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Tulare Irrigation District July 12, 2022

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JOBS/HELP WANTED

By Don A. Wright

The Tulare Irrigation District held its board of directors meeting on Tuesday, July 12, 2022 at its Tulare County headquarters and online with Zoom. Staff, employees and consultants were allowed to attend the physical location and the rest of us were online. Chairman Dave Bixler called the meeting to order at the scheduled 9:00am start.

The Meeting

The minutes were approved and there was no public comment. During dry times like this the water supply report is both anticipated and dreaded. In a good water year there are more supplies for a district to sell. The growers would be irrigating and there is the opportunity for things to settle down. The crops are growing and harvest is few months away. But in a dry year it’s a scramble to find water and finances.

Water Allocation

General Manager Aaron Fukuda asked the board to set the summer price per acre foot of water sold. Under the current 218 Election the cap is $55 per a/f. The board voted to raise the $52 per a/f three dollars.

Watermaster Marco Crenshaw said the Class One allocation could go up from the current 20 percent on the Friant Division. The Delta pumps are now running three units at the Jones Plant. Currently there is a hightide coming into the Delta bringing salinity. When the tide goes out there could be, perhaps, maybe another five to 10 percent increase in allocations as less San Joaquin River water will be needed to hold back the brackish water in the Delta. Fukuda said the Friant Water Authority team has gone above and beyond. Director Dave Martin pointed out ACWA had a good profile article on Fukuda and congratulated him.Technoflo

O&M

            Wayne Fox, TID Superintendent gave the operations and maintenance report saying there has been a good deal of rodent control as well as terrestrial and aquatic weed control. He showed a video from a security camera where a guy on a motorcycle almost ran into a chain gate on a canal bank. I think vandals or homeless campers searching for a waterfront location had wrecked a metal gate and the chain was put up to prevent traffic. Fortunately the motorcyclist saw the chain in time and dumped his bike. A new, stronger gate has been installed.

I don’t know why but there is a surge in rodent populations in the Valley this year. We’re being overrun by squirrels and rabbits where I live, near the foothills in eastern Fresno County. TID is working overtime to keep the squirrel population from burrowing away its canal banks.

Finances

Controller Kathi Artis gave her report saying very low water sales and increased costs for the Friant Kern Canal repairs are posing a challenge. The current version of climate change has a giant pollution created magnifying glass in the sky pointed at California causing fire and drought. It is also reducing the amount of water a district can sell. That’s why prudent districts set up reserve funds. Everyone agreed the interest paid on these fund accounts should be higher. The board approved Artis’ reports and then reviewed the bills.

If a financial report is going to be fun, it will occur during the review of the bills. Farmers are frugal. It was discovered at this meeting districts booking a hotel room in Sacramento for the recent ACWA meeting got a much better rate booking themselves as government agencies than buying a block of reserved rooms under ACWA. Fukuda figured that one out. Good for him. He also might have saved the district a couple of bucks by driving his electric Ford Mustang. He said he got 100 miles on a $11 charge. Consider I use journalist math but that is nine miles a dollar. If you can find $5 gallon gas you’d have to get 20 miles per gallon to be on par.

Next Fukuda spoke about a series of workshops with growers to discuss another Prop 218 Election for TID. A 218 election requires 50 percent of those voting to be in agreement. Prop 218 is a state law that prevents government entities from just raising assessments rates. He said SGMA is the biggest concern brought up at the workshops. Growers want parity with growers who only use groundwater. They want to be sure pumpers outside of the district won’t cause problems.

Growers want TID to pursue water purchases more aggressively. There are those willing to pay more to finish up an irrigation season. They want the district to start purchasing as soon as possible as there are fears the market will be saturated earlier than in the past.

Fukuda said the quietest folks in the room understood the water market and the loudest didn’t. He said that’s on him, he wants to provide better information, education and updates to clients. He suggested a tour. He said the Tulare Ag Commissioner’s meeting room was where workshops were held. He said it’s a great facility and Commissioner Tom Tucker and his staff were very good to work with. Tucker is a pretty good guy in my experience and it is a beautiful facility. It’s the building directly across the street from the World Ag Expo grounds.

A 218 Election requires an engineer’s report to quantify the requested increases. Fukuda said Provost & Pritchard engineer Matt Klinchuch has it ready. There will be more workshops, a special phone line for 218 questions and more one on one meetings. If I understood the election will be completed August 31st.

Assessor Collector Report

TID Assessor Collector Elizabeth Holmes gave her report saying out of the $2 million levied there is only $22,600 still unpaid. There was some discussion about the US Environmental fund set up to help during dry times.

Engineer Report

TID Engineer Jeremy Barroll reported Self Help Enterprises is building or perhaps he said taking over some housing. There is a TID pipeline running where they want to poor new driveways. They are trying to work out some specs with the district.

Management Report

Fukuda reported the Kaweah Subbasin Management Committee meets weekly and is working over the revisions to the Groundwater Sustainability Plan. The original agreement on the rewrite was to only address the changes suggested by DWR. That was in the interest of time. Fukuda said there were many issues brought up beyond what was targeted in the GSP rewrite. They were parked for the time being but will be addressed. This is illustrative of why an overly aggressive legislature getting its nose and nuts in the middle of SGMA is premature. Data is being gathered and things are being considered and revised. As Fukuda pointed out it took three-years to write the GSP and there is a requirement to cramp a revision into a 180-days. The big issues were groundwater levels, subsidence and connectivity of groundwater and surface streams. Fukuda said if you can find an accurate method to predict subsidence you’ll be a billionaire.

A smattering of NGOs have submitted very critical letters stating GSAs have willfully neglected public outreach. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how the millions of dollars of Prop One taxpayer funded grant money NGOs have received to help with outreach has been spent? It appears some of the NGOs consider the taxpayer money they received as funding for their critique of how GSAs are doing as opposed to getting the folks they were supposed to reach out to, to attend meetings.

Fukuda said the Mid Kaweah GSA now has an operational dashboard for the constituents. There is a plan in place to address declining groundwater levels that will protect 90 percent or more of the wells drilled in the past 20-years. And for the domestic wells not included in that 90 percent drinking water will be provided. Are the NGOs going to pay for this? Have they paid for this to help out in the meantime? Fukuda said July 27th is the deadline to submit the revised GSP to DWR.

Friant Matters

Fukuda reported the Friant Water Authority O&M budget is up to $12 million for this year. He broke down the reasons why; inflation, equipment, new facilities and FKC repairs. Director Rick Borges represents TID at Friant and on the  said there was a good deal of debate of how to get prices locked in now even though delivery may be a year or more away. Now that water quality issues have been settled the pump back project is ramping up as will the associated costs.

The big reason for the repairs on the FKC is subsidence in the Eastern Tule GSA area. A financial agreement between ETGSA and FWA. The Prop 218 Election ETGSA held failed and that will cause a rethinking of that agreement. It could leave the repair costs short of immediate funding resulting in an increase of FWA members out of pocket expenses.

There are also costs for using the FKC and those are divided between the districts in the Friant Division. TID will owe more than $700,000. There has been a review of how much discretionary spending staff can make without board approval. Some small change orders on the FKC repairs, nothing big. The state has kicked in the $100 million it promised and the canal will be dewatered this November. And Fukuda said the failed 218 election at ETGSA is troublesome.

Legislation

AB 2201 is a problematic bill. Fukuda, North Kings GSA’s Kassy Chauhan and the Dairy Producers Council’s Geoff Vanden Heuvel all worked with author Assemblyman Steve Bennett about amendments to the bill. There were problems with requiring well permits to be posted online and trying to get this SGMA bill categorized under the California Water Code when it needs to be under SGMA.

Fukuda reported Bennett said this bill is meant to give GSAs the power to prevent new development from taking place that will harm the GSP’s goals. Fukuda said the way the amendments are drafted isn’t helpful. The group told Bennett they want to pass a good bill, not just a bill for the sake of saying the legislature is doing something during the drought. The board voted to continue opposing AB 2201.

Action Items

Fukuda apologized for not presenting the revised TID 2022 budget last month. The GSP rewrite and AB 2201 have both sucked a great deal of time from everyone. If I read it correctly there will be $7.9 million in revenue and $12.4 million in expenses. The district will be going over budget due mostly to lack of water supply. At the end of his presentation Fukuda asked the board for questions or concerns. That caused a laugh as everyone spoke at once. Eventually the board approved the budget.

The board approved a resolution to allow meeting online due to a virus. I appreciated Martin’s comment that this should be standard procedure anyway. This is California, gas is $5-7 per gallon, we’re having to hear about climate change 24/7 and the state can’t codify online meetings by public agencies? It is important for directors to meet in person and a provision for the public to attend. But it shouldn’t be such a big deal to have an online meeting concurrent to the in person meeting.

The meeting took a break at 11:30am before going into closed session.

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TULARE IRRIGATION DISTRICT

6826 Ave 240, Tulare, CA 93274 Office: 559/686-3425

Board: David G. Bixler- President, Richard S. Borges, Jr.-Vice President, Scott Rogers, Dave Martin & Michael Thomas

Staff: Aaron Fukuda-General Manager, Jeremy Barroll-Engineer, Kathi ArtisDistrict Controller, Wayne FoxSuperintendent, Marco CrenshawDistrict Watermaster & Alex Peltzer-Attorney.

About: The Tulare Irrigation District was organized September 21, 1889.  The original proposal for the formation of an irrigation district covering 219,000 acres, extending from the Sierra Nevada foothills to Tulare Lake, was eventually reduced to 32,500 acres.  The District continued in this status until January of 1948 when the so-called Kaweah Lands” (approximately 11,000 acres) were annexed. In October of 1948, approximately 31,000 acres, compromising the area served by the Packwood Canal Company were annexed to the District. A U.S. Bureau of Reclamation contract was signed in 1950 providing an annual supply of 30,000 acre-feet of Class 1 water, and up to 141,000 acre-feet of Class 2 water from the Friant-Kern Canal. The District and the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District have coordinated efforts to enhance the recharge of groundwater within the Kaweah Basin.  During high flow times KDWCD may use the recharge basins with the District for recharge purposes. Further, KDWCD has historically provided for a financial incentive program through which the District sustains the level of groundwater recharge from supply sources into the District. This historical program was recently reinstated by both districts in lieu of the District’s plans to concrete-line this canal to conserve the surface water. TID is a member of the Mid Kaweah GSA DWR#-5-022.11

 

 

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