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Friant Water Authority August 16, 2021

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Bermad irrigationThe Friant Water Authority Executive Committee met on Monday, August 16, 2021, at its Lindsay headquarters and online. Friant is full of smart, passionate, kind and good looking people – why they would use Microsoft Teams is beyond my ability to understand. If there is a worse online meeting platform that MS Teams I don’t want to know about it. I implore the powers that be at Friant – if you won’t switch to Zoom or something/anything besides MST for me and the other unwashed, confused folks stranded in a chat waiting room that won’t allow chat, forced online by the virus from a country we can’t name for fear of offending everyone who owns a certain type of porcelain dinner wear – then do it for yourself. You deserve goodwill for working so hard and nothing erodes goodwill quite like trying to get on a Microsoft Teams meeting. After haranguing staff to get a link that worked I was finally able to get on the meeting at 11:03am, a full half hour after the public portion was scheduled to begin. Now that I have that out of my system I advise Friant’s upper management and directors to give staff a hug and a raise for me.

Part of the Meeting

The closed session had begun at 9:00am, open was scheduled for 10:30am. Was there an announcement from closed session, was there public comment, where the minutes approved? I don’t know, but I bet there was none, none and approved.

When I tuned in the committee was near the end of discussing the fiscal year 2022 budget. The new CFO Orvis Wilson laid out a pretty good looking set of charts that even a caveman, I’m sorry, even a layman could understand. The items were collated by group and individual categories. It was activities based and showed what went where and how much it cost. It sounded like Director Rick Borges liked the proposed budget well enough to move to direct staff to present it to the full board. The rest of the committee agreed.All Water Rights

Friant Kern Canal Repairs

COO Doug DeFlitch’s good humor restored my good mood by giving his report saying there is every indication the County of Tulare and Friant/US Bureau of Reclamation have just about ironed away every wrinkle that arose during the months of negotiations and an agreement should be signed soon. He also said the property negotiations with landowners along the route is continuing to yield good results.

DeFlitch said construction could begin as soon as the end of the year. The Bureau is working its due diligence and winnowing out the bidders based on technical considerations. After that the price considerations will begin.

Attorney Don Davis said Friant has been negotiating with municipalities along the route and that can be far more complicated than negotiating a couple of acres of farmland. An example he gave was the City of Porterville is working with Tea Pot Dome Irrigation District on a piece of property to be used as a retention basin that was in the path of the repairs. There are also new turnouts and pumping stations to contend with.

CEO Report

Chairman Cliff Loeffler asked CEO Jason Phillips to speak. Phillips said 2021 operations of the Central Valley Project look like Friant can get through the summer and keep its 20 percent allocation while meeting the Exchange Contractors needs. That’s big news. Twenty percent isn’t much but considering the zero precent that happened in 2014 and 2015 it’s good to see there wasn’t a precedent set. Phillips said both the state and Bureau folks have been good to work with. I’ve seen an improvement in communication between Friant and the Exchange Contractors and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority. They have their differences but they are all ag water in the San Joaquin Valley. Good for them.Technoflo

Phillips also said the San Joaquin Valley Water Blueprint is active. It just hired Providence Consulting of Bakersfield to take over for Tal Eslick at Vista Consulting of Clovis for governance assistance. Phillips said the Blueprint and the Collaborative Action Program with Tim Quinn at Stanford University is showing some bright light into the murky dark of future water needs. He said the NGOs are starting to respond and there is good ground for cooperation being established. There are issues up and down the Valley and he wants to be sure the Blueprint is proactive in solving problems and easing concerns. Phillips said there will be tension between Friant contractors and White Area but he will help as much as he can.

I believe it was Borges who said the new folks at Providence need to be aware many of the GSAs may think of the Blueprint as the saving grace but it may not be. Phillips said there may well be land retirement, most likely will be land retirement.

Rock Stars

Phillips gave an update on the strategic plan saying staff is working getting the thoughts and ideas from the retreat on the printed page by next week. Someone said the plan is aging and someone else asked like fine wine or fluid milk. There will be a Wednesday press conference with Senator Melisa Hurtado to discuss the state’s budget impacts on canal repairs.

Next Phillips said he’d received a video from someone showing Geoff Vaden Heuvel addressing the Tulare Farm Bureau about the Voluntary Agreements back in 1995. Phillips called Vanden Heuvel a rock star and said he didn’t know why anyone would want to hear him speak when Vanden Heuvel’s around. He said it was sad to see how you could cut and paste the same issues and arguments from that talk 17-years ago as going on today. Vanden Heuvel commented saying the cutbacks on surface deliveries has forced the Valley to use more groundwater and now we have SGMA. Phillips said he was trying to end the meeting on a high note. And that was that as of 11:41am.

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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 17 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.

Staff: CEO Jason Phillips, COO Doug DeFlitch, CFO Wilson Orvis, Government Affairs & Communication Alexandra Biering, Water Resource Manager Ian Buck-Macleod, Superintendent Chris Hickernell, Chief of External Affairs Johnny Amaral, Director of Technology Christopher Hunter and Attorney Don Davis.

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