Glenn water district backs down from plans for five new wells

by Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record, 4.9.16

Willows: Plans are off the table for now for Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District to drill five new wells as a backup water supply during dry times.

The surface water district provides water to more than 1,000 farmers in the Sacramento Valley, for a total of about 175,000 acres. The plans for the wells have been on paper for a few years, and two public meetings were held to accept public comment.Glenn wells 4.9.16

At a public meeting in Ord Bend last July, the majority of people who spoke said they were strongly against the plan for five new wells for the district, which has senior water rights along the Sacramento River. Speakers were also critical of five wells previously drilled by the district.

In August of last year, the Glenn County Board of Supervisors was knee-deep in discussions about whether to pass a moratorium on drilling new wells. The board passed a temporary ban on new wells, including any Glenn-Colusa would have planned. That well moratorium has been extended.

At the Thursday meeting of the Glenn-Colusa board members, it was made official that the idea for the new wells would be taken off the table.

Barbara Vlamis of Chico’s www.aqualliance.net believes pressure by her group and others helped dissuade Glenn-Colusa from moving ahead with the new wells.

Vlamis has been tracking operations, water transfers and future plans of the district for decades. When it came time to submit public comments she submitted 37 pages of legal arguments against the wells. The intention was that if the plans moved forward, she and other groups planned to file a lawsuit based on the California Environmental Quality Act.

Back in July 2015, the Butte County Board of Supervisors sent a letter to Glenn-Colusa, voicing concerns about whether those wells could impact groundwater levels in Butte County, just across the river.

“The county is concerned about the use of the wells for other purposes, such as a future groundwater substitution water transfers, which would move groundwater outside of the region,” the letter stated, among other concerns.

Glenn-Colusa leaders said the wells were not intended for transfers, but would be used to help growers when there were water shortages and to help reduce Sacramento River diversions when river water was needed for migrating fish, among other benefits.

This week the district decided at its board meeting to put the plans for the wells on the back burner.

This will leave more time to work on a water resource plan, said Glenn-Colusa manager Thad Bettner.

Many water issues are happening simultaneously, including ongoing issues facing water supply and fish populations and questions of secure water supply.

Having a water resource plan will put the water district in better position for the Groundwater Sustainability Act, which requires regional planning for groundwater use, Bettner said.

Glenn-Colusa will be working with Sacramento Valley cities and other water groups when state-mandated new groundwater programs are established over the next several years.

“We still see that the wells are necessary,” Bettner said.

The plans that have been developed so far can be picked up in the future, he said.

With more water in Lake Shasta, and other water issues very prevalent, Bettner said the board decided to work on issues that have risen to the top of the stack.

Vlamis said she believes the recent decision has more to do with “overwhelming public opposition” to the idea for the new wells.

“There were significant players lining up to litigate because there were major holes in the project.”

She called the backtrack on the plans a “success under CEQA.”

Contact reporter Heather Hacking at 896-7758.

The drought’s silver lining: It’s forced us to confront the Golden State’s scarcity of water

 

Bob SpeerGuest Comment 

 

by Robert Speer
Chico News & Review,
11.12.15 


Crises have a way of compelling change. 
California’s four-year drought has forced us to confront, once and for all, the scarcity of the state’s most precious resource, its water.

A consensus is emerging among Northern Californians that, unless we act now, we may see our water, including groundwater, drained for the benefit of users south of the Sacramento Valley.

The threat has three main sources: the federal Bureau of Reclamation, whose 10-year plan would send 600,000 acre-feet of water south annually for a decade; the state of California, which wants to build two huge tunnels in the Delta to send more Sacramento River water south; and the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, which wants to sell surface water south and replace it with groundwater.

Local orchardists forced lately to dig deeper wells understand what’s at stake. They’ve seen what has happened in the over-pumped San Joaquin Valley, where aquifers have collapsed and the ground subsided, sometimes by several feet.

Who, we might ask, is working to protect our groundwater? Not our state legislators, who know where the votes and campaign funds are. Not our congressional delegation, for the same reasons. And not Gov. Brown, who seems determined to build his terrible tunnels.

Defending the North State against these powerful forces are several grassroots organizations such as the Butte Environmental Council, the Sacramento River Preservation Trust and AquAlliance. Of the three, only AquAlliance is focused strictly on water. Led by the redoubtable Barbara Vlamis, its only paid staff member, and with the help of a cadre of volunteers, it is putting up fierce resistance in the courts.

It was AquAlliance that forced the feds to come clean about their 10-year plan for water transfers. It was AquAlliance that sued to stop state water agencies from allowing water-quality-law violations injurious to Sacramento River salmon. And it is AquAlliance that is leading the legal challenge to GCID’s plan to put in five massive new production wells designed to free up surface water for sale.

That’s a lot for such a small group to do. It needs your help, mostly to pay for legal expenses and consultants. Please, go to www.aqualliance.net and donate.

Click here to view article at at The Chico News & Review website.

Tunnels don’t add up, now we know why

Editorial graphic3.20.16, Modesto Bee: For years now, Gov. Jerry Brown has been telling us that he will save the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – the greatest fresh-water estuary on this side of the continent – by taking water out of it.

Environmental scientists have hustled out to make his case. Wildlife experts have joined the “Oyez” chorus. And state water managers insist it is our only option.

Among the biggest and most enthusiastic backers is the largest irrigation district in the world, Westlands Water District, and the largest urban water supplier in the world, Metropolitan Water District. Met has even bought four islands to facilitate the tunnels. They keep a public relations firms on call to answer any negativity (like this).

Yet, to many of us poor, unlearned Valley dwellers it just doesn’t make sense. How can you save a water system by diverting major portions of its water before it ever gets to the Delta?

Thank goodness Westlands is here to clear up any confusion. We just need to apply a “little Enron accounting,” in the words of an unnamed Westlands employee quoted in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charge. That’s right, fraud charge; we’ll get back to that in a moment.

First, recall Enron. That was the Texas energy company that convinced California’s gullible legislators to deregulate electricity in 1996. Within a few months, the company began “gaming” the market by artificially limiting supply during heat waves. The company made hundreds of millions in dishonest profits as prices skyrocketed and blackouts rolled across California.

One trader sang “Burn, baby burn” as prices spiked. Another spoke admiringly of a co-worker, saying “He steals money from California to the tune of about a million.” And who can forget the Enron employee who laughed at the thought that “Grandma Millie” would want her “(expletive) money back.”

Those employees could mock our misery because they thought no one would hold them accountable for their “Enron accounting.” But that wasn’t true. Enron folded and some of the crooks at the top went to jail.

Westlands didn’t do anything comparable to the Enron scandal, but the nation’s largest water district did get caught lying to investors. Using what an unnamed Westlands executive called “a little Enron accounting,” the district maximized returns for water customers while misleading those who bought its bonds in 2012.

The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Westlands $125,000 to settle the charges last week. It also fined Westlands general manager Thomas Birmingham $50,000.

“Issuers must be truthful with investors,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division.

Because Westlands wasn’t truthful, the fines were appropriate if somewhat low (they were the highest ever for a public agency).

And that brings us back to the tunnels. How can we trust anything untruthful Westlands says? How do we keep faith in Westlands’ partners – Metropolitan and Gov. Jerry Brown?

As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, if you divert major portions of the Sacramento River under the Delta, the only way to “save” the Delta is to increase the flows from the much-smaller San Joaquin River into the Delta. To do that, the state will have to take more of the flows from the Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers. The tunnels are nothing less than a water grab, and it’s our water they’re grabbing.

Remember feeling victimized by Enron’s dishonest accounting? The tunnels only make sense with more “Enron accounting.” If they’re built, forget getting our water back.

Fine should put a halt to twin tunnels

3.18.16, Contra Costa Times: Give it up, governor.

Gov. Jerry Brown is counting on the Westlands Water District to be one of the major financial backers of his $15 billion Delta tunnels, easily the largest public works project in U.S. history.

It’s time he dumped the whole notion, given last week’s admission by Westlands general manager that the nation’s largest water district got caught cooking the books with “a little Enron accounting.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission was not amused. The SEC leveled a $125,000 fine on Westlands to settle charges that it misled investors by faking its financial records in connection with a 2012 bond issue.

It’s the largest settlement ever for a case involving a municipal bond agency, and it raises major questions about Westlands’ credibility.

If Westlands General Manager Thomas Birmingham has an ounce of integrity he would immediately resign. Instead, it appears he will pony up the SEC’s separate $50,000 fine for his role in the wrongdoing and keep his nearly $400,000-a-year job.

Westlands’ penchant for playing fast and loose with investors normally wouldn’t matter all that much to Bay Area residents. But the Santa Clara Valley Water District will decide sometime within the next year if it wants to jump into bed with Westlands and Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District as major investors in the twin tunnels project.

This is just one more reason it shouldn’t.

The plan is nothing but a massive water grab by desperate Central Valley farmers and Southern California’s thirsty urban dwellers.

The project won’t produce a drop of new water for California while ratepayers will bear the brunt of a $15 billion project with costs that could perhaps double or triple, given the typical overruns on state projects.

Westlands’ settlement with the SEC includes no admission of wrongdoing, but it’s easy to see why it was hit with the big fine. In 2012, Westlands sought a $77 million bond sale. As a part of that transaction, it needed to tell bond buyers that it would maintain a 1.25 percent debt service ratio cushion, as it had with previous bond deals.

Except, in 2010, drought conditions made it impossible for Westlands to collect the revenues needed to do so. The right thing to do would have been to either admit the shortfall to potential investors, which would have raised borrowing costs, or raise rates to farmers by 11.6 percent to make up the difference. Westlands instead took money from accounts dedicated to other commitments to make it appear that all was well.

The twin-tunnel project was a bad idea from the outset. The latest revelation should end any thoughts by Gov. Jerry Brown or any local district of going into business with Westlands.

Federal SEC Charges Westlands Water District with ‘Enron Accounting’

by Dan Bacher, Daily Kos.com

3.10.16: Westlands Water District, considered to be the “Darth Vader” of California water politics by leaders of fishing groups, Indian Tribes and environmental organizations, is in boiling hot water with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Westlands protest

Hoopa Valley Tribe members protest Westlands Water District’s salmon-killing policies in Fresno, August 2013.

The SEC yesterday charged California’s largest agricultural water district, situated on drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, with “misleading investors about its financial condition as it issued a $77 million bond offering,” according to a statement from the Commission.

The water district has been one of the biggest promoters of the Governor Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix to build the Delta Tunnels until recently when they told FOX News in Los Angeles that they can no longer afford to pay for the project, a government boondoggle that could cost up to $67 billion.

“Birmingham jokingly referred to these transactions as ‘a little Enron accounting’ when describing them to the board of directors, which is comprised of Westlands customers,” the SEC reported.

According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding:

Westlands agreed in prior bond offerings to maintain a 1.25 debt service coverage ratio, which is a measure of an issuer’s ability to make future bond payments.

Westlands learned in 2010 that drought conditions and reduced water supply would prevent the water district from generating enough revenue to maintain a 1.25 ratio.

In order to meet the 1.25 ratio without raising rates on water customers, Westlands used extraordinary accounting transactions that reclassified funds from reserve accounts to record additional revenue. 

When Westlands issued the $77 million bond offering in 2012, it represented to investors that it met or exceeded the 1.25 ratio for each of the prior five years.

Not only did Westlands fail to disclose that wouldn’t have been possible without the extraordinary 2010 accounting transactions, but also omitted separate accounting adjustments made in 2012 that would have negatively affected the ratio had they been done in 2010. 

Had the 2010 reclassifications and the effect of the 2012 adjustments been disclosed, Westlands’ coverage ratio for 2010 would have been only 0.11 instead of the 1.25 reported to investors.

Birmingham and Ciapponi improperly certified the accuracy of the bond offering documents.

The SEC said Westlands agreed to pay $125,000 to settle the charges, making it only the second municipal issuer to pay a financial penalty in an SEC enforcement action.

Birmingham agreed to pay a penalty of $50,000 and Ciapponi agreed to pay a penalty of $20,000 to settle the charges against them.

“The undisclosed accounting transactions, which a manager referred to as ‘a little Enron accounting,’ benefited customers but left investors in the dark about Westlands Water District’s true financial condition,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division.  “Issuers must be truthful with investors and we will seek to deter such misconduct through sanctions, including penalties against municipal issuers in appropriate circumstances.”

The SEC’s order finds that Westlands, Birmingham and Ciapponi violated Section 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 and must cease and desist from future violations. 

You can read the SEC decision here: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2016/33-10053.pdf

In response to the SEC action, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, said, “Westlands Water District has been fined for doing Enron-style accounting on the sale of water bonds in 2012. Portions of those bonds were used to finance planning of the Delta tunnels project.”

“Westlands leadership, however, recently told Fox News in Los Angeles that they can no longer afford to pay for the Delta tunnels project. Clearly, they are no longer in a position to sell bonds for paper water — because the Delta tunnels will not provide any new water to water exporters,” she said.

She said the vote on Tuesday, March 8 by to Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California to purchase Delta islands in order to have a staging site for construction of the Delta Tunnels “indicates that water exporters are so desperate to push the project through that they will continue to push it forward even without a viable funding plan.”

“The question now is if Southern California and Santa Clara Valley ratepayers are willing to pay not only their share for dry tunnels, but for Westlands growers as well,” Barrigan-Parrilla concluded.

Tom Stokely of the California Water Impact Network noted that the SEC action “reminded me of a transcript from a Westlands board meeting where Birmingham, in response to a question, said the district would declare bankruptcy and default on bonds for BDCP, the predecessor to the California Fix,  if necessary, and the landowners would not be held financially responsible.”

The transcript from the Westlands Water District Board meeting of January 15, 2014, states:

Q: If the District goes broke, will the bondholders not come back [and go after the Westlands landowners?]. 

A: The security on the bonds is the [Westlands] district’s revenue, not the landowner’s land. In a worst case, we file for bankruptcy. That’s what the District could do. The landowners’ land is not security.”

You can read the transcript of the meeting here: https://www.c-win.org/webfm_send/434

Stokely said that it is clear from the SEC action, as well as from the Westlands board meeting transcript, that  “anybody who would buy bonds through Westlands for the Delta Tunnels or anything else is taking a huge risk.”

“Why would the Metropolitan Water District and Santa Clara Valley Water District want to partner with an entity like Westlands that can’t be relied upon to tell the truth or pay off their debt?” asked Stokely. “The federal government has appoved a court settlement that would forgive Westlands $375 million in interest-free debt they owe the federal government for their share in the construction of the Central Valley Project facilities that deliver their water. It’s clear that urban ratepayers of California would have to pick up Westlands’ tab for the Delta Tunnels.”

Westlands has sued the federal government over the past several summers in unsuccessful attempts to stop supplemental releases from Trinity Reservoir to prevent a massive fish kill on the lower Klamath River, prompting protests by members of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk, Winnemen Wintu and other Tribes in 2013 and 2014 against Westlands’ litigation.

“Central Valley water users have made untold billions of dollars at the expense of Trinity River salmon and communities,” said  Danielle Vigil-Masten, then the Chairwowman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, before a protest organized by the Tribe in Fresno in August 2013. “The greed and aggression represented by this lawsuit and the hypocrisy of the plaintiff’s exploitation of environmental protection laws both stuns and saddens us.” (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/8/20/1232633/-Hoopa-Valley-Tribal-Members-Protest-Westlands-Lawsuit.)

A call to the Westlands Public Affairs Office regarding a comment on the SEC decision has not yet been returned.

According to the New York Times, “Responding on Thursday to the settlement, Fitch Ratings placed a negative ratings watch on $193.6 million in Westlands debt, indicating a higher chance that those AA bonds would be downgraded. It also placed a negative watch on $29.8 million in bonds issued by the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority, a collection of California water districts whose leading member and partial financier is Westlands.” (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/10/1499271/-Federal-SEC-Charges-Westlands-Water-District-for-Enron-Accounting )

Those “Fracking” Facts, Jerry Brown’s Lost Colusa Oil Wells Found

3 Oil/Gas Wells Listed on Brown’s Family Homestead
by Red Smith

2.10.16: Recently California Governor Jerry Brown came under fire for the use of public funds to conduct a geological survey on his family property in Colusa County. The Governors office immediately and vehemently denied any wrong doing, claiming the Governor didn’t use any services not readily available to any other California resident. However former head of the State of California Oil, Gas and Geothermal (Department of Conservation) Steve Bohlen denied Californians would have similar access as the Governor, in response well over 250 Californians requested identical surveys of their personal property, to date zero of those requests have been acknowledged. Furthermore Jennie Catalano, a mapping specialist for the California Department of Conservation, emerged stating she faced retaliation after complaining about being required to do personal work for Brown. Jennie Catalano has filed a whistleblower case over the incident.

BrownWellOverlayBrown claims his request was to satisfy his interest in the history and geology of his family’s land, however many, especially those in the California Republican Party, claim the report focused primarily on oil and gas deposits. Republicans are calling for a full investigation. Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) stated “The governor’s actions appear to be a clear violation of well-known state law prohibiting the use of public resources for personal gain. There will need to be an investigation to ensure the facts are brought out.”

In conversation with the Governors office late last year, Gubernatorial staff stated that no shale oil or natural gas deposits were found to be present on the property. This statement is proving to be categorically false information and considering the source of the contrary evidence, a bald faced lie. There is in fact a large deposit of shale oil on the Rancho Venada property according to USGS mapping of shale deposits.

BrownshaleGovernor Brown has continually denied the existence of oil or gas wells on the Rancho Venada property, however according to maps from the California Department of Conservation (see map top right) three wells do exist on the Governor’s property and have for decades. The first well (from top to bottom) is listed as Smith & Vickers Well#1 a plugged production gas well, API: 01100287. The second well is listed as E. & G. Products Well#1 an idle production gas well, API: 01100286 . Well 3 is listed as Mountain House Oil Company Well#5 an idle production Dry Gas Well, API: 01100288 .

 

 

 

Well information compiled from recorded documents of California State Mining Bureau Department of Petroleum & Gas and State of California Natural Resources Oil and Gas Division

Smith & Vickers Well#1 is reported to have been abandoned on May 12th, 1931. This well is reported to have drilled to a depth 1027′ and never produced oil, however it did strike fresh water at a depth of 302′ to 308′ producing 8 barrels a minute of water. No oil sands were present. The hole was sealed with a 10′ cement plug.

  1. & G. Products Well#1 is reported abandoned May 20th, 1938. Apparently the oil derrick and pumping equipment burned and drilling never resumed. The well is reported to have been drilled to a depth of 148′ where it began to produce a mixture of oil and saltwater amounting to roughly a half gallon of oil a minute. Shale oil, oil sands and blue shale were encountered prior to termination of operations. The hole is currently untapped and idle.

Mountain House Oil Company Well#5 is reported as abandoned on December 31st, 1931. The well was drilled to a depth of 1322′ where it struck sand shell deposits and blue shale. A natural gas deposit “in commercial quantities” was discovered at a depth of 1042′. The hole is currently listed as capped with a small pipe and idle.

Fracking1Regarding the E. & G. well and the Mountain House well 1930’s drilling technology would not have allowed for viable petroleum production from those sand and shale deposits, however due to new drilling techniques, namely “fracking”, those two wells now stand to be potentially, extremely lucrative if exploited. Fracking however requires vast amounts of water to pump into the wells in conjunction with sand and chemicals to fracture the shale deposits thereby releasing the trapped oil or gas deposits. Rancho Venada is a notably parched section of land in a historically dry region and would be hard pressed to accommodate the needed hydro-flow capacity to begin a fracking project.

However in November of 2015, in direct conversation with a local in ground resources infrastructure company the Shasta Lantern confirmed that wells had in fact recently been drilled on the Rancho property. It is believed a total of 9 wells, at least 6 of which were water wells, were drilled in the last quarter of 2015. These wells are thought to be potentially drilled using tax payer funded agricultural grants for livestock wellheads, however no livestock is believed to be present on the property. This information was fact checked by Agenda 21 radio.

In further research the Shasta Lantern has discovered there is a potential as well for geothermal development in the area of the Rancho Venada property. In a radical new procedure headed up by Berkeley-Livermore Labs known as Induced Seismicity it may be possible to ” revitalize” defunct geothermal vents not hot enough to produce the required steam for power production. This project is believed to be headed by Steve Bohlen, the former head of the California Conservation Department Oil, Gas and Geothermal Division, who resigned last year amidst the Jerry Brown Survey Scandal and returned to his former employer Berkeley-Livermore.

However in November of 2015, in direct conversation with a local in ground resources infrastructure company the Shasta Lantern confirmed that wells had in fact recently been drilled on the Rancho property. It is believed a total of 9 wells, at least 6 of which were water wells, were drilled in the last quarter of 2015. These wells are thought to be potentially drilled using tax payer funded agricultural grants for livestock wellheads, however no livestock is believed to be present on the property. This information was fact checked by Agenda 21 radio.

In further research the Shasta Lantern has discovered there is a potential as well for geothermal development in the area of the Rancho Venada property. In a radical new procedure headed up by Berkeley-Livermore Labs known as Induced Seismicity it may be possible to ” revitalize” defunct geothermal vents not hot enough to produce the required steam for power production. This project is believed to be headed by Steve Bohlen, the former head of the California Conservation Department Oil, Gas and Geothermal Division, who resigned last year amidst the Jerry Brown Survey Scandal and returned to his former employer Berkeley-Livermore.

Induced Seismicity is a process of injecting water into super heated vents to produce “micro-quakes” to fracture bedrock formations and open those vents to exploitation. A similar project is already underway at the nearby Geysers Geothermal field operated by CalPine Power. At this time 20 million gallons a day of reclaimed waste water is pumped from Santa Rosa and Lake County sources to the CalPine plant for injection into thermal vents to maintain steam pressure for power production. The vents near and potentially on the Rancho property are akin to those of the Geyser field as in they could be exploited for power production if they had access to a reliable water source.

SitesRes1

Enter California’s recent $7.5 Billion water Bond and the Sites Reservoir Project. In 2015 the water bond was overwhelmingly passed, minus support of the 10 most Northern Counties of California none of which voted to pass the bond, to ostensibly create new water storage areas for drought relief. Sites Reservoir is the at the top of the list of those projects, purportedly for agricultural use. Yet in discussion with a local hydrologist and engineer he claims that the Sites Reservoir design and capacity is incompatible and impracticable for agricultural irrigation use.

First off Sites Reservoir does not represent a true water storage reservoir as it relies on pumping water from the Sacramento River through miles of canals to sustain the water level. This is a diversion of water, not new storage. Furthermore due to the distance traveled to reach the reservoir the captured water could see as much as 50% surface evaporation.

Secondly due to the shallowness of the reservoir and the manner of water capture it will be a “warm bodied reservoir” prone to toxic algae blooms making it totally unfeasible for recreational or irrigation usage.

However our source did state that Sites Reservoir did have one big plus. As the reservoir is filled it will begin to saturate the surrounding areas, especially down stream of the reservoir, and raise the water table and create a new aquifer. It just so happens, mere miles, downstream from the Sites Project is Jerry Brown’s Rancho Venada Property. Although the Sites Reservoir appears to be inadequate for its stated purpose of water storage and irrigation, it is in a prime location and of sufficient capacity to feed the interests of energy companies hungry for water to frack oil, gas and geothermal deposits in the area.

In conclusion some facts have become quite clear. Jerry Brown did in fact use public funds to conduct a resource survey of his land, in all probability to examine potential natural resource exploitation. These services are not readily available to any California citizen as claimed by Brown and staff. Despite claims to the opposite, wells including gas and oil, do exist on the Rancho Venada property. At least two of those wells have good potential to be exploited for commercial fossil fuel production if given access to the needed water supplies. In direct contradiction to Jerry Brown’s staff claims that no substantial oil deposits were located on the ranch, shale oil deposits exist in great abundance, in fact the ranch is in the middle of a potential lake of shale oil. Upon further neutral examination, the Sites Reservoir is a poor model for it’s stated purpose of irrigation and water storage. It does however provide ready access to a sustainable supply of water to interests, including possibly Governor Brown and his property, wanting to exploit the area by fracking.

There is one problem with Governor Brown’s attempt to sweep this situation under the rug as nothing more than an interest in family history. Facts Jerry, those “fracking” facts.

View at Shasta Lantern website: https://shastalantern.net/2016/02/those-fracking-facts-jerry-browns-lost-colusa-oil-wells-found/

Twin Tunnels Protest 1.5.16

Protest of CSPA, C-WIN & AquAlliance of the Petitions “Requesting Changes in Water Rights of the Department of Water Resources and US Bureau of Reclamation of the California Waterfix Project”

Click here to view the Protest document. (Yellow highlights show our specific section, although we contributed to other areas.)

No tunnels symbolThis protest demonstrates how AquAlliance is again representing the NorthState in a way that local governments are not. Butte County was the most possible entrant into the fray fighting the Twin Tunnels before the State Water Resources Control Board. Here was the response to our questions about their involvement:

The County is going to continue to be actively involved in the WaterFix Project especially through the SWRCB proceedings. But we will not be putting in a notice to appear or to provide testimony for the April 7th hearing. I expect that we will be commenting at various points along the way.”

They will comment without creating legal standing. What this means is that they are not formally protesting the permits or planning to try to stop the Tunnels as are AquAlliance and our colleagues.

 

 

Farmers Try Political Force to Twist Open California’s Taps

New York Times, 12.31.15:

A powerful article about the political clout of Westlands Water District:

 

“A water utility on paper, Westlands in practice is a formidable political force, a $100 million-a-year agency with five lobbying firms under contract in Washington and Sacramento, a staff peppered with former federal and congressional powers, a separate political action committee representing farmers and a government-and-public-relations budget that topped $950,000 last year. It is a financier and leading force for a band of 29 water districts that spent at least another $270,000 on lobbying last year. Its nine directors and their relatives gave at least $430,000 to federal candidates and the Republican Party in the last two election cycles, and the farmers’ political action committee gave more than $315,000 more.

“Aggressive, creative and litigious … the district has made enemies of environmentalists, rival politicians and other farmers whose water it has tried to appropriate. But it has also repeatedly made deals and won legislative favors to keep water flowing to itself and to farms across the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland.”

Click here to read the full article.

 

Sites Reservoir: Different Views

Sites looking southHere are some very different view on the benefits of the proposed $6.3 billion Sites Reservoir on the west side of the Sacramento Valley.

 

 

 

The Good (AquAlliance agrees):

The Bad (AquAlliance disagrees):

Public Records 1, GCID 0

 

Score one for AquAlliance!

It started back on October 7, 2014, when AquAlliance attended Glenn Colusa Irrigation District’s 10-Wells Project scoping meeting. On October 31, we asked informally for the meeting sign-in sheets.

The district’s first response was to tell us to wait a couple of weeks for a report. Anticipating delays, AquAlliance filed a Public Records Act request on November 5, 2014.

On November 7th, the district sent us the sign-in sheets but omitted the attendee contact information.

AquAlliance returned to this request on July 1, 2015 with additional questions regarding the omitted material. Both the district’s general manager and attorney declined to alter their position to comply with the Public Records Act, despite the fact that we pointed out that, “It doesn’t appear that the meeting attendees are ‘utility customers’ as defined in [government code] 6254.16.” In addition, we  didn’t believe that GCID made a reasoned determination that, “…‘the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the records.’” Their attorney again declined to release the balance of the sign-in sheets.

Twenty days later AquAlliance filed a lawsuit in Glenn County Superior Court. Without our having to argue the case in court, GCID released the complete sign-in sheets one month after the litigation was filed. AquAlliance’s pro-bono attorney also recouped all of his costs and fees.

Click here to view the story in the Sacramento Valley Mirror (9.9.15).