By Don A. Wright
The El Rico GSA held its Tuesday, December 13, 2022 meeting online. When it happens live it happens usually in Corcoran. It was held on the non-Zoom GoToMeeting. Chairman Jeoff Wyrick called the meeting to order at 1:00pm. I believe all the officers are the same with the same directors holding the same positions.
The Meeting
After approving the resolution for the teleconference meeting – a wonderful thing in itself – Wyrick introduced Alex Dominguez as the new attorney. Everyone seemed jazzed about that. Wyrick’s audio volume varied considerably. Now, don’t get me wrong, Wyrick’s a good man. He’s not telling secrets in public. But he is addressing more than just a microphone so bless him for trying to keep everyone happy. Speaking for keeping folks happy, there was a change in the agenda to take into consideration scheduling.
Data Management
Under Item Seven Charlotte Gallock, Melissa Turner and Robert Cima spoke about a data management system. Gallock thanked the board for moving the agenda to meet her schedule. She said well data and crop data are already being reported by growers under the Irrigated (Integrated?) Lands Regional Program. She said both the North and South Fork Kings GSAs are allowing their constituents to release their ILRP data to the GSAs if they choose to do so. This streamlines the information and reporting, so it only has to be done once and stays confidential.
Turner and Cima are with MLJ Consulting. Wyrick asked if the deadlines between ILRP and the GSAs will coincide. Gallock said it shouldn’t be a problem to pull the ILRP data for GSA use. Turner backed her on that. Someone asked why not use Land IQ and Wyrick said there are five growers who make up the vast majority of landowners in El Rico GSA and they know how much water they are using and the evapotranspiration. He also thanked the folks for showing up and expressed his interest in continuing the discussion with MLJ.
Finances
The always charming Chantal Ouellet presented the board with the GSA’s financial records. She is from Quebec and her mother tongue is French. Beautiful to hear her go over balances and budgets. I guess the board agreed with me and approved her report.
Groundwater Sustainability Plan
The GSP for the Tulare Lake Subbasin ran into a hiccup, one way to put it, when the Southwest Kings GSA added something about recharge ponds evaporation amounts the other GSAs didn’t dig at all. That put the Subbasin out of compliance. There have since been some developments in this area with the SKGSA has written an addendum or some such to put things back in order in the GSP. Folks are just waiting for DWR to respond and then the entire San Joaquin Valley should be in GSP compliance.
Grants
The board approved applying for the Round Two GSA Grant. Wyrick said he’d sign the
resolution authorizing the application and get it to GSI Engineering’s Amer Hussain to finish prepping for next week’s deadline. It sure seems like the deadline for Round Two applications either caught everyone off guard and sleeping or more likely is very tight. They had one case of anticipated litigation for closed session. That was it for open session. Go be good to each other.
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EL RICO GSA Directors – Chairman Jeoff Wyrick, Tom Hurlbutt, Dominic Sween, Erik Hansen, Jim Razor, Matthew Gilkey & Mark Unruh
Staff: General Manager – JJ Westra Controller – Chantal Ouellet
Board meetings are schedule for 1:00pm the second Tuesday of the month at:
1001 Chase Avenue, Corcoran CA 93212
SGMA identifier – 5-002.12 Tulare Lake Sub Basin
