In 2023, water from the Kings River was deliberately sent onto Don Cameron’s pistachio orchard. The orchard became a place to hold water, easing pressure on other communities.
The Central Valley’s back-to-back storms and Tulare Lake Basin flooding left a hard question in their wake: “A lot of crops are grown where this water is today — pistachios, tomatoes, cotton, so it’s a big hit to our ag industry here in Kings County,” Ferrier told KMJ.
From Flood Damage to Recharge
Since that devastation, more groundwater recharge basins have been built. The flood experience also produced a less obvious kind of infrastructure: lessons about where water can go, and what it takes to get it there.
Cameron’s orchard is part of that learning. Its intentional flooding became the basis for a years-long study of on-farm recharge by the California Water Institute at Fresno State. The work is still underway; early findings are described as encouraging, but the report offers no final operating guidance for orchards.
Forecast Is Not a Water Order
El Niño increases the likelihood of winter storms and flooding in California, but the pattern does not promise a useful supply of water at a particular orchard. Ag Alert’s forecast discussion also points to the value of snowpack for water supplies later in the growing season.
The state’s flood system is a working network of bypasses, weirs and canals, not a single switch turned on when a wet winter arrives. The Department of Water Resources describes annual maintenance by state and local crews ahead of potential high water; those routes help determine where flood flows can be managed.
For pistachio country, the useful distinction is between water that can be routed into recharge and water that simply arrives where it can do damage. A statewide climate pattern cannot settle that question for an individual field.