By Don A. Wright
The Tri County Water Authority held its advisory committee meeting on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 at 9:30am., both in-person at its Corcoran, California headquarters and via Zoom. The boardroom at Tri County looks like a lawyer’s office. Bookshelf lined walls and a long table in the middle. There isn’t much room for visitors so good job for the willingness to go online and extra points for using Zoom.
The Meeting
Consulting engineer Amer Hussain started things at 9:33am saying it has been a long week. He said the Tulare Lake Subbasin has decided to prepare its own Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Back in May a draft GSP was submitted to the State Board but there won’t be any comment from the State Board until early August. The plan still has each GSA submitting its own chapter and the current document up for review reflects this. The amount of subsidence in the Tulare Lake Subbasin portion of TCWA is much less than what was presented.
Geoff Vanden Heuvel asked if the coordination agreement includes this recalibration of the subsidence. General Manager Deanna Jackson and Hussain both said this has been cleared with both the Tulare Lake group and the recent ruling indicates there will be a good actor clause. The state indicated as well carving out a stand alone GSP will be OK. Hussain said there will be another meeting next week after the State Board review.
Hussain said the Tule Subbasin is making progress. There is a new, draft management document amongst the Tule folks to update the GSP. There is a short deadline for comments but there isn’t much time to get’er done. The area where Tri County WA, Pixley Irrigation District and the Delano Earlimart ID meet could use some more discussion.
Director Steve Jackson asked if there will be any surprises. Hussain said not really anything new but the change in subsidence and the sustainable yield need resolution. He said the yield needs to be divided between aquifers. I wasn’t sure if he meant above and below the clay layer or the two subbasins TC sits in or both. Deanna Jackson said TC is an island location between everyone and there are triggers that could change things.
I believe it was Director Mike Nordstrom who said he doesn’t want to run on a trigger based plan but how can they get the rest of the folks on board. If I understood the subsidence issue is very big for any pumping below the clay layer. Hussain said there are a lot more of the deep wells than you’d think. Steve Jackson said the Kaweah Subbasin is looking at eliminating all deep pumping in a few years to keep subsidence at bay. The modeling shows that to be the only way to prevent further subsidence. However, a total elimination of deep pumping could devastate many farms throughout the Valley.
OK, I have to tell the world now, full disclosure – I haven’t read all 782,000 pages of GSPs, including the TC’s portion. So, I had to ask about recharge below the clay layer. Turns out there is a way to recharge under the clay layer. It’s injection and its being considered for recharge, but injecting water below the clay layer is very expensive.
The Tule Trust Report
Susan Long, Executive Director of the Tule Trust fund spoke. This is a group effort to get funding, sounded like mostly through grants, to implement programs to benefit the subbasin. This includes cover crops, fallowing and other methods to help with sustainability.
Max Dugan of Geosyntec reported a draft of the land fallowing program is going to be ready hopefully in time to give a presentation to the State Board. Kathy McLaughlin is on the Tule Trust Board and also works with the Sustainable Conservation Trust. The question is: what do you do with land taken out of production?
Yield & Allocation Policy
Hussain asked Bob Anderson of Geosyntec to report on sustainable yield policy updates. Anderson said the previously developed guide by hydrogeologist Thomas Harder is still being used. However, adjusting pumping blocks to stay on the glide path to ramp down groundwater extractions is being looked at. As more data and experience comes to play the amounts of pumping in the Harder Table shows TCWA as transitional pumping faster than
the native yield will support. He said recharge credits need to be divided between upper and lower aquifer, carryover and exports are all being included in the updates. Incentives are also being looked at.
Hussain said he has some feedback from a few landowners he will be sending to Anderson. He said the feedback was generally in line with how Geosyntec is proceeding. Anderson spoke about how the policy will be implemented. I didn’t catch all the figures he quoted but a five year block is the timeline that will allow the flexibility to move the allocations for increases or cutbacks to allow for staying on track with the ramp down glide path.
Vanden Heuvel asked how much water can be drawn from the lower and upper aquifer. Anderson said that has not been determined yet. Vanden Heuvel said there are figures developed by Harder that show how much pumping can be sustained. Anderson said he hasn’t seen that model yet and the upper and lower pumping have to be determined. Hussain said Harder has been asked for those numbers.
Nordstrom asked if Harder is withholding this information. Deanna Jackson said no, that’s not the case. Hussain said Harder has been pulled in a million directions – it’s more of a bandwidth issue and they expect to get this information as soon as possible. Thomas Harder didn’t get the confidence he has in the area by withholding info.
Vanden Heuvel said he recognizes he’s not a landowner but his organization, Milk Producers Council, has many members in the area. He said this doesn’t sound like good policy to allow this much subsidence. Hussain and Anderson both said this is the start of the discussion, not the proposed policy.
Vanden Heuvel said it seems to him if Harder has a number it needs to be paid attention to. He said the restricting deep pumping to only the most extreme dry years while recharging the upper aquifer appears to be the endpoint. He said they need a path to this endpoint. Anderson said everyone is in agreement and he wants to develop an incentive to shift as much pumping and recharge to the upper aquifer. There are water quality, well design and geological considerations to using the upper aquifer more efficiently.
Hussain said there is an existing policy since 2020. Why not do the same thing now? The subsidence goals have become more of a focus. I believe the real goal is to get out from under the state’s giant thumb while not going bankrupt as a region is the goal. That is going to require threading the needle very carefully with proper policy. In the meantime, we have to hope incoming state legislators don’t try to rewrite SGMA in their image moving the goal posts all over the place.
Hussain said native yield and sustainable yield are two different things. There is also a consideration of land in production before 2018 subject to differing amounts if I
understood. Nordstrom said while TCWA views the two subbasins as distinct from each other the State Board doesn’t share that view. This will have an impact on Angiola Water District due to the way it sits over the subbasins. And of course, what’s happening under the surface.
Steve Jackson said the road map looks bleak at the moment. Deanna Jackson agreed and added it looks bleak everywhere. No GSA is sitting pretty at the moment. Anderson said the Angiola components of the proposed policy will be located in one place in the policy so as things change there are ways to adapt.
Vanden Heuvel asked if the five-year allocation is on track currently. He asked how TC is doing with subsidence. Anderson said he doesn’t have all the numbers for the past five years but the pumping goal has been exceeded. Anderson asked all the growers and others to please comment and get feedback to Hussain. Hussain urged all the growers on the call to contact Deanna Jackson to discuss their unique situation.
Almost The End
There will be two special board meetings next month – August 1st and 15th, both at 1:00pm and the next advisory committee meeting will be August 28th at 9:30am. I believe TCWA has a meeting with State Board staff in September and of course they want to have their plans in order at that time. The meeting signed off at 10:54am. Go be good to each other and yourselves.
More Info That Will Impact Tri County
Since this report was first written there was a meeting in Hanford on July 29th, 2024. Vanden Heuvel told me it was a very efficient joint meeting chaired initially by Barry McCutchen, Kings County Water District and Mid Kings GSA. The Hanford City Council and the Kings County Board of Supervisors were in attendance. The purpose of the meeting was to accept the withdrawal of the KCWD from the Mid Kings River GSA and the resignation of Dennis Mills as manager and Ray Carlson as attorney. This was approved.
There was a good deal of public comments about the lack of notification to the landowners that this change was taking place. This all took about 10-minutes. The Hanford City Council adopted the new Joint Powers Agreement for the MKGSA. Councilman Mark Karas was appointed as Hanford’s delegate to the MKGSA board.
The Kings County Board also adopted the JPA and appointed County staff Chuck Kenny as the new General Manager to the MKGSA and a county attorney will serve as the GSA’s attorney. Supervisor Doug Verboon stated his goal was to get the stakeholders involved and get out from under the State Board’s probationary designs. The entire proceedings took about a half hour.
The MKGSA board’s new directors are now selected and the Mid Kings River GSA lives on with more professional staff to help achieve its goals. Vanden Heuvel pointed out Mills deserves credit for moving it along as far as possible considering the resources at his disposal. Steve Jackson also spoke with me about the meeting and stated things got a little rowdy and personal during some of the public comments.
Name calling and jeering and rude language – it’s not necessary. But
it is understandable. Keep this in mind when passions run hot, no one in that room imposed the unintended consequences of SGMA. So much of the legislation coming out of Sacramento is flawed due to the lack of vision and accountability that takes place when there is a supermajority that clearly doesn’t understand agriculture, hydrology and economics.
None of the people experiencing the derision of their neighbors at that meeting woke up one morning in Sacramento and said to themselves, “Here’s an idea. Let’s create an entirely new layer of government to solve a groundwater problem we created by reducing surface deliveries in the name of some ill-defined environmental goals. We’ll call it local control and then we’ll pull the rug out from under the locals by being the judge of their efforts. Let’s write the law so the state can extract money from private enterprises such as farming and by default all businesses in the area that depend on agriculture – while simultaneously preventing the locals from extracting groundwater.
“And while we’re at it let’s write this law so the state agencies run by political appointees are tasked with enforcing something that has never been done before. That’ll deflect the accountability away from us, placing the wrath on the bureaucrats and allow future legislators to monkey butt around with the SGMA rules and every two years or so rewrite it in their own image.”
Votes count.
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TRI-COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY
www.tcwater.org
944 Whitely Ave. Ste. E, Corcoran, CA 93212 Phone: 559/762-7240 DWR# 5-022.12
Tri-County Water Authority is a collaboration of Public Agencies, Water Suppliers, Communities, Cities, County, Environmental Groups, Government Representatives, and a variety of other interested parties. The goal is to identify and implement water management solutions on a regional scale that increase regional self-reliance, reduce conflict, and manage water to concurrently achieve social, environmental, and economic objectives.
Directors & Staff: Cory VanderHam – Chairman, Craig Andrew, Michael Nordstrom, Wade Magden. Deanna Jackson – Executive Director, Amer Hussain – consulting engineer.
