By Joel Hastings
The Chowchilla Water District board of directors held its regular monthly meeting on August 12, 2026, called to order at 1:30 p.m. by VP Karun Samran in the district offices in the absence of President Roger Schuh. All other directors were present. While there was no public comment, visitors were invited to introduce themselves which included Zach Griffen of Water & Land Solutions and Emily Brazil a summer intern with Water Wise. Ryan Jolley, CPA, from Fresno greeted the group and later gave his audit report of the 2025 financials, described below.
GSA
Moving into the board meeting of the GSA, Resource Director Doug Welch, speaking on the phone, reported on an August 7 meeting with staff from DWR. Joining Welch at the meeting was John Davids of the consulting engineering firm, who confirmed that the submitted GSP as revised had been prepared before the Department issued its best management practices findings for subsidence. DWR said that while they would not hold CWD GSA to those standards, there is still concern about subsidence that damages infrastructure. Also participating was Peter Leffler of Luhdorff & Scalmanini who pointed out that models forecasting subsidence tend to be less accurate since only 20 years of data are available, unlike in the South Valley where up to 40 years of records are available. Nonetheless, DWR asked for more proactive indicators of subsidence rather than only providing mitigation after the fact. Welch said the meeting concluded with agreement on the need for additional sites for data monitoring.
The CWD Meeting
At 1:45 p.m. the board reconvened for the water district and heard the presentation by Mr. Jolley who referred to the full report in the board packet. He said his firm was issuing a
clean, unqualified report and took no exception to any of the district’s books and records and had satisfactory communication with management. He said the district ended the year with $3 million more in cash than the year before. He also pointed out that a 15-year note taken out in 2010 that required annual payments of over $1.6 million was retired in 2025. With no questions from the board, the audit report was unanimously accepted. He thanked the staff, noting this was Office Manager April Ellison’s first time through the entire process which went well.
Financials
Ellison gave the treasurer’s report citing the beginning balance, receipts of $4,269,021.86, disbursements of $1,161,611.67 and an ending balance on August 1 of $21,834,043.69. She also presented the warrants list of invoices totaling $1,104,919.17. Both reports were approved along with the budget review from GM Brandon Tomlinson. At his request, Ellison pointed out that billing from the Bureau of Reclamation for the Millerton Lake water purchased has been adjusted. No prepayments are allowed which changes the timing of cashflows for this large expenditure.
Golf
The board then approved minutes for the July 15 and July 29 meetings. At the latter meeting contracts with the High-Speed Rail Authority were considered in closed session. Coming out, though, the board tabled them for further review. Also at that meeting, providing water until the end of the season to Pheasant Run Golf Course for $150 per acre/foot was approved. No doubt a good thing since that club is the home course for the young woman who right now is Chowchilla’s most prominent national figure – Asterisk Talley, a local high school student, who just won the USGA women’s national amateur golf championship. The 64 entrants included some of the very top college and junior golfers in the country as well as international players in a five-day tournament held in Tennessee. It’s reported that Ms. Talley will enter Stanford University this fall with a full scholarship for their very successful women’s golf program. Barring unforeseen circumstance, it appears it’s only a matter of a few years before she begins what could be a very prominent career in women’s professional golf.
O&M
Chris Mayo gave his operations and maintenance report, citing the amount of water in Eastman (12,579 AF) and Millerton (283,568 AF). He said a pump stand had been installed at Happy Boy Pond, a board coffin on Califa Canal and new meters on laterals 3 & 4. With the season ended, mowing and repairs of wash-ins are underway. Work in the garage on district trucks had been performed with repairs to the Kubota hole driller as well.
He presented three pieces of long unused equipment recommending they be declared surplus– a tank, dozer blades and caterpillar tracks. It was agreed they be sold for scrap.
Water Supply
GM Tomlinson gave preliminary results of the water season with a carry over of only 613 AF from the 100 percent allocation of Class 1 water from Friant. There are 903 AF at the San Luis Reservoir earmarked for the district which can be held until water is released next March. He said he would have a more complete report next time as all the figures from the season are compiled.
Tomlinson said Land IQ continues to prepare for providing information to the district and needs to locate a site for another ground station, ideally in a young pistachio orchard.
There were no reports from directors and the meeting was adjourned at 2:05 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 Canal.
The Chowchilla Subbasin’s DWR # is 5-022.06
