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McMullin Area GSA November 3, 2021

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Bermad irrigationThe McMullin Area GSA met on Wednesday, November 3, 2021 in Kerman at the Community Center and on Zoom. Chairman Don Cameron called the meeting at 2:00pm and the roll call, public comments and approval of the minutes fell like dominos. General Manager Matt Hurley presented the financial documents to the board and that too was approved.Conterra

The Meeting

MAGSA has 23 monitoring wells and someone has to track this data. A company I’ve never heard of, SGMA Water Analytics, Inc., is under consideration for the contract. Hurley said this company is very up to speed with security; the data won’t be on the cloud. SGMA Water Analytics is a Seattle Washington based company. Hurley says he’s know them for a while. The board approved a resolution entering into a contract with SGMA Water Analytics for $50,000 plus time, materials and expenses. It took a while to get that information about the agreed upon fee because whenever I spoke it echoed. But the meeting was using The Owl, a camera/microphone that works pretty good. I imagine it would work better if the band-with at the Kerman Community Center was more robust. Anyway a company out of Washington State has a toe hold in the Valley’s SGMA game. What do you think about that?

The Geosyntec Team Report on a water marketing grant was given by Hurley. If I understood the board accepted the final report. MAGSA is working on building a water bank and there was a brief report given.

Hurley reported on current and additional grant funds. He drove up to Sacramento to hand deliver one application to the State and he had trouble finding anyone in the building to hand it off to. MAGSA is applying for a US Bureau of Reclamation grant and keeping an eye out for other opportunities. MAGSA is working on improving its infrastructure. Cameron said there is a lot of money for the SWEET and EQIP funding. These are grants going to farmers through the Bureau and USDA. Most of the grants offered by the state require either special district or nonprofit status to be eligible.

Draft Rules & Regs

Next Hurley went over the draft of proposed Rules and Regulations put forth by staff and legal counsel. These would include specific criteria to move any water out of the GSA. A fee scheduled is included. The prices range from $285 to $1,000 per acre foot based on an analysis provided by an economic firm. I didn’t catch this firm’s name. This export policy will be posted on the web and public comment is requested.  Someone asked why not just ban exports instead of price disincentives and Hurley said this is new territory and the legal ramifications aren’t certain yet. There are provisions for moving water in and out of the water bank and for people with land that straddles the GSA boundaries. There is a two month comment period so questions can be heard and ideas considered.

Next the board heard a report on the progress being made in implementing theAll Water Rights Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Hurley said DWR will review the single GSA subbasins first. MAGSA is in the Kings Subbasin and there are seven GSAs in the Kings. Certainly one of the most populated and therefore most likely to be one of the last subbasin GSP plans to be reviewed. So far only four reviews have been completed by DWR. They have until the end of the year. There was a subbasin coordination meeting last month and the talks centered around the outreach.

Directors Report

Matt Abercrombie said Fresno County is working with the attempts by white areas still trying to organize and it is a slow but sure process.

Jonathan DeGroot Raisin City Water District said they have been talking about annexation of additional white area lands.

Jeevan Singh said the Mid Valley Water District is also talking about annexation. White area folks want to be represented.

Outreach

Cristal Tufenkjian gave the outreach report saying online views have risen this past month. Twitter views have also improved. She said the Kerman Ag Expo was a favorite and the LinkedIn views are also doing well. A public scoping session and a webinar will be coming up in the next month.

A letter with a copy of the well registration drive has gone out to all the landowners in the GSA. The deadline for registering is the first of the year. She said the Kerman Ag Expo was a good vehicle to bring interested folks to the MAGSA crew for a discussion about what’s going on.

There is a Kings Subbasin wide outreach effort going on. Recharge basins are being installed and utilized at record rates.

Shocking news. Hurley said Tufenkjian and Rebecca Quist of the Kings River Conservation District have been reassigned and this will be their last MAGSA meeting. I don’t know how they can be replaced. Well, they can’t be.

There was a question from a grower – when will pumping restrictions or land retirement kick in? Hurley said that isn’t expected to take place until 2030. The focus will be on improving supplies and efficiency. Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco said no one knows for sure until DWR completes its review. Hurley said any landowner can come to him and he’ll discuss things like planting new trees.

The next MAGSA board meeting is December 8th. There was one closed session item for anticipated litigation. The open portion of the meeting adjourned at 2:55pm and that was that.

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SGMA The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 calls for the formation of Groundwater Sustainability Areas within Basins and Sub-basins to develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans.

McMullin Area GSA – The McMullin Area GSA member agencies are Fresno County, Raisin City Water District and the Mid Valley Water District. Located in Western Fresno County MMAGSA is one of seven GSAs in the Kings River Sub Basin.

DWR Listing: Basin San Joaquin, Sub Basin Kings 5-022.08

Directors – Brian Pacheco, Don Cameron, Gagan Batth, Jeevan Singh & Matt Abercrombie.

Staff – Matt Hurley, General Manager. Janelle Krattiger, District Counsel. Randy Hopkins, Engineer.

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