Water restrictions hit home in California
March 9, 2026
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: In California’s Central Valley, the state’s greatest farming region, some farmers are being ordered to pump less water from their wells. Those limits have been in the works for years, but they’re still coming as a shock for many. Dan Charles has this report from Madera, California.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: When Lak Brar started farming near the town of Madera, north of Fresno, in the 1990s, it was the most natural thing in the world to drill a well deep into the underground aquifer and pump out water for his crops.
LAK BRAR: And we never thought that somehow the government would have control of the water beneath our feet. That was not even a thought.
CHARLES: But farmers across the Central Valley pumped so much water, the aquifer has been shrinking. Wells have been going dry. In some places, the ground itself has been sinking. In 2014, California passed a law that said, the aquifer is like a bank account, and it has to stay balanced. You cannot overdraft that underground account. After years of laying the groundwork, the requirements of the law are now starting to bite, although local officials have been coming up with different limits and timelines in different places. Among those local officials, Stephanie Anagnoson in Madera County. Her job is telling farmers they can’t pump so much water.