By Joel Hastings
President Roger Schuh called to order the regular monthly meeting of the Chowchilla Water District board of directors at 1:33 p.m. on July 10, 2024, in the boardroom of the District offices in Chowchilla. Present were directors Nathan Ray, Karun Samran and Vince Taylor. Russell Harris was not present, and no one was on the call-in line. Several guests were invited to introduce themselves – Jordyn Vannorsdel with Water Wise for Triangle T Water District; Jim Kopshever, area grower and board member for the LeGrand Athlone Water District; and this reporter. There were no agenda additions and no public comment.
A representative from Tri Counties Bank was also present and her mission was to update the signatories on the District’s accounts. She got that job done unobtrusively as the meeting continued.
GSA
Convening as the GSA board, the group heard Doug Welch, general resource manager, say he was happy to report that Davids Engineering was hard at work finishing the revisions to the GSP. He also shared a notice announcing a public hearing to consider the full revised plan to be held on September 11, 2024, at 1:30 p.m. at the District offices. That date and time coincides with the regular board meeting. There were no questions or discussion.
The Meeting
As the CWD board was reconvened, two other members of the public arrived, and as described below, we’ll talk about their request which came at the end of the meeting.
Treasurer Lela Beatty gave her report, saying receipts for the month had totaled $2,191,230.20, disbursements amounted to $1,146,840.72 and the ending balance on July 1 was $12,399,099.34. She also presented the warrants list of bills to be approved for payment on July 10 totaling $1,203,626.04. Both reports were approved with no discussion, as was the budget report.
Minutes were approved from the regular meeting on June 12 and two special meetings held June 18 and 28.
The board considered and approved forgiveness of penalties for late payment of a water bills from a customer who was able to document that timely checks had been drawn even though they had not been received at the office.
GM Brandon Tomlinson gave the operations and maintenance report, standing in for Director of Operations Chris Mayo, who had another commitment and arrived later. The written report listed work on District infrastructure including the installation of a new diesel fuel tank. There was a brief discussion of the recent practice of using liquid copper sulfate for algae control, effective and at lower cost than crystals. Also listed were routine maintenance items for eight vehicles.
The agenda included a request to declare as surplus a 2009 Ford F-150 service truck. Directors thought the photo in the board packet showed a truck to be in fairly good shape and asked about the mileage. It was noted that another truck can serve as a spare. After discussion, the consensus was to determine an estimate of its value at auction and possible other uses before declaring it surplus.
The board than discussed and approved a resolution to approve a transfer agreement with the Triangle T Water District for 740 AF of “recaptured water” in the 2024 water year from the Bureau of Reclamation in the San Luis Reservoir. Triangle T will pay all costs and wheeling fees of obtaining this water and also grant CWD its riparian credits. There was little discussion and the resolution passed unanimously.
GM Report
In his general manager’s report, Tomlinson said that the Bureau had reduced the Class 1 allocation from Friant from 100 to 90 percent. He said water deliveries had originally been planned through September but that the board will be able to consider when the season is to end at its August and September meetings when more information will be available. He said he doesn’t plan to carry over any Friant water this year, typically 5,500 AF which is about five and a half days of flow for District customers.
Tomlinson said the Ewell Group had reported that Congressmembers John Duarte, Vince Fong, Tom McClintock and David Valadao had all signed a letter supporting funding for the Army Corps study of raising the Buchanan Dam on Eastman Lake.
Tomlinson also noted that the staff had recently had a roundtable discussion to develop refinements in the rules and procedures f
Tomlinson also noted that the staff had recently had a roundtable discussion to develop refinements in the rules and procedures for water deliveries. He said he would bring those to the board later on for consideration for next season.
In response to a question, he said that the tree grinding on the recently purchased property is well over half done.
With no other discussion and no closed session, the directors were invited to provide their comments. None were forthcoming and at this point, the two latecomers asked if they could make a request. President Schuh explained that while the public comment period came at the start of the meeting, he would allow them to speak. While they didn’t state their names, we learned later that they are Syam Manadani and Anwar Alcala of
Creekfront Ranch in LeGrand which has subordinate land in the District. They said they have secondary use of a pipeline with neighbors to obtain District water but had not been able to receive water when the District acted on June 28 to end deliveries to subordinate lands on July 1.
They said they have a new planting of 40 acres of pistachios badly in need of water, and they requested the District make an exception and sell them another 50 to 100 AF of water. They went on to explain that they had drilled a new well with a pump installed ready to go but they were waiting for PG&E to complete the hookup which wasn’t scheduled until later in the month.
Schuh explained that all the directors are growers too and were sympathetic to their plight, but he didn’t believe they should make an exception which likely would set a precedent. The others agreed, noting every grower has water issues of one kind or another and putting in trees without guaranteed water was not good business.
Director Ray said he would prefer to help them install a service panel so the well could run off a generator and he had the resources to help them immediately. He said he would be uncomfortable with the precedent of providing District water after the deadline. Ray invited them to speak with him after the meeting, which they did.
And with that, Schuh adjourned the session at 2:15 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; Treasurer – Lela Beatty
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.
