A California Superior Court has cracked down on state regulators for penalizing a key agricultural region’s water managers, chastising officials for potentially unlawful behavior. Judge Kathy Ciuffini, of Central California’s Kings County Superior Court, last week issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the State Water Resources Control Board from requiring fees and reports from growers who over-pump the area’s groundwater. … Officials put this southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley under “probation” in April, saying they had identified multiple deficiencies in the Tulare Lake basin’s groundwater sustainability plans. Water extraction had caused so much damage to certain areas that the Tulare Lake basin sunk as much as six feet from June 2015 to April 2023, according to a State Water Board staff report.