Brar, 01:43)
• Enforcement: Use too much groundwater, and you risk fines.
  • Quote: “Now people are watching how much you use. If you use too much, you're gonna get fined.”
    (Dan Charles, 02:03)

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)

• Groundwater as a Bank Account: California’s 2014 SGMA law treats aquifer water as a “bank account” that must not be overdrawn, with a deadline of 2040 for balance.
  • Quote: “It’s called the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which basically said the aquifer is like a bank account and it has to stay balanced. You cannot overdraft that, that underground account.”
    (Dan Charles, 05:06)
  • Farmers have until 2040 to comply, allowing for adaptation to these major changes.

The Challenge of Self-Regulation

• Impossible Without Enforcement: Farmers themselves acknowledge the difficulty (if not impossibility) of self-regulation in times of scarcity.
  • Quote: “I don't think there was a way for us to self-regulate this... It's your lifeline, this groundwater supply.”
    (Sarah Wolf, 06:15)

Enforcing the New Rules: Human Side & Difficult Conversations

• Enforcers Face Community Pushback: Local officials—often farmers or neighbors themselves—enforce these tough rules in tight-knit communities.

  • Stephanie Adnan, Director of Water and Natural Resources in Madera County, likens her job to being a hospital chaplain:
    • Quote: “I have a master's degree in theological studies specializing in environmental ethics.”
      (Stephanie Adnan, 07:47)
    • “I think this is more of a math problem.”
      (Adnan, 07:56)
    • She describes her prior chaplain work with heart attack or stroke patients struggling to adjust: “Will I ever be back to normal again? And that is the same sort of thing we have to do with farmers.”
      (Adnan, 09:25)

• The Emotional Toll on Farmers: Farmers express fear and worry as they face a future of less irrigation, shifting crop choices, and diminished land values.

  • Quote: “I'm scared. I'm worried this is not going to work out. I don't know what my future is. I've got a family here, and I've put everything into this. I love this, but I can't survive this.”
    (Farmer recounting phone call, 10:05)

What the Future Holds: Reducing Cultivation, Seeking Solutions

• Shrinking Farmland, Diversified Land Use

  • Over the next 15 years, the amount of farmed land in the Central Valley will likely shrink, with some farms switching out of agriculture altogether.
  • Solar Farms are one promising alternative: “There's one big plan... to cover 200 square miles with solar panels. If it got built, this installation would generate enough electricity to power millions of homes, entire cities.”
    (Dan Charles, 11:13)
  • “They can earn as much from solar as from growing regular crops. And harvesting the sun is honestly a lot more predictable and stable.”
    (Dan Charles, 11:27)

• Replenishing the Aquifer: Innovative Water Capture Projects

  • Projects like the Chowchilla Bypass aim to capture excess floodwater during wet years and send it underground to recharge the aquifer.

  • Engineering Walkthrough: “We’re standing on the floodplain... In 2023, we’d be under at least 5 to 6ft of water from here... [Now] this giant new concrete cube... when the next flood comes, water is going to flow through... and out to a giant basin... where it's going to soak into the ground and go all the way back down to the aquifer.”
    (Dan Charles and Antonio Beharano, 12:11-13:13)

  • While these efforts can’t restore groundwater to previous levels, every bit helps.

The Climate Change Factor: A New Water Reality

• Changing Snowpack & Runoff: Warmer winters mean less snow in the Sierras, leading to more winter rain (which isn’t as easily stored) and drier summers.

  • Quote: “With the climate warming up, the winter storms in California are delivering less snow in the Sierra Mountains... now more of that precipitation is coming as rain, not snow...”
    (Dan Charles, 13:49)

  • Adaptation: Strategies like flooding fields to recharge aquifers gain urgency.

  • Quote: “That aquifer is more important than ever.”
    (Dan Charles, 14:32)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Laak Brar (Farmer):
  • “We never thought that somehow the government would have control of the water beneath our feet. That was not even a thought.” (01:43)
• Sarah Wolf (Farmer & Consultant):
  • “It is your lifeline, this groundwater supply... You're gonna do everything in your power to make sure that that crop stays alive.” (06:15)
• Stephanie Adnan (Water Official):
  • “I have a master's degree in theological studies specializing in environmental ethics.” (07:47)
  • “I think this is more of a math problem.” (07:56)
  • “Will I ever be back to normal again? And that is the same sort of thing we have to do with farmers.” (09:25)
• Unattributed Farmer Quote:
  • “I'm scared. I'm worried this is not going to work out. I don't know what my future is. I've got a family here, and I've put everything into this. I love this, but I can't survive this.” (10:05)
• Dan Charles (on solar farming):
  • “Harvesting the sun is honestly a lot more predictable and stable.” (11:27)
  • “That aquifer is more important than ever.” (14:32)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:02 – Why and how California's aquifers are shrinking; effects on wells
• 03:03 – California Central Valley’s importance for U.S. food supply
• 05:00 – How over-pumping caused the ground to sink, sparking regulatory action
• 05:06 – Details on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)
• 06:15 – Can farmers self-regulate? Insights from farmer-consultant Sarah Wolf
• 07:41 – Introduction to Stephanie Adnan, Madera County water official and her unique background
• 09:25 – The emotional labor of enforcing water restrictions, chaplain analogy
• 10:05 – Farmers’ emotional responses to the coming changes
• 11:13 – Solar farms as a new land use strategy
• 12:11-13:13 – On-site description of an aquifer replenishment project
• 13:49 – The challenge of reduced snowpack and need for new water capture strategies
• 14:32 – Concluding thoughts on the aquifer’s future importance

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Tone & Style Highlights

• Engaging and personable, with the signature Short Wave blend of clear explanations, scientific insight, and empathetic storytelling
• Uses creative analogies (groundwater as a “bank account,” water officials as “chaplains” for farming communities)
• Combines firsthand reporting with scientific context
• Conversational exchanges and real voices from affected stakeholders add authenticity and emotional resonance

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This episode provides a concise, accessible, and deeply human look at one of California’s most pressing environmental issues, offering hope and realism in equal measure as communities reckon with climate change and water scarcity.

Transcript

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[Emily Kwong]

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with NPR alum, now independent science writer Dan Charles.

[Dan Charles]

Hi, Emily.

[Emily Kwong]

Hi. So I hear you just got back from the front lines of the California

[Dan Charles]

water wars, One battle in those wars, what I call the great California groundwater grab.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah, we talked about this on the show years ago, how farmers in California have been pumping huge amounts of water from their wells to irrigate their crops.

[Dan Charles]

They have been pumping so much water, the aquifer has been shrinking.

[Emily Kwong]

An aquifer, of course, is just the underground water table. It's what you tap into when you dig a well.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. And in fact, people's home wells have been going dry because farmers were using up all that water. In some places, the ground itself's been sinking.

[Emily Kwong]

That's not good. Not good, Dan.

[Dan Charles]

But things are changing, Emily. Local officials are telling farmers in some areas you cannot pump so much water from your wells anymore.

[Emily Kwong]

How big of a change is this for farmers?

[Dan Charles]

It is huge. You know, some farmers never really believed this could happen. I got a sense of that talking to one farmer named Laak Brar. He grows almonds and lots of other crops near the town of Madera.

[Laak Brar]

And we never thought that somehow the

[Dan Charles]

government would have control of the water beneath our feet.

[Laak Brar]

That was not even a thought.

[Dan Charles]

Up till now, that water beneath his feet was just free for the taking, like breathing the air. And now it is something else entirely.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah. This is a paradigm shift in how people think about water.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. Now people are watching how much you use. If you use too much, you're gonna get fined.

[Emily Kwong]

So today on the show, what happens when water gets scarce, what it's like for farmers and for the people enforcing those new rules.

[Dan Charles]

One of them says it's a little bit like being a hospital chaplain.

[Emily Kwong]

I'm Emily Kwong.

[Dan Charles]

I'm Dan Charles, and you're listening to Shortwave Science Podcast from NPR.

[NPR Up First Host]

This week on up first, one trend emerging this election season. President Trump actively opposing Republicans he sees as disloyal and endorsing their primary challengers who've toppled incumbents in multiple states. We're watching key primaries on Tuesday in Kentucky and elsewhere to see if that narrative holds up and what those races might tell us about November. Listen to up first every morning on the NPR app or.

[Dan Charles]

Or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Emily Kwong]

Let's talk about California. They come by their water use, honestly, because that's where a lot of food is grown.

[Dan Charles]

Oh, yeah. The Central Valley in California is the country's single biggest source of all kinds of food. You know, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, peaches, lots of vegetables. You name it, they grow it.

[Emily Kwong]

Shout out to Californians. But I also know a lot of friends of mine there. They have to be really careful about their water usage. And I imagine that's true for farmers, too.

[Laak Brar]

Yeah.

[Dan Charles]

Because, I mean, basic fact, during the summer when all these crops are growing, it basically doesn't rain in California.

[Emily Kwong]

Really?

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. You have probably seen photos of these huge dams they built in the mountains to capture water and store it in the canals that carry that water to farms. But there is also the other big reservoir that you don't see. That's the water that's sitting underground, the aquifer. Sometimes we call it groundwater. That is what we're talking about today.

[Emily Kwong]

Right. Okay. And when they need the groundwater, they use wells. Right. To pull that up.

[Dan Charles]

Right. And irrigation wells are huge. You got pipes maybe a foot in diameter going down hundreds of feet, powerful pumps. Some farmers are pumping so much water from their wells over the course of the summer, it would cover their orchards or their fields with water two or three feet deep.

[Emily Kwong]

That's a lot. So they're tapping water in the aquifer because they can't get enough from the rivers and the reservoirs and all those other systems you mentioned earlier.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. And some farms depend entirely on water from their wells. And the impression I get is everybody always knew you couldn't just keep doing this, but it was one of those problems that was easier to ignore or just live with, at least for a while.

[Emily Kwong]

So what has changed the chessboard of these water wars and created this rule kind of where you can't use certain amounts?

[Dan Charles]

Well, one interesting thing that happened that really got people's attention was pumping all that water caused the earth itself to sink in some places, which, among other things, meant that water couldn't flow properly down some of these massive canals that carry irrigation water from the reservoirs.

[Emily Kwong]

That's not good. So the farmers Pumping groundwater were messing up the water supply for other farmers.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. So at that point, pretty much everybody agreed something had to be done. And in 2014, California passed a law, it's called the Sustainable Groundwater Management act, which basically said the aquifer is like a bank account and it has to stay balanced. You cannot overdraft that, that underground account. It also gave farmers a long time to adapt to this. They don't have to reach that balanced state until 2040.

[Emily Kwong]

2040. That is a long time.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. And there are a couple of reasons for this. They had to figure out all kinds of things, like how much could farmers in all these different parts of the Central Valley actually pump out without depleting the aquifer?

[Emily Kwong]

A lot of math.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. And they also didn't want to move too fast because it's such a huge and disruptive change. It'll force farmers to change crops, abandoned land, where they've been farming.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah.

[Dan Charles]

One person who I've talked to a lot over the years about California water is a woman named Sarah Wolf. She's a farmer herself, also a consultant on water issues for a bunch of other farmers. And I asked her, you know, would there have been a way for farmers to solve this problem themselves? You know, just agree to pump less water? And she just shook her head.

[Narrator/Producer]

Oh, I think for sure the state had to pass a law. I don't think there was a way for us to self regulate this. It is, I mean, it is your lifeline, this groundwater supply. And if you are without any surface water for whatever reason, a drought and you have trees, would you not feed your child? You might go steal some groceries to feed your child if you had to. You're going to do everything in your power to make sure that that crop stays alive. Yes.

[Emily Kwong]

These crops, they're her children, they're her livelihood. And it's a really tricky situation. So how does a community transition and get farms that depend on groundwater to use less?

[Dan Charles]

This is the thing I was really curious about, because the people in charge of enforcing this law are a bunch of local officials. They are the ones who are in charge of setting tighter and tighter limits on pumping and fining the people who violate these rules.

[Emily Kwong]

That sounds like a tough job to be living in a place and telling your neighbors, like, hey, you can't use this much water.

[Dan Charles]

Exactly. And one of the people I talk to who has maybe one of the toughest jobs of all is Stephanie Adnan. She's director of Water and Natural Resources for Madera county and she is in charge of A part of the county where farms rely entirely on these wells. They have no other source of water.

[Emily Kwong]

This is truly their livelihood. Wow. Okay.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah. It's interesting. Stephanie studied geology and theology, specifically.

[Stephanie Adnan]

I have a master's degree in theological studies specializing in environmental ethics.

[Dan Charles]

Is this an environmental ethics question?

[Stephanie Adnan]

I think this is more of a math problem.

[Dan Charles]

So the math problem here is basic accounting. They have to bring this underwater account into balance, and right now they just take way more out than naturally comes back in. So to solve this, year by year, going into the future, farms in her area will be allowed to pump less and less groundwater to bring that account into balance. By 2040, they'll only be allowed to use maybe half as much, maybe just a quarter as much as they once did.

[Emily Kwong]

That is a major change. So what will that mean for farmers if they have to pump that much less water?

[Dan Charles]

So it really depends on their situation. You have water haves and have nots. Even within Madera County. You have some farmers, for instance, with land that gets an allotment of water from a dam on the San Joaquin River. They will basically be fine. But then not too far away, you have farmers who only have access to water from their wells. And with these new limits on pumping from those wells, they'll eventually, a lot of them, have to stop growing crops on most of their land. So their land is now only worth half what it once was. Which in turn means, you know, these farmers having really tough conversations with their bankers. They'll have problems getting the loans they need every year.

[Emily Kwong]

That's painful. So how does Stephanie talk farmers through this?

[Dan Charles]

You know, she says some of these conversations take her back to a job she had many years ago when she was a chaplain in a rehab hospital, sitting with people who had suffered heart

[Stephanie Adnan]

attacks and strokes, where they wonder, why is this happening to me? Will I ever be back to normal again? And that is the same sort of thing we have to do with farmers.

[Dan Charles]

I talked to another guy who's having similar conversations. His name is Aaron Fukuda. He's in charge of enforcing this groundwater law in another part of the Central Valley in Tulare County.

[Laak Brar]

My whole entire last couple years has been two and a half hour phone calls, one by one by one. First hour is listening. Second hour is talking about where we're headed, what we're going to do, what they're going to have to do.

[Dan Charles]

I asked him what people usually tell him, you know, on these calls, I'm scared.

[Laak Brar]

I'm worried this is not going to work out. I don't know what my future is. I've got a family here, and I've put everything into this. I love this, but I can't survive this.

[Emily Kwong]

You know, people talk all the time about adapting to climate change, and this is it to me. You know, it's this, like, we're supporting each other through the changing realities of our environment and what that will mean for our lives. And it takes time. It's not always like a big natural disaster. Sometimes it looks like this. So what is going to happen in these counties over the next, I don't know, 15 years?

[Dan Charles]

Well, I would say over that period of time, the amount of land where crops are grown in the Central Valley will shrink. You know, in some places, it'll shrink by a lot. Some farms won't survive. Some farmers. A lot of farmers are looking for other ways to use their land that don't require water, like putting solar on it.

[Emily Kwong]

Oh, tell me about that.

[Dan Charles]

Well, there's one big plan on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley where they actually have come up with a plan to cover 200 square miles with solar panels. If it got built, this installation would generate enough electricity to power millions of homes, entire cities.

[Emily Kwong]

Oh, so that could be a source of revenue for farmers selling energy instead of crops.

[Dan Charles]

Oh, yeah. They can earn as much from solar as from growing regular crops. And harvesting the sun is honestly a lot more predictable and stable.

[Emily Kwong]

The sun's not going anywhere for a while.

[Laak Brar]

It's true. Yeah.

[Dan Charles]

At the same time, you know, people are desperately looking for ways to keep farming alive, too. There is a big push, for instance, to replenish the aquifers to make deposits in that underground water account, you might say, which they could then draw on later. Stephanie took me out to a place not too far from Madeira to see what this actually looks like.

[Stephanie Adnan]

So this is a place where we could get almost unlimited flood flows.

[Dan Charles]

We get to this spot, it looks like a dry riverbed with levees on either side. It's called the Chowchilla Bypass. This thing was built to take extra water from the San Joaquin river when the river's about to flood.

[Emily Kwong]

Oh, so this is sort of an artificial river channel that carries that flood water overflow.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was full of water in 2023, the last big flood. But now it is also a construction site. They're building ways to send that floodwater underground. Met an engineer named Antonio Beharano. He showed me around. He works for an engineering firm called Provost and Pritchard. We're standing on the Chochila Bypass, we're standing on the floodplain of it. So in 2023, would we be underwater? Yes. We'll be under at least 5 to 6ft of water from here. And right here, Bay Hirano shows me this giant new concrete cube. It's sort of a trap door for water. So when the next flood comes, water is going to flow through this 14 foot wide screen they built to keep the fish out, go into this concrete structure, into this huge pipe, and out to a giant basin in the middle of farmland where it's going to soak into the ground and go all the way back down to the aquifer.

[Emily Kwong]

That is so cool. This project, I mean, it's very clever as a way of using the limited resource that is water. But will there be enough flooding to go through this system and replenish the aquifer fully?

[Dan Charles]

So there probably won't be enough to just like make everything back to where they used to be, where they could just pump as much as they wanted. But every little bit helps, right?

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah.

[Dan Charles]

If they add any water to that groundwater reservoir, they'll be allowed to pump more out later.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah. Earlier you compared it to a bank account. You make those deposits so you can withdraw later.

[Dan Charles]

Right. And there is one more really important reason to capture this floodwater, Emily. With the climate warming up, the winter storms in California are delivering less snow in the Sierra Mountains. And that snowpack was always really important as a reservoir. That water stays up there in the mountains and then it melts in the spring when people need it. But now more of that precipitation is coming as rain, not snow. So the rivers are more full in wintertime when crops aren't growing and can't use the water.

[Emily Kwong]

Right. So under climate change, the land and the rivers will be even drier in summertime and we need to prepare for that.

[Dan Charles]

Yeah, people really need to find better ways to capture those winter rains. And one way to do it is to flood fields and orchards and store it in the ground. I mean, that aquifer is more important than ever.

[Emily Kwong]

Dan Charles, thank you so much for explaining the complicated world of our underground water bank accounts.

[Dan Charles]

So great to be on the show. Thank you.

[Emily Kwong]

You can only hear this kind of reporting on Shore Wave, folks, so please share it with a friend because it really helps our show. And check out our whole series about water. If you just want more more, we will link those episodes in our show.

[Narrator/Producer]

Notes.

[Emily Kwong]

This episode was produced by Hannah Chin. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer. I'm Emily Kwong. Thanks for listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

[Narrator/Producer]

Foreign.

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[Emily Kwong]

For poor people in one of the world's fastest growing megacities, development means displacement and violence.

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[Dan Charles]

Nowhere to stay, nowhere to sleep.

[Emily Kwong]

On the Sunday story, the human cost of building Lagos, Nigeria, into the Dubai of Africa. Listen now to the Sunday story from the Upverse podcast on the NPR app.