The North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Area meeting was held on Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at the Riverdale Community Education Center. Chairman Mark McKean called the meeting to order at 5:30pm. Charlotte Gallock is taking up the reins left when Eric Osterling left the Kings River Conservation District. There was no public comment. Right out the gate the board approved two change orders. Kevin Johansen, Provost & Pritchard explained the tasks associated with the changes; project management services and Groundwater Sustainability Plan development. This was all discussed at last month’s meeting. The board was also asked to approve three Kings Sub Basin coordination tasks; #5 confined aquifer boundary flow estimates, #6 data management system and #7 water budget coordination. The board approved this as well.
Getting technical Johansen talked about alternatives for apportionment of overdraft responsibility. This was also discussed at last month’s meeting. There are five alternatives. Water in this portion of the San Joaquin Valley flows underground from east to west. Johansen said this is a best estimate based on available data. He said hydrogeology is an art as well as a science. Underground variables are sometimes not know let alone accounted for. Alternatives one and two were not considered acceptable because underground flows were not accounted for. Alternatives three accounted for storage change plus or minus boundary flows. Unlike alternative three alternative took into account historic flows. Alternative five took assumed net demand per acre, total surface deliveries, net demand minus surface deliveries was used to assign overdraft responsibility. No one liked alternative five as it was to general. Alternative four was the preferred methodology for dividing up how much each GSA is contributing to overdraft. Johansen used a lot of helpful graphs and charts but not everyone got a copy. From what I could gather NFKGSA is over-drafting 70,000 a/f or so per year of the 206,000 a/f overdraft in the Kings Sub Basin.
Johansen asked the board to consider adopting a methodology for the sub basin to use in developing the overdraft responsibility. Fresno County Supervisor and NFKGSA Director Buddy Mendes said some of the alternatives are just playing horseshoes with hand grenades. McKean said alternate four is probably the best choice presented so far. Scott Sills said it is also defensible for DWR review. The board adopted alternative four. The next meeting is August 22nd and we all left.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2018 by Don A. Wright No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of DAW.
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.
North Fork Kings GSA: Directors, Division 1 Buddy Mendes County of Fresno, Div.2 Frank Zonneveld Laguna ID, Div. 3 Carol Hall Laton Community Services Dist., Div. 4 Mark McKean Crescent Canal Company, Div. 5 Leonard Acquistapace Riverdale Irrigation Company, Div. 6 Stephen Maddox Liberty Mill Race Company & Div. 7 Tony Campos Liberty WD