Legal Ruralism: My Rural Travelogue (Part XXXVII): New Cuyama and California's Hidden Valley of Enchantment

Thursday, March 14, 2024

My Rural Travelogue (Part XXXVII): New Cuyama and California's Hidden Valley of Enchantment

Cuyama Valley from New Cuyama, with interpretive sign about the indigenous Chumash

I had the opportunity to visit the community of New Cuyama, California (population 542) last month, in northern Santa Barbara County. The area is known as the Hidden Valley of Enchantment.

I first learned of the Cuyama Valley about a year ago when a student wrote this post about Harvard University buying up land there.

Vineyard recently planted Harvard University land

I was excited to be passing through the region (ok, well, it was a bit out of my way on my journey from Los Angeles to Fresno) and to have the opportunity to see the enchanted valley for myself. While the student had written about a sort of water controversy (really, water hoarding) in which Harvard University's endowment was engaged (see their vineyard in the photo to the left), I quickly learned of another water war--this one by local farmers against corporate agriculture, specifically the entities associated with Grimmway and Bolthouse carrots. In fact, when you first approach the valley from the east, you see massive fields (brown at this time of year), with signs suggesting an association with Grimmway and/or Bolthouse (see photo below).

When I arrived at my destination for the night, the Cuyama Buckhorn, a recently renovated 1960s motel and diner, I found signs imploring folks to "BOYCOTT CARROTS" AND STAND WITH CUYAMA AGAINST CORPORATE GREED." These name Bolthouse Farms and Grimmway Farms by name.

Naturally, I wanted to know more, and I found two stories about the matter, one in the Los Angeles Times and the other by the Associated Press.

For the LA Times, Ian James reported last November with this lede:

In the Cuyama Valley north of Santa Barbara, lush green fields stretch across the desert. Sprinklers spray thousands of acres to grow a single thirsty crop: carrots.

Wells and pumps pull groundwater from as deep as 680 feet, and the aquifer’s levels are dropping.

As the valley’s only water source shrinks, a bitter legal battle over water rights has arisen between carrot growers and the community. Residents are fighting back with a campaign urging everyone to stop buying carrots.

Grimmway Farms land, eastern end of the valley

[Bolthouse and Grimmway] stirred outrage when they, along with several other allied entities, sued property owners throughout the valley, asking a court to determine how much water everyone can pump.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021, has left small farmers, ranchers and other property owners with staggering legal bills. Residents have accused the companies of going to court to try to secure as much water as possible, while forcing painful cuts on smaller farms.

Amy Taxin had reported for the Associated Press a little over a month earlier, "In a remote, dry patch of California, a battle is raging over carrots," with a lede highlighting one of the small farmers in Cuyama.

In the hills of a dry, remote patch of California farm country, Lee Harrington carefully monitors the drips moistening his pistachio trees to ensure they’re not wasting any of the groundwater at the heart of a vicious fight.

He is one of scores of farmers, ranchers and others living near the tiny town of New Cuyama who have been hauled into court by a lawsuit filed by two of the nation’s biggest carrot growers, Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms, over the right to pump groundwater.

The move has saddled residents in the community 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles with mounting legal bills and prompted them to post large signs along the roadway calling on others to boycott carrots and “Stand with Cuyama.”

“It’s just literally mind-boggling where they’re farming,” Harrington said, adding that his legal fees exceed $50,000. “They want our water. They didn’t want the state telling them how much water they can pump.”

The battle playing out in this stretch of rural California represents a new wave of legal challenges over water, long one of the most precious and contested resources in a state that grows much of the country’s produce.

For years, California didn’t regulate groundwater, allowing farmers and residents alike to drill wells and take what they needed. That changed in 2014 amid a historic drought, and as ever-deeper wells caused land in some places to sink.

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Grimmway, which has grown carrots in Cuyama for more than three decades, currently farms less than a third of its 20 square miles (52 square kilometers) there and has installed more efficient sprinklers to save water. Seeing groundwater levels decline and pumping costs rise, the company began growing carrots in other states, but doesn’t plan to uproot from Cuyama, said Jeff Huckaby, the company’s president and chief executive.

“It’s one of the best carrot-growing regions that we’ve come across,” Huckaby said, adding that arid regions are best so carrot roots extend below ground for moisture, growing longer. “The soil up here is ideal, temperatures are ideal, the climate is ideal.”

This water controversy aside, I want to share a few more photos of the town, which has a small grocery story and cafe in addition to the spiffy refubished Cuyama Buckhorn. There is both an elementary school and a high school, a branch of the Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County) public library, a family resource center, a recreation district, a community service district, a sheriff's substation and fire house, as well as a transfer station (dump). Nearby is the Carrizo Plain National Monument, famous for its spring wildflowers, with the San Andreas Fault running through it.

All photos are (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024