After a four-hour workshop with state officials in Visalia, Punjabi American farmers were left frustrated and questioning whether California realized it had weaponized groundwater in a way that could destroy the San Joaquin Valley.
“SGMA has good intentions,” said Selma grower Nick Sahota during the Dec. 5 event. “But it has become a weapon to destroy the San Joaquin Valley.”
He wanted to know if lawmakers had considered the impacts not just on farmers, but trucking, convenience stores and other ancillary valley businesses that rely on agriculture when they passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014…