By Don A. Wright
The Friant Water Authority board of directors met at the Bello Vita Event Venue in Visalia on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Closed session was scheduled to start at 8:30am. Just a reminder or for those of you new to the world of California special districts, although the Friant Kern and Madera Canals are federal property administered by the US Bureau of Reclamation, the Friant Water Authority is a Joint Powers Authority in California. This
means the FWA membership is made up of special districts – political subdivisions of the state. Therefor Friant has to operate under California’s Ralph M. Brown Act that requires discussions be open to the public but for matters involving real property negotiations, personnel and legal matters. One of the laws in California you can point to as sensible. You don’t want to lay out your lawsuit strategy or an employee’s job performance review to the world.
The closed session agenda included four cases of existing litigation, four possible exposures to litigation, two potential initiations of litigation and property negotiation. It must have went well because I arrived a mere eight minutes late and evidently Chairman Jim Erickson had called the open session portion of the meeting to order by the scheduled 10:00am time.
The Meeting
Here’s what I missed – public comment and I was told there was none, the consent calendar approval of the minutes, the bills paid and the lone action item dealing with legislation. One of the bills discussed is AB 2079 by our old friend, Assemblyman Steve Bennett of Ventura. It is another example of the state trying to rewrite SGMA in the image of later elected officials instead of leaving the goal posts in one place.
Bennett has attempted to muddy up Valley water before with last year’s authoring of a bill requiring impossible engineering reports as a prelude to well permitting. This year with AB 2079 he’s trying again to block well construction by making mandated permitting standards often unattainable for permittees to reach. This time he has the Newsom Administration’s backing by way of Department of Water Resource’s support.
I don’t understand why the coastal elites believe they have to stick their nose and nuggets into other parts of the state’s business. It certainly comes across as arrogant. Last year I asked Bennett by email if any Groundwater Sustainability Agency had asked for his help in writing a law requiring an additional layer or reporting requirements to give them more power over denying well permits. He responded by saying he didn’t have time to get into the technicalities. I asked him if he didn’t have time to get into the technicalities of a bill he wrote – that could hamstring the San Joaquin Valley’s agricultural sector – who did? Never heard back from the man.
Canal Repairs
When I arrived at the meeting Stantec Engineering’s Janet Atkinson was giving an online update of progress on the Friant Kern Canal repairs, or as it is officially known as the
capacity correction project. As my computer warmed up I believe I heard her say something like – for a half a billion dollar construction project there have been fewer than three percent expenditures for change orders. And it is close to completion. There are still road resurfacing and riprap placement left to finish.
Atkinson reported the new and/or replacement pump stations to move water from the canal to the member districts’ turnouts, I believe. I wish I had an engineer sitting next to me sometimes so I could ask them questions.
Water Ops
Ian Buck-Macleod reported snowmelt is a bit faster than usual and there are no more storms in the forecast. He said both Lake Shasta and Millerton Lake are at 100 percent for this time of year. Shasta has been releasing pulse flows and Folsom is doing all right for storage. The Delta is under the interim operations plan and that is hindering exports.
There have been fish facilities in the South Delta undergoing repairs and that caused a cut back. That work, I believe, is finished and the federal Jones Plant should be running four of its five pumps. That’s good news for South of Delta Central Valley Project contractors. The San Luis Reservoir is filling and he expects an increased allocation for South of Delta CVP contractors.
Since the April meeting there has been a small spill at Friant Dam and some uncontrolled season was released. Mid-May an unlimited uncontrolled season was declared and the FKC and the Madera Canal were filled. There have been releases at Pine Flat Dam on the Kings River for flood control. One the reasons for increased Friant releases was the accumulation of warm water spilling over the top of the dam and getting into the San Joaquin River.
There were mechanical issues and thunderstorms over the Sierra Nevada causing a delay in the Airborne Snow Survey flights lately. Buck-Macleod said there appears to be a good deal of snow still above 10,000 feet and that is good news for a prolonged supply from runoff. Buck-Macleod said water captured from the San Joaquin River at Patterson Irrigation District is running at a steady 30 cubic feet per second.
External Affairs
Mike Villines said he’s working on some left over bills from last year in Sacramento. The state budget is bad and it continues to degrade. He said next year’s budget isn’t expected to be much better. June 15th is the deadline to pass a budget and if they can’t do that the elected officials won’t be paid until they get it done. This year’s bonding is at risk from the budget. He said a $6-8 billion water bond could make it to the ballot in November. The deadline for getting bills across the line is soon approaching.
Director Edwin Camp asked what the current cost of the tunnel is estimated and how much of that will be paid by the state. Villines said he didn’t have a good answer today but he’ll get answers for the next meeting. CEO Jason Phillips said he’s hearing the tunnel cost has gone from $16 billion to $20 billion and that’s being blamed on inflation.
Johnny Amaral said in the past 30-days the Water Education Foundation did its annual tour and stopped at Friant Dam and Deer Creek. The Friant Annual Meeting was last week and it was very successful. He thanked staff for all the hard work they did to make the dinner a success.
Amaral reported the ACWA conference was in Sacramento and Friant did get some relational work completed. He said November 19th-21st is the off site workshop and he urged everyone to attend; a lot of work gets done there. There will be a June 21st ribbon cutting for the new canal project.
Amaral reported there was a special election to fill the vacancy left by Congressman Kevin McCarthy bailing when things didn’t go his way. You may recall McCarthy climbed a very steep hill to become the Speaker of the House. Some butt-clown from Florida just couldn’t maintain unity long enough to keep from smearing grease and down slid McCarthy. So, he
bailed and his seat has sat vacant, triggering another Republican verses Republican race. Actually, two races. One to fill the remainder of McCarthy’s term and another race for the full two year term to start in 2025. Assemblyman Vince Fong won the race for the vestigial term. Holding that seat for the next six-months and the more than $500,000 campaign account is going to go a long ways to getting him elected to the full term. The district is a safe Republican stronghold in California and Fong is an energetic and young man. We could see a Congressman Fong for some time to come.
Amaral also announced Jordan Neves is the new Friant Public Information Officer. Good for her.
O&M
Superintendent Chris Hickernell reported water is flowing, hallelujah. The weather has cooperated for repairs and maintenance. He said they are treating algae with crystalized copper sulfate. The Friant staff also worked with the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office on swift water rescue training in the FKC. Friant employees are also working continuously on safety. New signage along the canal has been installed to update the old and faded signs.
Water Blueprint
Austin Ewell, Interim Director Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley gave his report saying the recent Punjabi American Growers Group Ag Workshop was a good event. The Blueprint participated in a panel discussion on water. I agree with Ewell’s assessment, it was a great opportunity to reach out to the Punjabi community and get them more involved in supporting common sense water supply solutions.
Ewell had lots more to say since there were many other things involving the Blueprint like an MOU with Metropolitan Water Authority. More about that later.
SLDMWA
Wilson Orvis reported the updates on the JPA and bylaws. He said things are moving along according to plan. It was a short report.
CEO Report
Phillips said he has been busy the past few weeks. He said he spoke at the WEF tour at Friant Dam where he spoke to about 50 folks about Friant issues. He used this as a chance to advocate for Friant. Good for him. He showed a photo of Amaral in an orange safety vest and some folks from the US Bureau of Reclamation showing the WEF tour what’s happening on the FKC. He said Friant has been hosting the WEF tours for 30-years and it would be amazing to see who has come through the area on tour and where they are now.
Phillips then spoke about signing an MOU with Metropolitan Water District. He said Met, San Luis Delta Mendota and Friant are all now working together to start looking at more water storage. He said there should never be any drops of water that go unused because of lazy or unthought out programs. There were other MOUs being signed at ACWA left and right. One was signed between Met and the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley. Like I wrote above, more about that MOU later, not now.
The annual meeting was good. I was there and really enjoyed myself. The biggest take away for me was the presentation honoring former Friant Chair Kole Upton. It was moving to see video of him speaking. He was always good and kind and I’ve benefited from knowing him.
At the dinner Phillips spoke about throwing dirt clods at a “wall ball” wall. He had a photo of a brick wall and I think a handball wall might have been more apt, but who knows the elementary school recess culture he was raised in. Anyway, his point was Valley water interest have often attempted to overcome challenges buy throwing dirt clods at brick walls. He advocated for the proper tool being used to deal with the proper challenge. It was well received and a good illustration.
Also at the annual dinner, Tulare Irrigation District’s General Manager Aaron Fukuda was awarded a toy, plastic sword that has been handed down for generations between Friant folks. Known as the annual Happy Water Warrior Award, Fukuda was also asked to use his engineering skills to restore the decade or more old gadget’s talking ability. Evidently many of the former winners, also engineers, never figured out how to change the batteries. I have faith Fukuda will restore full functionality to the talking toy sword.
In Washington DC Phillips and others met at the Department of Interior to work out the agreement between Friant and the westside of the Valley. And finally, Phillips reported on the state of water supplies in the San Joaquin Valley at an ACWA presentation put on by
the ACWA Agriculture Committee. He spoke the truth about SGMA. I was there also and he laid it on them. He spoke about how the state continually ratchets down surface supplies denying recharge and then puts SGMA out as local control to a problem it created.
With that the meeting came to an end and we ate lunch at 11:26am. Pretty short for a JPA meeting. Go be and do good.
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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.
