By Joel Hastings
The Chowchilla Water District board of directors regular monthly meeting is usually held on the second Wednesday of the month. On that day in October, though, the office in
Chowchilla was without power so the meeting was rescheduled for October 17th, six days later than the regular meeting. The full board attended, and the meeting gavel was wielded as usual by Kole Upton, board president beginning at the 1:30 p.m. appointed hour.
Convening as the GSA board, the group heard from Doug Welch, the District’s Resource Manager, who coordinates the SGMA activities. He said the GSA is in about the same spot as last month, working with the consultants and the other GSAs in the sub-basin to revise the GSP to get approval from the SWRCB.
Returning to the CWD board agenda, Treasure Lela Beatty reported receipts for the month totaled $2,990,076.35, disbursements were $1,044,144.65 for an ending balance on October 1 of $22,676,425.14. The board approved the warrant for bill payment and disbursements for the coming month as of October 11 totaling $4,274,982.96. The reports were approved unanimously.
The budget for the year was reviewed and minutes for meeting on September 11 and the brief canceled meeting October 11were also approved.
Chris Mayo, operations and maintenance manager, gave his report reviewing the handout for September work that identified eight maintenance projects completed which included repairs to canals, mowing, spraying and algae treatment. Repairs had been completed on six District vehicles. The board declared a piece of equipment as surplus, the 1983 Caterpillar V80E forklift.
General Manager Brandon Tomlinson reviewed several items in his report. He said the Ewell Group was set to meet with U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s staff to continue to gather support for raising Buchanan Dam. The hope was to include staff formerly in the late
Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office, now working in the office of newly appointed Senator Laphonza Butler, but that representative was not available. The meeting was held on October 19 and Padilla’s office is supporting the project to be done by the Army Corps.
Tomlinson said he expects water deliveries to be completed about the third week in November, with 10,000 acre/feet available. The price remains at $75 / AF that took effect October 1.
The meeting concluded with a closed session as identified in the agenda. There is one anticipated legal action and two items of continuing litigation. The negotiations for a land purchase were also reviewed. There was nothing to report following the closed session and the meeting was adjourned.
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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, Mike Mandala – Treasurer, Russell Harris, 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.
