By Joel Hastings
A special board of directors meeting of the Madera Irrigation District was called to order at precisely 2:00 p.m. in the MID board room on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 by President Dave Loquaci, who then led the Pledge. There was one reportable item from the closed session, a rejection of the Government Code claim in the lawsuit versus San Joaquin River Ranch LLC, Riverstone Development and Groveland Development Corporation.
With no public comment in person or online, the board considered the first item of new business, appointing General Manager Tom Greci as interim secretary for the board of directors since Andrea Sandoval is on an extended leave of absence. Taking the notes for the minutes of this meeting was office staffer Carmina Espinosa.
Assistant GM Dina Nolan thanked her and others on the office staff for filling in with the many chores for Sandoval.
A public hearing on the adoption of the district’s Water Management Plan with addendums was next. The 160-page document had been available for public consideration and was included in the board meeting packet. Providing a comprehensive overview of water use in
the district, the report is required both annually and with a summary every five years by the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the state Department of Water Resources. There was no public comment so the public hearing was closed and then the board acted to approve the plan for submittal as required. Engineering staff member Rosendo Baldovinos was on hand if there were of questions… he was credited with coordinating preparation of the report. The report is available on the district’s website.
Following adoption of the report, President Loquaci commented that ample rainfall last year was only part of the story… cooler temperatures had allowed the water season to begin later. GM Greci said that this year the extremely warm and dry weather in March might require a reduction in the class 1 water from Friant, perhaps down to 90 percent from the current 100 percent, possibly making for a shorter water season.
Convening as the MID GSA board, the group heard a presentation on the domestic well mitigations program from John Davids, Davids Engineering, the firm that has been contracted to administer the program, a joint project with the City of Madera and the Madera Water District. Davids began by complimenting the preparation of the water management plan. He said rarely is it prepared by staff, as this one is, and equally unusual, it’s designed to be informative for the public as well as to meet the legal requirements of the Bureau and the state.
He introduced his colleague, Nancy Navarro, who will be administering the program and then proceeded with some background, describing the original effort to have a single plan for all the GSAs impacting the Madera Subbasin. When several decided to go their own way, MID along with the two municipal organizations immediately began work on this program.
Davids credited staff of MID and the other agencies for developing all the details he was presenting, acknowledging to the board that the Davids’ role was to administer this plan.
He summarized the program which is funded jointly by the groups saying it is designed to offset the impacts to domestic wells caused by declining groundwater levels.
The key points are:
-the well must be within boundaries of MID, the city or the water district
-the applicant must be the owner of record
-it is limited to the drilling of a new well only
-strictly one-time mitigation
-the landowner has responsibility during the process
-the maximum award is $35,000
-and landowners must use one of the pre-approved well drillers, currently four
Davids went on to describe more detail and present the various forms to be used during the process, all of which are posted on the MID website. First, there is an application form to be accompanied
by a non-refundable $100 fee along with the initial well assessment form to be completed by the landowner and the well driller within 45 days. Next is an approval process form which is a binding agreement among the landowner, the well driller and the administrator. And finally, there is a DWMP mitigation program agreement, a legal contract. On completion of the work, funds are paid by the administrator to the well driller.
Most of the documents and the language describing the program are in both English and Spanish, the exception of the final contract which is English only. Available for board review was the one-page informational flyer that will be distributed to the public in order to invite participation by affected landowners.
During discussion following the slide presentation, directors expressed satisfaction that the program is now in place and available to affected property owners. However, directors expressed concern than if those using the mitigation program didn’t drill deep enough, they might still experience wells going dry.
Loquaci commented that while MID is doing all we can do to bring in water he had seen examples of neighboring farmers using even more water than they used in 2020. He concluded, “Try as we might, I’m still worried about our groundwater table dropping.”
Assistant GM Nolan pulled up the website to show how the program is described and made available. After saying thanks to Davids for his presentation, the board reconvened as the MID board. With no further comments from directors, the meeting was declared adjourned at 2:45 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: Dave Loquaci, president; Brian Davis, vice-president, Brandon Bishel, Tim DaSilva and Carl Janzen
HISTORY: From www.madera-id.org The Madera Irrigation District (MID or District), founded in 1920, 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
