By Don A. Wright
The Fresno Irrigation District held its board of directors meeting at its Fresno headquarters on Thursday, September 11, 2025. I hadn’t been to an FID meeting for quite some time. They are just as friendly and good looking as ever. The snack bar was brimming and that would have been good if I’d got there earlier. I hadn’t eaten yet and really wanted to graze through the goods. I got to visiting with folks before the meeting began and I didn’t want to be the guy crunching up the potato chip bags and making loud chewing noises.
The Meeting
President Ryan Jacobsen called the meeting precisely at the scheduled 3:00pm start. I forget how many years he’s been on this board but I never remember a meeting he chaired starting late. Ever. The top of the agenda was addressed very quickly. We saluted the flag, reviewed the agenda, took care of reviewing future meetings and passed the consent calendar in less time than it took CFO DeAnn Haley-Stork to give her financial report; which was immaculate so of course the board approved the whole thing. That included paying the bills and some changes to the budget. Although the changes to the budget offset each other so it was a zero change in dollars.
Water Report
Next the water report was given. These are often my favorite portions of the meeting. FID has been using the same charts to explain supplies from Pine Flat Reservoir since before Pine Flat Dam was built and I still don’t understand it fully. But that’s how it can be along the Kings River.
Assistant General Manager Adam Claes gave the water report saying storage at Millerton Lake is 240,000 a/f so it’s about half full or empty depending on your philosophy. Operations of Friant includes Unreleased Restoration Flows so FID is able to take that water and send it to the City of Fresno thus banking water behind Pine Flat Dam it would have sent to the city.
Director Greg Beberian asked about URFs and Class One water. Claes said Friant’s Class One allocations are at 100 percent. When Class One is at 100 percent only Class Two contractors can received URF supplies.
Pine Flat is at 233,000 a/f, so it’s at about a fourth of its capacity. However, there were thunderstorms around Labor Day that increased the inflow greatly. Started a few fires but more than an inch and a half of rain fell. This benefits FID the most. Why? Because the ancient Sumerian astronomer who devised the way Kings River water is allocated gave FID a good share of slow inflow and releases from Pine Flat.
Engineering Report
District Engineer Lawrence Kimura reported on engineering activities for the District. He said High Speed Rail hasn’t done much lately. The Urban Trails in Fresno is getting close to presenting FID a punch list. Staff is working on 19 projects including projects for farmers and utilities.
Kimura showed photos of work in progress. They are removing overgrowth and dredging sediment from some canals. Director Jerry Prieto asked if any of the homeowners along the tree trimming route had any concerns but they were mostly just curious.
General Manager Bill Stretch asked about the uniformity of the dredging. Some places they might dig up a foot and a half of material and other locations nothing. The average was estimated at about a foot. Beberian asked if the material could be used to build up the banks. The answer was no. the soil is pretty sandy and it wouldn’t allow the compaction necessary if I understood.
Special Projects
Special Projects Director Kassy Chauhan told the board about the Big Dry Creek Reservoir updates. It got a bit complicated as the Army Corps of Engineers has its nose and nuggets in its midst. As one would expect with a flood control project. I like the project. It’s down
the street from my place and strikes me as a no brainer to capture recharge. It’s located in Congressman Vince Fong’s district and the prices are going up. However, Fong is on the T&I (Transportation and Infrastructure, but you knew that) portion of the project. Chauhan said there were many ACE terms and jargon used in this report. She spoke with a Colonel from ACE and if I understood correctly ACE has been working on this since the 1960s. Beberian said it’s amazing anything can get built in this country. All this project would do is detain flood water longer behind an existing levy in a part of Fresno County in critical groundwater overdraft.
FID is putting in five solar projects to power its banking efforts and that is coming along with some big steps and some other not so small steps. But it didn’t sound like the delays associated with ACE.
Construction & Maintenance
Claes gave a photo show of work. Crews are putting in turnouts, meters and trash racks. Good for them. Canal banks are being restored during this dry portion of the year and that includes the afore-mentioned dredging. This is a big deal as the district has several miles of canals running through the City of Fresno.
One pleasant surprise was how much hardpan is under the dredged material. Also known as adobe, this type of clay soil is perfect for the floor of a canal channel. Stretch said they have encountered a lot of aquatic weeds along the canal floor. The photos looked like a lawn through the bottom of the canal. And there are all manner of grade problems but most of the settling of material is taking place in areas with good access.
Claes said for years a canal that serves the Fresno State University farm has had its challenges. FID made some changes on the headgate of the canal and things are better. Fresno State had all the water it wanted this year.
Other canals yield treasures this time of year as they dewater. There was a photo of a vast used tire cache that’d make any used tire recycler slobber. This is also the time of year when grown men go into the pipes and fix problems like leaks. Robots go into smaller pipes. Stretch pointed out Claes participated in a unique pipe repair symposium at Turlock ID recently. Several districts got together and shared ideas and experiences with pipe.
Admin Matters
Next Chauhan spoke about SGMA. She said the water allocation framework is being reviewed by the attorneys. The Kings Subbasin Coordination group will meet on September 22nd. The Kern Subbasin will be getting its hearing before the State Water Resources Control Board. State Board staff recommended returning the Kern Subbasin to DWR. She said there is a lot of angst from NGOs in opposition to this.
Chauhan attended the subsidence Best Management Practices released by DWR that was aired at a workshop in Clovis on the 9th of this month. Her take away was if you don’t have a subsidence problem, great the state says, zero subsidence is the only acceptable goal. Gee, thanks.
There is also a move to get a representative monitoring network of wells together and that was a big deal at the BMP workshop. Monitoring wells are very different than wells used to raise groundwater into the light. They are not cheap and there aren’t very many in existence here in the Valley. I have a friend who is a hydrogeologist and he has said time and again you can’t get accurate readings from domestic wells or ag production wells.
The North Kings GSA has more than seven well mitigation program applications to date. More than seven, but not yet eight, as the latest one is still going through the process. Chauhan phrased it as 7.5.
Director George Porter asked about how the wells are vetted for the registration program. NKGSA has more than 800 wells registered and it’s mostly on a voluntary basis. There was a very successful workshop in Kerman that took place in August. There will be more events to take place in Easton and Clovis. And several other gatherings like the African American Farmers Association at Fresno State later this month.
Chauhan reported the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley has been very active in taking advantage of the political climate to bring in millions of acre feet to this Valley.
On the federal side there is no budget and there are staffing shortages at the US Bureau of Reclamation. This is slowing down the awards of grant funds. There is $100,000 small scale water efficiency grant from the Bureau. The US Department of Agriculture Water Smart and EQIP funding deadlines is November 11th of this year.
Chauhan next turned to state matters. There is a trailer bill to help get Prop Four funds released. The state budget passed and included trailer bills. There are bills such as the AB 1413 by Dianne Papan that would gum up Groundwater Sustainability Plans and groundwater adjudications. It was set aside for next year.
Or old friend Assemblyman Steve Bennett is once again trying to help GSAs whether they want it or not. His AB 293 will require even more government regulatory oversight of just GSAs, not other special districts. It would force GSA board members to fully disclose all their financial statements online. These are not elected officials, they are volunteers. No one is asking to see their financial lives bared open.
There will be a September 19th end of water season celebration at noon on the grassy knoll area at the FID parking lot. But the public isn’t welcome. At least I’m not. What if I just show up? They going to arrest me? I’m not taking the chance, so never mind.
More Than You Want to Know About How the State Views Its Own
Assistant Manager September Singh remined everyone open enrollment is open. She said AB 2561 is now in effect. It guides the way employers must relate to union covered bargaining employees. It has some stiff guardrails on what employers have to do. For instance, whether or not there are any employment vacancies she’ll have to write a report and hold a public hearing in case the unions have some reason to pitch a gripe.
Real Property
In-house council Jeff Boswell reported to the board there is a landowner near a FID recharge basin who would like to sell his property. I had a few questions about why this item was in open session and Boswell kindly informed me this is how FID has always done it. To my memory it is unique to FID. So learned something new.
GM Report
Stretch said he and Claes met with representatives of the Kings River Water Association to take account of Kings River flows. Taking more measurements yielded a decent increase for FID. This is a bit labor intensive so there are talks about installing some sort of meter but that’s a ways off. In addition to this LAFCo approved the Raisin City Water District’s sphere of influence. If I understood James ID wasn’t as happy and this has conversely spurred some positive movement within the KRWA.
Next Stretch spoke about the going on’s at Friant Water Authority. He said FWA CEO Jason Phillips will be moving to Scottsdale, Arizona. He said there might be an off chance this could help him be appointed to the Bureau Commissioner should candidate Ted Cooke drop out. COO Johnny Amaral will remain local.
Stretch reported Haley-Stork’s replacement pool is being narrowed down. She’s retiring. Seems like she hasn’t been here very long, but she has. Kimura is rumored to want to retire as well. That is going take some getting used to.
On another forward looking matter Stretch said he’s dropping his daughter off at Cal Poly SLO tomorrow. Good for him. With that the open portion of the meeting adjourned and closed session would soon commence. This happened at 5:36pm. Go be good all around.
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Fresno Irrigation District – The Fresno Irrigation District is located at 2907 So. Maple Avenue, Fresno CA 93725 phone 559/233-7161 and meets at 4:00pm on the third Tuesday of the month at district headquarters. FID is part of the North Kings GSA DWR # 5-022.08
Board
Ryan Jacobsen – President, Jerry Prieto – Vice President, Greg Beberian, Christopher Woolf & George Porter
Staff
Bill Stretch: General Manager
Adam Claes – Assistant General Manager – Operations
September Singh – Assistant General Manager – Administration
Laurence Kimura – Chief Engineer (you had him nailed down good)
Jeff Boswell – In-house Legal Counsel
David Burrows – Water Master
Michael Prestridge – Superintendent of Construction & Maintenance
DeAnn Hailey-Stork – Controller
Kassy Chauhan – Special Projects Manager/North Kings GSA Executive Officer
