The Fresno Irrigation District held its board of directors meeting at its Fresno headquarters on Thursday, August 12, 2021, in person at its Fresno headquarters. Chairman Ryan Jacobsen called the meeting at 3:00pm on the dot, as is his habit. He led us through a flag salute including the term “under God.”
The Meeting
The first item was public comment. Dave Merritt said hello to the board. He’s the new General Manager of the Kings River Conservation District. He was warmly welcomed. Brandon Herreman, staff man for Congressman David Valadao thanked the board and Jacobsen for a recent meeting with Congressman Bruce Westerman and he was warmly welcomed as well. Next former Fresno City Councilman and west side cattle rancher Chris Mathys told the board he’s running for congress against Valadao. I thought he was running against Congressman Jim Costa who is a Democrat but well, no.
Water Report
Assistant GM Adam Claes gave the water report and said although way, way lower than normal there was some rain in June from the monsoons coming in on high level clouds. This year is the hottest June and July on record for the Valley, but it reminds me of my younger years when we’d have a month or more of over 100 degree and above highs. We didn’t call it climate change, we called it summer. Anyway, the Kings River watershed is at its fourth driest on record.
Claes said FID has funding needs and water is selling for a lot of money right now. Over the next two years FID needs about $16 million for recharge basins, pipeline replacements and grant preparations. Claes said to qualify for recharge basin grant funds you have to own the land. I also saw a new category – Homeless Mitigation. FID has canals running through Fresno. The homeless folks like waterfront camping and who can blame them with record temperatures? The homeless problem in California isn’t isolated to the major metropolitan areas. When you drive Highway 99 there are folks all over living on the edge of California society.
On a bit of a side note General Manager Bill Stretch introduced Fergus Morrissey, GM of Orange Cove ID who was attending the meeting. Morrissey was commuting to north of the San Francisco Bay Area and stopped in just because. Both FID and OCID are Friant contractors.
One of the challenges facing FID is maintenance of Big Dry Creek and Fancher Creek. It is in the district’s interest to have the best flow environment as possible. Yet, the district has to secure permits every time work needs to be done and the work has to be conducted in an environmentally sensitive manner. These are creeks and not canals.
Claes laid out some possible water sales and exchanges that could bring in $12.3 million. Orange Cove ID wants to purchase 4,000 a/f at $1,000 per. (So, maybe that had something to do with Morrissey showing up.) Alta ID wanted to buy some water from FID
off the Kings River. AID wants 1,000 a/f at a price to be negotiated. He asked the board to allow staff to market an additional 2,500 a/f at a minimum $850 per a/f. Whatever they find they’ll bring back to the board for approval. The board found this sound and approved but for Director Greg Beberian who objected. I didn’t get the feeling Beberian didn’t want to help but there are a number of directors throughout the industry who object to moving water out of an area if there could be recharge. Perhaps that was his objection.
Engineering Report
FID Engineer Laurence Kimura reported on private and public agency work impacting FID, capital improvement projects, High Speed Rail, urban trails and other activities involving the district’s engineering department.
High Speed Rail isn’t a well liked project for most of the Valley. I certainly have my doubts about the costs. For less than the cost of five miles of HSR the entire Friant Kern Canal could be refurbished to design standards. For less than the cost of 20-miles of HSR the FKC, the Delta Mendota Canal and the California Aqueduct could all be refurbished. I remember something about the bond that was originally passed to fund the project required an equal investment from private enterprise before any construction began. There has been no private investment I’m aware of. And since the bond passed the route has been shortened from the original San Francisco to Los Angeles to the truncated Merced to Bakersfield route. Beberian asked if HSR goes away, and it might, who will pay for maintenance on the crossings impacting the district. Attorney Jeff Boswell said the state is liable, if you can get it to pay. He also said Kimura doesn’t toot his own horn but he’s saved the district a great deal of time and money by not allowing HRS to push him around.
Kimura said the Cities of Clovis and Fresno want to have urban trails along FID’s canals and that is taking a good deal of negotiation and indemnity agreements.
Construction & Maintenance
Claes was back at the podium showing the board photos of an all weather road along a canal that runs to the east side of the district. That’s part of the district’s capital improvement. The Dry Creek Canal passes the intersection of McKinley and Millbrook Avenues near a part of Central Fresno known as the Mayfair District. A major replace of trash racks is taking place. As Claes said this is ground zero for homeless camps. I’ve driven by there and literally saw homeless folks cooking over fires up against wooden fences belonging to homeowners.
There are other parts of the system that rely on cast in place pipes. One of them is known as the Little Houghton and there are four or five miles of pipeline west of town made from cast in place. Stretch said they have had nothing but problems with it since the beginning. Crews are working to plug the leaks.
There is a 100 year old flume on the Gould Canal that has had its concrete encased steel beams exposed over time. Crews are addressing that before there is a problem. There is also a crop survey ongoing as well as a structural survey of the entire FID system. Once again the homeless problem provoked a major trash cleanup along the canals. Jacobsen praised staff for the hard work they are doing to keep the system maintained.
SGMA
North Kings GSA Executive Director and America’s sweetheart Kassy Chauhan gave an update. She said they’re monthly coordination meetings with the other GSAs in the Kings Subbasin. Chauhan pointed out the Kings River Conservation District has provided its staff, Cristal Tufenkjian and Rebecca Quist for their outreach and communication experience. We need to add the newest member of the KRCD crew, Ashley Goldsmith. Those ladies really do a great job and Chauhan gave credit where due. Merritt acknowledged the complement.
Chauhan said NKGSA has been receiving notices from Fresno County when a well permit is pulled. Staff has been able to review these permits and track trends that could impact the GSP. NKGSA has also been working with Self Help Enterprise to develop drought messaging resources. She said this has been well received and looks like it will be a good tool for the chest.
The NKGSA Advisory Committee will meet and it is hoped there will be a final draft approved on the members responsibility. One of the chores is determining who gets how much credit for recharge water. An example could be Fresno State University sends water to the Fresno wastewater treatment plant, should it get recharge credits? I don’t know, I’m not on the advisory committee. Overall the NKGSA appears to be recharging more than it’s pumping and therefore not a drain on the Kings Subbasin. Nothing as drastic as the situation in the Tule River Subbasin where pumping won’t be allowed at all next year in some parts of the white areas. Ouch, but that is to borrow a figure of speech from Claes, ground zero for the Friant Kern Canal subsidence from overdraft.
There was more discussion about which GSAs are net over-drafters and which are net rechargers. It’s a complicated and easily blood pressure raising subject.
Special Projects
Chauhan is also FID’s Special Projects Manager and reported there will be a Prop 218 Election workshop for the board on August 19th. FID is also updating its rules and regulations.
There are seasonal streams that flow into FID from the Sierra Nevada. A stream group has been formed and Austin Ewell has been retained to provide some consulting. He’s a busy guy. The member agencies are looking at feasibility studies and a cost share agreement should soon be in place to pay for it. Fresno and Clovis benefit from these flows.
The Kings Water Alliance is an entity that is working on compliance with Regional Board regulations regarding the Irritated Lands Program and the Nitrate Control Program. There are a lot of residential two and half acre “ranchettes” with septic tanks spread out around the urban areas that are not part of the official figures. These properties contribute to the groundwater but are not monitored for nitrates.
Chauhan said staff is keeping an eye on the recent State Board curtailment orders.
External Affairs
Chauhan reported the federal Senate approved the infrastructure bill that includes a good chunk of change, billions that would go to western water needs. There is a lot of back and forth between the Senate and the House and it is porkified with all manner of problems. It is being hailed as bipartisan but. . .
The Airborne Snow Observatory is still alive and could receive taxpayer funding from the state. The San Joaquin Valley Water Blueprint is working on infrastructure and is working with San Joaquin Valley Water Collaborative Action Plan. Attorney Jack Rice and grower Sarah Woolf are putting together a tour for the facilitators who are not from the area. There are also in person workshops being planned for the fall at Fresno State.
Without the water, Chauhan said the PR work is slow. The FID newsletter is coming out soon and she hopes the State Board hearing officer will have a Kings River Fully Appropriated Stream Status ruling in time to include it.
FID has been around for 100-years. Chauhan inherited oversight of the district’s records retention policy and the task itself. She said reducing paper by digitizing it is the goal. A public records request can be a big pain. She asked the policy be amended to allow new technology to be employed as it is developed without having to come back to the board each time. A retention schedule will also be set up so documents that time out could potentially be destroyed.
Boswell said there are times when an original document is a good thing. He said during negotiations with HSR Kimura was able to produce a document with Leland Stanford’s original signature and that came in handy. Beberian asked how long the records would be kept. Stretch said there will be an extensive review of each document before anything gets destroyed. Beberian asked if the original plans for the headgates are still around. He wanted them to be framed and he was told they are one page and not all that impressive. Director Chris Woolf said it is the same thing as the FID letterhead. That was pretty funny. Woolf also made the motion to approve the document policy and the board agreed.
Personnel
Human Resource Director September Singh reported HR is staying on top of the commie virus. FID requires employees who are not vaccinated to wear masks indoors. The virus rules in California are still pretty disjointed, it seems the rules throughout the country are confused.
Singh led the board through the new employee health insurance plans. Costs have gone up with Kaiser and United Health as the providers. So far the details of the plans haven’t been published, like deductions for example. Good thing Singh is on top of it.
Singh also asked for herself and Hailey be allowed an overnight stay in Monterey to attend the California Special District Association conference. The board approved, bunch of softies. The district has a new safety manager and he will need a trash can full of certificates from the ACWA JPIA insurance. He’s going to need to stay overnight for a while in San Diego for a conference. Jacobsen said just fly him down there. I guess flying him back was implied. It’s gotten to be a monster traffic trek to get through the Los Angeles metro area. That led to questions about the winter ACWA conference. It will be in Pasadena but who knows if it will be in person or not.
Next Singh told the board about new hires. She said with the hiring of seven new people the district will be fully staffed again. There are a couple of transfers from the water division to the construction division and from construction to water. That wasn’t always the way but the pay is almost the same now. It used to go from construction to water but now the extra experience allows for better performance. Two ladies left the accounting department. One for health, the other died unexpectedly. Two construction employees left, one for a better paying job and one to enter the ministry. Good for him.
GM’s Report
Stretch said his report will be short. He said even without water staff is busy and I’ll say that not just FID. Every district is busy. He said a ruling on the Kings River status is being awaited. Stretch said the City of Fresno is thinking about leaving Friant Water
Authority over the Friant Kern Canal repair costs. No one wants to pay out millions of dollars for repairs due to overdraft a hundred miles away. But that canal is a group project and delivers water to the city. I can just about guarantee if the problem was upstream to Fresno they’d want the rest of the members to help. The City has officially voted to pay its share of the repair costs. Fresno has a Class I contract for 60,000 a/f.
Next Stretch said the resource conservation districts are wanting to change their boundaries and have gone before LAFCo. The Sierra RCD hasn’t been cooperative in working with the water agencies impacted if I understood correctly. There will be another LAFCo in October. That was about it for open session. The meeting went into closed session at 5:31pm.
DISCLAIMER OF RESPONSIBILITY; Waterwrights strives to provide clients with the most complete, up-to-date, and accurate information available. Nevertheless, Waterwrights does not serve as a guarantor of the accuracy or completeness of the information provided, and specifically disclaims any and all responsibility for information that is not accurate, up-to-date, or complete. Waterwrights’ clients therefore rely on the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of information from Waterwrights entirely at their own risk. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not represent any advertisers or third parties.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 20210 by WaterWrights.net/DAW
Fresno Irrigation District – The Fresno Irrigation District is located at 2907 So. Maple Avenue, Fresno CA 93725 phone 559/233-7161 and meets at 4:00pm on the third Tuesday of the month at district headquarters. FID is part of the North Kings GSA DWR # 5-022.08
Board
Ryan Jacobsen – President, Jerry Prieto – Vice President, Greg Beberian, Christopher Woolf & George Porter
Staff
Bill Stretch: General Manager
Adam Claes – Assistant General Manager – Operations
September Singh – Assistant General Manager – Administration
Laurence Kimura – Chief Engineer (you had him nailed down good)
Jeff Boswell – In-house Legal Counsel
Jim Irwin – Water Master
David Burrows – Water Master In Training
Michael Prestridge – Superintendent of Construction & Maintenance
DeAnn Hailey – Controller
Kassy Chauhan – Special Projects Manager/North Kings GSA Executive Officer
