City of Fresno suing Friant Water Authority

The Fresno City Council voted on Thursday to sue the Friant Water Authority to protect those in the city from having to pay for damages to the Friant-kern Canal.

The council voted to sue in closes session. The result of the vote was announced after the council returned to open session.

Councilmembers Gary Bredefeld and Luis Chavez voted no while councilmeber Esmeralda Soria abstained. The council voted to sue for declaratory relief to essentially prevent the city from having to pay for the costs of the damages to the Friant-kern Canal. The Friant Water Authority oversees the Friant Kern Canal.

Repairs to the canal are needed due to the overpumping of groundwater that has caused damage to the canal although growers would argue that pumping of groundwater wouldn’t be needed if sources of water weren’t improperly diverted. The Friant Water Authority and the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency has come to a settlement in which ETGSA has agreed to pay at least $125 million for damage caused to the canal by the pumping of groundwater.

Funding from that settlement along with a combination of federal, state and local funds will be used to fund the repairs of a 33-mile stretch of the canal from between Lindsay and Strathmore to north Kern County which are set to begin.

City of Fresno City Manager Thomas Esqueda was quoted in the Fresno Bee as saying the Friant Water Authority has approached the city of Fresno to help with the cost of the repairs.

“No action taken by the city of Fresno caused the damage to the Friant-kern Canal,” City of Fresno City Manager Thomas Esqueda was quoted in the Fresno Bee. “Nothing we ever did caused that. The request by Friant to fund the repairs for the damages that weren’t caused by the city provides no benefit to the city.”

Esqueda was quoted in the Fresno Bee as saying the city has negotiated with the Friant Water Authority for any payments of there would be a benefit to the city, but a resolution was never reached.