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Friant Water Authority January 23, 2025

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JOBS/HELP WANTED

By Don A. Wright

The Friant Water Authority board of directors met at the Bello Vita Event Venue in Visalia on Thursday, January 23, 2025. This had the makings of a great meeting. On day one of the inauguration President Donald Trump started fulfilling campaign promises to do something about the water situation in California. No one knew for sure what was going to happen. All anyone knew at the time was things were going to change.

The Meeting

Things officially started 10:00am with Chairman Rick Borges calling the meeting to order and he asked Director Cliff Loeffler to ask God’s blessing on the gathering and for wisdom. There was no public comment, the consent calendar was passed and Executive Director Jason Phillips informed us next month’s meeting will be on February 20th at the Visalia Convention Center.

Action Items & Strategic Plan

Attorney/song stylist Don Davis spoke about the nominations and selections processes for the Finance & Human Relations Committee. The proposed slate of six were voted

Phillips spoke about Friant’s Strategic Plan updates. He said these are changes that were covered at November’s off site meeting. He didn’t go into great detail as most of the folks voting have heard this before. But there are new Friant members from the last version. Shafter Wasco Irrigation District has rejoined Friant in the meantime. That has been incorporated into the plan.

Phillips said the water supply portion is going to have to be discussed largely in closed session due to litigation. Ian Buck-Macleod talked about that which could be discussed in open session listing points from the Strategic Plan.

Johnny Amaral spoke about the decision making process saying the members want a more formal process for home board attorneys’ input. Davis is working on this. He said most of the outreach and engagement have been working well. FWA will be expanding its footprint in the social media world. Good for them. Amaral said keeping the Friant Directory up to date has been an exercise in frustration because as soon as the layout for the printer is ready things change. Friant will now use a digital directory that can be updated as warranted.

There is a new goal to be added on to infrastructure and operations. Amaral said there will be more effort to protect the Friant Kern Canal and the hard won water quality agreement. Amaral said bearing down on customer service to Friant’s members is also a priority. He asked for feedback about these proposed changes.

Phillips also invited members to contact him and staff if there are any changes or concerns. He added there are other results from the offsite meeting he’s going to address next month. Borges called for the vote and the board was honky dory with it.

Water Ops

Buck Macleod said something all were aware of, January has been dry in the San Joaquin Valley. However, everything from Folsom south has been dry. The latest 10-day forecast shows maybe a half inch this weekend, but that will help Southern California. Precipitation statewide ranges from nothing to 150 percent of average.

At the start of the new year flood releases began at Lake Shasta. Folsom has been at minimum releases. Buck Macleod doesn’t expect Folsom Reservoir to be the workhorse for the Central Valley Project this year. Delta inflows from the Sacramento River are at 30,000 cfs. The first flush in December created a good deal of turbidity in the Delta. Smelt like turbidity so they ramped back the pumps so the turbid water wouldn’t lead smelt to the pumps where they could be entrained. This isn’t helping the prime water transfer time of year.

The San Luis Reservoir has 650,000 a/f and while that sounds good in the cumulative there are many different colors of water in this tub. The problem is this – if the US Bureau of Reclamation can’t get enough water through the Delta to supply the Exchange Contractor’s senior water rights – they’ll take water from Friant. Earlier there was no threat of a call on Friant but that has changed to a 10 percent chance now.

On the Friant side there haven’t been any changes in Class I allocations. Buck Macleod said the Bureau is willing to up the allocation if the situation changes. There was a San Joaquin River Restoration allocation at just about 170,000 a/f and more than 100,000 a/f of riparian supplies currently in the hopper. The first ASO flight will take place on January 30th. Above 9,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada the snowpack isn’t too bad and we should have an accurate estimate in early February.

It was asked how Buck Macleod felt about Weather Tools. He said that business relation is proprietary and he couldn’t discuss it in open session. Weather Tools is a long term forecasting service with a stellar track record for accuracy.HotSpot Ag Banner Ad

Geoff Vanden Heuvel commented that half of Shasta Reservoir has been taken over by nonfederal rules and now the Central Valley Project has to run on half of the designed use. He said the State of California has pulled another fast one by interjecting the long fin smelt into the mix of ecological reasons water supplies have to be curtailed.

Phillips said Reclamation has been spilling between 400,000 to 500,000 a/f so far this year. Had Shasta been operated correctly last year there would have been releases and no problem this year. He said the Biden administration and the state regulators have taken 400,000 a/f has been lost in a couple of weeks. At $800 and acre foot in some places that amounts to $320 million lost. The public needs to know and this is a bipartisan issue. Some elected officials have pushed back against laying the facts out on the table. We might share somethings with Governor Gavin Newsom but not his handling of water policy. The long fin smelt is a flourishing species. It isn’t necessary to take water away from people and then threaten them for stating the truth.

External Affairs

Next Amaral spoke about the major political changes already taking place since the Trump administration has taken over. He said don’t be surprised to see the President visit California soon. On the state side the wildfires in the Los Angeles Basin are taking priority. He said there is a guiding plan written by the Ferguson Group and he highly recommends we all read this.

Amaral and Phillips will be visiting Sacramento and Washington DC next month to meet with new members and they are going to the Mid Pacific Water Conference in Reno next week.

Phillips reported Senator Anna Cavallaro’s water bill was past in the Assembly and State Senate and was vetoed. But it’s back. He also urged everyone to contact their legislators to NOT vote some blanket “Trump Proof” bill. We must stand united on this and other water matters.

Personally, I don’t know how it’s legal for our state elected officials to take tax payer money away from conducting business for the citizens of California and stockpile it to sue the federal administration. Last I heard they were pitching in $25-$50 million of our money. We have people dying from fires, thousands impacted from losing their homes. The deficit is in the billions of dollars and those elected officials want to pay attorneys to do what? About four yards of High on Speed Rail would pay for this. That’s math off the top of my head and I may have exaggerated – it might only be two yards of track. If the Democrat Party of California wants to fund raise that amount from the private sector – go for it. And before anyone starts clutching their pearls about getting partisan, I have a question for you. How do you remain nonpartisan when for all practical purposes there is only one party with the votes to force things in Sacramento?

Blueprint

            Austin Ewell reported West Coast Advisors have been retained by the San Joaquin Valley Water Blueprint to woo them over in Sacramento. WCA is a well-regarded firm. The Blueprint sent a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board in opposition to the unlimited through Delta flows it is considering.

SLDMWA

            Wilson Orvis reported on the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority saying there was an all board workshop on infrastructure held earlier this month. Friant was represented and Orvis said this was a productive time. The SLDM passed a new budget and he’s keeping an eye on it. Phillips reported Orvis wasn’t able to attend in person and he almost could feel Orvis coming out of his skin online in Denver.

Phillips said Friant cares about the Delta Mendota Canal and Friant raised some questions about the situation. There is subsidence on the DMC and SLDM’s consultant didn’t or couldn’t identify what is causing it. SLDM received a letter from Westlands Water District urging SLDM to find out what is causing the subsidence. I haven’t read it but I understand it was strongly worded.   Phillips said the DMC can carry to capacity provided it doesn’t follow the free board rules. The Bureau said they’ve not enforced the free board rules. How will this impact the next planning committee meeting as SLDM is trying to work out subsidence on the DMC? I guess we’ll see. Phillips stressed Friant has been attending these committee meetings not to throw shade but to ask some questions. Here’s my analysis, Friant knows a lot about subsidence and probably has some germane questions.

CEO Report

Phillips also said on his first day in office Trump placed Paul Souza USFW and David Palumbo USBR as interim directors of those two agencies. He said Palumbo will be in Reno next week at the Mid Pacific Water Users Conference. And fortunately, the bowling tournament will be taking place. The world bowling center or whatever they call the giant geodesic dome is pretty amazing and the water manager tournament is a highlight of the conference.

Doug Burgum should be confirmed as Secretary of Interior next week. No word yet on who will be the new USBR Commissioner. The Colorado River and now California water are going to be big items for whoever gets that gig.

With that the meeting was adjourned at 11:27am and a lunch of pork and beef was served. Go be good to each other and yourselves.

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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 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 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.

 

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