The Battle Over Water Rights in Cuyama, CA
About halfway between Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, California - on the ancestral lands of the Chumash people - lies a remote and strikingly beautiful high desert valley named Cuyama.
The Cuyama Valley finds itself in the middle of a tense and complicated battle over water rights. A battle where all of the residents, farmers, ranchers, and even the rural underfunded school district, have been pitted against the world's largest corporate carrot growers: Bolthouse and Grimmway.
The Cuyama Water Basin is one of 21 critically overdrafted basins in the state of California. Since 2020 Cuyama Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency has been developing and implementing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan in accordance with state requirements aimed at bringing all critically overdrafted basins back into sustainable use by 2040. But in 2022, Bolthouse and Grimmway, aka Big Carrots, filed a lawsuit to ask the courts to determine water rights in the valley.
The Big Carrot lawsuit required all the small family run farms and ranches in the valley, the town water board, and the local schools to hire attorneys to defend their water rights in court. The lawsuit also inspired some community members to create a Boycott Carrots campaign.
In this episode you'll hear ambient sounds of Cuyama and excerpts from oral history interviews with six residents of the Cuyama Valley, digging into what they love about Cuyama, how the water crisis has impacted their personal lives, what solutions might be, and what they hope for the future of the valley.
The future of water allocations and legal water rights in the Cuyama Valley remains deeply uncertain. But one thing is for sure: Cuyamans love their home and their way of life, and they are committed to finding a way through this water crisis, together.
CREDITS:
This episode was created and produced by Rae Garringer in 2025 during their time as a Cuyama Water Justice Fellow. The Cuyama Water Justice Fellowship is hosted by two local organizations Blue Sky Center and Quail Springs thanks to funding from the California EPA.
Endless gratitude to everyone who shared some of your story through interviews: Sara Nuñez, Noemi Vera, Raul Monzón, Tristan Zannon, Brenton Kelly, Alisha Taff, and Emery Johnston. Thank you so much to Rosalba and Anthony Fonseca for your interpretation and translation work, and to Sandra Uribe for helping coordinate and schedule Spanish language interviews. Special thanks to Liz Fish, Jack Forinash, Mayela Rodriguez, Noé Monte, Melanie Shaw, Nick Shaw, Brooke Swertfager, Pam Baczuk, Brenton Kelly, Blaine Morris, Teddy Nava, Ferial Sadeghian, Maria Carpenter, and everyone else for the support, brainstorming, ideas, conversations, connections, driving tours, delicious meals, living room karaoke, Kabota rides, laughter, and the very warm welcome!