Neat rows of strawberries and lettuce reach for miles to meet the horizon on Driscoll’s property east of Watsonville. Among the crops, a massive pit opens 15 feet into the earth and stretches across 4 acres in the shape of a trapezoid.

This is the Bokariza-Drobac Infiltration Basin, one of three groundwater recharge basins installed on private agricultural lands in the Pajaro Valley to collect stormwater runoff. It is part of a community-based effort to tackle the chronic problem of local farming operations drawing far more water from the Pajaro Valley aquifer than is replenished.

After a prolonged drought, last winter’s onslaught of storms flooded the region and caused millions in damage to crops. While the rains formed a bandage over the wounded aquifer, water managers warn that the Pajaro Valley will continue to suffer from flooding, saltwater intrusion and groundwater depletion without the infrastructure to capture stormwater before it goes to sea.

Farmers here irrigate almost entirely with water pumped from the Pajaro Valley Groundwater Basin, sucking it up faster than it can be replaced by rain percolating down into the soil and causing what is known as “overdraft.”

“We don’t collect enough stormwater,” said Marcus Mendiola, water conservation & outreach specialist at the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency. “Humans struggle with things they can’t see, so groundwater is a classic ‘tragedy of the commons’ problem,’” where people take from a shared resource bit by bit until it disappears.

…