By Don A. Wright
The San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority held its board of directors meeting on Thursday, October 5, 2023 at its Los Banos headquarters and on Zoom, because they care. The changes in Washington are big and it will be interesting to hear how they are perceived today. The Valley having a Speaker of the House was very helpful and we’ll have to see what happens next.
I never met Senator Diane Feinstein in person but I’ve known some of her staff for some time and I imagine her passing was more than just a professional matter. My condolences to them for their loss.
There was a man I won’t name for his privacy’s sake who woke me early one morning and told me Senator Feinstein was rather upset with him for something I had loosely attributed to him as saying. He was rather upset with me for the way I had worded the report.
I suspect Mrs. Feinstein’s message to him was delivered more genteelly than his to me but it was a very real learning experience I’m still benefiting from and am grateful for. As a result I’ve endeavored to clearly separate my paraphrasing from any actual quote. If it isn’t in quotation marks and attributed, it’s not a quote. Also, I thought it was cool an actual Senator was reading my reports.
The Meeting
Chairman Cannon Michael called the meeting at 9:30am on the dot. The meeting began as it should, with a flag salute. A roll call and self-introduction followed. There were no changes to the agenda and Dave Wiesenberger spoke in public comment. Wiesenberger is the General Manager of Banta Carbona Irrigation District. He wanted to thank SLDM for hosting a tour for ACWA Region Four. The consent calendar was passed.
Action Items
I recently called the idea of covering canals with solar panels insane. CEO Federico Barajas explained there is some money in this. Maybe not so insane after all. There’s a company out of Norway Solar AquaGrid? that has come up with an idea that could fit in the Delta Mendota Canal. The US Bureau of Reclamation is interested in partnering with the Norwegians and evidently Turlock ID is also working on this. Barajas said there are many concerns and proofs needing to be addressed for this to work well for SLDMWA. Any
impediment to the subsidence correction, turnouts and such won’t be considered. He said J. Scott Petersen will be point man on this project. The Bureau will fully fund the pilot project making this at least a little bit attractive. It’s north of $10 million and multiyear. Although Director Bill Diedrich said he believes the Authority already has too much on its plate to enter into another project. Barajas said he’s aware of that but there would be funds to hire an outside manager from the Bureau funds. The board voted to go forward with it.
Strategic Plan
Consultant Martin Rauch was present to walk the board through a new strategic plan that has been developed over the course of the past several months. Rauch has been successfully consulting with Joint Power Authorities for a while. He was very helpful with the Friant Water Authority and I believe the last time San Luis Delta Mendota did a strategic update it was Rauch who led the efforts.
Rauch said deciding which and what, is a worthwhile investment in time and treasure, optimizing office space for example, is the goal. He said SDLM staff have been very helpful and in the past has followed through. However, this is a board plan and he urged the board to take ownership. He said this is a goal and not meant to sit on a shelf for five years. He said it is fairly easy to amend as needed.
Michael suggested the process itself went very well but not perfectly. He asked Rauch if he could help round up the feedback and see what can be improved. Rauch was more than willing to work at this. Which makes sense. The board voted in favor of adopting the 2023 Strategic Plan. Good for them.
Dam Stuff
The last action item was presented by COO Pablo Arroyave and concerned a resolution to certify the environmental impact report and the California Environmental Quality Act for raising the B.F. Sisk Dam on San Luis Reservoir. He said the Bureau would like this.
Chris Park with CDM Smith showed the board what’s been happening with the environmental documents. The final EIR was posted September 25th on the SLDM website. Park said with mitigation the project will have less than significant impacts. Park was
flashing a series of slides that had way more printed material than is optimal for solid communication. But the gest is there will be some problems with impact during construction but there are overriding considerations to allow for this.
Attorney Becca Akroyd gave the board an update on the legal issues involved and there are no further comments needed if I understood. She said SLDM will continue working closely with other agencies and stakeholders to ensure mitigation will take place as smoothly as possible. The board approved.
Reports
Arroyave reported the rewinding of the Jones Pumping Plant has been completed. Superintendent Bob Martin said it has taken five years to wrap up. He said rewinds of the massive pumps last about 30 years and that hasn’t taken place since the 1980s. The same
contractor as then did the work now. It cost about $35 million and the contractor stayed on budget. Congrats to everyone working on this. It’s been a big project and interesting to follow. These 22,500 horsepower pumps were made by Allis Chalmers and originally installed in 1950. Originally these pumps were designed to run like striped assed apes, full bore, pedal to the metal. But operations have been massively modified over the years and the pumps are continually being turned on and off. That throws a lot of torque on the equipment. They are so big a permanent crane was installed on the pumphouse to hoist up the machinery as needed.
Gov’t Mischief
Next a report on state and federal affairs was given by Petersen saying SLDM has been working with other agencies on reviewing the 800 page long Biops I think he said. The real news is with Congressman Kevin McCarthy (my congressman btw) getting booted from the Speakership. What does that mean to the Farm Bill? More chaos for sure.
Consultant and former congressman Dennis Cardoza had to take a moment to recognize the contributions of the late Senator Feinstein. Evidently as this meeting was being conducted her funeral was taking place in San Francisco.
Cardoza said losing McCarthy as the speaker hurts the water community. Not having a Californian who understands water in that position of power is a setback. Cardoza said the chaos is going to create a serious situation with Department of Interior funding. The compromise McCarthy was putting forward actually had a chance of a reception at the Senate. He doesn’t see what follows. Cardoza’s protegee Bill Ball said not having Feinstein and McCarthy at the table is a major challenge for western water. He doesn’t see any unity amongst the Republican caucus in the next few weeks. He warned everyone not to give much credence to what will surely be a swirl of rumors.
Cardoza said the newly appointed Senator most likely doesn’t know very much about water. There is going to have to be a great deal of education with this change up. It is uncertain what will happen to Feinstein’s staff and McCarthy’s staff as well.
On the state side Petersen said there is a draft recently released by the State Board of the California Water Plan and that includes the Voluntary Agreements. I believe he said the review process will end on December 15th but don’t take my word for it. There will be
online workshops before then. He said about 1,400 bills have moved off the governor’s desk.
Kristin Olsen reported most of the bills have been signed. She said the beginning of the next session in January will go a bit faster as it is the end of the two year session. She said she will be keeping a very close eye on the two year bills that were big problems and she also said the favorable bills have passed or are posed to pass. The horrible water rights bills including the one by Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer Kahn were moved into two year bills and she won’t be surprised if they are let go. Another bad bill by Assemblyman Steve Bennett was killed with he couldn’t get the State Board or DWR to support it. From what I hear both Bauer Kahn and Bennett have not been willing to work with anyone on amending their bills and stonewalled everyone who tried.
The bond situation appears to be hovering around $15 billion and that’s an amount higher than Governor Gavin Newsom is willing to go. Petersen said the state budget and federal funding could have a major impact on the bond.
CEO Report
Barajas said as of October 1st the infrastructure bill funding is opening up again and he’s looking to get more money for the Delta Mendota Canal. The Bureau is having a party everyone should be invited to. I haven’t been but not so surprising.
Arroyave said a contractor installed a circuit breaker backwards and it caused a pump to shut down. It didn’t sound like the contractor was shirking its duty and this should be fixed without hurting deliveries to San Luis Reservoir.
USBRs’ Liz Kiteck gave the water report saying the Bureau is trying to ramp down its Shasta and Folsom flows to avoid problems with fall run salmon by letting out too much cold water. She said there is still a decent cold water pool and she believes they can
achieve safe temperatures in the Sacramento River by Thanksgiving. There will be more releases from the San Joaquin River tributaries to help with the Fall X2 line. She said next week cross Valley water contractor water will start moving and those flows may last through December. San Luis is very full for this time of year. Her long range forecast is no rain before the end of October and although a strong El Nino is building it’s still hard to say what will happen.
Committee & Other Reports
Directors William Bourdeau and Chris White had no reports. Bourdeau said he was with Petersen in Washington DC and Petersen did a great job. Diedrich said the California Farm Water Coalition is working on fact sheet updates on how much water it takes to put food on your plate. He said an ACWA poll shows ag water ranks higher in public opinion than environmental and landscaping. How about that?
Diedrich said the ACWA San Joaquin Valley water forum will take place next week and include lunch at Harris Ranch. He recommended attending. Akroyd said there will be a legal affairs meeting as well.
Petersen said if you have any Water Blueprint or CAP questions ask away. I didn’t hear any questions.
Board Member Reports & Closed Session
There were no board member reports that I heard and the open session ended at 11:52am. There was a trash can full of closed session litigation matters and that was that. Go be good to each other and yourselves.
DISCLAIMER OF RESPONSIBILITY; Waterwrights strives to provide his clients with the most complete, up-to-date, and accurate information available. Nevertheless, Waterwrights does not serve as a guarantor of the accuracy or completeness of the information provided, and specifically disclaims any and all responsibility for information that is not accurate, up-to-date, or complete. Waterwrights’ clients therefore rely on the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of information from DAW entirely at their own risk. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not represent any advertisers or third parties.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2023 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
