By Joel Hastings
The Chowchilla Water District board of directors met in regular session on April 10, 2024. Important action included opening the water season right away with a price of $110 / AF for water on original lands. Vice President Roger Schuh, acting as chair in the absence of President Kole Upton, called the meeting to order at 1:33 p.m. One agenda change was approved, adding a resolution for submitting standard financial information to Madera
County noted below. General Manager Brandon Tomlinson explained that the AT&T phone lines were inoperative in the neighborhood, so no one could be on the toll free line, including the usual representative from DWR. There was no public comment.
The meeting moved to the GSA session with Resource Manager Doug Welch saying that a meeting date had been set with staff for the Water Board (SWRCB) to get feedback on the revisions in the GSP for the Subbasin. He said on April 26 he and John Davids of Davids Engineering would review the changes made in the GSP. He said he was optimistic that the Board staff would have few suggestions and that he would be able to report at the April meeting that the GSP would be approved, with no need to go to a Water Board hearing that had been scheduled for the fall of 2025. Welch said that several GSAs to the south were due for hearings this spring because their GSPs were not acceptable. He said that letters were being sent to farmers alerting them to charges that would be imposed for their wells.
Reconvening as the CWD board, the group approved the financial report presented by Treasurer Lola Beatty. She said that receipts had totaled $225,808.33 and the fund balance ending April 1st stood at $15,388,202.83. Bill payments approved totaled $2,957,595.32 which included payment for the previously approved purchase of the
Cornaggia Farms property for $1.2 million. During the month, one million dollars had been transferred from Bank of America to the new higher interest bearing account at Tri-Counties Bank. The budget report was also approved at the end of the first month of the new fiscal year.
The minutes were approved from the March 13 meeting. Then the board considered the presentation of their budget to the Madera County Supervisors in order to confirm the assessment rate of $1.50 per one hundred dollars of assessed value for property in the District. Called the “Annual Estimate of Obligations,” the report shows expenses and income of $20,000,842. An annual exercise, it requires a roll call vote which provided unanimous approval.
With Director of Operations Chris Mayo out sick, GM Tomlinson presented the operations and maintenance report showing work around the district to prepare the infrastructure for the water season along with vehicle maintenance. There was no discussion.
To begin his report, GM Tomlinson handed out a written summary of water statistics showing that the Bureau had increased its Class 1 allocation to 95 percent, up from 65 percent last month. He reported that SJRRP had released a block of 40,000 AF of Unreleased Restoration Flows (URFs) of which CWD is entitled to ten percent (4567 AF) which must be used by May 5, but can’t be used until all 2023 carry over water has been used. That carry
over amount for CWD totals 7572 AF, so a total of 12,139 AF needs to be used in the next three weeks. With 100 percent of CWD’s Class 1 total at 55,000 AF and the likelihood of at least 20,000 AF of Class 2 water becoming available, the board considered the budget needs of the district along with the wish to accumulate more funds for property purchase to retire farmland. Trying to balance low cost for growers in these tough times with the need to be able to retire more farm ground, the board settled on a price of $110 / AF for water on original lands. The board decided that it did not need to set an end date or a price for water for subordinate lands at this meeting, knowing the season should continue well into August.
Concluding his report, Tomlinson said that the Ewell Group said they have been pressing Congress Member John Duarte and Senator Alex Padilla to find funds for the Army Corps to “kick start” the study about raising the Buchanan Dam.
With a closed session set with their attorney, requiring an i-Phone hot spot, the Board ended the open meeting at 2:22 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: Kole Upton – President, Roger Schuh – Vice President, Russell Harris, Karun Samran 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.
