By Don A. Wright
The San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority held its board of directors meeting on Thursday, December 12, 2024 at its Los Banos headquarters. As I write this just before the meeting begins it’s raining on the Valley’s eastside. There’s also been more fog than there has been in recent years. This Valley used to sock in think. I mean you had to get out of the truck and stand in the bed next to the street sign with a powerful flashlight just find your way. I’ve only felt truly lost twice in my life. Once in San Francisco on a cloudy day right after I got my driver’s license when I was 16 and another time leaving Tulare ID’s headquarters trying to get to the World Ag Expo ground in the fog. I ended up out past Hanford. I believe the reason the fog hasn’t been as intense as of late is of course partly due to weather conditions and partly because the air is cleaner, less particles for fog drops to form and we flood irrigate much less.
The Meeting
The kicked off at 9:32am, only a couple of minutes after the scheduled 9:30am start. Chairman Cannon Michael began by leading the flag salute of the greatest country on earth followed by self-introductions. The board found no need to change the agenda and the consent calendar was passed.
Action Items
J. Scott Petersen gave the board an update on the objectives for fiscal year 2025-26. There are new elected officials and other considerations that have changed since the original goals were set. SLDM is going to be hit with new challenges as will its members. Water supply enhancements were at the top of the list. Also included were improved infrastructure and improved outreach and education efforts. The board approved.
Petersen also reported the need for updating the SLDM communication plan. He said staff will issue a Request for Proposals from consultants. This will include updating the website and rebranding. He said having a unified brand across all the various platforms and public matters will help with the impact when getting out the SLDM’s message as a stand-alone. That’s not to say the other organizations with parallel objectives won’t be used, but there is a feeling there’s a need to keep SLDM’s messages clear.
Reports
Next Executive Director Federico Barajas presented the board with a new logo for consideration. It saddens me this is even on the table. I’ve gone through agency logo changes before. I was a Fresno County Housing Authority Commissioner for four years and changing the logo was a long, expensive process.
The old SLDM logo had an image of a farmer opening (or perhaps closing) a value. It was unique and called back to time when even the art on a fruit packaging box was more compelling than most of what passes today. It had the WPA Moderne look that comported well with the Art Deco style of the SLDM offices in Los Banos. It was classy and told a story.
The new logo is pretty bland in comparison. Sort of a distorted letter “s” representing the canal and maybe a crane profile. Three blocks of colors in a circle, blue to the left, white S in the center and green to the right. And of course, whenever a designer is employed in logo creation at $25,000 or more a pop they include a long explanation of the deep symbolism embodied in their creation. Sacramento based Commuter Industries charged SLDM $25,000. There was $50,000 budgeted so I guess it could have been worse.
Perhaps my time at the Housing Commission has jaded me a bit. For some reason there wasn’t a local artist they could have paid $40k to whip up four uneven, tilted, stone colored parallelograms representing the various transitions through housing experiences the Authority’s clients had journeyed. So, we spent locally derived tax dollars on a firm in San Francisco.
Legislative Affairs
Petersen gave his usual, excellent report on what’s the haps in Washington DC. He said the Republican majority is narrow and hopes no one will get sick and miss a vote. It looks like Congressman Jarod Huffman, former senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council – an NGO that sues a lot – is battling it out for a minority leader spot on the water focused committee he formally chaired. He’s up against a Congresswoman from New
Mexico (BiPOC perhaps?). That ought to put Huffman’s DEI convictions to the test.
Next former Congressman and lobbyist Dennis Cardoza gave some insight on a new water bill. Valley Congressman Jim Costa received an endorsement from the Hispanic Caucus to be the minority leader slot on the Agricultural Committee. That will be decided by December 16th. The new Senator, Adam Schiff (who was sworn in already for the partial term Laphonza Butler had been serving) put out an editorial that he wants to represent all of California including the Central Valley. Congressman John Duarte of Modesto will be giving up his seat to challenger Adam Grey. Cardoza said Grey is putting together a well-seasoned staff.
Petersen said to expect December 20th as the day the re-consultation on the Delta becomes part of the Record of Decision, if I understood correctly. Also, the Monarch Butterfly has been listed as endangered. This is sadder than a logo change. The Monarch Butterfly is a very beautiful piece of God’s handiwork. The long fin smelt is also up for review.
Petersen said all kinds of funding expires early next year which presents opportunities as well as challenges. The new water bill reported earlier in the meeting opens up some possibilities for dredging opportunities in the South Delta. That is a much needed bit of channel maintenance the state has avoided for too long. The Farm Bill is dead this year but there will be something attached to the pending continuing resolution that has taken the place of budgeting for the federal government. Petersen also said there is morphing blob of new tax policies to get aware of.
Rusty Arias from Cal Strategies said his gang has been trying to meet as many of the new, incoming state legislators as possible. I didn’t catch how many new ones there are but 10 of them are representing areas within SLDM’s boundaries. He said getting Highway 152 in shape has long been one of his goals going back to when he was in the Assembly in the early 1980s. Good for him. Getting to Salinas or Monterey back then was a huge headache of sitting in gridlock. Now with the raising of the BF Sisk Dam on the San Luis Reservoir the road will have to be rerouted.
Arias said they are keeping a close eye on Governor Gavin Newsom’s Anti-President Donald Trump posturing and will try to be sure the issues important to the Valley aren’t 
used as pawns and become collateral damage in a political war. Arias said there is a workshop with SLDM next week to coordinate strategies.
Petersen responded to a question about the DOGE experiment, he said there are many a career government worker concerned about this. He said it’s clear there are many efficiencies to be gained in federal government and many of them are in the Delta including far better adaptive management. He said to send Elon Musk improvement ideas on X. There are many candidates looking for the Commissioner slot at the US Bureau of Reclamation but that is likely a decision made further down the line.
Executive Director Report
Barajas reported there were many productive meetings at the ACWA conference last week. There are pilot projects being extended into the new year like the South of Delta Drought Plan. He said there are water rights issues with banking Central Valley Project supplies. He sounded hopeful. Chris White said there are many efforts to get a good handle on SGMA’s contribution to this. Lon Martin sounded hopeful as well. He said collectively the weight of SLDM should be helpful in securing a good outcome with drought preparedness.
Barajas said instead of a planning committee meeting there will be January 16th workshop about subsidence repairs on the Delta Mendota Canal. He urged everyone to attend. It is open to the public.
Michael said if you don’t participate in the workshop you’re going to be behind the curve.
COO Report
Pablo Arroyave said there is an agreement with the Bureau on cost sharing that will come before the board next month for approval. He said transfer programs with Yuba County Water and the Exchange Contractors are very much engaged. A letter of agreement is being drafted and he said if that impacts your district you have a voice.
Arroyave reported Unit One at the Jones Plant had a bearing problem and was taken offline until repairs can be completed next week. Pump Three is also having trouble. It takes a lot of tork to get these pumps spinning from a standstill – like 1,150 psi of water and Unit Three’s mechanism isn’t delivering. However, this should be resolved next week as well. The specs on these giant pumps are very tight.
Water Ops
USBR’s Liz Kiteck said there are still benefits from the northern storm last month. Both rain and snow helped Shasta. Folsom got a good deal of snow and is releasing some fish flows down the American River. Federal storage at San Luis is above 400,000 a/f and the
state side is catching. There is rain taking place today and a weaker storm coming in early next week. She said this is an indication of a wetter weather pattern. Too bad there isn’t an accurate, long term weather forecasting service that can also accurately predict reservoir in-fill. Or is there such a thing?
Kiteck was asked by Justin Diener about the first flush flows. Kiteck said there was a cut back on pumping briefly recently not due to equipment. She said this was a concern due to turbidity but the water stayed clearer. There is also the consideration of power costs and other factors in play. She was also asked about transfers. She said the Bureau is still working on settling 2024 transfers and is close to being caught up. Everyone is focused on this after last year’s Bureau hording of supplies at SLR. Michael wished her a merry Christmas.
Committee Reports
This went pretty quick as there was nothing to report.
Outside Agencies
There was a written Family Farm Alliance report and Petersen said this includes a Colorado River power report.
Bandon Souza from the California Farm Water Coalition reported the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley has put out a sample resolution for local governments to adopt for inputs on the insane through Delta Flows being pushed by the State Water Resources
Control Board staff verses the so called Voluntary Agreements. CFWC is funded by public water agencies and does a fine job of educating. It does social media like the Nut Cracker themed ads promoting California grown nuts targeting urban consumers. CFWC also has a fascinating Water Jeopardy game. They set it up at ACWA and I had more fun playing than almost anything else I did in Palm Springs. William Bourdeau suggested CFWC present the board with some examples of the ads they are putting out.
Petersen reported further on something but I couldn’t hear him well enough to share. I did hear there was a large CAP meeting that took place at UC Merced dealing with groundwater recharge.
Board Member Reports & Closed Session
Well, that left board member reports as the last item in open session. Michael said he attended ACWA and heard many good comments about SLDM’s staff. Good for them. They are pretty good staff. With that the meeting went into closed session at 10:59am for a dozen items of a legal, personnel or real property matter. Go be good to each other and yourselves.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2024 by Don A. Wright
SAN LUIS & DELTA-MENDOTA WATER AUTHORITY was established in January of 1992 and consists of approximately 2,100,000 acres of 29 federal and exchange water service contractors within the western San Joaquin Valley, San Benito and Santa Clara counties. The governing body of the Authority consists of a 19-member Board of Directors classified into five divisions with directors selected from within each division. The main conveyance is the Delta-Mendota Canal that delivers approximately 3,000,000-acre feet of water within the Authority service area. Of this amount, 2,500,000-acre feet are delivered to highly productive agricultural lands, 150,000 to 200,000-acre feet for municipal and industrial uses, and between 250,000 to 300,000 acre-feet are delivered to wildlife refuges for habitat enhancement and restoration.
Board – Chairman: Cannon Michael,
Staff – Executive Director: Federico Barajas, COO: Pablo Arroyave, Attorney: Becca Akroyd, Director Finance: Ray Tarka, Director Water Policy: J. Scott Petersen, Director O&M/Facilities: Bob Martin
Email: youtellus@sldmwa.org 209/826-9696
P.O. Box 2157 Los Banos, CA. 93635
DWR SGMA #5-022.07
