By Joel Hastings
President Jim Erickson called to order the open meeting of the Madera Irrigation District at 2:10 p.m. on February 20, 2024, at the District offices and on Zoom. He led the Pledge and said there was nothing to report from the closed session that had been held the previous hour. That session was to consult with Counsel John Kinsey on six items each of anticipated and existing litigations. There were no conflicts of interest for the directors on the open meeting agenda and no public comment.
The board moved to the GSA agenda with a report from Assistant General Manager Dina Nolan. She said that on December 21, 2023, the Department of Water Resources had notified the GSAs around the Madera Subbasin that their GSP had been approved. She said work continues with an outside facilitator funded by a grant to better coordinate the communication and work among the seven GSAs in the Subbasin. She said in March the consulting firm working on the annual and five-year reports for the Subbasin will present the draft to the board and the public with the final reports due to DWR by April 1. She said there continues to be a successful partnership with NRCS with grant funding available to District growers for sustainable conservation projects. She said that she and GM Tom Greci had had a productive meeting with NRCS staff exploring opportunities for future projects.
At the conclusion of this report, Erickson recognized for a question Christina Beckstead, executive director of the Madera County Farm Bureau, who attended throughout this meeting. Beckstead asked if the GSP approval had been subject to certain conditions and if so, what were they and how were they being responded to. Nolan replied that the approval was an 80-page document and the GSAs had not yet met to review the detail. Erickson added that Madera ID continues to carry out the projects it has committed to as part of the GSP.
Reconvening as the Madera ID board, the group approved the consent agenda unanimously and without discussion. Included here were four items… minutes of the December 19, 2023, regular meeting; the warrant list of payments as of February 1 amounting to $2,030,000.27; financial reports for November and December showing a total cash balance on December 31, 2023, of $47,495,235.45; and approval of an updated sick leave policy for District employees.
Continuing with the agenda, Charles Contreras, operations and maintenance manager, gave his usual detailed report, contained on ten pages in the board packet, covering a wide range of repairs and replacement of facilities, work on District vehicles and equipment and staff training sessions. He said the goal is to complete repairs of all identified leaks in pipes and trenches by the end of March in preparation for the new water year. It was understood by all that the 365-days of water distribution in 2023 had both created the need for repairs and at the same time, made them more difficult to accomplish.
The board also approved the listing of payments of more than $100 made to board members and staff in 2023 as required by the state and presented in the board packet. Nearly all of these funds totaling about $11,000 were reimbursements for travel expenses involved in meeting attendance.
With a few minutes remaining before the scheduled 2:30 agenda item on the High Speed Rail project, GM Greci began his report announcing the upcoming ACWA (Association of California Water Associations) meeting to be held May 7 – 9 in Sacramento. All board members are invited to attend along with several staff.
He said that he and Contreras had reviewed facilities at the MCWPA power plant. The Madera ID crew accomplished a number of panel replacements, trash racks repair and foundation work caused by draining and erosion during the very wet 2023. He said the multi-year project on the Fresno River bridge was also being completed, with no new concerns after review by state biologists.
High Speed Rail Report
As scheduled at 2:30 p.m., President Erickson introduced Paul Swearingen, a deputy contract manager for California High Speed Rail (CHSR). Also present were two staff from Stantec, the consulting firm involved with route planning and construction. They were Tina Moschetti, vice-president and U.S. West Regional Business Leader, and Esteban Nunez, also in the Fresno office. Also joining the meeting here was MID staffer Darren Garcia, engineering technician supervisor.
Using a slide presentation, Swearingen gave an overview of the entire project, from San Francisco to Los Angeles with extensions to Sacramento and San Diego. He said there is a target date of 2033 for passenger service to begin. He said the train would be the only one like it in the U.S. traveling at up to 220 mph.
He quickly zeroed in on the section to run from Merced through Madera County and on into the south side of Fresno, the section to be completed by 2027. He said that benefits of the project included 11,400 construction jobs including 500 in Madera County. He said the Central Valley Training Center had graduated 151 students in the trades.
Consultant Nunez presented details of where the route would cross MID boundaries at three places. The visitors explained that costs incurred by MID to plan for and then rebuild or relocate any affected facilities would be reimbursed by CHSR.
The presentations lasted 15 minutes with a Q & A session following by board members and Farm Bureau’s Beckstead. Discussion items ranged from cost and schedule overruns, to the availability of electricity to power the locomotives, to road closures created by construction. In reply to some of these questions, Swearingen called attention to the updated business plan to be adopted in May and available for public review in March at www.hsr.ca.gov.
As per the MID meeting agenda, the board concluded this portion of the meeting about 3 p.m. approving a resolution that allows GM Greci to enter into agreements with CHSR for reimbursements of District costs.
GM Report
Returning to his GM report, Greci gave the board a detailed picture of the 2023 water year. He began by describing recharge results in each of the Districts nine basins. He had slides for each one that showed monthly and daily water intakes along with particulars about soil types, acreages, new construction and repairs and improvements made. In summary, he said an estimated total of 18,000 AF had been recharged through these facilities. He said that with a new basin being constructed on recently purchased land and repaired gates at Madera Lake, he was optimistic that as water is available, even more can be done in future years.
He said the District worked closely with the city of Madera which had some 2,000 AF of recharge with aggressive support from city management throughout the year. Included here was 100 AF recharged at the Municipal Golf Course. He noted that the county had not accepted any water in its single basin until December 13, even though the District had offered a no-charge supply throughout the year.
Shifting to surface water supplies, Greci continued his presentation saying that 200,000 AF had been delivered to District growers. His graphs showed the interruption with flooding in March and then a bump when the price was lowered to ten dollars on November 1. He said
the District had received contract supplies totaling 350,000 AF. It had also taken mandatory flood releases from the Bureau during the spring storms amounting to some 200,000 AF put into the Fresno and Chowchilla Rivers. Although this represented water not captured, he said a benefit had been that the power plants had been able to run at full capacity. He said the District had had a role in moving over half a million acre feet of water during the year. He said he was very happy with the results.
Looking ahead to 2024, he said we don’t really know yet, but Hensley Lake is coming up nicely and still should be able to handle the current storms. He says he’s more nervous about Friant and that the District carried over 13,000 AF which it may have to take before the season really starts. Overall, he said it’s looking pretty good this year (2024).
During discussion, it was noted growers had done far more with storm water as well as District water on their lands. And the water recharged under river beds that ran full for months is not tallied either. It was also noted that with water levels in test wells higher in the fall than in the spring, for the first time in many years, it will be of great interest to see where levels are in the spring as all this recharge actually reaches the basins.
The final item of business was a request by a large water purchaser, Pacific Resources, for a waiver of its penalty fee of $7,311.64 for past due payment for water delivered through the Friant – Kern Canal via two other districts. According to a letter from Travis Millwee, water resource manager for the firm, his confirmation of water receipt had been delayed. He was on Zoom to speak with the board, assuring them that the payment of the original invoice was not done with any intent to avoid timely payment. After consideration, the board consensus was that its billing had been proper, and it did not want to set a precedent of waiving late fees. In fact, President Erickson acknowledged ruefully that he had paid
substantial late fees when his check for payment remained in his truck rather than being delivered to the office on time.
Directors Reports
To conclude as usual each director was given the floor for any comments. Director Tim DaSilva said he attended the San Luis meeting in Los Banos which never seems to change much. He said they had been told that the Sacramento and Mendota dam repairs would be good for five more years.
February 23 will be the first meeting for the ACWA district 6 reported by Director Brian Davis. He said it was hard to hear the high speed rail discussion, but he was glad the reports were on the agenda all the same. He also said he appreciated Greci’s discussion about all the water. He remembers too well the years when there was no water.
Carl Janzen said he had attended the Mid-Pacific meeting in Reno with the other directors and staff. He said he learned some things and was glad to meet others who work with the staff of the Bureau [of Reclamation]. He enjoyed attending the MID Christmas party as
staff received awards for longevity. It was pointed out he himself had received a 25-year award for his service on the board. He also said that the San Joaquin River Conservancy would have a new manager shortly.
Director Dave Loquaci said he would be interested to see “the paper work” for the annual and five-year reports for the GSP to be completed by the consultants. He also described a meeting he had attended hosted by local grower Kevin Herman. Madera District Attorney Sally Moreno described a statewide effort to get a ballot initiative to repair some of the damage done by Prop 47, especially with regard to stopping repeat offenders who shoplift or steal. Loquaci described recent
thefts from his farm. The District itself has suffered from vandalism by thieves who steal copper and other metals. Loquaci said that the mayors of both San Francisco and San Diego support this effort called “The Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act.”
Erickson said his work on the Friant board continues and he had attended a preliminary meeting about the possibility of raising the San Luis dam.
The meeting returned to a very brief closed session at 3:58 p.m.
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Madera Irrigation District – 12152 Road 28 ¼ Madera, CA 93637 559/673-3514
Staff: General Manager -Thomas Greci, Assistant GM – Dina Nolan
Board: Jim Erickson, Chair; Tim DaSilva, Brian Davis, Carl Janzen and Dave Loquaci
HISTORY: From www.madera-id.org The Madera Irrigation District (MID or District) encompasses an area of approximately 139,665 acres. MID operates a primarily gravity irrigation distribution system with approximately 300 miles of open flow canal systems as well as 150 miles of large diameter pipelines.
The District has a Central Valley Project (CVP) repayment contract with United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) providing up to 85,000 acre feet (AF) of Class 1 and 186,000 AF of Class 2 water per year from the Friant Division (Millerton Lake). The CVP water is released from Millerton Lake through the Friant Dam, and then conveyed through the Madera Canal for delivery into the District’s service area. The District also entered into a CVP repayment contract with the USBR for the yield from the Hidden Unit (Hensley Lake). Under the Hidden Unit contract, the average annual supply available to the District is approximately 24,000 AF per year.
DWR SGMA # 5-022.06
