The North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency Advisory Committee met on Friday, April 8, 2022 on GoToMeeting. Executive Director Kassy Chauhan said there was some problem meeting a quorum and Chairman Scott Redelfs said something like waiting is the price on occasion. The City of Fresno Representative showed and Redelfs called the meeting at 1:33pm. Chauhan read the rules into the minutes and called roll.
The Meeting
The first action item was approving a resolution allowing the committee to meet remotely. There were no public presentations or comments and the minutes were approved. One of the disadvantages of remote meetings is the need to a roll call vote for every action. It’s not that bad but it must be a slight pain for Chauhan to have to repeat herself over and over. Was that a redundant sentence, repeat over and over?
Finances
Lisa Koehn gave the financial report and it was quick and generated no questions, because she gave a good report. It was approved. As Redelfs commented, it was a quiet meeting. And the deal is if you want a quick meeting hold it on a Friday afternoon. It doesn’t always work that way but on a beautiful spring day with a minimum quorum things should flow smoothly. Chauhan said interested parties are invited to make donations and any funds from that will go to next years budget.
Coordination
Engineer Ronnie Samuelian reported there is a $7.6 million grant awaiting approval from DWR staff. The North King’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan is being revised and coordination between the GSAs in the Kings Subbasin and DWR is ongoing. The deadline to finalize the GSP is July 27th. Sounded like things are on track to wrap that up in June.
Samuelian said the annual SGMA report due on April 1st was submitted to DWR on time. It’s bleak. Only 23 percent of the average amount of surface water, 335,000 a/f came into the subbasin. It’s like the 2015 year when conditions were similar to now, very dry. In 2020 there was more than 900,000 a/f of surface water entered the subbasin. It looks like almost certainly a negative impact to groundwater levels.
Administrative
Redelfs asked Chauhan to update the committee on the recent Governor’s Executive Order. Rick Heinrichs from the Fresno County Health Department was supposed to speak but something happened to him. In Fresno County the Health Department issues well permits. The executive order requires the GSA where the well permit will allow drilling must review the permit. A form has been developed to cover the GSA’s duties. The form is still under review by attorneys. There is also a form for the well drillers stating the well will be
domestic and de-minimis therefore exempt from the executive order. This has been a fairly quick turnaround by the GSAs and the county. Good for them. Many are calling the order tantamount to a moratorium on any new wells. Chauhan said AB 2201 is a proposed legislation to make GSA reviews permanent. She also said there are dozens and dozens of emergency ag wells in the hopper. She doesn’t want to jeopardize the wells or enter NKGSA into some legal liability.
Samuelian noted there is a great deal of frustration as the executive order was written without input from anyone who might be impacted by this order. He said to expect some pushback. I asked if anyone knows who actually writes the language that goes into this order. Apparently this is something done by the Governor’s office by someone who doesn’t fully understand what he or she are talking about. This order couldn’t be posturing by the Governor to send the impression he’s doing something even if it’s more show than anything, could it?
It sounds like Chauhan will suddenly have to write a report for every permit. That’s a lot of time and it may require a fee to cover the additional expense. There is also the issue of placing the GSAs in a position of impacting water rights which is prohibited by SGMA. Chauhan said that is being looked at.
Chauhan said the multi-benefit land repurposing grant has been summitted on time. Under SGMA there will have to be some fallowing although the state calls it repurposing. The Kings River Conservation District is the lead agency for the $10 million award. Fresno State University is also assisting on these efforts and that helped the application. There should be some word from the state next month.
Workgroup & Actions
Adam Claes reported there was not a meeting last month of the technical workgroup but one is scheduled for later next month if I understood correctly.
Chauhan reported the policy workgroup has been working on an alternative to the member agency mitigation policy. This policy has been challenging but a revised draft has been submitted and she said this will be on next month’s agenda hopefully. This is where each GSA in the Kings Subbasin agrees to responsibility for its share of the overdraft.
Koehn said during the Kings Water Alliance meeting there was a domestic well owner who was having problems and brought questions to the committee.
Member Agency Reports
Claes gave the water report and said the water conditions on the San Joaquin and Kings River are dreary. There is an April through July runoff forecast expected from the Bureau. The National Weather Service is forecasting a 40 percent average snowpack. The snowmelt traditionally starts this week. This year it started in February. However the snowpack left in the Kings River watershed is above 14,000 feet and that is good news for Fresno Irrigation District as the later melt yields a greater share for FID.
Claes explained how the Exchange Contractors got their name and why when there isn’t enough water from Lake Shasta there can be a call on San Joaquin River water. Releases from Friant have started. However, the 15 percent allocation the US Bureau of Reclamation announced for Friant is still on the table. The supplies in Northern California are in much worse shape than elsewhere in the state with reservoirs low and snowmelt small. This is one of the driest years for the Central Valley Project north of the Delta. As I understand it only 500,000 a/f will be released from Shasta Dam and none of that is going south of the Delta and I think none or the ag contractors in the Sacramento Valley will be getting a share of that water. It’s all for fish. More about that later.
Claes said FID received 90,000 a/f of Kings River runoff before April and it may be time to update the parameters. FID will provide irrigation supplies from June through July and that should be about 200,000 a/f. There are a lot of districts in the Valley that can’t make any deliveries. Claes also said FID gets more water when there is a slow inflow to Pine Flat Reservoir so this current heatwave is a bummer for the district.
Executive Officer Report
Chauhan gave her update saying there is some good news. The Savory Recharge Basin is ready to start recharging as soon as there’s some water put in it. There should be a ribbon cutting in the near future. As she said there is now a spot for water, when and not if, it comes.
Chauhan listed for the committee her outreach efforts. That included world water day on
March 22nd. I didn’t even know there was such a day. But I do know there is a great deal of questions about how much you can pump and at the events she’s attended those questions are prominent. She also got to speak at the California Women for Agriculture meeting earlier this month. I was there and it was a lot of fun and very informative. Chauhan also has interacted with many of the FID growers.
Monitoring Network
Chauhan reported Provost & Pritchard Engineering has developed a map of the monitoring network. Getting new wells online has been a challenge since it’s so dry many folks are pumping and that’s not a good time to perform monitoring measurements. The Biola Recharge Basin had a contract extension and the upper aquifer study is underway.
Redelfs said he intends to begin meeting in person at the previous location in Clovis next month. So glad to hear this. The location is a 10 minute drive for me and in beautiful Oldtown Clovis. So, after the meeting it’s too late to do anymore work and too early to go to bed. Within an easy walk there are coffee shops and places to go and sit and visit. With that the meeting adjourned at 2:49pm.
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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.
MEMBERS: Bakman Water Company, Cities of Kerman, Fresno and Clovis, Fresno County, Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District, Garfield Water District and Fresno ID
Executive Director – Kassy Chauhan
DWR # Listing: Basin San Joaquin, Sub Basin Kings 5-022.08
