By Don A. Wright
The Friant Water Authority board of directors’ Executive Committee met at FWA headquarters in Lindsey California on Monday, September 16, 2024. The meeting was in person and on MS Teams, so attending online is always a bit of a crap shoot with getting connected. Or so my personal history suggests. According to the agenda the meeting was scheduled to begin in closed session at 8:30am and then open up at 9:30am.
The Meeting
The meeting began at 9:41am with Chairman Jim Erickson calling things to order in open session. There was nothing to report from closed session. The minutes were approved with one minor change.
CEO Jason Phillips led the committee through the Fiscal Year 2025 Operations, Maintenance & Replacement Budget before it’s recommended to the full board at next week’s board meeting. He said the costs of suing the Tule Subbasin for damages to the Friant Kern Canal due to subsidence, could be charged to the Middle reach of the FKC repair project costs. This creates a problem. Some, if not all of the defendants being sued are Friant members. It is doubtful these districts would be willing to pay FWA to sue them.
Sean Geivet, General Manager of the Porterville, Saucelito and Terra Bella Irrigation Districts asked where Friant was authorized to sue for legal fees by the US Bureau of Reclamation. All three of these districts are in the Tule Subbasin.
Phillips said the members of the Joint Powers Authority have the obligation to support performing OM&R. If I understood he said the Bureau’s position on FWA’s performing OM&R has no bearing on charging legal fees under that account. Director Cliff Loeffler expressed his opinion that all the Friant members need to pay when there are damages to the canal. The committee voted to bring this to full board.
The last action item was about Resolution No. 2024-05 authorizing the installation of a liner to the FKC as part of the DWR flood diversion and recharge enhancement initiative. Water Resource Manager Ian Buck-Macleod said the repairs of the canal showed the need to raise the liner on a smaller stretch of the canal much further upstream than the repaired area. I believe he was referring to two sites – one in Fresno County near the Kings River and another in Tulare County near the Kaweah River. There is some money left over from the major repairs, around $1 million. That should cover the costs. The committee will send this along to the board.
Water Operations
Next Buck-Macleod said there is some moisture heading to California but not enough to make much of a difference since the water year ends at the end of the month.
Buck-Macleod said the studies show the Fall X2 actions are not helpful to the smelt’s life cycle. Many stakeholders pushed back against this. The Bureau has put forth the plan to operate the Fall X2 until the end of the month and off ramp in October. So far the costs to Central Valley Project water supply has been smaller than usual. They’ve opened some gates and sent 20,000 a/f into Suisun Bay. This is up for public comment. Phillips said the joint letter sent by the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley and the Southern
California Water Coalition to the Governor and the Secretary of Interior helped to provide some direction. Is throwing water at the Suisun Bay marshland without a provable plan or scientific input doing anything to help? In Phillips opinion this needs further thought.
The public comments have been helpful in highlighting the need to operate with adaptive management instead of outdated guidelines. Buck-Macleod said the storage in the CVP reservoirs is in pretty good shape. He said San Luis Reservoir has more than 400,000 a/f of carryover on the federal side. Neither the Bureau or the water users predictions about SLR storage were accurate. To learn more and or make a comment click here: PDF Memo to DRD RE NEPA Coverage for 2024 Fall X2 Action 20240911 DRAFT
On the Friant side there isn’t much change in forecasts from last month. The Bureau sent out a reservoir. Upstream on the San Joaquin River Southern Cal Edison doesn’t have much flexibility on releases. The SJR restoration had a short pulse flow and then went back to the usual flow regime. There is some capture of SJR water at Banta Carbona ID. There needs to be a renewal of that permit by November.
SLDMWA
CFO Wilson Orvis reported the 2022 true up from San Luis put some additional charges on Friant’s bill. There is a series of meetings by a new planning committee comprised of Westlands Water District Director Justin Diener, a representative of the USBR and Phillips and Buck-Macleod representing Friant. FWA Director Edwin Camp asked about a timeline to fix the subsidence of the Delta Mendota Canal. Orvis said it’s too soon to tell as this is a $1 billion proposal and funding is still in question.
CEO Report
Phillips told the committee this month’s board meeting will see a bigger contingent of Bureau personnel than usual. One of the topics is SJR Restoration 10-plan. The projects and the budget doesn’t match. There are more costs than funds. The goal is a clear path for the fish from Friant to the ocean. He said Senator Alex Padilla introduced some bipartisan legislation that received positive testimony from the Bureau. If passed this bill will help funding on the restoration and repairs to flow easier. The State of California sent a letter saying it would try to match the dollars spent by the feds.
There was a delegation to Washington DC by Friant and there was a good deal of discussion and testimony on the way the Endangered Species Act and the regulatory climate for the past 40 years has been abused. Phillips testified and said the bucket has a hole in it and the bureaucrats are punching more holes in it. Congress is the key to fixing this and has the responsibility to do so. He said if the National Marine Fishery Service, the State Water Resources Control Board and other similar agencies are allowed to continue creating the regulations without legislative oversight sustainability will not be attained. This is a threat to our rights. Phillips also said there was a lot of talk about the Voluntary Agreements.
Phillips said the ESA isn’t being followed the way it was intended. He said for example once the Sites Reservoir is completed – investments made, needs dependent on it – the enviros could protest and a government regulator could take have the water away without any input from Congress. It isn’t just water either but, put Phillips said water projects won’t help if the operation is vulnerable to change by bureaucratic whim.
Phillips asked Buck-Macleod to talk some more about the Fall X2. Buck-Macleod said there are scenarios where more than 600,000 a/f could be lost. This year’s estimated cost would be more than 350,000 a/f up to 700,000 a/f in lost water. The Bureau estimates not running Fall X2 in October will save 400,000 a/f. Caller Geoff Vanden Heuvel suggested letting whoever made these decisions need to be recognized. There is a memo sent out by the Bureau about the October operations and public comment closing on Wednesday September 18th. That needs to get out to those who have already sent comments to the Bureau about the Long Term Operations for the Delta.
At 10:57am the committee adjourned and now we have a clearer idea of what will happen at the next Friant Board of Directors meeting. Although it wasn’t mentioned at this meeting, today, September 16, 2024 is the 10th year anniversary of the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. That’s right, a decade of SGMA as of today.
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 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.
