Carrot kingpins 

Who wants to reduce their groundwater pumping by 60 percent?

Everybody who overlies the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin! Just kidding. They don't, and they don't have to. The 60 percent rule only applies to folks pumping water out of the Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin—a separate but equally-beholden-to-the-state overdrafted aquifer that touches San Luis Obispo County.

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I'm absolutely sure that nobody really wants to pump 60 percent less water out of the ground ever year, because that's a lot!

But Big Carrot—yes, BIG Carrot—really, really, really doesn't want to. In fact, they don't want to so badly that they filed an adjudication lawsuit against "all persons claiming a right to extract or store groundwater" in the basin.

Everyone includes the Cuyama Unified School District, a district that was in financial straights until last year. The district expects to spend upward of $20,000 this year to defend its right to use the only water source available to its students.

The self-aggrandizing "world's largest producer of carrots," Grimmway Farms, and a company that ironically believes that "making one better choice each day is something we can all do," Bolthouse Farms, conjoined their corporate powers into the worst choice two years ago by filing that lawsuit. Now at 150 plaintiffs—aka Cuyama Valley residents—strong, the lawyers fees are probably not a problem for the carrot industry giants, but they aren't easy for everyone else.

And what about this groundwater sustainability plan that local residents spent five years developing in good faith with their carrot kingpin neighbors? The state approved it in March alongside Paso's sustainability plan. Who knows? There really isn't good precedent in the courts for complying with this kind of thing. This is new territory.

In defense of itself and its actions, bummer basin-user Bolthouse said that it hadn't sought to "reduce the amount of water available" to Cuyama basin residents and it recognizes its responsibility to help achieve basin sustainability.

However, bummer Bolthouse and grubby Grimmway sought to separate their area of the basin from the rest. Meaning? My best guess is that the two biggest pumpers in the basin are aiming for the water that their overhead sprinklers pull out of the ground to not have to be part of a basin labeled as one of the most overdrafted in the state. Therefore, the state Department of Water Resources' required 60 percent pumping reduction wouldn't apply and the conniving carrot carousel can continue to pillage the groundwater supply until there's nothing left.

We're just trying to "set fixed guidelines for all overlying landowners' water usage going forward," Bolthouse said. Yeah! It's not like there's a document doing that already or anything.

This isn't Bolthouse's first adjudication rodeo. In 2000, the carrot peddler filed an adjudication—aka a quiet title lawsuit—against the city of Lancaster, a handful of water districts, and some community services districts that rely on the Antelope Valley water basin. The case involved thousands of parties and rode the bull into 2021.

A long process is ahead of Cuyama Valley residents.

In an area where the average household income is below $33,000 and everyone relies on groundwater, paying lawyers fees for decades to protect the right to a life source sounds like a penance that only commercial interests can weather. And from the sound of it, grim Grimmway and bullshit Bolthouse have no problem kicking their can of carrots down a well-watered row.

The first phase of the process was supposed to start on Aug. 7. But the judge in the case pushed the start date to October because Big Carrot simply couldn't be bothered to publish a notice about the lawsuit in a local newspaper or notify all the impacted landowners about the impending case. More than 300 landowners still need to be notified before the adjudication can move forward, and these water-sucking jerks can't be bothered to move any faster.

You know who likes to move fast? Moms for Liberty.

They like to strike while the culture war topic is hot. And there's nothing hotter than the purported menaces that an LGBTQ-plus Pride flag can rain down upon a community. This time, in a (gasp!) teacher's classroom. As if Pride colors haven't adorned classroom walls at any time in history before the past five months.

On the first day of school, a small rainbow poster and Pride Festival sticker in an Atascadero Middle School teacher's classroom was enough of a cause for concern for Moms for Liberty to circle the wagon. There's only one wagon—it's just loaded down with a handful of squeaky wheels who don't like vaccines, masks, diversity, or showing support for marginalized communities.

And once again this year, it was Moms for Liberty v. the Gala Pride and Diversity Center at a school board meeting. Two days into the school year, parents and residents showed up to argue about the LGBTQ-plus community and whether teachers should be allowed to nonverbally show their support for students who may identify as something other than heterosexual.

God forbid, amirite?

"Children should not need idols or icons to feel welcome in a teacher's classroom; that should just be a given that they are," local Moms for Liberty chapter chair Trish Murray told the Atascadero Unified School District board on Aug. 15.

Really, Trish? Anyone who's been paying attention to the last half-year of ballyhooing would definitely not make that assumption. Δ

The Shredder is ready for Carrotgate 2023. Bring it on at [email protected].