By Don A. Wright
The Friant Water Authority board of directors met at the Bello Vita Event Venue in Visalia on Thursday, April 24, 2025 and on Micro Snot Teams. Due to an unavoidable circumstance of staying out way too late last night I wasn’t able to attend in person. Thus, forcing me to use the execrable MS Teams option. Fortunately I got a head start and after a half hour of University of YouTube help was able to kickout the old MS Teams and start anew with an all freshly downloaded app. What a convenient way to participate in an online meeting – just set aside a block of time to go into the system files and purge the not quite up to the
moment version of Teams well before the scheduled start time of your next online meeting.
Friant begins its board meeting in closed session at 8:30am and is tentatively scheduled to start in open session at 10:00am. Sometimes that is delayed for whatever reason. There were five items this morning. Three had to do with active, anticipated and soon to be active lawsuits. One was a property negotiation and the last was an employee evaluation of CEO Jason Phillips. I saw Phillips at the table when the meeting began so I guess he passed the test.
The Meeting
Chairman Rick Borges called the open session to order at 10:51am and the first item was public comment and a gentleman named Ian Lockee, I believe, is running for the Tulare
County Board of Supervisors and he asked the folks for their support. Then Director Cliff Loeffler gave thanks and asked for the Lord to give this group of men and women wisdom.
The consent calendar was next and it was approved without comment. There were no action items this morning. Good for them.
Water Operations Report
Ian Buck-Macleod gave the water report saying there may be some precipitation sometime in May. There has been warmer than average weather for this time of year and that has caused some run off from snowmelt but the reservoirs are doing very well. Shasta is looking very good and there doesn’t appear to be any real chance of the US Bureau of Reclamation making a call on Friant water on behalf of the Exchange Contractors.
Buck-Macleod said Delta pumping is down at the moment but come May there should be a large increase in pumping and pumping should maintain through the summer. There are no spills on San Luis Reservoir at this time. He said the South of Delta Central Valley Project allocations are at 40 percent and he believes that could increase by at least five percent more.
Friant is still allocated 100 percent Class I supplies. The San Joaquin River Restoration Program is releasing flows. It appears about 50,000 a/f of restoration flows may be converted to Class I. Expect an uncontrolled season next month and a small Class II allocation could be in the works.
The Airborne Snow Observatory flights have been delayed due to clouds but a flight is scheduled as soon as conditions allow. As of March, 4,200 a/f SJR water was recaptured at Patterson if I understood correctly.
Buck-Macleod brought up concerns about Class I and Class II conditions. He reported an ad hoc committee will be meeting.
Phillips said the issue is whenever Millerton Lake gets close to spilling there are uncontrolled season events. The lake is too small but that’s another matter. He said if there are spills it’s Class I water going out. The water often goes to Class II contractors during an uncontrolled season. With SGMA now a stressor every drop needs to be managed as closely as possible. If somebody at the Bureau waits too long to declare an uncontrolled season or allows an uncontrolled season to run too long – there can be some real loss of water of various class colors. The ad hoc committee (five districts) will come back to the board with suggestions. Phillips said Friant is now working with the Bureau on updating operations guidelines – affectionately known as FOG, Friant Operational Guidelines.
Phillips added under D-1641 (a rule adopted by the State Board in 1991 I think, that does no good to anyone) water is being sent out to sea. The new Secretary of Interior Doug Bergman sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom. And Newsom agreed it’s insane. Right now there is only one pump running between the state and feds. This is regulatory theft and needs to be dealt with.
There was a question as to whether or not Madera Canal contractors should be on the ad hoc committee. Phillips said you can’t say no to that but – it sounded like folks are confident all the interests are being well represented. However, if someone else has a strong desire to get their nose and nuggets in the midst of this ad hoc, they can.
External Affairs
The next report was given by Johnny Amaral on government going on’s. He said the California budget reality is bleak. Friant has budget priorities that involve the state and he referred to SJR Restoration. He said there will be a congressional committee meeting next week from Washington DC to name the next Director of Science under the Interior.
There are currently negotiations about water and conveyance taking place in Washington. There are hopes and efforts to wrap this up next month. Congressman Doug LaMalfa put forth a bill to delist the longfin delta smelt from endangered.
Amaral said there is a Water Education Foundation tour moving through the Friant Division today and tomorrow. The California Water Alliance will be having its annual issues forum next week in Fresno and he highly recommended attending. ACWA is coming up soon in Monterey. The Friant Annual Meeting is at the end of May. That’ll be fun.
Amaral said the Family Farm Alliance has named Samantha Barncastle as its new Executive Director, replacing the excellent Dan Keppen.
O&M
Chris Hickernell gave his report saying there is some long time staff member about to retire. I apologize I didn’t get the name or title. Aquatic herbicide treatments are about finished I think. There’s been a lot of grading along the Friant Kern Canal. CARB is
continuing to cause havoc and heartache with its royal pronouncements. The fleets of many special districts and JPAs are having to replace vehicles as the electrification of everything while a lack of generation and transmission is insanely ignored.
Water Blueprint
Phillips filled in for Austin Ewell, who is on a well deserved vacation. Phillips said the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley has been very timely on getting the issues out there. For instance the number of salads lost due to 10,000 a/f of water going out to the ocean daily is a recent feature of exposing the harm from D-1641 by the Blueprint. As the Trump and Newsom executive orders concerning water and Delta operations are being issued Phillips urged getting in touch with Milk Producers Council and Blueprint Vice Chair Geoff Vanden Heuvel to get the straight skinny on the numbers. Vanden Heuvel is a pretty smart man and one of the most knowledgeable about water you can find anywhere.
SLDMWA
Wilson Orvis reported on the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority actions. Friant’s financial obligation to SLDM costs more than what it pays for Friant water. Having Orvis and Phillips meeting with SLDM’s CEO Federico Barajas is paying off. Phillips praised Barajas’ leadership in coming up with more than one scenario to fix problems on the Delta Mendota Canal. There will be a workshop this Monday, in person only, open to all, in Santa Nella.
CEO Report
Phillips asked the Bureau’s Rain Emmerson for a Class II 10 percent allocation. Not possible at the moment. He then really pushed the CalWA event next month and said Amaral is selling tickets.
The 2024 Biological Opinions have yet to shake out but his keeping an eye on things. The USBR has taken a big hit from downsizing on the federal side. Phillips said we all depend on the Bureau and there may be a need for Friant to step us and help to keep the water flowing. He hopes to give the board a more detailed briefing next month.
The last item was about a sailor dear to all of us. Phillips’ son is on a submarine and was recently promoted. Yet, he is still making more money from posting songs on the internet than the Navy is paying him to defend the free world.
Borges thanked everyone for their patience during the overly long closed session. He said to expect more of that coming up. With that the meeting was adjourned at 11:44am. Whoosh, I missed out on the government provided free lunch, oh well, saved someone some tax dollars. Be good to each other and yourselves.
DISCLAIMER OF RESPONSIBILITY; Waterwrights strives to provide it’s 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 2025 by WaterWrights and DA
FRIANT WATER AUTHORITY
854 N. Harvard Ave., Lindsay, CA 93247, Office 559/562-6305 Email:information@friantwater.org www.friantwater.org
The Friant Water Authority is a Joint Powers Agreement with 15 districts to operate and maintain the Friant Division of the Central Valley Water Project. Water from the San Joaquin River is diverted at Friant Dam at Millerton Lake to the Madera/Chowchilla Canal to the north and the Friant/Kern Canal to the south. More than one million acres of mostly family farms and numerous communities get their surface supplies from the Friant Division.
Board: Chair Jim Erickson, Vice Chair Rick Borges
Staff: CEO Jason Phillips, COO Johnny Amaral, CFO Wilson Orvis, Water Resources Manager Ian Buck-Macleod, Engineer Katie Duncan, Superintendent Chris Hickernell and Attorney Don Davis.
