By Don A. Wright
The Friant Water Authority board of directors met at the Bello Vita Event Venue in Visalia on August 29, 2024. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 10:00am and for all I know it did. I’m not usually late to meetings and when I am I don’t tell on myself. But our well went out this particular morning. By the time I got her up and running I needed a shower and other various excuses as to way I missed the part of the meeting where they called things to order, asked for public comment, most likely Director Cliff Loeffler prayed over the proceedings and they passed the consent agenda.
I also missed the sole action item on the agenda – final approval of the proposed 2025 Operations, Maintenance and Repair budget. An accounting item of great importance but not one I’d normally dig deep into. I walked in during the tail end of the water operations report given by Ian Buck-Macleod, Water Resources Manager and Katie Duncan, Water Resources EIT. The written report provided by Buck-Macleod and Duncan* revealed precipitation on the Upper San Joaquin River is below average this time of year. But I don’t think that’s saying much. Things were hotter than average in July for many parts of the state.
Federal storage in San Luis Reservoir is 135 percent of its 15-year average. There has been criticism for keeping hundreds of thousands of acre feet in storage at SLR while westside growers are having to pump.
The Meeting
Johnny Amaral said state consultant Mike Villines is in Sacramento keeping an eye on the dangerous going on’s taking place there as the end of the legislative session is just days away. That’s when a lot of dirty tricks and darkness take place. Amaral said things are less dangerous in Washington DC as Congress is not in session. When the Representatives and Senators come back, they will have a few weeks to make trouble then they’ll disappear from town during the elections.
The legislature is scheduled to adjourn at midnight August 31st. The governor has until September 30th to sign or veto bills. Something I learned is the appropriations committee chairs can for any reason or no reason quietly kill bills. Any bill that will cost the state money and it was indicated that’s about 85-percent of all bills, must go into the “suspense file”. There were 830 bills placed in the suspense file and about a third were killed. That’s higher than average and due to the very large state budget deficit.
There will be a Congressional hearing in Santa Nella on Friday, September 6th called by Congressman John Duarte. CEO Jason Phillips will be testifying. The hearing is on water and should prove informative.
Amaral said for the first time in years there isn’t a Middle Reach Capacity item on the agenda. There are only a handful of tasks left to complete the repairs on the most subsidence impacted portions or the Friant Kern Canal. This is an example of the government working at lightspeed. I’ve been told by those in the know the average non-military Army Corps of Engineers project takes more than 20-years to complete.
O&M
Superintendent Chris Hickernell reported crews have been doing routine summer maintenance – applying copper sulfate to the aquatic weeds, repairing bridges and such. He said one of the focuses for now is safety. Friant has a good safety record and they want to keep it. Hickernell said crews are trying other chemicals than Roundup and save some money. There wasn’t much else to report.
Blueprint
Austin Ewell, temporary Executive Officer of the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley. He reported – as you good looking, above average intelligence, smooth dancing – regular readers or WaterWrights already know: a letter has been sent by the Blueprint and the Southern California Water Coalition to Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of Interior Debra Haaland about the tremendous problems with the current regulatory scheme involving the Fall X2 line.
The farmer to farmer project has been successful and is now known as the Great Valley Farm Water Fellowship. This where folks from the San Joaquin Valley and the Delta get together and start talking, comparing notes and seeing where things can become more cooperative. Arvin Edison Water Storage District Director Edwin Camp is one of the farmers involved and he said he’s learned a new term; silt remediation, as dredging is now known.
SLDM
CFO Wilson Orvis was next and said things are mixed bag with the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority. Good news first, SLDM rates have been put in place but the new agreements with Friant has opened up some new cost pools. Somehow, that an accountant like Oris could understand these things resulted in Friant not being billed this month.
On the other hand there is a large bill hanging out there as SLDM had to true up some charges and refunds and what is owed to the US Bureau of Reclamation. That’s an almost $9 million share for Friant. He said this is partly because the Bureau based its delivery estimates on expected demand and power costs has gone up. Orvis is working out a payment plan so Friant won’t take one great big hit, rather three less big hits.
Phillips said he’s been attend SLDM with Amaral as alternate. He and Amaral will be in Washington DC in September and he asked if the board was OK with having Orvis as the alternative that month. The board could have appointed a director but they were OK with Orvis. Good for him.
Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency
Attorney Don Davis called it in on MS-Teams and there was a good deal of audio problems of course because there’s always a good deal of problems with Micro-snot. You could only hear every other word. He got back on without video and reported the Tule Subbasin’s facing probation is a significant issue due to the budget costs of the Friant Kern Canal repairs. Much of the subsidence that took place along the FKC was in the Tule Subbasin.
The Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency is looking at the Tule Subbasin being placed on probation by the State Water Resources Control Board for an inadequate Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Davis said the ETGSA released a revised GSP without any public scoping or comments if I understood correctly. He said after an extensive review of the latest GSP by Friant and its consultant’s, Provost & Pritchard and GSI Engineers, there are some troubling passages in the plan. Davis had a list.
He said the document was a mess with references to internal items on the plan that don’t exist such as a “Tule Subbasin Coordination Agreement” that isn’t included in the document. He said the portion dealing with subsidence impacting the Friant Kern Canal is a blank page but for the word pending.
Davis quoted from a nine page cover letter item report with nine sections was accompanied by two multi paged reports form the engineering firms. So, they found a lot of problems with the Tule Subbasin GSP.
The result is Friant is calling on the ETGSA board to not accept the GSP in this form. The
ETGSA are having a meeting this afternoon. He said there is State Board probation hearing coming up soon and he believes the State Board won’t find this document any more acceptable than the previous iterations.
CEO Report
Phillips said to beware, the government agencies want to flush out 300,000-400,000 a/f through the Delta to the Pacific Ocean instead of using this water for something beneficial. The nominal purpose for this flushing is to help Delta Smelt. But US Fish & Wildlife has found this doesn’t help at all. I share Phillips desire to an answer to the question, “Why?” As you above referenced readers know all about this – you know Friant and three other agencies sent a letter to USBR’s Karl Stock and DWR’s and Karla Nemeth sharing the concern about wasting that much water during the age of SGMA.
Phillips ended his report by saying his son, who’s in the Navy, called his daughter while he and her were driving to Colorado to take her to college. On speaker phone his son asked his sister, “Did you tell Mom about the motorcycle?”
Phillips had to tell his son he heard the comment and was legally obligated to tell his wife. But it all worked out. Then we dined on pork, squash, rice and the kind of salad that looks like lawn clippings. There was also miniature pecan pies covered in whipped cream. A very good meal.
It was the end of a perfect day provided you went to bed by 1:10pm in the afternoon. Well, that’s what happened at Friant.
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*Never noticed before how Scottish the water ops department is. Shakespeare ought to write something about it.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2023 by Don A. Wright
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.
