Call Us: 559-923-6800
About Us
Laguna Irrigation District is a Public Agency and Special District Â
Who We Are
History:
Laguna Irrigation District was formed in February 1920 under Irrigation District Law to deliver water to farmers and landowners within the District. The development of irrigated agriculture around the LID area began with the development of facilities by the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company whose successor, the Fresno Canal and Land Corporation, sold the system to LID in 1921. The District service are includes a substantial portion of the historic Laguna de Tache Land Grant.
General:
Laguna is governed by the Water Code of the State of California; a member of the Kings River Water Association, Kings Basin Water Authority (KBWA), and North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency; and a multiple-county District.
Laguna is approximately 53,301 acres and comprised of mostly Agricultural Land producing field and row crops along with a variety of permanent crops with boundaries in both Fresno and Kings Counties (approximately 35,044 acres in Fresno Co. and 18,257 in Kings Co.).
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As a governmental subdivision, our District consists of an elected, five member Board of Directors, a General Manager and an Office Manager. Board Members are elected by division and serve four-year staggered terms with three terms set to expire in one year and two set to expire in two off-years. Directors must be registered voters and landowners within the District and residents of the respective divisions that they represent. Three divisions are in Fresno County and two divisions are in Kings County.
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What We Do
Laguna delivers agricultural surface water through approximately fifty miles of canals and a similar mileage of pipelines. We provide surface water to an area of southern Fresno County and Northern Kings County southwest of Kingsburg and south, southeast, and southwest of Riverdale with the southerly boundary generally along the South Fork of the Kings River or the Kings County line, and multiple points of diversion from the Kings River that supply the District conveyance system - Grant Canal, A Ditch, Island Canal, and Summit Lake Ditch.
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Our water supply is derived from the Kings River. The available supply is dependent upon rain and snowfall in the Kings River Watershed of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The water rights of our District are held in trust through the Kings River Water Association.
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What We Do (cont'd)
Due to the limited ability to store water, the Kings River water users depend upon storage in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the form of snow to capture surface water that then melts in the spring and summer months when water requirements increase. The District is a conjunctive use district, meaning that both surface water and ground water are used within the District.
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Historically, in flood years when surface water is abundant, the District takes advantage of that available water and recharges as much as possible in groundwater storage for withdrawal by landowners in subsequent dry years. The District owns and operates seven regulation/ recharge reservoirs where water can be captured and banked as groundwater or temporarily held and reused as surface water. The District has also acquired the land for one more site for a future recharge basin.
