The Fresno Irrigation District held its board of directors meeting at its Fresno headquarters on Tuesday, August 20, 2019. At the very stroke of 4:00pm FID Chairman Ryan Jacobsen called the meeting to order and we said the flag salute. Jacobsen said there will be an early closed session after the Water Masters report and then more closed session at the end. That caused a change in the agenda. Director Jerry Prieto wasn’t able to attend due to a pulled nerve. Bless his heart and his back. There was no conflict of interest or public comment. The minutes were pulled off the consent calendar because Director Greg Beberian wasn’t present last month. Everything worked out however and the calendar and the minutes were approved.
Controller DeAnn Hailey gave her report saying it would be short. Hailey went over the budget and comparative budget. Things were pretty tight as in adhering to the line. Hailey does a good job of keeping FID’s financial ship floating upright. The board approved Hailey’s financial report.
Water Master Jim Irwin gave his report saying conditions at Pine Flat Reservoir has more than 745,000 a/f in storage. FID is getting 1,113 cfs from the Kings River and picked up CVP unreleased restoration flows totaling 137 a/f. Demands in FID are starting to drop as harvest begins and raising are drying. Temperatures are expected to stay hot for the rest of the month. He said the long range forecasts at this time show the chances of normal temperatures and precipitation are 50/50. That’s a real common prediction. The end of the water year in October should give FID 40,000 a/f. So a little later in the year there will be decisions to be made.
FID General Manager Bill Stretch said he and the staff are very confident the district can continue deliveries through October and he’d like to send out a notice to that effect to the growers. The board was good with that. To the immediate south Consolidated ID cut off deliveries this month but will be coming back in October for post-harvest runs. Director George Porter said having 75 percent of Pine Flat Reservoir full in mid-August must make the lake look really full. Irwin said with demand dropping more recharge is taking place. By the time October gets here there will be five to 10 basins able to take recharge.
The meeting then went into closed session as promised.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2019 by Don A. Wright
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 Kings River North GSA
Board
Ryan Jacobsen – President, Jerry Prieto – Vice President, Greg Beberian, Christopher Woolf & George Porter
Staff
Bill Stretch – General Manager
DeAnn Hailey – Controller
Laurence Kimura – Chief Engineer
Jeff Boswell – General Counsel
Summer Singh – Asst. GM Administration
Adam Claes – Asst. GM Operations
Jim Irwin – Water Master
Hugo Egle – Operations Manager
Mike Prestridge – Superintend Construction & Maintenance
