The Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency held its stakeholder committee at the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District headquarters in Farmersville on Wednesday, May 9, 2018. Alternate Chair Don Mills called the meeting to order at 10:00 am. There were no public comments, no announcements and the minutes were approved.
General Manager Mark Larsen reported on GSA activities and coordination activities. There are three GSAs in the Kaweah Sub Basin: the Greater, the Mid and the Eastern Kaweah GSAs. Larsen said one goal to look forward to is GEI Engineering’s suggestion of pooling the resources to create a combined website for the sub basin that has links to the individual GSAs. An organized data base for all interested parties and a calendar that is up to date about meetings and as important – cancelled meetings.
Larsen then talked about a data management plan. How do you store data, who has access and what data is available? Committee member Blake Mauritson asked if this is an offsite or cloud type storage and Larsen said that has yet to be determined. GEI is tasked with putting this all together. Craig Moyle is now with GEI evidently and Larsen said consulting him about outreach. GKGSA is putting together a survey to gather contact information and how to best get the pertinent information distributed. For instance; having entities within the GSA boundary that mail their bills include GSA related inserts. Michelle Ricker of GEI said documenting the outreach efforts and evaluating what information needs to be presented will be one of the big goals. April 20th was the deadline for applications for the GM position at the GKGSA has garnered several promising applicants. There will be more about this at the next board meeting.
Next Larsen spoke about GSP development. He said a decade ago the KDWCD engaged with Davids Engineering to improve its data gathering and analysis of how much water is being used. Now all three GSAs in the sub basin are willing to follow Davids’ model. www.de-water.com, an interesting choice for a website name. Anyway, KDWCD engineer Larry Dotson 
explained to the committee who satellite imagery has been utilized with crop types, surface deliveries and evapotranspiration figures to determine how much water is being used. This being a computer model developed by engineers there were far more variables included. Dotson said while there are some parts not as detailed and accurate as one might like the model is on the whole much better than what is now in play. Mills pointed out this data is also legally defensible. Dotson said this won’t be as accurate on a per acre basis, but as the area expands statistically the accuracy improves. Larsen said GEI had already been assigned to develop ET data and this model is how it will be accomplished.
The next meeting will be a joint affair with the rural committee and the stakeholder committee on Tuesday, May 29th at 1:30pm.
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SGMA The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 calls for the formation of Groundwater Sustainability Areas within Basins and Sub-basins to develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans.
Greater Kaweah GSA JPA – Chair Don Mills-Lakeside ID, Vice Chair Chris Tantau-Kaweah Delta WCD, Pete Vander Poel-County of Tulare, Ernie Taylor-Kings County WD, Greg Milleman-Cal Water Service, Eric Shannon-St Johns WD, Paul Boyer-Rural Communities Committee, Yet to be decided Stakeholder Committee representative.
Mark Larsen-Secretary, Aubrey Mauritson-Legal Counsel
Offices shared with the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District, 2975 Farmersville Blvd., Farmersville, CA 93223 Tel. 559/747-5601
