This is the Walnut Grove home of Jason Peltier, a former deputy general manager of the Westland Water District. Peltier received a $1.4 million loan at 0.84% interest from the district to buy the home ...

Clout can be defined in many ways. In California’s parched Central Valley farmlands, it’s the ability to secure water. By that measure, the giant Westlands Water District has just set a whole new ...

Irrigated fields in the Westlands Water District border Interstate 5 and the parched Diablo Range beyond, west of Tranquility. A state-created utility, Westlands seeks to keep water flowing to farms ...

Tom Birmingham has helped Westlands Water District provide to its 700 farms for the past 15 years. His methods have made the district a key player in some of the state’s bitterest water battles. But ...

This year, the annual bill governing national defense policy almost settled a three-decades-old conflict in California over toxic water draining from farm fields. Lawmakers finished resolving the ...

A California public water district that has lost several legal battles over flows released for Klamath River salmon and earned a rare federal penalty over what it described as “a little Enron ...

The Interior Department has resumed the long slog toward development of a big California irrigation drainage system, because the controversial alternative remains mired down in Congress. The Interior ...

The massive Westlands Water District, a longtime nemesis of Delta activists, will pay a $125,000 penalty after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused the district of “misleading investors ...

A chipper shreds a Fresno County orchard to make room for a recharge project. (photo: Department of Water Resources) One of the world’s most productive agricultural districts is under new leadership ...

Thomas Birmingham, general manager of the massive Westlands Water District since 2000, on Novv. 23 announced plans to step down at the end of 2022. Fresno Bee file Thomas Birmingham, general manager ...