By Joel Hastings
The Chowchilla Water District board of directors meeting was called to order by President Roger Schuh at 1:32 p.m. at the district offices in Chowchilla. There was no public comment but Zach Griffin of Water & Land Solutions and this reporter were invited to introduce themselves.
GSA Meeting
Resource Manager Doug Welch opened the GSA meeting presenting the Water Year 2025 Annual Report. Using the slide set that had been prepared for the March 18 Advisory Committee meeting by John Davids of Davids Engineering, Welch briefly reviewed key points. The annual report is required by both the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the state Department of Water Resources due on April 1 each year. This one for all the GSAs in the Chowchilla Subbasin had been submitted last week after approval by the advisory committee and Triangle T Water District. Madera GSA and Merced will be approving the document next week.
He said the reports are to include surface water systems budgets, a summary of the 35 projects from all the GSAs in the subbasins (10 in the Chowchilla GSA) and details on groundwater conditions. Davids had said the domestic well mitigation program underway in Chowchilla might be the very first of its kind in the state. The presentation showed detailed maps documenting the continuing decline of groundwater levels in both the upper and lower aquifers in the subbasin, with more water being pulled out than put in.
Welch also reviewed the triggers that would indicate the need for additional action to halt groundwater depletion and land subsidence if current programs are not working well enough. He said this program provides a backstop required by the State Board. Any necessary action would be local, drawing a contour around an affected area with more than a foot of subsidence before 2030. It would include both voluntary and mandatory measures, such as groundwater extraction fees and limits on pumping.
Schuh asked what kind of benefit will we get with the water extraction fee. Do we have any evidence or modeling that if we have an extraction fee of a certain amount, would there be a resulting decrease in pumping? He continued saying the goal is not to raise money with the extraction fee but to reduce overdraft.
Looking longer term, Welch said that in three years out of ten, the district loses flood water that it can’t capture. A fairly lengthy discussion ensued about wet years and recharging flood water.
The CWD Meeting
Reconvening as the district board, the group approved the treasurer’s report from April Ellison. She said receipts had totaled $484,923.86 with disbursements of $993,705.91 leaving a balance on April 1 of $20,282,840.88. The warrants list of bills to pay was also approved totaling $983,031.48. With the new fiscal year just underway, there were no budget adjustments to consider.
The minutes of the regular meeting March 11 and a special meeting on March 24 were approved.
A routine annual report required by the county identifies the estimate of financial obligations of the district for the year along with a statement of income that will meet those needs. The breakeven figure stands at $16,592,264. The report was approved.
O&M
Chris Mayo, director of operations, gave his O & M report. He said storage on March 31 in Eastman Lake stood at 43,121 AF and in Millerton Lake, 415,059 AF. A major project during the month had been the replacement of the #13 pipeline along with vegetation removal around Berenda and Minturn Dams and several other tasks. Repair work in the shop included work on the Western Star dump truck, the CAT backhoe and the Chevy 3500 truck. A rear differential rebuild on the 2019 Chevy 1500 crew cab had been outsourced because Chevy is no longer making the parts of that age.
GM Report
In his General Manager’s report, Brandon Tomlinson passed out a sheet detailing water balances including carry over of 1,484 AF behind Friant and 3,577AF at the San Luis Reservoir. He said the dry month had created discussion at Friant that the 100 percent Class 1 allocation might be reduced to 90 percent. But this decision may be impacted by the forecasted storms in the coming week.
It appears that in the absence of unrestricted flows created by a high volume of snowmelt, the district will likely be able to start its water deliveries to growers when it chooses. If Madera ID begins deliveries in May using water flowing through the Madera Canal, Chowchilla can follow along in the weeks after that, perhaps as late as June 1. However, if this storm brings a big block of URF water, the deliveries might have to start much sooner.
Pump/Surface Pilot Project
Tomlinson then requested that the board give some direction on their ideas about creating a pilot program to test the feasibility of extraction fees for pumping or incentives to encourage use of the district’s surface water. Because this was not a new topic, the board jumped in with a wide-ranging discussion. The use of satellite
measurement to determine water use on individual parcels was thought to be as effective and much less costly than requiring pumps. Director Vince Taylor said until he knows how much he was pumping nothing much could be done. Director Nate Ray suggested a presentation from Merced, where he also is involved, could be useful since they have been moving in this direction. President Schuh said he had confidence in growers to make the best decision for their operations so one approach could be to set an allocation, allowing growers to decide how best to use the allowable water. Another idea was to set the extraction fee higher than the price charged by the district for its surface water, thereby discouraging pumping.
Welch reminded the group that the purpose of the district is to provide affordable water to farmers. It was pointed out, however, that the district also has to abide by SGMA and bring groundwater use into balance.
Until a pilot project is developed, implemented and evaluated, there will be no additional charges imposed on district growers. Schuh said that all ideas should be considered since the decisions made in this regard will affect all of us for the rest of our farming lives.
With no further reports from directors, the meeting was adjourned about 2:45 p.m.
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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: Roger Schuh – President, Karun Samran – Vice President, 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.
The Chowchilla Subbasin’s DWR # is 5-022.06
