The Western Canal Water District held its Tuesday, August 17, 2021, board of directors meeting at its Nelson headquarters. I attended by telephone and at the risk of sounding like currying favor, aka kissing butt, I do want to state the staff, management and directors have all been gracious with me as I am not familiar with their voices and I think I’ve misspelled General Manager Ted Trimble’s last name a couple of different ways. They have sent me kind, informative emails with suggested corrections and I appreciate that. I meant to find out who does the on-hold music. It’s a song about being on hold and it’s a pretty good song to boot.
The Meeting
Things started about 9:05am as the folks on the call arrived and what not. We all saluted our nation’s flag using the term “one nation under God” and it was beautiful. There was no public comment and the minutes were approved. I believe one director was calling in.
GM Trimble gave the financial reports saying the Local Agency Investment Fund is paying not so well and that isn’t news. I may be a little harsh on LAIF but I was taught a long time ago it doesn’t pay much interest and there is the remote chance the legislature might raid it. WCWD was able to make more than one million dollars on cold water from DWR. I though it was a sales situation, but it wasn’t. It is part of a settlement agreement that involves Oroville Dam. He
said Land IQ is keeping track the amount of yield lost from the change in water, is there nothing that bunch of rocket surgeons can’t do? The money will be dispersed when the DWR folks working from home get the final figures together.
There was someone from Malibu who called in and was asked to identify himself. He did and someone else said they were at the Sites Reservoir meeting when someone was calling in and wouldn’t identify themselves. Whether or not they couldn’t find the mute button they got cut off. It was said WCWD will keep a close eye on what guidance comes from Sacramento in regards to the Brown Act and that virus originating east of Korea, in an unmentionable area of geography you’re not supposed to connect to sinister lab accidents if you want to remain politically correct.
Manager’s Report
Trimble spoke about the Oroville situation. Storage is not good, levels are down, hydropower isn’t being produced and the temperature at the “River Valve” is unknown. But the water is coming from the bottom of the lake and that’s cold water. Trimble said he’s heard the water is 10 to 20 degrees lower than usual and that could be too cold for the hatchery downstream. The projections based on earlier dry years such as 1977 and 2014 where there was enough precipitation in November to bring up lake levels enough to maintain hydropower. The Delta standards were not a part of the mix back in 1977.
It was mentioned that a large swath of the Oroville watershed was burned but DWR is heard to have said it won’t impact runoff in the future. I did mention the San Joaquin River watershed had at least a third burned and there were fears of ultra runoff due to the ground being kind of glassed over by the heat and the lack of vegetation. There was also fear of increased debris. The flows were lower than anticipated and the debris haven’t been bad. However, a portion of the flows are not showing up. Did it soak into the soil? Did it evaporate? I don’t think anyone knows for sure.
WCWD has three director terms coming to an end. There were no new candidates so the district petitioned the Butte County Board of Supervisors to reappoint the current office holders. It sounded like they’ll be sworn in next month. Someone asked whoever it is
administering the oath to go slower this time. Ok. Someone else said there is new language regarding staying out of subversive organizations which I heard used for the first time at Westlands WD. Other oath ceremonies I’ve heard haven’t included that part. It’s sounds like bovine waste byproduct to me. If you’re defending the constitution from all enemies domestic and foreign you don’t want to be a member of a subversive group. Besides, what if the government becomes the enemy of the constitution? It’s happened throughout history.
There was talk about how the growers are using the monitoring and metering available from H2O. It’s called the Remote Tracker. This tool allows folks to keep track of their allotment by computer. Or not. It was said there was a grower who believed one cfs equals one acre foot of water and I can sympathize. It took me a while to realize one cubic foot per second equals two acre feet every 24-hours. Some poor guy missed the decimal place and instead of .75 cfs he was getting 7.5 cfs and soon ran out of his allotment. The folks at this meeting were very pleased with the Remote Tracker and staff is available to help growers adapt to and understand the tools available.
There has traditionally been surface water transfers from Northern California to Southern California but in a year like this that means fallowing land or pumping groundwater. The price of $100 per a/f for in area groundwater sounded low but this is landowner to landowner within the district.
Sites Reservoir
Trimble reported on the Sites Reservoir saying the last meeting authorized staff to proceed with notice of authorized EIR/EIS drafts. Someone asked if and how Sites can be integrated into the Cooperating Operations Agreement the US Bureau of Reclamation and DWR use to determine who gets how much flows for Delta exports. That’s a good question as it sounded like the Bureau will be the, I don’t know, the trustee is perhaps the word, for Sites water.
Trimble talked about a project that sounded like he said the Gravel Bar Ripple. The costs weren’t fixed but it wasn’t real expensive to get the project approval through the permits, maybe $5,000. It might take Ducks Unlimited or some other reliable ally to help write up the permitting applications. The Family Farm Alliance sent out a notice the Bureau has $16.5 million for drought preparedness. That has an environmental component to it. Director Bryce Lundberg spoke up in favor of going forward with this project.
Water Report
Assistant GM Craig Myers reported storage at Lake Almanor is down 42,000 a/f from last month. That makes it neck and neck with Oroville for total remaining storage. I don’t know much about Almanor but it sure doesn’t look as big as Oroville on the map. Although that could be a poor metric as so many things in water are counter intuitive.
Myers reported prudence is needed right now in allocations but accretions into the systems from return flows is starting to happen upstream. There are times when the districts in the part of the world WCWD resides are able to take water for habitat. Last time I was up there the ditches were full of cat tails and birds and critters and that counted as habitat. I was surprised because I’ve never seen a ditch, maybe a creek, but never a ditch in this area in such conditions. So, that’s something different. The way the board talked about this type of allocation was so foreign to me I’m not sure how to report this. I apologize.
Admin
WCWD Assistant GM Anjanette Shadley said there are ACWA Regional positions available and she is on the ACWA Ag Committee. Some of these committees are standing with a member cap divided by ACWA Region and it sounded like the ACWA Ag Committee is open to everyone. The question was asked if non-district people can join ACWA and the answer was yes. Andy McClure from the Minasian Law Firm was sponsored. No one knew for sure how compensation would work.
Shadley reported the virus shut down some well level monitoring but it is back up now. The current levels are very close to this same time of year in 2015, another dry year. The monitoring sites are well established and have a decent history to draw from. They are also well placed around the district but some new spots are being included. Shadley has been looking at the new sites and said she was happy she hasn’t seen any rattlesnakes so far. Good for her. I’ve never seen a rattlesnake in the wild. I wouldn’t mind seeing one at a distance. I was once on a ranch near Madera on the Valley floor. All at once my dogs up and ran and jumped in the truck. I looked around and realized that animal in the not too far distance wasn’t a coyote, it was a badger. I thought the dogs made a wise decision so I joined them in the truck. I’d never heard of a badger attacking a human in Madera County but I didn’t want to be a charter member in that exclusive club. The badger was pretty cool looking though and it was more fun to watch from the cab of my truck.
WCWD is searching for the best recharge areas for the district. Trimble said there are dry creek beds over sand and wetlands over lava soil. Shadley said there will be a helicopter with the magnetic towed array flying over the area that can look into the soil deep enough to be of value in determining the better areas for percolation. That’s worked well in the San Joaquin Valley.
Attorney’s Report
Attorney Dustin Cooper said the State Water Board has pulled the trigger on curtailing pre-1914 water rights. This process is before the Office of Administrative Law and it is expected the State Board will get the full OK to issue orders. Cooper said WCWD can divert previously stored water which allows the district some room for flexibility in the event the State Board gets on them. He said to expect the orders sometime this month and WCWD will receive one. There should be a form accompanying the notice that will require a
signature under penalty of perjury. He expects the State Board is going to try to make some examples as the State Board doesn’t have the staff or expertise to impose its will to the level it’d like. Cooper said WCWD can comply with the curtailment order but can still divert under its other rights. He said this State Board action is largely symbolic as irrigation is beginning to wane but it sets the stage for next year.
Cooper said he’s helped the Northern California Water Association and ACWA with letters to the State Board. The idea was for the State Board staff to keep track of the demand and as demand drops the orders should drop as well. A senior State Board engineer stated as facts some flawed information based on rice water. Cooper said it’s a fine line. The State Board’s methodology is under significant criticism and in his opinion won’t cut it at a legal level. He said MBK Engineering has been offering to help.
The priority system is a desirable way to go about administering the water rights in the state but the State Board needs to be able to apply its actions in a reasonable and defensible manner. The State Board has finally begun looking at illegal marijuana grows. They are really hammering the system and even stripping fire hydrants to the point they can’t be used for firefighting. Someone said they have a ranch up by Susanville that had a creek terminate at one of the meadows. Suddenly the creek stopped flowing. The sheriff sent some deputies up to look at what was going on. They found Chinese gangsters had dammed the stream to grow marijuana. They’d been rustling cattle and had pile of carcasses they’d butchered to eat. The sheriff turned it over to the feds who were finally able to shut them down with force. Bad news.
Cooper said it will depend on hydrology but when the State Board lifts the curtailment orders it should do so in order of the older rights first, then more recent rights. A big storm could cause everything to be lifted at once. Lundberg asked if riparian rights in the Delta are curtailed. Cooper said a priority date for a riparian is 1850. I think that is the oldest right in California. These rights can’t be curtailed but they can be reduced in what is known as a correlative manner. Cooper said he doesn’t see that happening on the Bay Delta watershed in his lifetime. It’s too complex. He asked if a Delta riparian is getting water from the Sacramento or San Joaquin Rivers or both? He said the Delta riparian rights holders have put forth a legal claim the Delta is a pool filled pre-curtailment and therefore they are drawing on stored water. In 2014-2015 the Byron Bethany ID filed a suit against the State Board and won. Cooper said he believes there could be a showdown between the two.
The meeting then took a break at 10:48am and I had to leave the proceedings for other obligations.
Western Growers Association
In the meantime I received this message from Western Growers Association and they asked me to pass it along.
“We urge you to reach out to your California State Senator, asking them to vote NO on AB 616. AB 616 (Mark Stone-dem Monterey) is the latest incarnation of card check legislation, which undermines the secret ballot election process that has been at the core of the
Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) since its inception. ALRA guarantees that employees have the opportunity to express their choice with respect to union representation through a secret ballot election held at a time and place convenient to those employees under the supervision of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB).
AB 616 erodes this guarantee and raises the risk that union representation and the economic consequences for employees of being required to pay dues and obey union rules could be imposed on employees who do not wish to have union representation.
If AB 616 were to become law:
- farm employees will be forever stripped of their right to express their choice for union representation or not by a secret ballot election supervised by the ALRB;
- union organizers will go to great lengths to influence farm employees in order to force a card check certification and avoid secret ballot elections;
- employers will be in perpetual legal defense mode at the ALRB, as AB 616 has harsh penalties against employers but not the unions; and
- the bonding requirement present in the bill represents a direct threat to an employer’s due process rights.
AB 616 could be heard on the Senate Floor as early as this week. Please contact your State Senator TODAY and request that they oppose AB 616.”
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WESTERN CANAL WATER DISTRICT
2003 Nelson Road, Nelson Ca 95958, P.O. Box 190 Richvale Ca 95974-0190
Directors: Greg Johnson – President, Eric Larrabee – Vice President, Bryce Lundberg, Daniel Robinson and Josh Sheppard
Management and Staff: Ted Trimble – General Manager, Craig Myers – Assistant GM Operations & Maintenance, Anjanette Shadley – Assistant GM Administration & Communications and Dustin Cooper – Attorney.
Western Canal Water District (District) was formed by a vote of landowners on December 18, 1984 as a California Water District, and currently encompasses a land area of approximately 67,500 acres, of which approximately 59,000 acres are irrigable. The District purchased the “Western Canal” water system from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), who had acquired it from the Great Western Power Company. The canal was originally developed by the Western Canal Company, which began operations in 1911.
