Reprint from Napa Valley Register, June 6, 2026
For more than a decade, with support from philanthropic partners, Water Audit California has worked to restore Napa County’s creeks, guided by leading experts in hydrology, fisheries, and environmental science. (See WaterAuditCa.org). Yet Napa County still refuses to confront a basic truth: you cannot manage water if you do not measure it.
County leaders have long known that groundwater pumping can reduce streamflow, especially in the dry season, when creeks, fish, and wildlife are most vulnerable. But instead of collecting the data needed to understand and control that harm, the county has allowed delay and denial to substitute for action.
That failure was not accidental. In 2014, when groundwater issues were scoped for study, the connection between wells and surface water was excluded from the county hydrologists’ work. One of the most important questions — whether groundwater extraction was drying streams — was left insufficiently examined even as signs of damage emerged.
A 2023 survey prepared for Water Audit found that most Napa County wells were not mapped at their true locations, more than 1,200 had no known location, and only a small fraction of roughly 10,000 wells appeared to have long-term measurement records.
Napa is trying to manage a shrinking public resource without knowing where much pumping occurs or how much water is being taken. County officials fiercely defend their right to be ignorant of fact.
County officials have admitted they do not follow best professional practices. In discussing the proposed development upstream of the already stressed Pope Street sector of the Napa River, the Planning, Building and Environmental Services Director acknowledged that actual water use is unknown because groundwater pumping is generally not metered. Decisions often rely on assumed amounts rather than measured withdrawals. That is not water management; it is paperwork standing in for reality.
Under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, groundwater agencies must avoid significant and unreasonable adverse impacts on beneficial uses of surface water. According to the 2025 Napa GSA Report, the county failed to meet certain groundwater targets, and for the third consecutive year, the Napa River at Oak Knoll and Pope Street did not meet the minimum threshold for streamflow depletion. Under SGMA, that is an undesirable result.
In plain English, parts of Napa’s stream system are repeatedly running too low when they matter most. This is not a technical quibble; it is a failure of stewardship. Creeks are public trust resources supporting fish, wildlife, habitat and the ecological health that makes Napa County more than a place of extraction and entitlement.
The solution is not mysterious: measure streamflow and actual pumping, map wells accurately, identify where withdrawals exceed sustainable recharge, and stop approving additional demand while failing to monitor what already exists.
William McKinnon
Water Audit California