Who are the Paso Water basin users facing a proposed tax?

June 8, 2026

OPINION by MURRAY POWELL and GREG GREWAL

Are you on the list of those who may be required to begin funding the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Authority’s $ 1.1 million fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget? If you are, today is the last day to file an appeal.

Last year, an attempt to tax property owners approximately $3 million failed after the bulk of citizens rejected the water tax through Proposition 218. In an attempt to cancel the citizens 2018 vote against new taxes, the Paso Robles Basin Authority has initiated this Paso Basin Water Use Fee assessment (water tax) pursuant to California Proposition 26, passed in 2010.

The Proposition 26 plan will  circumvent last year’s Proposition 218 rejection of the authority’s failed attempt to require Paso Basin property owners, residents and businesses pay the authority’s operating fees.

This proposed fee assessment is only effective for the upcoming 2026-2027 fiscal year. As Proposition 26 prohibits funding of capital projects, these funds will be used to keep the authority’s lights on – unneeded and costly administrative costs.

Created on April 1, 2025 for the purpose  of implementing the 2020 approved Paso Robles Basin Groundwater Sustainability Plan, the authority consists of four local Paso Basin area general sustainability agencies which have assumed the responsibility of implementing and funding the plan.

The plan includes a substantial number of costly capital projects intended to resolve the Paso Basins State declared high priority overdraft issues as soon as possible. The budget consists of funding general administration and legal costs amounting to more than $578,000 plus a contingency reserve of $99,586 for a total of $677,600 of the $1.1 million proposed budget.

The Prop 26 process does not require that fee assessment notices be mailed to any Paso Basin property APN addresses.  The only noticing requirements are for PRAGA to provide a 20-day notice on its website (posted May 7, 2026) and by publishing a notice in a local newspaper’s legal notices small print section that no one ever reads.

We suspect that a large majority of Paso Basin property owners, residents and agricultural and commercial business owners are not aware of the current Prop 26 pending water use fee assessments.

What is important today is to determine whether your Paso Robles Water Basin area properties, agriculture and commercial operations will be charged with these proposed fees. The authority has set June 8 as an arbitrary deadline to accept submitted appeals-protests.

These proposed fees will be added to your regular annual San Luis Obispo County property tax bills as special district assessments. SLO County bills should be arriving in your mail boxes by late September or early October.

The authority has posted an appeal form on their website. This form may be submitted online or mailed to the indicated authority address. Mailed appeals should be postmarked by June 8. More information is available on the website.

The first step in this appeal process is to determine if your Pasa Robes Basin properties are included in the assessment. The authority has issued a list of Paso Basin property APN’s along with the proposed fees.

If your properties are not listed, or do not have an assessment amount, you will not be charged and do not need to appeal.

Please consider the following issues that should generate an appeal if you have properties listed with proposed fee assessment charges

1. Paso Basin properties that limit their “domestic” annual basin groundwater extraction amounts to 2-acre feet or less per year will not be charged fees. These properties are known as “domestic de minimis users.” Essentially “de minimis uses” are limited to basic residential household water demands.

2. Paso Basin properties without Paso Basin wells, or are not irrigated such as dry farmed agriculture crop activities, or are fallowed – should not be charged fees.

3. Properties that rely on other supplemental water sources such as riparian or surface water sources, Nacimiento pipeline water deliveries, well water sources not extracting defined Paso  Basin groundwater such as the Atascadero Water Basin should not be charged for these proposed water use fees.

4. Fee assessment amounts are calculated based on an “evapotranspiration satellite system.” No public information has been provided detailing the system data and calculations that determined the “total consumptive water use” amount that is the basis for charging 2026-2027 fees applying a proposed $22.90 per acre foot consumptive use fee charge.  Undisputed available public record information clearly indicates that satellite systems ET produce highly inaccurate groundwater use estimates for a number of reasons. These records also confirm that the system relies on for these authority assessments are not able to determine accurate water use measurements by legal APN parcel property line boundaries.

5. Object to the fact that the proposed fees to be charged for fiscal year 2026-2027 assessments  are retroactive based on inaccurate data.

In our opinion, such assessments require that reasonably accurate current basin groundwater extracted pumping data by APN should form the basis for the fiscal year 2026-2027 fee charges. In other words, such proposed charges should be based on accurate data determined no earlier than fiscal year 2025-2026 basin extraction data. Not based on inaccurate unverified Oct. 2024 through Sept. 2025 System” data.