By Joel Hastings
Vice President Roger Schuh called the meeting to order at 1:36 p.m. with Directors Vince Taylor and Karun Samran present. President Kole Upton and Director Russell Harris were absent. A staff member of the Department of Water Resources was on the phone line but there were no other public attendees except this reporter and so no public comment.
Three agenda items were added. One was for the GSA meeting, adding a resolution to engage Davids Engineering in developing steps to reduce ground water use. The other two were formal approvals for the purchase of two parcels of land that had been under negotiation for a while.
The GSA board meeting was convened with Doug Welch, general resource manager, led off presenting a spread sheet with a lot of detail showing water sold to growers in the District. He said that 133,000 AF had been delivered to 212 growers with 10 acres or more, a total of 173,000 acres. Welch said that based on the capacity of CWD to deliver water, over 30,000 AF of surface water could have been used to offset groundwater use. He urged that the proposal from Davids Engineering to consult with growers and the directors to develop options to reduce groundwater use be accepted.
Discussion touched on water deliveries in wet years versus dry years. The directors talked about irrigation practices with Taylor stating that farming in the District still required a grower to have deep wells unless there was only dry land farming. Welch said that the District still planned to recharge 9000 AF / year with its 1000 acres of recharge ponds.
Discussion then turned to programs to reduce groundwater pumping, starting with 
incentives to use surface water instead. Two types of allocations were talked about – a requirement that growers purchase a given quantity of District water and / or a limit on the amount of groundwater that could be pumped. Schuh asked what the legal requirements might be in either case. Would a 218 vote be required? Based on all of the unknowns about District water availability in a given year, Welch said that the amount of water to be required could be set on a quarterly basis. He noted that a grower could resell his water if it was not needed during that quarter.
Director Samran said that he and Schuh had met with a couple of growers who pointed out that those who bought and used District water were actually contributing more to sustainability than those who chose not to buy and use District water. Samran said we need to find incentives to use more surface water. “Make the guys buy water and make it expensive enough that they use it,” he said.
On the topic of getting DWR approval for the Chowchilla Subbasin’s GSP, Taylor said he was concerned that no matter what was being done, more would be required, so he advocated going slowly. Schuh said the goal should be sustainability rather than getting a plan approved. “We have to control what we can control,” he said. He said he didn’t know what it means if the state takes over if there is no approval for the GSP.
With the need for a legal opinion on quarterly water purchase requirements and with only three directors present, the group deferred decisions until next month’s meeting.
At 2:55 p.m. the CWD board reconvened and approved the financial report from Treasurer Lela Beatty. She said for January, collections amounted to $2,427,428.95 and
disbursements were $649,736.63 leaving a balance on February 1 of $21,760,726.05. The warrant of bills to be paid amounted to $291,678.81 with $3 million transferred from Bank of America to Tri-County Bank as previously approved. Minutes of the January 10 regular meeting and the February 1 special meeting were approved. (At that meeting, the directors had approved the opening of the dam at Eastman Lake in light of potential flood risk from the January storms.)
Also approved were updated signatures for accessing funds in the California Local Agency Investment Fund, Bank of America and Tri-County Bank.
Resolutions were approved to purchase two parcels of land in the District, primarily intended for recharge basins. Some 218 acres of land were purchased from T Double R Farms at a price of $15,000 per acre. About 67 acres were purchased from Cornaggia
Farms at $18,000 per acre. Escrow has been opened and the closings will likely occur within 30 days. There was a bit of discussion about tree removals and chipping to be done on some of the acreage. Both transactions had been under negotiation for some time.
The board approved a new salary and pay schedule that had been negotiated with the employee group. Pay will be increased 10 percent in 2024 and three percent each year through 2028.
A draft budget for 2024 had been prepared and was included in its entirety in the board packet. Total operating income for 2024 is estimated at nearly $14 million with $8.5 million from water sales. Water costs are estimated at that same level, $8.5 million, with a total expense budget of $19 million. Adding in non-operating revenue, the break-even budget requires transfers from the reserve fund of $4.75 million.
General Manager Brandon Tomlinson said water calculations for the budget included 7500 AF carry over, 100,000 AF of Class 1 water and 80,000 AF available from Eastman Lake with a water price of $105 / AF. He reviewed the capital expense budget which
included the real estate purchases. While the directors were comfortable with the need for purchases of heavy equipment and vehicles at $650,000, they questioned the $100,000 for a new computerized GIS system, and more for a new phone system, conference room desk and chairs and a lighted outdoor sign for the building. There was also discussion of the need for and the size of a new tank to hold bio-diesel fuel, to be required for use in the new year.
With low almond prices and a resulting difficult farm economy, the directors felt the belt needed to be tightened. These changes were to be made and budget approval was held off until next month’s meeting, pending the due date for submission to the county board of supervisors to set the property assessment rate.
In his operations and maintenance report, Director of Operations Chris Mayo described a variety of work done throughout the District and on the vehicle fleet in the shop. In his GM report, Tomlinson said Friant is saying there will be a 50 percent allocation of Class 1 water for June, July and August. With water from Eastman, water deliveries will probably start in May subject to the weather conditions in the coming months, but an actual start date and rates can be set when the final season totals for rain and snow are known. Regarding
personnel, he said one employee had left to take a job with the Merced fire department. He said that that the Ewell Group reports that the Army Corps is still looking for funds in its budget to conduct the study of raising the Buchanan Dam, since it confirmed, finally, that it does have the authority with no legislative approval needed.
With no further business, no additional reports from directors and no closed session, the meeting was adjourned at 4:15 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: 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.
