Qualla: Borrego Valley Groundwater Basin

Borrego Valley Groundwater Basin: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Borrego Valley groundwater basin is where the math becomes uncomfortable. From 1945 to 2010, groundwater levels in the northern valley dropped at a rate of up to two feet per year — a decline sustained across 65 years, driven by the agricultural and residential pumping that has supported a thriving desert economy. By 2015, the US Geological Survey estimated the annual overdraft at 13,000 acre-feet, roughly 4.2 billion gallons, equal to approximately 70 percent of the basin's total annual water use. The California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act now requires reducing yearly water consumption from 19,100 acre-feet down to 5,700 to achieve sustainability. That is not an adjustment. It is a transformation.

Borrego Valley Groundwater Basin: Three Aquifers Below the Valley

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 150,000-acre Borrego Valley sits atop three aquifers, stacked from surface to depth. The uppermost, composed of alluvial, fan, playa, and wind-blown deposits from the Holocene and Pleistocene epochs, is up to 1,000 feet thick at the northern end of the basin. This upper layer...

Borrego Valley Groundwater Basin: Agriculture and Golf in the Desert

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

As of 2010, the Borrego Valley's water users divided roughly as follows: 50 wells serving agricultural purposes, 8 serving golf courses, and 14 serving residential users. Agriculture — primarily citrus orchards, groves, and vegetable farming in a valley that receives less than 5 ...

Borrego Valley Groundwater Basin: The Decline That Numbers Document

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The two-feet-per-year decline recorded from 1945 to 2010 accumulates, over 65 years, into a drop of more than 100 feet in groundwater levels in some parts of the northern basin. That means wells that worked at a certain depth in 1945 had to go much deeper by 2010, requiring more ...

Borrego Valley Groundwater Basin: The Challenge of Reduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Reducing annual water use from 19,100 to 5,700 acre-feet means cutting consumption by more than 70 percent. For a farming community, that scale of reduction is not a minor operational adjustment but a fundamental question about which operations continue and which do not. The Borr...