By Joel Hastings
President Dave Loquaci called to order the meeting of the board of directors of the Madera Irrigation District at 2 p.m. sharp on September 16, 2025 at the District offices. He led the Pledge. The roll call showed all directors present; there was no reportable action from the closed session held the previous hour and no potential conflicts of interest with the public meeting agenda. Board secretary Andrea Kwock Sandoval read the invitation for public comment, but none was forthcoming either in person or online.
GSA Meeting
Loquaci declared the board meeting for the GSA in session and invited Assistant GM Dina Nolan to give her updates. She said a letter dated September 5 had been received from the DWR commenting on the annual report for the year 2024 that had been submitted earlier this year. She said the letter was similar to last year, asking that more detail be provided about monitoring ground water quality and about how the seven GSAs for the Madera Subbasin will be implementing their plans to bring the basin into balance by 2040. She said that their adviser, Davids Engineering, is drafting a response.
She said there had been an amendment to the GSA reflecting a few boundary changes made in the District. She said there was great news from NRCS which had finally received a million dollars in grant funding to be available to the District for pipeline repair projects, which will get underway. She said that the research work on recharge with Stanford University continues with the construction of several new monitoring wells.
After the decision at the last meeting to undertake a domestic well mitigation program for the District, there had been discussions with the city and the municipal water district GSAs to begin looking for management options. She said there had also been further discussions with the moderator among all seven GSAs in an effort to define the parameters for a program across the subbasin. She seemed to imply that a definitive result was unlikely.
With director comment invited, Carl Janzen said that since the DWR letter this year made the same points as last year’s letter, he wondered if there would be any action forthcoming from the state. No one had an answer to that question.
ID Meeting
Returning to the District meeting, Loquaci asked for approval of the consent agenda containing six items – minutes of three meetings, monthly financial reports for May, June and July and approval for the warrant list of bill payments through August 29 totaling $6,391,639.13. Included in the approval was the declaration of surplus property for this meeting including an old phone system and Surface Pro 10 Tablet, a 2013 Chevy Tahoe and a 2014 Chevy Equinox. Approval was unanimous on a roll call vote.
O&M
Operations & Maintenance Manager Charles Contreras gave his report, referencing five pages in the board packet with the details. He said the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System with sampling for 2025 had been completed so that herbicides can be applied to ditches without concern for leakages to neighboring properties. He said there had been no changes in High Speed Rail activity and that no alerts had been received regarding underground service – that is, no permissions had been necessary for digging near District pipelines.
He said staff had attended a workshop training session for pipelines and ditches that had been put on by the Turlock Irrigation District. On the one hand, his team did not learn about any new techniques, but on the other, it’s reassuring the District is following similar procedures as the neighbors. He said staff had received training in traffic control when construction requires road or lane closures. He said that a company representative had worked in the District to review and update all of the communications software for the Rubicon gates.
He said mowing, grader work and pipeline pumping and repairs is ongoing now that the water season has ended. In the shop, 20 vehicles had been serviced, four heavy trucks repaired, nine pieces of equipment serviced and four more repaired. Five units had received their 90-day DOT inspections. A new spray truck for the Madera-Chowchilla Water & Power Authority had been received and some modifications were completed so it could be put into service.
He showed photos of work being done to repair an air vent that had been hit by a vehicle along with other repair work around the District. He also had pictures of the new John Deere four-wheel drive tractor and mower now in service after fabrication of rear window protection and a hard face mower arm platform installed. He concluded saying work on new recharge basins would be beginning soon.
Financials
Controller Jennifer Furstenburg reported that the third and final payment for the 2025 assessments and the 2024 standby charges was received from the county on August 26 in the amount of $212,478.25, representing receipts the county had collected on the District’s behalf through July 7, 2025. She said the list of 2026 assessments and 2025 standby charges had been sent to the county for inclusion in county tax bills totaling $7,887,517.84.
She said the bond payments due September 1 had been paid and appropriate notifications filed.
She listed and referenced the regular ongoing activities of her department monitoring and making payroll, bank reconciliations and preparing monthly financial reports, similarly for the joint Power Authority (MCWPA).
There were no questions about these reports and both Contreras and Furstenburg were thanked for their work.
GM Report
General Manager Tom Greci began his report saying the contractor would be beginning work soon on the MCWPA power plant drive train that had been vibrating and taken offline. He said the new spray truck had arrived – finally – and had been put into service (as referenced in the Contreras report). He said he was looking forward to responses to the Request for Qualifications, seeking a firm to work with the District to develop a long term facilities plan.
Greci referenced a letter in the board packet received from the Construction Industry Force Account Council regarding the Fairmead recharge basin project. He said it has become apparent that the Council is not the best fit for the District.
The letter criticized procedures followed in the purchase and development of the Fairmead recharge basin project. The District had joined the Council in October, 2023 which requires competitive bidding on all public projects to include personnel costs, materials, supplies and subcontracts, equipment and overhead allocation. In light of this letter requiring much more information and after consultation with District counsel, staff is recommending that the District withdraw from the Council and reinstate its own policies on purchasing and bid procurement. Later in the meeting under new business, the board unanimously took these actions.
At this point in Greci’s comments, Director Janzen noted he had not mentioned the District’s booth at the Madera Fair. Greci said he was in and out of the booth a few times and that everyone – staff and directors – did a great job. It impressed the local citizenry that all booth time was volunteered. Also, the District’s video attracted lots of interest.
New Business
Moving to new business, the board acted unanimously on the procurement situation noted above and then approved the longstanding policy on the operations protocol for the Fresno River, an action required annually with the riparian water year beginning October 1st.
The meeting regularly concludes with reports from each director. Brandon Bishel said it had been an educational process at the Fair booth, for him and booth visitors. Director Tim DaSilva said a question had stumped him when someone asked, “Where do you keep the acres?” Turned out the reference was to acre/feet of water used by the District. Director and VP Brian Davis said the Fair was fun for him. He was surprised by how many young people came by and asked questions. He said it was rewarding to talk about the District’s work to members of the public.
Friant Report
Director Janzen reporting from his meetings with the Friant Water Authority said most had probably heard that the board approved CEO Jason Phillips’ request to relocate from Fresno to Phoenix, Ariz. He said Phillips does a lot of traveling and flying from Phoenix offered many more convenient connections. Janzen said several other staff also live outside the Valley. He said there would be no cost increase since the Fresno office used by Phillips would be closed. Janzen continued saying that with low water levels at Millerton – now containing about 240,000 AF at the end of the season – there was not much power generation. He said he did two shifts at the Fair and enjoyed working with one of the District’s newer employees.
President Loquaci concluded saying how popular were the give aways of cloth bags and plastic labeled cups. He also described conversations with people living outside the Ranchos who had dry wells, including one person who had been receiving bottled water for two years.
With no other business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:36 p.m.
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Madera Irrigation District – 12152 Road 28 ¼ Madera, CA 93637 559/673-3514
Staff: General Manager -Thomas Greci, Assistant GM – Dina Nolan
Board: Dave Loquaci, president; Brian Davis, vice-president, Brandon Bishel, Tim DaSilva and Carl Janzen
HISTORY: From www.madera-id.org The Madera Irrigation District (MID or District), founded in 1920, encompasses an area of approximately 139,665 acres. MID operates a primarily gravity irrigation distribution system with approximately 300 miles of open flow canal systems as well as 150 miles of large diameter pipelines.
The District has a Central Valley Project (CVP) repayment contract with United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) providing up to 85,000 acre feet (AF) of Class 1 and 186,000 AF of Class 2 water per year from the Friant Division (Millerton Lake). The CVP water is released from Millerton Lake through the Friant Dam, and then conveyed through the Madera Canal for delivery into the District’s service area. The District also entered into a CVP repayment contract with the USBR for the yield from the Hidden Unit (Hensley Lake). Under the Hidden Unit contract, the average annual supply available to the District is approximately 24,000 AF per year.
DWR SGMA # 5-022.06
