MEETING NOTES: Kern districts want strings on money to continue funding delta tunnel

Meetings:
Rosedale Rio-Bravo Water Storage District Board of Directors
Arvin-Edison Water Storage District Board of Directors
Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District Board of Directors
Cawelo Water District Board of Directors 
Indian WellsValley Groundwater Authority board of directors

Agenda packets: 
Rosedale Rio-Bravo: CLICK HERE
Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa: CLICK HERE
Arvin Edison: CLICK HERE
Cawelo: CLICK HERE
Indian Wells: CLICK HERE

State Water – Funding the delta tunnel

Several local agricultural water districts that contract for state water approved continued spending toward construction of the long-planned tunnel to get water through the ecologically sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. 

But those approvals included strings.

The Rosedale Rio-Bravo and Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa water storage districts boards recently approved maintaining their current shares of the Kern County Water Agency’s portion of the pre-construction and planning phase for the Delta Conveyance Project.

Wheeler Ridge General Manager Sheridan Nicholas told his board at its March 12 meeting that the Westside Water Authority, made up of Belridge Water Storage District and Lost Hills and Berrenda Mesa water districts, also approved maintaining its funding.

The Cawelo Water District board discussed continuing to pay its portion at its March 13 meeting but went into closed session to discuss the matter further and did not report any board action taken after closed session.

The Department of Water Resources needs $300 million for this phase of the project. 

The Kern County Water Agency, which holds the State Water Project contract for 13 different ag districts, owes $33 million of that $300 million. But it first needs to get the money from its member districts.

Those member districts have conditions, though. Including that the Kern County Water Agency must pursue policy changes with the Department of Water Resources in order to increase the tunnel’s affordability and benefit to ag.

There is still a lot of skepticism about the project as articulated by Jason Selvidge, vice president of the Rosedale-Rio Bravo board during its March 11 meeting.

He is hearing water through the tunnel – anticipated to cost $20 billion to complete – will cost $3,000 an acre foot under the district’s regular contract, known  as “Table A” water.

He called the cost laughable and expected it would only increase once the tunnel is under construction, which is anticipated to last 15 years. Money spent on the tunnel now, could be earning interest all that time instead of paying for a project that may never come to fruition, he said.

“It doesn’t look good,” he concluded.

Rosedale-Rio Bravo Assistant Manager Trent Taylor said the tunnel’s real prize will be what’s known as “Article 21” water, or excess water that materializes in good rain years.

“Every model that they have run … indicates it would provide a dramatic increase in Article 21 availability which for the groundwater service district is extremely important.”

He referred to big gulps of water during wet years that can be stored in recharge ponds to rejuvenate withered aquifers.

Federal water – allocations aided by technology

Engineer Manager for the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District, Jeevan Muhar, informed the board at its March 11 meeting that the Friant allocation is currently at 45%, partially thanks to an airborne snow observatory flight. 

“We did run out an ASO flight which showed that the old school way of looking at snowpack was about 140,000 acre feet short. The last storms and these next storms will actually help get us back to where we should be. We are projecting maybe 65% (allocation) after the next storm,” Muhar said.

ASO flights use a mix of LIDAR and imaging spectrometry that can measure snow depth to within two inches. They compare that information to mapping from “snow off” flights over watersheds during summer to get a more accurate picture of what’s actually sitting in the high Sierras.

Desert water – authority encouraged to get its message out

Several members of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority “policy advisory committee” encouraged the authority at its March 12 meeting  to do more to explain its work to the public and stamp out misinformation.

Rene Westa-Lusk asked the board to have a spokesperson meet with outside clubs and organizations to correct misinformation and suggested the board sponsor a column in the Ridgecrest Daily Independent newspaper to fact check information about the authority. 

Finally, she asked the board where she could report misinformation she had witnessed. Carol Thomas-Keefer, general manager of the authority, asked that Westa-Lusk bring the report to her.

Judie Decker, also on the advisory committee, reminded the board she has continuously asked them to do a better job of dispelling misinformation about the authority, urging them to be more known in the community. 

In her report Thomas Keefer, said that the authority was meeting weekly with an outreach consultant to improve communications, send additional press releases and present more information on the authority’s website.

Though the authority’s groundwater sustainability plan was among the first to be approved by the Department of Water Resources, the authority has been chided for  its plan to build a 50-mile pipeline to import water from the California Aqueduct that it will buy from a state water project contractor.

 The Indian Wells Valley Water District sued to have a court adjudicate the basin. 

The water district has argued the authority’s “safe basin yield” figure, or the amount that can be pumped each year without putting the basin in overdraft, is too low. The authority set that number at 7,650 acre feet per year. The water district has argued it’s closer to 14,000 acre feet.

In either case, the demand is about 28,000 acre feet a year.
The matter is expected to be decided by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.