Source: sjvwater.org

Pixley Irrigation District ‘hacking’ incident still under investigation

Fetched 2026-07-16 08:01 from sjvwater.org

Reading Summary (AI-generated)

Reading Summary: Pixley Irrigation District ‘Hacking’ Incident

Key Facts

• On June 22, the first day of Pixley Irrigation District’s summer water run, a gate at the district’s main turnout off Deer Creek was stuck in “manual” mode, preventing remote automatic operation
• General Manager Alex Peltzer confirmed unauthorized access “jumbled the programming” for the gates; the problem was fixed within two hours and programming fully restored a couple of days later
• Water Resources Superintendent Kirk Masters said he was told Iranian hackers were responsible, but this has not been confirmed; an FBI investigation is ongoing with no results reported yet
• A separate Iranian hacker group attempted to breach California Water Service’s systems in Bakersfield, Visalia, and Chico on June 11, limited to one customer account and an external GPS website
• No Pixley landowners were denied or delayed water delivery; remote access security has since been upgraded

Who Is Affected

• Pixley Irrigation District (primary victim)
• California Water Service customers in Bakersfield, Visalia, and Chico
• Friant Water Authority (Friant-Kern and Madera canals) — proactively mentioned manual backup capability
• Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District — neighboring agency expressing concern
• San Joaquin Valley agricultural water users broadly

Policy/Legal Angle

• No specific laws, regulations, or court decisions are cited in the article
• The FBI investigation implies potential federal criminal jurisdiction over critical infrastructure cyberattacks
• The Alliance of California Water Agencies (ACWA) is noted as an alert network for such incidents, suggesting an informal mutual-notification framework rather than a codified regulatory requirement

Blog Angles

1. How vulnerable is San Joaquin Valley water infrastructure? The near-simultaneous incidents at Pixley ID and Cal Water suggest a pattern — are Iranian state-sponsored actors specifically targeting California agricultural and municipal water systems, and what is the state or federal government doing systematically in response?
2. The manual backup gap: Friant Water Authority emphasized it can operate the Friant-Kern Canal manually if automated systems fail — do most small irrigation districts like Pixley have that same redundancy, or are they dangerously dependent on remote automation?
3. Transparency vs. security tension: Delano-Earlimart’s GM explicitly refused to discuss security details (“you never tell the adversary what you’re ready for”) — how much public disclosure should water agencies provide after a cyberattack, and does California have any reporting requirements for critical water infrastructure breaches?

Full Text

Pixley Irrigation District ‘hacking’ incident still under investigation

Investigators are still trying to determine who hacked into the controls for Pixley Irrigation District’s main turnout off of Deer Creek last month.

A gate got stuck in “manual” mode when it should have operated remotely in automatic mode.

Pixley’s water resources superintendent Kirk Masters called the incident a “hiccup” that was discovered on June 22, the first day of the district’s summer water run. Masters reported it at Pixley’s July 9 board meeting and said the problem was rectified within two hours.

Masters said in his report that he was told it was Iranian hackers, but that has not been confirmed.

“We simply don’t know when it happened or who did it,” Pixley General Manager Alex Peltzer wrote in an email after the meeting. “But it was clear that someone had gotten access and jumbled the programming necessary for the gates to the Pixley main turnout off of Deer Creek to operate in automatic mode.”

An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation is ongoing. A phone call to the FBI’s Sacramento Press Office was not returned by deadline.

“We really don’t have any details from them by this point, and probably won’t ever get anything definitive, so our focus is on making the system more secure,” Peltzer said.

Peltzer said no landowners were denied water or had their water delivery delayed. Programming was restored a couple of days later, and the gates have been operating as intended.

“Remote access security has been increased, and we don’t anticipate a repeat event,” Peltzer  said.

This incident comes on the heels of an Iranian hacker group attempting to gain access to California Water Service’s operational systems in Bakersfield, Visalia and Chico. The breach surfaced June 11 and was limited to one customer account and an external GPS website.

CaWater spokeswoman Yvonne Kingman wrote in an email to SJV Water that the utility immediately activated its cybersecurity response plan using Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in these types of threats.

Pelzter said water agencies and associations such as the Alliance of California Water Agencies (ACWA) are alerted to such incidents.

Johnny Amaral, chief executive officer of Friant Water Authority, which operates the Friant-Kern and Madera canals on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, said Friant has “protocols and procedures in place that we follow and redundancies built into our system to operate the facility in the event of an outage of any kind,” he wrote in a text message.

While the Friant-Kern Canal is an automated system, the authority maintains full capability of operating it manually in case of an outage.

The Pixley hack is both surprising and concerning, said Eric R. Quinley, general manager of Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District.

He declined to discuss details of Delano-Earlimart’s infrastructure operations and security.

“You never tell the adversary what you’re ready for.”