Drought status upgraded as rain and snow persist
Just days after the board of Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District met last week, California’s drought map was updated to show an improvement.
As of Jan. 12, based on data from Jan. 10, only a tiny part of the state on the border of Siskiyou and Modoc counties below the Oregon border remained in extreme drought.
The Central Valley and most of Kern County, including the Greater Tehachapi Area, moved from extreme drought to severe drought — which is more of an improvement than you might think considering that the region had the worst ranking — exceptional drought — just weeks before.
Still, as of Jan. 13 there was no word of any increase in the allocation that the water district may get from the State Water Project. On Dec. 1 the allocation was set at 5 percent — far below the amount of water requested by the district’s customers.
BOARD WORKSHOP
On Jan. 9, during a special meeting, the district board held a public workshop to consider 2023 water deliveries and discuss this year’s water sales priority ordinance.
The water sales priority ordinance is only needed when the allocation of imported water is less than requested by customers, which has been the case quite often in recent years.
The district has imported water since 1974. But longterm reliability and delivery have decreased over time and expectations are that trends will continue, General Manager Tom Neisler said last year.
The district contracts for a total of 19,300 acre feet of water, but the actual amount of water it will be able to import is tied to how much water the Department of Water Resources makes available to SWP contractors and in drought years the allocation is always
at risk.
Most of those at the Jan. 9 workshop — board members as well as representatives of the city of Tehachapi and Golden Hills Community Services District — already had that information. As did another attendee, Matt Vickery, director of land and water resources for Grimmway Farms.
But there was something new at the workshop — everyone in attendance was invited to sit around tables pushed together, allowing directors to sit elbow-to-elbow with district customers and other members of the public. And the workshop was held in early January, with hopes that decisions about priorities may be worked out earlier in the year.
Last year Vickery expressed concern that the priority ordinance was passed too late in the year — in late April — long past the time that farming interests need to make decisions.
But the city and Golden Hills expressed other concerns, most specifically that they believe that the district should involve stakeholders more in making decisions about the priority for water. And last June the two entities called upon the district to allocate 75 percent of imported water to M&I
(municipal and industrial) customers — leaving only 25 percent of the allocation for agriculture.
M&I CONCERNS
Among M&I customers are the city and three community services districts — Golden Hills, Bear Valley and Stallion Springs — that sell water to customers and depend to varying degrees on imported water to supplement groundwater or for a water bank.
In a letter to the board dated Jan. 4, the coalition called upon the district to maintain a focus on development of a long-term strategy for managing and allocating the district’s SWP supply.
“We understand that President (Robert) Schultz is eager to complete this process by the end of January 2023,” the letter reads. “However, we caution that the district not trade a comprehensive strategy for an expedient one. We acknowledge that the development and adoption of a long-term policy like this is a significant undertaking, however, we are committed to work through issues and reach consensus on a long-term strategy that works for all the district’s stakeholders.”
Specifically, the coalition calls upon development of
the water allocation strategy in an open and transparent manner and to address how the district’s M&I contracts will interact with that strategy — and the Regional Urban Water Management Plan.
The RUWMP is a five-year plan that was last updated in June 2016 for 2015. The 2020 RUWMP was to be submitted to the DWR by July 1, 2021, but is still not complete. Neisler said last June that the lack of progress was his fault. A meeting with stakeholders about the plan was apparently held recently but a draft has not been made public.
Golden Hills and the city have also called upon the district to address why M&I taxpayers provide the most revenue to the district but are “consistently given a priority below that of agricultural customers” for imported water and also to reconcile the water allocation strategy “with the legislative mandate that water used for domestic purposes is the highest use of water.”
BOARD POSITION
The board position has been that M&I customers have been given priority over agriculture, receiving the allocations they have requested and also that taxes raised by the ad valorem tax that pays overhead for the water importation system benefit everyone in the district.
Susan Wells, general manager of Golden Hills CSD, points out, though, that her district isn’t able to take delivery of imported water and that placing imported water for what is called “conjunctive use” lower than ag water on the priority list puts the district at a disadvantage.
There did seem to be positive interaction between board members and stakeholders during the workshop, but whether there is a point of agreement that might be reached remains to be seen.
The board’s next meeting is set for 3 p.m. Jan. 18. It will be held at district headquarters, 22901 Banducci Road, Tehachapi. An agenda is online at tccwd.com.