When the Well Runs Dry

California agriculture is a $61 billion industry that provides around 400,000 jobs. People are worried not only about lost income but also about family legacies that, like Denise Kinabrew’s, stretch back generations. Farmworker communities also face profound uncertainty as changing land uses reshape local economies and communities.

What happens to that land is now one of the central questions facing the region.

“It can’t really be overstated how much of a change that is,” says Bridget Gibbons, groundwater project director for TNC in California. “There will be real impacts to a lot of people and their livelihoods.”

Gibbons and her TNC colleagues are helping local agencies and partners evaluate what uses might be most suitable for fields that can no longer be irrigated sustainably. Leaving large areas unmanaged could worsen existing challenges such as dust pollution and other health burdens borne by rural communities. Thoughtful land-use planning will shape the region’s future for decades to come.

Some solutions are already emerging. With TNC support, some growers have begun on-farm recharge, flooding fields during wet winters so water can seep back into depleted aquifers. Other farmers have made a transition to less water-intensive uses, including desert-adapted crops like agave.

Land may be repurposed for groundwater recharge projects, renewable energy development, recreation areas or habitat restoration. Done well, such efforts could help California meet its renewable energy goals while benefiting imperiled species that call the San Joaquin Valley home. At Capinero Creek in Tulare County, TNC’s restoration work is helping rare species such as the blunt-nosed leopard lizard and burrowing owl reclaim parts of their historic range.

“If we can do that strategically,” Gibbons says, “then hopefully we find a smoother path forward, with solutions that work for everyone.”

In the rural hamlet of Okieville, a groundwater recharge project has helped provide more reliable drinking water to residents. Named for migrants from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl who settled here in the 1930s, Okieville is surrounded by dairy farms and nut orchards that provide much of the area’s employment. Residents have long relied on domestic wells for drinking water, but in recent years these began to run dry.

“You wake up in the morning and get ready for school—no water! You panic,” says Aaron Fukuda, CEO of the Tulare Irrigation District, which manages the area’s canal system.

In 2024, with funding from the state and support from residents and nonprofits, the district completed a new groundwater recharge basin on a former ranch. During wet winters and springs, the basin captures rainwater and snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada range, allowing it to seep into the aquifer rather than flow away. That water not only supplies Okieville’s wells, it also ensures more reliable irrigation. Meanwhile, the basin provides habitat for migratory birds.

“That’s the heart and spirit of a multibenefit project, right?” says Fukuda. “You don’t do anything for a singular purpose. You look at how you can bring people together to solve multiple problems.”

The Conservancy is working with water managers like Fukuda across California to develop similar projects that support reliable water supplies, productive agriculture and healthy ecosystems. But the success of those efforts will be measured not just in acre-feet recharged or habitat restored, but in the lives and livelihoods they help sustain.

Denise Kinabrew is 67 and increasingly thinking about the future of her farm. She and her neighbors have been through plenty of hard times, and they have stewarded their land through all of it.

“It’s very fertile farmland,” she says.

Kinabrew hopes the farm will stay in her family. But what form it takes, and how much water will be available to sustain it, remain to be seen.

“It’s not about the profit so much as about the pride of work. I say this very affectionately. It’s the best life ever.”