By Joel Hastings
The Chowchilla Water District board of directors met on August 14, 2024, in the District offices in Chowchilla with the meeting called to order at 1;33 p.m. by President Roger Schuh with three other directors present and Director Vince Taylor arriving just a little later. It was announced that there would be a hard stop at 2:30 p.m. with a call scheduled with the District’s legal counsel. Public comment was invited for non-agenda items, but
none was forthcoming. Attending the meeting were Jordyn Vannersdel with Water Wise for Triangle-T Water District and Betty Hurley Lindeman and Zach Griffin, water specialists for Water & Land Solutions in Los Banos, along with this reporter.
SGMA
The board meeting of the Chowchilla Water District GSA was convened with Resource Manager Doug Welch reporting on revisions to the GSP for the Chowchilla Subbasin. The 30-day public review period began August 2, and the revisions were approved at a meeting of the Advisory Committee held August 6. The public is invited to an online workshop on Zoom scheduled for 9 a.m. on August 16 with notification by email distributed to the full contact database. The executive summary and the full document can be found on the Madera County government website.
The Subbasin is overseen by Madera and Merced Counties along with the Triangle T and Chowchilla Water Districts. Since the initial inadequate finding by DWR, revisions have been completed on three occasions – July, 2022; May, 2023; and now August, 2024. The effort is to submit the revised GSP to the State Board with hope for approval and a referral back to the oversight of the DWR.
Welch said that with the work of the Davidson engineering firm, he was hopeful the document would be accepted. He pointed out that the State Board had implemented the concept of “triggers” or intermediate steps on the way to full equilibrium for the subbasin to be achieved by 2040. These triggers, he said, which can take effect January 1, 2026 could require the creation of both voluntary and mandatory steps designed to insure the goals for 2040 are met. An example would be if 25 percent of the monitoring wells were showing below target levels. The areas of concern continue to be water levels and water quality, land subsidence and domestic well mitigation. Davids Engineering is currently working on a project for the CWD GSA regarding options for demand reduction such as water allocations and / or extraction fees.
One of the changes in the plan regards domestic well mitigation. State Board staff had objected to a hard cap of $30,000 for a single domestic well repair, so wording has been added to allow for a higher level of expenditure with approval by the GSA.
The board moved its regular meeting a week later next month to September 18 to consider approval of the final revised GSP. All entities must approve the plan which will then be submitted to the State Water Board. The CWD board reconvened at 2:10 p.m.
CWD
Office Manager April Garay gave the treasurer’s report showing receipts for July totaling $4,081,050.78. Disbursements amounted to $1,261,884.27 leaving an ending balance on August 1 of $15,168,265.85. This report was approved along with the warrant list of bills to be paid amounting to $1,502,489.40. General Manager Brandon Tomlinson said there were no unusual variances in the budget report. The minutes of the July 10 meeting were also approved.
O&M
Director of Operations Chris Mayo gave the O & M report speaking about replacing the stem nut on the LaBranza flume actuator and installing coffer dams to repair two pipeline
leaks. He said that the backhoe had been used to continue to remove structures, concrete slabs and metal from the Cornaggia property that had been purchased. In the shop, six of the Chevy 1500 pickup trucks had required various repairs. He said two trucks that had been ordered earlier were arriving at the dealership, a Chevy 3500 model and the Western Star dump truck. He said that a surplus truck has been sent to auction with a $10,000 reserve bid but that it had been sold for $21,000. Two 1500 Chevy trucks and a two-wheeled dolly trailer were declared surplus and would be sent to auction.
Other Biz
Tomlinson said that the South of Delta Drought Plan proposed by Friant Water Authority was included in the agenda, but he made no recommendation as to signing on. President Schuh said he would need more information before he could support it. It was agreed that a presentation from the Friant staff would be invited for a future meeting.
Tomlinson said he wanted the board to set a date for the end of the water season which would be sometime in September. He said right now there are 76,000 AF of water in Eastman Lake and that’s the water that is being delivered to growers. It was agreed that a special meeting would be held to make that decision with farmers to be given several weeks’ notice.
At 2:35 p.m. the board moved to closed session to meet on the phone with counsel.
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Chowchilla Water District – PO Box 905 – 327 So. Chowchilla Ave., Chowchilla, CA 93610 559/665-3747 website www.cwdwater.com
Staff: General Manager – Brandon Tomlinson; General Resource Manager – Douglas Welch
Board: President Roger Schuh, Vice President Karun Samran, Russell Harris, Nathan Ray and Vince Taylor
PROFILE: Formed in 1949, the Chowchilla Water District serves about 85,000 acres situated in southern Merced County and northern Madera County on the eastside of the San Joaquin Valley. The District serves about 85,000 acres in southern Merced and northern Madera Counties. It’s over 400 water users have an average farm size of about 162 acres. Buchanan Dam was constructed in 1975 and is operated and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The maximum capacity of the dam is 150,000 acre-feet and has a maximum conservation capacity of 140,000 acre-feet. The District also has appropriative water rights issued by the State Water Resources Control Board to divert water from the Chowchilla River. The Madera Canal supplies water from Friant Dam to the Chowchilla Water District. The District has contracted with the Bureau of Reclamation for 55,000 acre-feet of Class 1 Water and 160,000 acre-feet of Class 2 Water. With Madera ID, the District owns the Madera-Chowchilla Water & Power Authority which operates the Madera Canal and four hydroelectric power plants located on the Madera Canal.
