The Westlands Water District held its board of directors meeting on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at its hidden Fresno headquarters. I was speaking with a friend of mine who knows this Valley better than most and he said it looks like the heat may be breaking – it is the middle of October after all – but there is almost a mental block to accepting a cooling trend. He said he didn’t want to be disappointed and find it getting hot again.
You got to be tough to live in the San Joaquin Valley. Between the blistering heat (at least it’s not humid), the chill blanket of fog (man that’s pretty dang humid) and the constant drip of regulatory overtime trying to grind agriculture into dust (then penalize you for being dusty) you got to be tough.
Before the regular meeting there was a finance committee meeting. They decided stuff. What kind of stuff? Requests for waivers on late fees and such.
The Meeting
Things kicked off at 9:00am with Chairman Jeff Fortune calling things to order. The consent calendar was approved.
GM Report
I believe General Manager Allison Febbo said the State Water Resources Control Board is still looking at unimpaired flows through the Delta as opposed to the Voluntary Agreements. The proposal is to work with the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority on funding the increased costs from the state actions. About $10 per a/f extra for delivered federal Central Valley Project water. There is a workshop with the State Board to go over the VAs and unimpaired flows.
Febbo said WWD is ready to start implementing its approved strategic plan. A communications and public affairs plan is being developed. This is meant to help WWD educate politicians and staff about the need for water if you want to grow food.
Water Supply
Russ Freeman said the delivery of 2024 unscheduled water depends on the district moving another 150,000 plus a/f before February. The district is expecting to use about 100,000 a/f of groundwater also by February. The blended price was $450 a/f.
Tom Boardman said the Shasta carryover was 2.7 million a/f and this is a good start for next year. Right now, Shasta is releasing more than its inflow to keep the Sacramento River cooler this time of year. That should stop by the end of the month. A 50 percent year could fill the reservoir for next year.
Boardman said by late May there is a good chance to fill Folsom Reservoir. Folsom gets tapped more for in Delta flows because it is much closer than Shasta and this leaves more cold water in Shasta for the Sacramento River. The Fall X2 was off ramped at the first of this month and adaptive management is now being used. Despite what some of the non-governmental organizations are saying the world didn’t come to an end. Also, the federal Jones Plant has been able to pump. The state Banks Plant is off line at the moment to apply some aquatic herbicide near its intake facilities. He said adaptive management saved water going out to sea and limited upstream releases.
Director William Bourdeau thanked everyone for the heavy lift of getting adaptive management in place. It was a big effort for the CVP and the State Water Project.
Boardman said 331,000 a/f at San Luis Reservoir on the fed side. Getting some rain between now and the end of the year would always help.
Eric Johnson called in and asked how much banking do the growers in Westlands need. Freeman said they need to stop pumping. There are less trees in the district now and he sees more banking in Westlands and for growers with opportunities outside of the district. He’s seeing about 20,000 a/f more needed underground. He said the reduction in permanent plantings is being finalized.
Gov’t Stuff
Jeff Payne spoke about legislative matters and the district’s state lobbyist spoke. He said the feds are next month. Libby Sanchez, Duncan McFetridge and Bob Giroux spoke.
Sanchez said Prop Four is the climate bond for $10 billion. This was originally written as legislation. There are eight categories of funding. There is $3.8 billion for drought, flood and water supply. That’s the biggest of the eight buckets of money. The smallest is $300 million for farms and agriculture. Who could have seen that coming? At least 40-percent of the money must be used to directly benefit low income communities. Sanchez said Westlands could use the money to create a new park. The $300 million for ag includes soil health, less air pollution and using less water. That is the $105 million share that also includes community gardens, farmers markets and of that $60 million would be for shade canopies. The document presented stated the rest of the money could be spent on purchasing vans to transport farmworkers. I asked if the vans have to be electric. Giroux said the is likely but not included in the bond measure. Future appropriation bills will no doubt include that mandate.
Payne added there are a good deal of comments coming from water interests concerning the lack of interest in water in this bond.
Next Giroux said Westlands had a pretty successful year. Two water rights bills were killed. There is some big term limit turnovers on the horizon in the state Senate and Assembly. He’d like to have some lobby days. McFetridge added the Gov has only two years left. He said the last time Trump was President the California legislature focused a lot on Trump and not so much on governing the state. Febbo added this is the team that got Westlands positioned to be able to take on the solar projects. Fortune thanked the team.
Outreach & Public Affairs
Elizabeth Jonasson reported there was a tour of the district by researchers from a University in Germany and Fresno State. There has also been a good deal of increase on social media views and Jonasson reported there were a number of news reports. Bourdeau asked where the messages are being received. Jonasson the directed target is Los Angeles and Sacramento.
O&M
Kelly Vandergon said there were two instances of vandalism and wire theft at two pumping stations located in the far west side of the district. He reported PG&E has been able to free up its schedule to help get district pumps online.
Vandergon said the contractor is back after helping with wildfires and transformer testing is underway again.
Power to the People or the Coastal Elites
Patrick Mealoy of the Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan gave an update. He said as a state California is good at studying things and poor at building things. There is zero capacity for transmitting new power sources such as solar in the San Joaquin Valley. If I understood correctly the main location for increased transmission capacity is the Central Coast.
Mealoy said even the proposed increases are about an eight of the size needed. We’re going to go with an all-electric farmworker van fleet? California is monkey butting around with the idea of renewables from out of state. It’s not going to be enough. And the California Air Resources Control Board keeps doubling down with more ill-conceived regulatory schemes. This is how bad it is in a one party state. CARB wants only electric trains as if there’s some giant Christmas tree to lay that package under. If you mandate it somehow affordable technology will appear.
Outside Reports
Bourdeau said he just came back from Washington DC where farming interests from all over the west were able to get in front of elected officials thanks to the Family Farm Alliance. The FFA is also looking for someone to replace its Executive Director Dan Keppen. Good luck with that. FFA is one of the best ag water organizations in the nation and Keppen leaves big shoes as they say.
SGMA
Next Kitty Campbell gave the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act report. She said in September there was recharge and agreements for additional recharge on district property. Folks can also recharge on private property and only have to submit a one page update to the district. The updated Groundwater Sustainability Plan is up for review.
Growers Rebecca Kaser asked if there is ability to get more recharge locations online, I believe. And I believe the answer was, yes soon. Will Coit asked about lower aquifer recharge and that is being considered. Lindsay Cederquist asked about the turnaround time for recharge applications. Campbell said three days for an updated previously approved application and for new applications expect about two weeks for review.
Campbell then gave the groundwater update report. She showed most of the upper aquifer pumping is taking place south of Highway 198. Fortune asked Febbo when she next talks with the US Bureau of Reclamation’s Karl Stock and Kristin White to remind them the best storage for water in Westlands is in the ground and not hanging out in San Luis Reservoir.
Other Matters
Febbo said a third party, Provost & Pritchard, has been brought in to administer the district election and new ballots are being used. Steve Farmer said ballots were mailed out this month and everyone should have received theirs by now. There will be a workshop to go over the new ballots and staff is available as well. Grower Jon Reiter asked what happens if there is an error on a ballot. Farmer said submitted ballots with errors will be pulled and the party will be contacted to fix things – if the ballot is turned in soon enough.
I have nothing against Provost & Pritchard. They are truly one of the best engineering firms specializing in ag irrigation in California. But it puzzled me why the district hired an engineering firm to run an election.
I’ve seen some public outreach by engineering firms at SGMA meetings and at grower education meetings like the one held at the World Ag Expo facilities in Tulare. All these engineers tired but it was a bit like having your dentist remove your appendix.
Turns out in this case P&P hired a subcontractor to actually conduct the election. I didn’t want to go down a rabbit hole during a public meeting but I’d like to know why Westlands just didn’t hire the subcontractor in the first place. If this goes to bid next year I’ll bet you a dollar I can hire a subcontractor on Westland’s behalf cheaper than almost any engineering firm in North America.*
Jose Gutierrez gave an update on the Lateral 6 Capital Improvement Project. I had some difficulty following this for two reasons. One, I wasn’t paying attention as I was busy waxing philosophical on the above issue of hiring engineering firms for non-engineering tasks. And two, I couldn’t read the image on the television screens. However, others in the room were on it. Coit commented this is some of the cheapest water available.
Non-Native Predators v. Aliens
Febbo reported on predation studies in the Delta. This is a much larger challenge in Delta management than previously believed. Bourdeau asked why the biological opinions don’t address predation. He said he’d personally go bass fishing. The great Vince Lucchesi, GM Patterson ID spoke online about partnering with other impacted districts. He presented a 10-minute video on what’s happening.
The video stated 10s of millions of salmon have to be raised in a hatchery. The vast majority of them will die navigating the Delta before they reach the sea. Most of the help offered by the government is to turn up the flow release knobs and send more water downstream. That hasn’t helped. The habitat is no longer natural – it’s more of a water conveyance system. Widespread habitat restoration is ongoing, limited salmon fishing and different flow management have been used for years but that isn’t helping either.
The non-native predation by striped bass has been literally decimating salmon populations. There are more non-native fish than native fish currently in the Delta. South of Delta water users came together to study the largely ignored impacts of non-native predation. Striped and black bass have been found to be everywhere. None of the tagged out-migrating salmon survived predation last year.
It’s not just farmers getting hit – the California fishing fleet is being docked. They can’t fish for salmon out at sea.
Director Jim Anderson asked Lucchesi who is also helping. Lucchesi said the USBR and some work with California Fish & Game. Lucchesi said there has been a great deal of resistance. Payne said this hasn’t made it to the biops yet because flow has been the focus for so long. Up to 90 percent of the salmon have been eaten in the Delta.
Febbo said much of the opposition is from (nominally) those who benefit from bass fishing tournaments. Lucchesi said there is less opposition than in the past and the effort is to get the data pear reviewed and published. Director Frank Coelho said the predecessor to Wonderful – Paramount Farms sued someone overt this and he’d like to know more about what happened.
Coit said the world record non-ocean striped bass was caught in the O’Neill Forebay at San Luis Reservoir. He said there are locations where there are kill orders. Some invasive fish you can’t legally throw back.
Johnson said there was a black bass program in the 1980s where if you threw a black bass back you’d get a hat pin. He said this needs to be taken to the state legislature because he has no hope in the State Fish & Game Commission doing anything about this. BCID link
Two Resolutions were passed. One honoring Karen Clark and one honoring Jeronimo Amacisca for being cool, kind and helpful.
Closed Session
The meeting went into closed session for what I counted as 31 items of a personnel, real property or legal action nature.
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*IT’S AN overhead thing. I don’t have much, of course I don’t have nearly as much income either.
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Westlands Water District
286 W. Cromwell Ave, Fresno, CA 93711 Phone:559/224-1523
Board: Jeff Fortune -President, Jim Anderson – Vice President, Frank Coelho Jr., William Bourdeau, Kevin Assemi, Ross Franson, Jeremy Hughes, Ernie Costamagna & Justin Diener.
Staff: Allison Febbo-General Manager, Jose Gutierrez-Lt. General Manger, Russ Freeman-Deputy GM Resources, Kitty Campbell-Supervisor of Resources, Steve Farmer-VP of Finance & Admin Affairs, Elizabeth Esposito-In House Counsel, Kelly Vandergon-Director of O&M, Jim Carter-IT Guru and Elizabeth Jonasson-Public Affairs Officer.
About: Without irrigation, farming in the Westlands area of California would be limited and ineffectual. The history of Westlands is one of continual adaptation, careful water stewardship and advanced technology. By maintaining a fierce commitment to sustainability, the Westlands’ comprehensive water supply system continues to adapt, educate, and surpass conservation goals. Throughout its history, Westlands Water District has demonstrated a lasting dedication to water conservation and recognized that the long-term survival of its farms depends on the effective management of California’s precious water resources. From www.wwd.ca.gov
SGMA: Westland WD is in the Westside Subbasin and the Westlands WD GSA. DWR #5-022.09