Good morning. I'd like to bring this meeting to order. Angel, will you please do roll call?
Dr. Bird. Here. President Trebus. Here. Vice President Orr. Here. Director Ott. Here. Quorum is present. Let's all stand for the pledge, please.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which
stands one nation under God in the physical liberty and justice for all.
Angela, will you read the meeting instructions please?
The Board of Directors welcomes participation in meetings.
The public is welcome to comment on matters appearing on the agenda at the time they are called.
the public may also comment on matters which are not on the agenda when the
president calls for public input for the good of the district. This time is
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because these are non-agent and matters generally no discussion or comment by
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If you wish to have an item removed, please do so after the president calls for consideration.
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Thank you.
Okay, we're going to do consent items and vice president board did you have something you want to say before we didn't consent?
Yeah, consent items item number three, the warrants, my votes will be only for items one and two, not number three.
I do the fact that a company that I do occasional work for is in the warrants.
So my vote will not be counted on number three.
All right, just identify the source of income interest specifically for the record.
It's for, for Tina Spurs the one that I do the farming for.
Okay, since it's on consent, that PVC does not require you to leave the room.
You can still vote on the matter, just to clerk note that whatever his vote on consent is will be for the other items, and he's abstaining that item three.
And obviously if it gets pulled, then you have to leave the row.
Okay, so it doesn't need to be pulled, we can just vote on it normal.
Okay, do we have a motion for the consent items?
Motion to approve the consent items.
Give a second.
Oh, seconded.
Do you have any public comment on consent items before we vote?
I'm not on the phone.
No, he has a raise.
Okay. Okay.
Should we do a roll call on this in Frank?
Yes. Okay, could we do a roll call, please?
Mr. Angelo. Dr. Bird. Yes. President Froblos. Yes. And vice president Boer. Yes.
And director Otte. Yes. Motion passes.
Okay, so let's move on to a public comment for the
good of the district. We have any public comment.
Any public comment anybody who hand raised on the
Okay. No hands are raised. Okay. They're closing. Okay. Emerson, you want to come up?
Good morning, Emerson. Five minutes.
Truly need to be said. One thing I don't see represented today is the Bill Lyons.
public relations policy. You know because in some areas they're called the
TARN Brother Gang. We hear a lot of things coming out of some places that
don't really make sense. And when I start to see people attack, they had
nothing that involves whatsoever. I take exception to that. You know I understand
how some people are real desperate to get their point across. But if you can't
stick to the facts and to the people that are actually involved, then maybe you
to put your pen down once in a while. I have a couple of concerns. One I wanted to bring up today
is I can't ask questions here. So I guess there'll be rhetorical. I've got to talk to you.
I guess there'll be rhetorical, but when I looked in your policies the best I could,
I'm just an amateur. I was trying to find out if you had a written procedure for handling public
relations requests. Now I'm not suggesting anything. I've talked about everyone that comes up. If I
I have an issue. I bring it up and I appreciate the last couple of responses quite honestly.
I told us some things at least I wasn't aware of at the time, and I don't think the public was either.
But I, in 25 years, I don't know of making public record requests between here, the Board of Supervisors, the City Council, especially those poor people.
I've never, ever once, in Qatar, never even heard of whoever the conversation was about, the public record request,
to follow up with on the individual with a phone call, not once. I just find
that to be unusual and the reason I bring it up and that's why I look to see if
you had a public if you had a procedure that you don't seem to have and then when
I was reading over the weekend we're going to talk about we have talked about the
fringe parcels and how we were here when we were told you had a policy where
then we got the public record request that said you don't have a policy and now I'm reading
in the paper about a, let's see, bisected parcels. So we're going to rename it. Reminds me
of a Modesto focus when they decide that their nickname should be mofo. I won't tell you how
many third graders get a chuckle when they hear that call somebody that and see what they think.
but that's made us their focus.
But when we're sitting here and we see that we
don't have a policy for public record requests and that we don't have a policy that
other districts deemed necessary for fringe parcels, whatever you choose to call
them, but let's not pretend that anything's different by changing the name, okay?
Do we need a policy pet? I truly believe that. 2011, as we've talked about before,
or OID spent a year looking up a study in their fringe parcels.
That's what I believe we need to do.
A recent public record request showed approximately 200 native those in MID.
I'm happy with the box, but there's nothing wrong with that because nobody's gone one by
one looking through it.
Now I'm not here to fry anybody.
I think what OID did, the best I can tell what they did from the articles in the paper,
makes sense.
If there is an issue, find a process, find a procedure and move forward with it.
Solve the problem.
But what we've been getting is this Tarn Feather Group that goes after, well, it wasn't
a good enough study.
Oh, we've got to go do this.
is that people involved creating, they're asking for the study or bad, everybody's wrong
but them. And later today I'm going to ask if we ever procedure, they'll stop people
from selling thousands of acre feet of water out of the MID district of MID water because
you give them the water. And there'll be a public request today to ask if we have a number
for how many acre feet of water we're fleshing down that line that goes through Bill Lyon's property.
You know, I don't know whether it's a distraction or what, but when we were here arguing about
the price for the groundwater replenishment program, we tried to get a low number to get people to
use it. I argue for it. I can't use your water. My water comes out of a hose. My electricity comes from
a switch. I've got nothing to gain in the middle, but not having a policy that nobody's using.
because it's set too high doesn't make sense to me. I think we need to review
it all and I think we need to get more procedures in place so people can't just
do whatever the heck they feel like when it comes to responses. Thank you very
much for your time.
Thank you for your comments. Does anybody else have any public
comment? They'd like to bring to our attention this morning.
Okay we'll close
public comment, for now, I would like to say something because this friend's parcel thing has been such a
controversial confused mess.
Parcel lines as a potenz of property, they come and go, they change over the years.
And then my deed does not have any jurisdiction over those issues as you can note in our last go or last last go report.
NYD legal boundary does not change. The water code requires our rules to be
equitable. The government code requires our language and those rules to be
simple. They are. The rule is very simple. If you're in the district, you're
100% in the district. If you're outside the district, you're 100% outside the
district. You can call property outside the district, a French parcel, and a
adjacent parcel. I can hit it with a golf ball from my land inside the district
parcel. You can call whatever you want,
but our rule is simple. 1.33 says the
board every year will allocate an allotment of water to be used for acres within
in the district, any further comments to that Frank?
No, we don't have any French parcel policy that I'm aware of.
We have the, we have in-district water that can be used for in-district.
Out-of-district water, the only policy or program I know of is the GRP that you can get about.
There's no, yeah, there's no carve out for French parcels.
There may be parcels that are French parcels by section parcels, whatever.
However, but again, there is just indistric or out of district.
And I don't think we can discuss this anymore.
We are allowed brief responses to public comment, but that's it.
So we should stop Mr. President.
Okay, thank you for that.
All right.
Hang on.
When they're up there, so they can receive all.
Hey, don't out of order.
Let's move on.
Staff presentations.
Let's do Wilson, will you step up into the local hazard mitigation plan?
Good morning.
Wilson Chalabi, AGMF Finance.
And before you today, I have a very brief presentation to update you
and receive your input on the local hazard mitigation plan.
There's no action needed from you today.
This is just a presentation.
and staff will come to you at a different time,
and later time with a proposed resolution
for your consideration.
Now for folks not familiar with the local hazard mitigation
plan, I'll just give you a quick update,
let you know what it is, and why it's so critical,
and then I'll pass the presentation to Dave Funk
and Calvin who are sitting right here.
Now, what is so important about this plan?
It is basically a repository identified local hazards as done so by our employees as subject expert
And also our consultants who are experts experts in this field and have done similar plans for other entities
Some of these identified hazards can be things such as security at a sub station
Lighting strike effective transformer
I'll be up to a crisis such as a damp failure and can affect life and property.
Now, why is this plan so critical for us?
As your AGM of finance, I'm always thinking about the district's finances.
So for me, on a selfish level, it allows the district to receive mitigation funds to address
some of these local hazards.
But at MIT, we don't distract the box and move on.
This is more to this.
This plan allows us to use this look-class remediation plan as a planning tool in our budget process and potentially create projects in the future that will allow us to address the hazard star in this plan.
We will also be eligible to receive FEMA emergency funding in case there is a catastrophe. We would not be eligible to receive that funding if we did not have this plan.
And in the past, we were part of the staff's last county's low class remediation plan as an annexed entity.
However, that put the allocation of funds in the hands of the county, and the county we need to balance its own needs and its own departments and the district.
By having our own plan, we put our fate in our own hands and are able to allocate funds as we deem fit.
And I can't talk about this plan without talking about the colossal undertaking that's
taken us to get here.
It's been spearheaded by our safety officer race and the front seat and the front row.
Along with our consultants, our employees, and of course the local community.
We've done various outreach events to get the community's input and incorporate those changes.
We're going to go to our plans.
Unless Jimmy, you have any input about this plan, you want to mention?
Sure. So just briefly, as Wilson mentioned, we're not asking for action today. We've mentioned this before. This is just a workshop to lead you through where the current progress is. Every day at MIT, there's hundreds of things that divert our attention, but we know it's important to plan and specifically plan for these hazards. If you think about it last year, this time we were sitting here in this other
in California that had the fires and all that went into that.
So we're constantly reminded of how important it is to have a plan for emergencies.
This is part of that planning process, so you'll get an update of where we're at.
We receive your input as Wilson mentioned, we'll be back at some point to adopt this and move forward.
And beyond it, allowing us to tap into funding that we wouldn't otherwise have access to,
it gives us an opportunity to plan and exercise for the next hazard which is, as we all know, probably just around the corner.
Well, with that, Dave and Calvin, please come on up.
Thank you, listen, thank you.
Good morning, Dave Funk, Dave Elfunk Consulting.
I'm here with Calvin Furton.
And Calvin's going to do most of the presentation,
but I just wanted to say that as a utility,
M-I-D is a leader, and as a critical infrastructure,
it's very, very important for power, for water,
for water treatment, for dams, for all of that.
We are fortunate that we get to go around the state and work with others and train and do exercises and plan as well, but I'm proud that I've worked a little over four decades in Stanislaus County with the cities and the counties and with the utility districts TID with Calvin was from before and you guys are doing great, great stuff here with the emergency management program training and exercises and this is absolutely critical to make you eligible.
don't have to do these projects that your staff has helped us identify, but to make
you eligible to receive millions of dollars potentially over the life of the five years
and beyond.
So I'm going to let Calvin go, introduce himself a little bit, and go through, and then
we'll both be here if you have any questions.
Thanks, Dave.
Good morning, directors.
We're here to, again, talk about this local hazard mitigation plan.
I recently retired from Turlock Irrigation District, and as the emergency preparedness
heard his coordinator and Dave and I wrote the same plan for TID back in 2018-2019 and they've used it very successfully to be able to fund or help fund a lot of mitigation projects that they've done over the years, over $10 million they've received in the last five years by having this plan in place and being able to apply for and receive federal and state grants for different mitigation projects.
We also recently just completed this exact same plan,
a version of this exact same type of plan for imperial irrigation district down in Southern California.
So we are officially working for three of the four utilities in the state that provide both water and electric power, and we're happy to be here.
I now live in Tennessee, but my heart is still here in Modesto, I was born in Sacramento, grew up here in Modesto, and I had lived in California my whole life until just a couple of years ago, so go vals.
Anyway, so I'm here to talk through this plan, let you guys know what is in it and what is going to be expected moving forward.
And like I said, we'll bring this back to you at hopefully a relatively short period of time to be able to adopt it and move forward with the plan.
So hopefully I can figure out how this works.
Okay, so first of all, what is a local hazard mitigation plan? A local hazard mitigation plan is different than a typical emergency plan.
And the typical emergency plan talks about if this happens,
here's how we're going to respond.
And then ultimately here's how we're going to recover.
So it's a more response oriented plan,
something that's responding to something
that's already happened.
Local hazard mitigation plan looks forward
and looks forward to what could happen
and how we can put some projects in place
so that when those things happen,
because I think like Jimmy said,
it's certainly not a matter of if we're going to have
some sort of disaster or emergency.
It's when we're going to have a disaster or emergency and to what level is the damage
going to affect us?
So local housing mitigation plans help to identify projects that we can do to move forward
and so that we don't have such effects on our infrastructure and ultimately our customers
who we all work for, providing water and electric power.
So this plan is a little bit different.
I think it's really a good demonstration of also how MID and TID and IID, all of you guys,
are forward looking and not waiting for something to happen and then figure out how we can respond,
but looking forward to be proactive in your planning process with how we can lessen those
impacts before they ever happen.
So what this plan does is it looks at all of the things that could happen here.
And we chose to address in this plan natural hazards, not man-made or technological hazards.
why did we do that? For two reasons. Number one, if we address man-made or technological
hazards, meaning a failure of infrastructure, we have to address all technological or man-made
hazards in this plan, which makes this plan instead of 200 pages, 800 pages. It makes
the plan very difficult to manage, also, and the main reason that we don't address technological
or man-made hazards in this plan is this plan, the reason that we're doing this plan is so that
we can move forward with applying for grants.
And there are grants for technological and man-made hazards.
Those don't require you to have this plan in place
in order to get them.
But natural hazards, mitigating natural hazards,
this is the plan that you need in order
to get state and federal funding.
So there's really no benefit to us in terms
of a funding process for doing technological or man-made
hazards where there's a tremendous benefit for us
to do natural hazards.
So what we do is we looked at what has happened here in the past.
We've had flooding.
We've had fires.
We had a lightning fire cause fires in 2020 and the hills above Patterson impacted TID.
We've had droughts.
We've had extreme heat events.
We've even had some extreme cold events back in the 90s where we suffered from some extreme
cold snaps.
So we identified that the natural hazards that can occur here.
And then we also looked at just because it's a hazard doesn't mean that we're going
to be impacted by it.
necessarily. So we looked at what are your assets that are at risk to those
houses and how would they be impacted should that hazard occur. And then we
took all that information with your, with the staff here at MIT. And I do want to
say that the staff here at MIT has been nothing but supportive and nothing but
hard working in terms of how they've helped us to build this. Ray and his
department, I hate to call anybody out. I just did Ray and his department because
they've really stepped up and taken this on. This is a tremendous lift. These plans typically take
at least 12 to 18 months to put together. That's how much work goes into them. And so you guys have
really been helpful, but look, taking all the information and then coming to you and saying, okay,
what would you like to do about it? What kind of projects would you like to do? We like to
characterize it as a Christmas wish list. If I had all the money in the world and all the staff in
the world and I could do anything I wanted, what would I like to do within reason? And that's the
the projects that we put together.
And so we identify those,
and then those are the ones that we will include in the plan.
This plan also kind of folds into your long term planning
too, and you're doing capital projects
from here on out, we're gonna consider mitigation
in terms of how can we build this
with an eye towards mitigation
and an eye towards these hazards
that we've identified in reducing the impacts from those.
And then again, it does provide us opportunity
for being able to get state and federal grants.
So the whole part of the process is really to talk about who we are as a district because
we know, but you got to remember that the people are going to read this plan in order
to grant you the money, they don't know you, they don't live here, they don't interact
with you ever.
And so we need to tell them what type of community we have, and that in terms of our services
that we provide, the demographics of our community, and especially our disadvantaged communities.
because it's certainly true that we see it all across the state that disadvantaged communities
tend to suffer more in the disaster than non-disadvantaged communities. And so they don't
have as much resources in order to reply, so we need to really consider them and we did.
Then we use a collaborative process both internally and externally. It's like we've talked about a
couple of times. We work with the entire district staff as subject matter experts to not only identify
the hazardous and risk, but also the projects that we're going to move forward, but we also include
what FEMA likes to call the whole community. And that means external agencies, other special districts,
governments, public and private nonprofits, citizens, or residents of the community, and we put that
out to them too, and let them have them say and how all this is done. This is also a public plan.
This is not one that we hold back and we say no, no, that's privilege information. We can't share that
with you or that's secure information we can't share that with you. We don't put the level of
detail on this plan that would make it not shareable. This is a public plan it should be on your
website for in perpetuity at least as long as you have one. The public comment period is always open
so we're looking for feedback from the public forever on this plan to be honest or at least the
lifetime of the plan and because of that this doesn't have a tremendous amount of detail in it.
The detail comes and let me tell you by having gone through this several times with
When I was at TID and with clients, when you go to apply for grant, then they want to know everything.
They want to know where you're going to do it, how you're going to do it, what's the impact on the environment,
what are the nuts, bolts, and screws you're going to use to build this thing.
So that's where the detail comes.
This plan is very high level.
Once we have the plan to the point where we've shared it with everybody and we've gotten input and
we've done this meeting, this is a public meeting for the plan, we've done some other public outreach,
which we'll talk about in a second.
Then we submit that plan to the Department of California Office of Emergency Services.
In fact, we work with them along the whole process of building this plan.
Cal OES will give us feedback and say you've addressed these issues, but we need some more detail.
Here we have what's called a plan review tool that we use, which is we call it a crosswalk,
which states in one column, here's the requirement, show us in your plan where you've met that requirement.
And we walk through the entire process.
So once we submitted to Cal OES, having worked with them and used that process, we're pretty
sure that the project is going to be, we're not going to get a lot of feedback.
And in our past experience, recent experience, we got very little when we did IED's plan.
Once Cal OES is happy with the plan, Office of Emergency Services likes it, they'll forward
it on to FEMA.
FEMA has the same opportunity to look through it and say, you've addressed this or you're
missing this.
The TID plan, we got zero feedback from FEMA.
Once we had gone through that process and sent it to Cal OAS, with the IID plan, they wanted two sentences added to the plan, which we did.
They told us exactly what to say and exactly where to put it and so we were able to send it back to and get it back very quickly.
Once FEMA approves it, they'll bring it back, we'll bring it back to you, we'll get a letter called a notice of approvability pending adoption.
So we'll be back up here in front of you again to talk about where we are in that process.
us, you will hopefully, I will ask you to adopt it if you do, then we send it back to
FEMA and say, okay, here's our letter of adoption from the board, and here's our plan that
you've approved, and now you can start using it to apply for grants and hopefully get
some money to be able to do some of these projects.
Then we have to continue to monitor our progress.
What projects did we do and what was the outcome of those projects, did they go well or did
they, did we have some challenges, and we're always going to have challenges, so how do
we address those. What projects did we not do? And why not? We didn't have funding.
We didn't have the staff time. That risk is no longer such a high hazard risk.
We moved it down the line, whatever. So we're going to do that along the way.
And again, that is also remains part of the plan, so it remains a public as well.
So what hazards did we identify? As you can, I won't go through all of these.
As you can see through the list, you know, these are, for the most part, naturally occurring
hazards with really one exception, and that's dam failure.
Dams can fail for a variety of reasons.
They can fail because of weather-related issues.
You can get more inflow into the project than the project was ever designed to handle, and
you can't release it quick enough.
You can also get it through misoperation or through failures of equipment.
But because dam, so dam failure is kind of a mixed bag.
because Dan failure though has such a high impact to us should it happen we're
required to include in your plan and also you guys are owners of Dom Pedro and
also Modesto Reservoir and so those have to be included in the plan. Just an
example of it's better to be lucky than good. In 2018 we built TID's plan we included
public health emergencies. What we were thinking at the time was flu or H1N1 we were
worried about at the time. And so this is again 2019. And so we put that on the
plan then 2020 happened and lo and behold we have public health emergency. So we're
trying to look forward and we are looking forward to not only what has happened
but potentially what could happen to us here.
Just some highlights from the
mitigation side that what are we going to do about all these hatches that we've
identified. We're really trying to help protect your infrastructure from the
impacts it has, including flooding, including wild and fire, specifically heat, extreme heat.
And we're trying to help prevent complete loss of assets, complete loss of infrastructure,
and support water supply reliability.
This district's been around a long time, more than 135 years.
And 135 years, we've done a really good job in my opinion.
And I say we, because I'm part of the team, I think, we've done a really good job of
being really good stewards of the resources
we've been entrusted with on the 12-year River in particular.
And so we want to help support that and make that continue.
Reliability is a huge, it's not only rates are important,
yes, but when you turn on that light switch,
we want to make sure the light's actually turned on.
Or when you need to irrigate your acreage,
we want to make sure there's water there available.
So reliability is a huge thing.
And it's been proven through studies and reports
and people way smarter than me.
That every dollar that we spend on a mitigation project can return a six to eight dollars in benefits through, you know, not having things collapse or fail. So FEMA is in a little bit of turmoil now. I know everybody's probably heard of that. It's now they're calling it FEMA 2.0. And there is a bipartisan bill working its way through Congress. Yes, even in these environments we can work in a bipartisan passion. There's a bipartisan bill with 40 co-sponsors working its way through now to
re-imagined FEMA, re-imagined how FEMA interacts, moving some of the control to a more local,
instead of trying to handle everything through Washington, D.C. But one of the biggest
focuses on this new re-imagined FEMA 2.0 or whatever they end up calling it is that mitigation
is going to be moved to the forefront. No longer is it going to be only response and only
recovery. Let's do some work locally with mitigation. And there's an expectation by I think everyone
that all levels of government, certainly in the federal side, there's an expectation that all levels of government, including special districts and local jurisdictions, counties and cities, will do things to help themselves prior to a disaster or emergency happening.
This plan is what helps you to do that.
So how do we engage the public?
Well, first we've engaged our internal stakeholders.
This is a list of some of the folks, some of the apartments that have helped us along the way.
We've also, like I said, engaged with local government, the county counties that you operate in.
As well as the city, we've done community input.
We've done several community outreach efforts.
One of them that's shown in this photograph was the emergency preparedness fair that happened June, September.
September, sorry September here in Modesto and you guys set up a booth and had a presence
there and you can see from the photo that we were talking about the local hazard mitigation
plan. Also your public power week where you had this table set up out in front. We did
it there as well. We've also presented this plan to the operation of your council which
is the county Office of Emergency Services and the 9 cities in the county to allow those
folks to know that you're doing this and how they can how they can participate in the process.
This slide does show a web address of MID.org front slash LHMP.
We were hoping to get that web address up before this process.
We're working to get a shortened link to that page because the link that you'll see later
is a bit long, so we're working through that.
But anyway, we've done quite a bit of public outreach, social media, and quite a bit of things.
So this plan also allows us to access grants.
These are the grant funding sources that are currently available, the Federal
Hazard mitigation grant program, and flood mitigation assistance, and then
state of California has other grant programs available as well, yes, ma'am.
We're going to get to it.
Yeah, you have it on your web page now, it's the address that we're working on,
getting it.
Yeah, we may not be able to do that and we're working on something, hopefully.
Anyway, I'm sorry, it is on your website currently, and it has been there the whole
time.
This has been on the site since we've been working on it for quite a while, so
Thank you most, I'm sorry, I need to throw you into the vest there by the way.
Yeah, I need to throw, these opinions are my own, not any opinion of Melissa or anybody
else here at MIT.
There are state hazard mitigation grants available.
The biggest program from the Feds that was cut was a program called Building, Resilient,
Infrastructure, and Communities, or the Brick Grant program.
That program has currently been reassigned to recovery.
That was the biggest program where we could get grants.
That program in my opinion only will come back in some form of fashion because they're
going to be pushing mitigation pretty seriously.
But it's also considered a best practice by the American Public Power Association as part
of your reliable power provider program or RPP program.
It's recommended that you have a hazard mitigation plan in place and that you use it to help
to build reliability in your system.
So not only is it a requirement if you want to get grants from state and federal sources
for mitigation, but it's also a best practice by the industry that we all are associated
with, which is our APPA.
So this is what the process looked like, and that we've done so far, and I won't go again
to go through all of these things, but again working with everybody to assess your risk, identify
the hazards that we feel are the most likely to occur, and then also what are those vulnerabilities
and one of those impacts because just because we have a hazard doesn't mean that we're necessarily impacted.
So we want to make sure we're being fair with that.
And then developing those mitigation strategies and from the strategies,
then we can identify the actual projects, which we have now,
then we completed that work in the first part of December.
So where do we go from here?
Well, this public meeting is certainly a part of that process.
This account says public outreach.
So we wanted to make sure to have this meeting.
We want to bring you all up to speed and so the first time you see this is not when
we're asking you to adopt it, you're familiar with it and I've seen it.
Want to give the public the opportunity to comment in a live session which this will.
But once all that's happened, we'll finalize that plan, we'll send it to the senior management
team here at MID and have them review it and sign off on it, so to speak.
At that point, we'll submit it to Calibacy and FEMA.
like I already described though once their half once FEMA is happy with it we
get our notice of a pendability of approvability pending adoption it's at
that point that we bring it back to you for a board resolution to adopt the
plan then once we do that FEMA will issue a final approval letter and that
starts your clock for the five year review process this plan is good for five
years in five years we have to do this all over again so we'll probably start in
your four because it does take a while to update this plan and keep it moving.
And at that point we can start, we can apply for grants ahead of having this hazard mitigation
plan in place if there's opportunity for that.
You cannot receive the money until this plan is in place and adopted and approved by FEMA,
and you've adopted and sent the letter back.
So you can go ahead and use it saying, hey, we have this plan and here's the process that's
in, here's the state that it's in, but we can't receive the grant money until that plan
comes back. And then I can say we'll do the annual progress reviews every year, reporting
back on what we've done and haven't done in the reasons why we haven't done anything
on some things or haven't done, haven't completed the projects and then we'll do a full
update in five years. So with that I think, hey I'm a recovering public information officer
so usually that means once I get the microphone you don't get it back so I think I get pretty
good as far as our time goes. This is the current state of where the plan can be found
on your website. It's under the safety department and it's under the localizer mitigation
plan. So that plan is currently the most recent draft of that plan is there. Again, as
we've updated it, we've replaced that draft over time. There's also a public survey on
that site as well so people can weigh in and give a feedback. But with that, I'll throw it
back to you and ask if there are any questions, thoughts, comments, or concerns?
Any comments?
Anybody have any comments?
Questions?
No, just a comment.
Thank you for the update.
I completely support, you know, setting this district up for receiving grants.
I think that we owe the rate payers to the rate payers to do this so I'm glad to see we're
in the right direction.
Thank you very much.
We're happy to be here and happy to do it.
I do have one quick question.
Like you said, in five years, we're not five years up or we've got to go through this
from point A to point B or point A to point Z all over again or beings we had this plan
we can do minor little things to it and then we don't have to go through all this all
over again. We're creating a step here that we can advance in that five years quicker
instead of having to go back through this whole thing.
There are parts of that process that are easier. We certainly don't have to go and make everybody
aware that we have the plan and people are familiar with it. But no, unfortunately, we
do have to, we don't know if this necessarily start over from scratch.
But a lot of our steps already have been done, right? The hazards probably aren't going
to change much. You know, maybe there's a new one that comes up that we didn't think about
in the past. We can also add hazards as they go along in the plan and we can remove hazards
if there are reasons why. We've removed it. Maybe we've done a project that has completely
removed our risk from something. So now we can pull that hazard out. The risks still
exist, but the hazard, sorry, the hazard still exists, but our risk is no longer the same.
So we're going to have a grant, we're going to have a ground floor rating.
Exactly. We're going to have a foundation.
We just need to build a new house on top of it, yeah.
I might add that, like Wilson had mentioned, this is, this is your own now standalone plant,
which will make it a lot easier in the future, like you said.
In the past, you have been as far back as 2011, I think, was the last time that MIT was
an annex. You were listed on a table as an annex but you were at the discretion of the county
that now you stand alone. We are doing one for a TID right now where we're refreshing theirs.
So it is easier except that sometimes we're at the mercy of FEMA or Cal OES when they come up with
new requirements like they've done recently. But yeah, we'll be able to hit the ground running,
especially if we do the annual updates that's required as well.
So in my view, it'll be a lot easier.
Thank you.
Just going to compliment your leadership, by the way,
and your direction that you're going.
Jimmy Wilson, Ray, and Toxie Burris forever has been involved
when I was with the county and the city as involved as well.
So you guys are doing great.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you for your presentation.
Okay, Jesse, you want to give us a water report?
President Fobos, I'll make just a couple of comments as we pull up the presentation.
So we've got the standard of water supply report for you today, but we also threw in a couple of slides.
We had those major storms that came through between Christmas and the New Year.
And so we've added a set of slides in there to talk about how those storms turned out and the effects of the river and
As of our operations, I won't give away too much of what Jesse's sharing, but
you'll see that pretty remarkable actions were taken.
I was updating you in terms of the river levels.
I want to applaud our sister utility TID and their staff beginning with Brad and
two and their hydrologist Olivia, as you'll see in the slides.
A lot of action was taken to balance our precious water resources.
And we didn't have perfect foresight, but we came pretty darn close to it,
given the actions we took in what ultimately materialized in these storms, Jesse.
Yeah, you were coming and when all that was developing, you guys were on top of it.
It looked like you guys did a good job.
Anyway, go ahead, Jesse.
All right, good morning, members of the board, members of staff, members of the public,
Jesse Franco, civil engineering manager for water operations.
He had to provide a water supply report, which will be, this is basically the segue into the next coming months,
weeks as we present more water supply reports leading into what will ultimately be recommendations
and a determination for the 2026 irrigation allocation. So this really is kind of setting
the stage for those discussions and ultimately the determination. So this morning we want
to spend some time obviously talking about precipitation storage and as General Manager Jimmy
mentioned we're going to do just do a recent storm recap and then we have just a few updates
It's on SIGMON or our Strogbo efforts,
and then some last miscellaneous items.
So beginning with precipitation,
we've got basically two charts to share here.
First one is the San Joaquin precipitation,
that's the five station index.
Currently we are trending at 21.2 inches
with respect to the San Joaquin index,
152% above average.
So I mean, this is set in the stage
that we have had some really good precipitation events
that have come in.
You can see that we are trending above average currently with still some months to go, but so far so good with with respect to the San Joaquin index.
And then shifting on to a more focused 12ly river watershed, which we are right now at 19.4 inches. Again, really promising.
We are 128.6% above for this state.
So again, you can see that we are trending in a really good projection.
Those projected lines starting with the top is if we were to encounter a very wet from here on.
You can see that that starts to accumulate really quick and quite substantially.
Followed by the second, which is a green, that's an average year.
And then you can see that orange, which is basically the fourth, is still pretty good.
Even if we had drive from this moment on, we're still in a very pretty good trend.
massing close leads to 20-25, so last year's.
This is just kind of a heat sensitivity showing our precipitation over the last couple months.
Again, we're within that 100% to 200% range, again,
really promising precipitation over the last couple months.
And then this is a basic depiction of just showing basically an actual versus historical
over the last couple months, beginning with October.
October, October, we had a pretty good month with our actual precipitation being above historical.
That trend followed in November again with above.
November was really great.
We had that 5.64 inches that were compared to historical, 3.42.
And then in December, again, we had some really, really good storm events that came through.
Not quite historical, but again, really good.
Right now, we are sitting just in the first couple of weeks of January at Shive the Historical.
We don't know if we'll hit historical this month, but again, at least the first couple months have been really a really solid projection or at least yield so far.
Looking at the 9-day local forecast, no precipitation is anticipated. Temperatures are actually pretty moderate, so nothing in the immediate forecast, which is helpful from a standpoint of
ordinance, our ordinance crews are out there, prime weather to get all our construction activities done. So at least we've got kind of a, you know, breather, so to speak until the next storm starts to make their way through.
And then kind of shifting gears into our snowpack. Currently, we are 37% of what the April 1st average is. And we are sitting right now just shy 89% of normal for for the date of this time of year. So again, I mean, we're good. We still got some some months to go. But at least we're
on a, I think on at least a positive trajectory, so that's good.
So with our snow water content, we are currently sitting in just a 10.8 inches.
So again, you can kind of see that's just a, we're currently in our average, is what
we're seeing, so which is good.
And then this kind of shows you just how, how we were sitting before the storm events and
then post.
So prior to the storm that came through during the holiday season, we're sitting around
You can see on the right-hand side, we were trending about the 80,000 acre feet with respect to snow water equivalent.
After those storms came through, now that has actually jumped us up to 400,000 acre feet of snow water equivalent.
So those were substantially needed and kind of helped us to realize that jump in snow water equivalent.
Don
Pedro currently is at 80% capacity and so this is as of this was based on January 6th we were looking at
an elevation of 795.35 with a storage of 1.6 million and that has since jumped up to I think an elevation of 797.
But again we are currently now in the still still got some months to go but at least right now we're in a healthy position with respect to storage.
And
this just goes to show kind of our reservoir storage currently.
Last report, Modesto Reservoir, we were looking at 17,000, just above 17,000 acre feet as of January 13th.
Modesto Reservoir has since been lowered, but that's also attributed to an outage that we experienced in December to get some work done and inspections.
But currently, Modesto Reservoir is sitting at just shy of 17,000 acre feet in elevation of 20.60.
Don Pedro, and this is MID's portion, last report, we are at 394,000, just about, just shortly about that, an elevation of 790.96.
And currently, at least as of January 13th, we are at 413,000, an elevation of 795.35.
So total storage currently for MIDs portion is sitting at 430,477 acre feet.
And so in comparison to last year, we are sitting in a much higher position, which is great.
Now we're shifting gears to the storm events that we experienced during the holiday season.
And this is when you start looking at this, it'll start telling the stories.
We start looking at these numbers.
So prior to these are the forecasts that our team at TID was seeing, the forecast for projecting, starting at December 17th,
8-day forecasts were showing upwards to a 12-inch precipitation event accumulation.
Looking at the 16-day, there were some variants in there, they were looking at a 12-inch to 15-inch.
So, at that time, you know, the projections where we were going to get a lot of water coming
down in a very short period of time.
And so, when you start looking at the December 18, those projections started to increase.
Eight day forecasts went from 9 to 12 to 8 to 20.
On the 16-day forecast, they were going from 9 inches to 24 inches.
So you could see that the amount of water that was being forecasted was substantial.
So to help kind of put this into perspective and that trend was continuing over the next
couple of days from December 19th to the 20th to the 21st, these were all the forecasts
that were anticipated to come through.
So we started looking at and working with our team at TID have just been a phenomenal and
providing the projections.
This is what we'd be looking at.
So starting at that December 17th, the 8-day forecast was the 9-inch, 12-inch this graph
for showing the 16-day forecast, which is the 15-inch.
So if that 15-inch is worth to have yielded out, basically, this graph is showing how fast
wood those inflows start coming in, how soon would they breach or encroach over our
flood space, and we are required anytime we breach 801, an elevation of 801, we have 15 days
to exit that flood space.
So if you look at that, this top curve shows, okay, if we were releasing at 3,000 cubic feet per second,
we wouldn't hit that target of exiting the flood space within 15 days.
So then you start looking at the different iterations.
If you start looking at a release of 5,500 cubic feet per second, you're still not going to meet that exit of 15 days.
So then ultimately the decision was made to increase river releases to 7,500 cubic feet per second,
which will allow that 16-day exit out of the flood space.
So when the storms actually started to occur,
they were looking at the start date of around,
basically Christmas, 12-24,
giving the exit date of January 11th or 12th.
So again, a lot of water coming in was anticipated
and you got to move that water out.
So that was the 15-inch projection.
The second scenario that was looked at was,
if there was a 24-inch,
24-inch was expected to come in,
Again, you could see that at a release of 3,000, room releases of 3,000, we would be
looking at opening up the spillway, not something that we were on and considered.
So again, these are, it's telling the story of what the risk would have been.
Had we not increased the real, the room releases at a 5,500, again, we're not going to see
that 16-day exit, exit time.
The third line there is the 7,500, which again would be close to meeting that exit timeframe
and then the last one is as if we had to go to 9,000.
So those were the different options that were considered,
which ultimately led to the decisions of,
this is the breakdown of the flood control river releases.
So you can see on January or December 15th,
we were sitting at pretty normal.
Then the forecast started to come in.
River releases were then increased on December 16th to 600
and then ramped up from that point on,
started to ramp up pretty significantly.
And again, this was all based on the forecast
of either a 15 inch or a 24 inch coming in, we had to make sure that enough that water was being
moved out within that 15 day period. And then it ramped up on December 17 to 3,000, December 18 to
5,500, December 19 to 6,500, and then it peaked on December 20. By that time forecast, it started to
shift a bit. We started to see that the numbers started to drop and then we were at least
was confident enough to know and notify MID that the releases were going to start to reduce.
And from that, you start to see the step down of starting on the 21st,
ramping back down to 6500, on the 22nd, down to 5500, down to 23rd, 3400,
and then Christmas Eve to 2300, and then you start to see that projection.
So by the 27th, we were back into normal releases.
So again, it was just kind of making that way,
based on the information and the data that was coming in.
This was the best decision that based on risk and exposure.
So just to recap that, so the storm and forecast were essentially a period from December 16th that spanned to January 8th.
Starting elevation prior to the storms was 790.96 at Non-Pedro.
The ending elevation on January 8th was 795.8.
Had we not done any releases, we would have encroached up to an elevation of 804.9.
The total river releases in excess of our minimum requirement was 78,000 acre feet, but
given the scenario, even though we didn't see those higher swings of 15 inch and 24 inch,
we still would have had to release this water regardless.
So regardless, based on the actuals, this is the amount that we had to release and we would
had to release it anyway. There was no way for us to keep it. It would just be a longer
period of time that we were releasing it.
And then a shift in gears over to our Sustainable
Groundwater Management Acts. We do have the GSA meeting on January 28th. And as part
of that meeting we are scheduled to approve and adopt the well mitigation plan and the groundwater
use management program. They were both required under the revised groundwater
water sustainability plan and then lastly cloud seating events we've actually had seven
seating events as of today and then salmon passage there was a period of time where we weren't
getting some readings but as of January 6th we were looking at 3,725 and with that we can't
happy to answer any questions that you might have. More than a question or comment I think should
be made. So when we did those releases in December and we peaked at seven to eight thousand cubic
feet per second. I will say that I had phone calls from people or two people along the
Twalamy River that were concerned with the releases, but I would say to sum it up, better
safe than sorry. Yeah, absolutely. Because the options would have not been good. And one more
thing I got to compliment the districts on how they did that releasing. They were in fact in
touch with us every 24 hours. It wasn't like, well look at it next week or you know so I appreciate
that and because that way we I know we gave up 78,000 acre feet but the alternative would have not been
good. So in the big picture of everything, 78,000 acre feet is a lot of water, but better,
safe than sorry. So I appreciate that. One question. When TID makes this decision with
our staff together or do they make a decision and then contact our staff we're
going to do this. Since they are the lead and the operator of Dom Pedro they take
that decision on but they are quick to inform us though this is what we're
looking at. Okay fair enough. Hey thank you for the
sure thank you for that. No I just throw a couple comments out there too and
Craig me if I'm wrong a little bit on this Jesse. Same thing with Larry and they
They ran a big cup of real close on this, did an excellent job.
Also two of the other thing that's not mentioned in here that they have to take into consideration
is the watershed and what's going to land in the dry creek watershed.
So you have to get above that out of there quicker so that we can allow dry creek, which is uncontrolled
to flow out.
So everything below dry creek and twalmy confidence doesn't get flooded out also.
So, there's a lot of planning between what the forecast is going to hit for dry creek
and for the watershed for Dom Pedro and the Twainley watershed that goes back and forth
that equates to what they're going to release also.
You're absolutely right, you know, I think dry creek tends to be pretty flashy, meaning
that it's unpredictable so you don't know how much, I mean, you've got your projections
of how much water's going to come through or could come through and so you're right, there's
a balance between how much can be released, when it can be released, when does dry creek
we can anticipate to be released.
Ultimately, it's all a culmination
of where it ties into all of me right at the 9th Street Bridge area
so that you're not exceeding that flood level.
I agree with what Larry and John said,
staff did, I think, a great job in managing this event.
So kudos to staff.
I have a question in regards to cloud seating.
Sure.
How many more events are scheduled this year?
I think it really depends on weather conditions.
We've got X amount that's budgeted, and so basically, they run as many events that they can within their budget.
So at this point, I think last year, gosh, we've got Lou Crawford who's our senior civil in Jose.
Makera, did we have about 10 to 12 last?
I'm going to say that we've quickly suspended file seeding in December because of the
amount of precipitation that's coming in, TIE, suspended file seeding, the contact
of our vendor.
This is suspended until the precipitation event that passed, and so now we're back on,
but we're not going to be right now because of the forecast.
Yeah.
That kind of answer is my question.
Is it, I'm assuming we're contracted out for the year, but do we have the flexibility to pull out of that?
I mean, it's clear to me that it looks, I think we're going to fill the reservoir.
So why are we paying to go do cloud seeding when we know we're going to be dumping water?
So do we have that flexibility to get out of that?
We do.
So usually, again, that's based on the decision of what we're seeing,
what the forecast are showing, where we're sitting from a hydrological standpoint,
point, and then there's that flexibility to either halt, see any additional flights and
just wait, or if there is an opportunity, maybe we delay it until, you know, a little
bit later.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sure.
All good?
One more comment.
She came to mind.
So,
just so the public under the the dry creek issues that John was talking about, dry creek when you're getting three to five inches in the food hills, dry creek is going to we got up to 5,000 acre feet per second was cubic feet per second going down dry creek.
So as fast as it comes up it goes down just almost as fast.
So, we're talking instead of days.
We're talking hours which they do a good job of managing that because they can tell that one
more thing. At right now, I think the Modesto B said we're at seven point, some inches
here at our range age at the MID building. So east of Waterford, between Waterford and
LeVrange, we're at 12.88 today. So as you go up, as you keep going up, you're going to get
more precipitation. Those clouds hit those foothills. And then even if you grow up 10th miles
above the range, they've got another four or five inches above that. So just so you everybody
understands. That's why that all comes together like it does. And anyway, I'm done, but thank you,
thank you, Jesse for that today. Yeah. And again, just as our general manager, Jimmy mentioned,
and you know, a big kudos to our TID team.
They have been, you know, they're really great to work with.
Very informative, they keep us, you know, in the loop
and provide any data that we need and request.
So it's a team effort, definitely.
So, you know, we appreciate them.
Okay.
Thank you, Jesse, that was an excellent report.
You've done an excellent job.
The only thing we need is a little bit more snow.
Sure.
Can you work on it?
Can you do anything about that, Jesse?
We'll try.
Okay, let me know.
All right. Thank you, Jesse. Let's move on. Would anybody like to take a break for a five-minute break,
restroom break, whatever?
No? Okay. Moving along, let's go on to the presentation and possible
action of the well mitigation and the ground-water use management plan. Are you going to do that, too, Jesse?
Correct, yeah, here we go again.
All right, a roll.
All right, again, for those members of the public,
Jesse Franco, civil engineering manager,
and this is a different, this is our,
that's a sub-basin, well mitigation plan,
and groundwater use management program.
It's a presentation, but also for potential action
for the board to consider.
So starting the first couple slides are a lot of just background
behind where it is that we are currently at and why.
So beginning in September of 2014,
This is when Governor Jerry Brown signed legislative, creating the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act referred to as SIGMA, which essentially provided local groundwater sustainability
agencies with the authority and technical and financial assistance necessary to start managing
groundwater effectively and sustainably.
DWR required the groundwater sustainability agency submits a groundwater sustainability plan
by January of 30 January 31st of 2022.
In August of 2017, the Stanislaus
and 12 New Rivers Groundwater Basin Association,
Groundwater Sustainability Agency referred to as Sturdba, GSA,
authorized Todd Groundwater to prepare and submit
the Modesto Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan
referred to as the GSP.
In January of 31st, January 31st of 2022,
Todd Groundwater submitted the Modesto Subbasin GSP
to DWR on behalf of the Sturgba GSA.
And then on January 18th of 2024,
DWR provided a notification to Sturgba
that the GSP was considered incomplete.
They highlighted some deficiencies
and ultimately notified that the GSA had to submit
a revised GSP by July 16th of 2024.
So I think what's important to note is we've got,
we had a pretty tight time frame once we got the notification from DWR that the GSP had
to be revised to not only correct the deficiencies but to implement two significant programs.
So the revised MNESO sub-basin was submitted to DWR on July 12th of 2024 and subsequently
approved on February 27th of 2025.
As part of that GSP, the revised GSP DWR required a firm commitment from Sturdbut to
develop a well mitigation plan and also management actions to address and mitigate impacts
from groundwater level declines.
And as part of that, commitments, there are basically two significant plans, programs
that were required.
First being the well mitigation plan to help address any potable wells that were impacted
through groundwater management and then secondly it was management actions but specifically
related to groundwater use management program.
So these are the two items that are being presented this morning.
The will mitigation plan provides a framework for the following elements.
First, it's an application process that defines what the parameters are, should the landowner
start experiencing declines or impacts or they're part of a well, there's an application
process that's that walks them through it. Secondly, it establishes a well mitigation
program committee and technical review committee that oversees the application and the claim
process. Now the members of these two respective committees are members of the GSA and also
management area stewards. So as we start taking this, this is the framework but as we start
looking at and carrying it down into the details, these committee members will be either,
you
agencies, City of Waterford, City of Modesto, City of Oakdale, Riverbank, Stanslaus County,
MID, OID, so those are the makeup of the committees.
The circuit GSA will be contracting with self-help enterprises.
There are third party that will actually serve as screening the applications, looking through
them, making sure that they actually qualify, and then assisting with well assessment and
actually well replacement.
The
well mitigation plan also provides a commitment for funding, initial and long-term.
The initial funding that was required by DWR consisted of 300,000 and that was essentially
looking towards replacing 29 wells that might be impacted.
I think since then out of the 29, this was first drafted out of the 29, that number has
actually been reduced to about 15 wells that might be impacted and again just to disclose
these are wells that could be.
They are not currently impacted, but could be impacted.
And so they are at least on the horizon for potential applicants.
The Strip of GSA.
The wells correct.
Correct, domestic wells correct.
Domestic wells, yes, thank you.
Yeah, absolutely, domestic wells.
And then the Strip of GSA respective agencies
are gonna set aside annual funds for this program.
This is part of the long-term program.
Implementation of the well-medication plan
And how this funds will be dispersed will actually start, once the application process begins and
we start fielding some of these requests, then we'll determine how the funds will be distributed.
I think at this point most of the agencies are seeing, initially we put together this shared pot, but
I think as discussions have started to pan out, I think right now I think the plan is for
these funds to be disperse through a management area, meaning that those, the agencies, the
funds within that, the wells that are impacted within certain management areas, those agencies
would commit to those wells as opposed to the shared pot. It's more of a focused pot focused
on management areas.
Do you want to wait till you're done before we ask if you don't mind because I want to go
back to that, what you just said to that point, okay, when you're done.
Okay. And then shifting to the Groundwater Use Management Program, that provides a framework
to allocate the sustainable yield of the MEDESO sub-basin by management area. And basically
what the say is sustainable yield is how much groundwater, what's the maximum groundwater
that can be extracted without creating negative impacts. So that's what the sustainable yield
refers to. The Groundwater Use Management Program also allows each management area steward
to take actions, to allocate the management areas portion of the sustainable yield and
make sure that it's meeting their requirements.
So again, it's essentially that it's not a one-size-fits-all.
Each respective management area will have its allocation are re-responsible to making
sure they're within that sustainable yield amount.
And then lastly, it's an adaptive plan that provides management areas stewards with different
tools, different types of options that can be considered.
And there's an implementation schedule that they will be looking at and
be required to fulfill.
So the first implementation actually starts January 31st of 2027.
So we still have a good amount of work to lay out with respect to details.
After the 2027 implementation schedule starts, there will be five year check-ins.
So beginning in 2032, that'll be a check-in.
2037, ultimately, we have to reach sustainability by 2042.
So these, these schedule, milestone schedules that need to be met, evaluated to make sure
that the action plans are actually producing sustainability.
And then this is pulled out of the actual ground water use management program.
This table is the baseline for the Modesto Subbasin, so you can see Modesto Management Area currently,
what it's projecting, it takes our developed supply.
This is the amount that we take, and then actually, they're contributing back into the ground
on water table, either through sea beach or percolation or things like that.
And then it takes our special cases and overlying use as those also in which are basically
diminimists, municipal use users.
Our total allocation for the Modesto area is 162,900 acre feet.
Our total historical pumping is 173,000 acre feet.
So the reduction that we're looking at is a 10,000, 10,100 acre feet.
So overall, we'll have a total allocation of 90% of our historical.
So without putting us at a 6% reduction.
Again, this is baseline.
You can see that Oakdale, the management area, they actually have more water available.
So I think leading into the discussions, Oakdale, OID, has been at this point,
It's been open to distributing their 22,700 to the Modesto area as well as a non-district
ease for a transitional time to help these two areas rebound a little bit and achieve
this reduction.
So again, it's the framework.
This is the, basically, this is where, this is the goal.
There's still some, you know, we've got a year to kind of iron out the details.
That's going to be dependent on the management areas and the management area stewards to develop
the action plans and the schedules based on looking at the interim milestones, minimum thresholds,
and making sure they're on par to meet the sustainable goals.
So, the recommended, this is potential action that is being set before you is a board resolution
that is adopting both the well mitigation plan and the groundwater use management program
In the sub-minus of sub-basin and authorizing the Sturgood GSA and the consultants, take
such actions as maybe necessary to finalize these documents, barring any substantive changes
to the documents and submitting to the DWR.
Alternatively, we can, the board can wait and we can represent this back on the 27th.
I'm sure the boards have any questions.
We do also disclose that the other respective agencies are scheduled to bring these to their board members or council in the next coming weeks.
OID is presenting this today as well as the City of Modesto, City of Water referred as presenting on Thursday, next week, City of Riverbank is presenting next Tuesday, and then the Stanislaus County and the City of Oakdale are, I take that back, City of Riverbank are on the 27th.
city of Oakdale's on on the 20th.
Stanislaus County is all the respective agencies have had no additional comments to either one of these documents.
Stanislaus County is still currently reviewing the Groundwater Use Management Program.
They have not submitted any comments yet, but if there are any that would be the only I think you basically change or add a change as they could result in that document.
So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions I do want to go back to you.
Yeah, let's go back to that one issue that.
Sure.
Okay.
You were discussing that as well as go dry, let's take, for example, a non-district lease.
That the non-district lease, GSA members would be responsible to pay for those versus the
medestinal management if a go well goes dry there.
Is that how you're talking about dividing the cost up?
So, that is some of the discussions we're having currently.
Those are, we'll have to be finalized.
This is the first step is establishing the framework.
The second step is how we're actually going to actually implement a lot of the details.
The funding is going to be distributed, you know, either through management area or is this this shared pot?
I think currently the discussions have been, at least from the other agencies, as well as MID,
our position is that we'd like to see it handle through a management area as opposed to this shared pot.
So to answer your question, if there is a potable well on non-district east, that is impacted
than the management area stewards, which would be Stanislaus County, they would be the
lead, and then non-district east, their representatives, whoever that group is, they would be essentially
responsible for helping provide funding for that area.
Now there are grant opportunities, you know, self-help enterprises does have a program
to help with within respective income levels, but if the applicant was outside of that,
there would still be support from the GSA.
So, if it was in the Modestal Management Area, which is basically the Modestal
Irrigation District, it's correct, down-reline, right, okay.
So, if it happened there, then it would be-
So, the Modest so MID and City of Waterford would then take our funds to help with that, well.
So I want to get this correct, I'm in favor of this program because of our deadline, okay?
But what I want to be careful of here is we have a situation.
Where people went up on the east side, which is a north district east, not mean non-district east, drove all kinds of wells, okay? And as you look at the charts, you can see, their contribution to ground water to recharge is zero. Their extraction is 90,000 acre feet. When you look at Oakdale Management Area, Modesto Management Area, we're basically balanced. They're the ones that are called
the problems. Modesto, city, people should not be funding the damage that they're doing
to the aquifer. The MID ratepayers should not be funding the damage that they're doing
to the ratepayers. Waterfers, very direct word. Your division is over in waterfers. You said
a few months ago that you were accountable to 17,000 ratepayers for the money. Do you think
think it is appropriate for the water for people to have to fund well mitigation plans
for things that the non-district east have done to the aquifer.
Okay, I take that as for what it is.
I want to read you some.
I can find it.
This was an article in the Los Angeles Times a couple days ago.
One of the largest farming businesses in Arizona has agreed to use less water and pay
$11 million in a deal that state officials say will help preserve disappearing groundwater
and provide financial help for residents whose wells have gone dry.
Attorney Arizona Attorney General Chris Mayer has announced the binding legal agreement
with Minnesota-based dairy company, Riverview, LLP on Thursday calling the first of its
kind in the nation.
In other words, this is not a far-fetched idea to say, look who's responsible for this environmental
disaster or aquifer.
It's not the residents of Waterford.
It's not the residents of Modesto.
It's not the people of MIT.
But right now we've just put up $300,000
for those people that went on the east side,
ill advised, and have destroyed our aquifer.
On the backs of you talk about, you know, the old saying of,
this makes me very mad, if you can tell.
because innocent people are getting stuck with a bill that they should not be.
This is about privatizing the profits. In other words, the people on the
east side that have their almond orchard, their almond orchard that stuck
these wells in the ground, sucking the water out, that privatize the profits and
expect everybody else to pay for the expenses of this. So that's
optimal. Sturgeon has tools, Sturgeon has rules that we can do exactly what
they're doing here in Arizona. And we need to work on that. The other member agencies
beside them, I hope my other colleagues on this board, we didn't hear Director Berg,
he was silent when I asked him the question. I hope my other fellow colleagues want to
push forward to hold the people responsible this so the innocent people of the rate pairs
in MIT and the city of Modesto, Riverbank, Oakdale, they're not stuck funding this bill.
So as it is, we've got a deadline.
So I'm going to kind of hold my nose as we move forward today, but we can modify this
as we go forward.
Isn't that correct, Jesse?
Correct.
Yeah.
I think at this point, we have met our obligation to the DWR with respect to establishing
the initial funding.
So as it is currently, there is $300,000 that is set aside for a well-medication plan.
Right.
And the commitment is that that will continue on an annual basis as needed to continue to
to contribute funds towards it.
But in other words, what I'm saying is we can modify
this existing plan in the future to hold people responsible
for the damage instead of the rate pay-in for it.
Correct.
You know what I think, ultimately, that comes down
to the GSA, right?
The GSA, you know, they are basically hearing
from their respective council members,
their board members, and I think each one
of these agencies, I think their position is,
look, we have to represent our constituents.
and I'm sure there's, you know, it's a delicate situation. On one hand, you know, there's the, we've got to make sure that we are looking out for the best interests of our constituents, our ratepayers, why should a burden be placed on them that is not caused by them?
So that is one position.
Right, my constituents are people that are inside the MID boundaries, the City of Modesto
and the City of Riverbank.
Those are mine.
Waterford is Director Burke's and I want to make sure and the boundaries are very clear.
If you look at the map, let's go back, if you want to scroll back, let's go to where's
the map at.
The map is on page.
You have the map of the...
I do not have an air out in the presentation.
We have it in the actual program.
There's a map that shows it's different than in areas.
I thought maybe you might have it in your slides,
so we could show it with the audience what it is.
We have it.
Anyway, I think I made my point very clear
that people that have done the damage need to be paying for it,
not people that have not done the damage.
Okay.
That discusses my point that I want to bring out
about the well management program, does anybody else on the board want to talk about the well management program?
Just a few comments, I mean, I agree, I mean, we're under this time constraint and this is just the framework, right?
I do see in here in this final slide it says, and it's consultants to take such actions as may be necessary to finalize these documents.
So what we're voting on today, is it going to be changed before it is submitted to the state because I want to vote on what's
being presented to the state.
So as it stands, and Frank, I'm sure you can help me out, but as it stands currently, we have final versions of these two documents.
Now, I think what we wanted to do is, if there are minor changes, formatting changes, or minor inclusion, or minor clarification,
rather than having to come back to the board for some minor change, that's what we included this clause.
But if there is a substantial change that is being required or imposed either by the
county or any other agency or a member of the public, the goal would be we would come
back to the board and say, here are the changes that we've had to made.
They are not minor.
They are substantial.
So this is approving what we have now.
With the caveat that there could be a minor change, you know, maybe there's a change in the
date.
or a typo, it's correcting those types of things.
If there is a substantial change, sorry, then we would come back and
represent and let the board know that this has been, this document has been changed.
This was the change that was made and request your approval for adoption.
And Director Alt, let me just jump in here.
So we discussed this a couple weeks ago, staff and I, and all the different agencies are taken as Jesse mentioned.
There's several agencies that are going today and others that are coming in the in this week in the coming weeks.
There was two schools that thought one was to wait to the end of the month.
We believed I think about a month ago that everybody we would be ready to go by this week.
And so our thought was to bring it before you, it's listed as discussion and possible action.
It's not my intent or staff that there's any substantial changes not to make you aware of those and bring them back before you.
But it's really listed this way by design, possible action.
If you'd like to wait to the 27th, that's certainly an option.
We've thought, the best to put it before you, we don't foresee any, but, again,
it's out still for comments for one of the agencies to get back to us.
But this is the best that we have now, and what we foresee is, if it's anything
beyond cosmetic, that we would bring it back before you.
I just don't think that it's right that, and I think we should vote on it today.
I don't think that it's right for the other agencies to wait till the last minute.
and then throw it back on the 27th and ask for us to vote on that.
You know, I'm okay with moving forward with it today.
I understand it's a framework.
I don't agree with it 100%.
It's a starting point.
We have to start and move forward at some point.
I just, I want to make sure that there are no changes
that we're not aware of moving forward.
And that can be subjective, right?
I mean, what you may say is a small change to one of us could be a big change.
So I think it just, you're going to clear on that.
Yeah, you're ultimately going to have to trust the discretion of staff, the resolution.
And if you want to include this in emotion, just to make it absolutely clear on record,
you can do that, to prove the resolution is presented with the subject to any substantive changes.
I think it's essentially substantive and substantial, any substantive changes, any changes that change the purpose effect and function of the document.
But yeah, there could be some gray area there, but I think that I think based on this conversation staffs can be very sensitive to anything that if it's closed, they'll bring it back.
Okay, I feel like we've kind of discussed the well management.
and let's talk along and talk about the groundwater
the GUW MP.
But we have, there's a board, has any questions about that.
We're confident that this is going to get us
to sustainability, Jesse.
We have no choice, right?
OK, you know, when I review the documents and all
the work that Todd Groundwater's done,
and I, you know, I see, you know, Oakdale,
is their basically develops a supply or imported water into aquifer is more than they're
taken out. That's a first statement, right? And the Modesto Management Area is basically
real close to that. We're off 10,000 acre feeding. And again, you guys aren't seeing the map.
So, the map is the Modesto Eriegation District, it's those exact lines, right, Jesse?
The map of the Modesto Eriegation District is the Modesto Management Area.
The Oakdale Management Area is the Oakdale Eriegation District, correct?
Correct.
And then the non-district east is, well, the non-district west is over on the west side,
But then the non-district key says everything that's not either in OID or in MID,
just so you guys have a picture of what the map looks like.
Okay.
So back to where I was at with OID at this point, it's sustainable, pursuant to the experts,
or the Oakdale Management Area is sustainable, pursuant to the experts, right?
And the Medeso Management Area is almost sustainable, pursuant to the experts,
correct?
Correct.
Where they're not sustainable is the non-district east,
correct?
Correct.
So when you look at the developed supply on the non-district east, it's what, zero,
and their extraction is 90,000 acre feet a year, correct?
Just about.
89,700.
So, they're required reduction to get into sustainability is, is it 59,600 is what they have
to reduce their pumping?
Correct.
Okay.
So, by this chart alone, it's very clear that that's, when you'd say, the experts of
term determined Oakdale Management Area is sustainable, has been sustainable all these
years, many, many years, for the last 100 years.
Modesto area is sustainable. It's declared by this statement to what I said earlier about who's causing the damages in North
District east or the non-district east. So and then we let's go to the very last page or almost the second to the last page.
Let's look at that chart. Now you got this in so small print. Can you put that up there?
Which one?
Are you looking at the actual diagram itself?
Well, a figure five, implementation schedule, we can't get that up there, we can't get that.
It's not in the slides, it's in the present date, it's in the documents that are provided.
Okay, can you go through that, Jesse, and explain to how this implementation program is going to develop over the next few years?
Sure, so once we adopt the framework, once the framework is adopted, essentially the clock is already taking any help.
But the framework of this groundwater use manager program is adopted as of the end of this month.
The implementation schedule starts, so we've got a year to work with the respective management area
and their stewards to come up the action plan to determine, okay, here's the plan, here's the goal, here's the objective.
You've got reductions that are required, you've got timeframes to meet these reductions.
So, the stepped progression is you've got five years from starting from 2020, so we've
got a year now to implement, come up with the details, come up with the action plan,
come up with how are they going to achieve this.
Then you've got five years as a check-in in 2032, are you meeting this action plan?
Are you on route?
Are you in schedule?
If not, then the GSA starts to work with the respective management areas to say, okay,
Okay, what needs to occur?
Is this action plan not aggressive enough? Is it not planned out well enough? The GSA then starts to work with the respective management area and say, okay, what needs to be done to help bring this sustainability closer into focus. Then you've got another check-in after five years later. In the middle of these five years, there are going to be interim check-ins to make sure that the sustainability levels, the minimum thresholds, the interim milestones, that those are on par, they are basically
you're seeing some improvement in these respective areas.
So there's a five-year check-in, right?
There's 2032, 2037.
Ultimately, we've got to reach sustainability by 2042.
So there's five-year check-ins, but within those five years,
there's also our annual reporting that's going to occur.
There's the working with the respective management areas
to see how close and how far, what's the data showing
that's reflecting either improvement or regression.
So we've had to follow up with them to make sure that they are ultimately they've got to submit an action plan that is on that is proving results.
And Todd Groundwater considered our consultants are experts.
Todd Groundwater would incurred. So Todd Groundwater is handling a lot of the data respective of wells.
They helped with the well mitigation plan. Woodard and Kern is helping with this actual groundwater use management program.
and they are monitoring the data for the models
and the sustainable yield,
and they're the consultant that's helping
with that information.
Okay, so, you know, as we, you know,
in between these five year periods,
we'll be doing monitoring and experts,
and we'll be updating to be able to see
if this, all the rules, if you will,
are working to make sustainability occur.
one other thing one
other thing is what's the annual budget of Sturgbeam. The annual
budget with respect to the entire, including our consultants and everything that we spend.
Gosh it varies and it varies because of the influx we have and the reliance we've had on
consultant. So give us a high a low or an average? I mean on an average we're
probably looking at 600,000. 600,000 and that's divided that is all divided
up by the GSA members from the Meadowsto, City of Meadowsto, MID. So again the
ratepayers are funding this entire deal. Okay. Any other questions with the board
I just want to say something to what you were just driving at.
At the end of the day, this is a program, it's a plan, there's a framework involved.
What's going to drive sustainability is observe groundwater level management.
So we've got a plan and we're going to submit that plan.
But ultimately what says do we meet, the thresholds are not, is going to be observed groundwater levels.
Those measurements taken between now and those compliance periods have to meet those minimum thresholds.
So, it's gonna be the data that we observe in the ground
that will ultimately carry if it's sustainable or not.
No, and I understand that.
I mean, we've got multiple test wells
scattered throughout the whole management areas, right?
And it's just say, stagnant waters at 112 feet
at this particular location.
And if we come back there a year from now and check that,
and if it's at higher lower, I mean, obviously,
if it's higher, then our plan's working.
And if it's lower, then we've got a maybe a salary.
All right.
I'm good, unless any other board members have any more questions,
we need to open this up to the public for public comment.
And so it is, the public comment is now open.
And
I'm just going to drink again a long time
of deaths for residents only 38 years.
It's not a big deal.
I'm concerned from what I heard Dr. Provost talk about.
Now, you know, Modesto seems like their urban group seems to pay for everything, or 90
summer, 92,000, whatever it is, residents here, excuse me,
places you get money from, accounts.
I've never once seen to go on past a point, but you'll, I'm sorry, I mean to look at you
up, apologies.
I've never once seen an opportunity that says, oh, you'll get it in the long run.
We'll take care of you in the long run because I've got to tell you it never happens.
We watched two promises, people, he'd get money back, he lasted one term because he didn't
do a penny.
Didn't get a penny for anybody because the judge said we'd have to pay for our, we have
to raise our own rates to pay our own money back.
I got some concerns here.
First of all, really would like the opportunity to weigh in earlier about cloud seating because
I wonder if that adds to the snow pack more than just the rainfall.
Well, and FEMA didn't get a chance to talk about that either with the current administration.
There's a lot of issues going on.
It seems like they're gutting everything.
So if they gut all the rules, do we have to worry about it?
Let's go on about this.
Modesto is looking at slider right now, as we're all aware.
All the way across the North, all the way through Lad Road.
Some of the best recharge farm land around.
I know that's kind of overused sometimes because wood colonies, the big leader there, I'm curious.
Modesto plans on developing all that land.
Paving it over.
River bank from the other side is looking to put in more houses.
The river walk and everything else, they're paving it over.
Is that going to affect the aquifer?
Is it even taken into consideration on this plan?
And I agree with one thing.
If we've got people, I can't see how if they're going to keep pumping water, that they're
going to make it anyway. I don't know why we would wait. I don't know why we would say let's
look at it in a year. When you stick the flag in the ground and say here I don't see that happening.
Anything else is just a pretence unfortunately.
Does this prevent a single person and we'll just
call it out Bill Lyons, 10,000 acre feet? Does it prevent him from doing that again or someone else?
I'm not trying to sing my mind. I'm just tired of seeing that acre putty taken out of our
rock of her going somewhere else.
But I don't see any restrictions for that. Nothing's mentioned.
Why is it always the big pocketed people, the deep pockets, and do whatever the heck they want?
Why? I don't see anybody doing anything here. No offense, sir. You're doing it best. I understand,
not after you at all it's maybe it's the process that gets frustrating because it's always somewhere
down the road that we're going to have the true up and it's not lived from the dust a long time
they don't believe in true ups my knees are about the same you know yeah a lot of good feelings
but the residents of the dust that don't seem to be represented here no offense who takes our side
We're the actual deep pockets, we're not special interest groups, we are in a way.
We just want water to drink, but if they're going to pave over all that land in Slido,
which they have planned, there's three different versions of that land, if you haven't paid attention.
Is that factored in?
I'll stop with my rant now, but people, especially those that represent Modesto Residents, forget
about down the road.
Take care of today.
You take care today, tomorrow take care of itself, but saying we're going to do it all,
we'll have more time to play with it, I'm tired of tender feelings, solved the problem.
That's all we've ever asked.
It just never gets done.
Thank you very much for your time.
Okay, thank you for those comments.
Is there anybody else?
Wrangler, I see you sitting there trying to be.
Anybody online?
No hands raised.
No other comments?
Okay, going once.
Going twice.
Okay, public comment closed.
If no other questions from the board, I guess the next question is do we have a motion to proceed on?
I guess we're going to do these in two motions, Frank.
One for the well-management.
You can do it as one.
You can do this one on this motion.
Excuse me, I apologize, but I was waiting for a response to see whether that development
is planned is back to him. I didn't get that answer, but I'll sit right there.
The answer, do you want to answer that question?
Yes, yes, yes.
I'd love to have you answer that question.
Yeah, that's a good question.
So, one of the things that we looked at in the sustainable yield was there's an allocation
for municipal municipalities.
and so in that it takes into consideration what is their future build out, what is their annexation plan, what is their ultimately what are they planning for their projections and that that yields an increase.
However, considering that they are also held to certain state requirements for water conservation, the goal was there for to hold them at where they are currently basically an offset.
So any projected development they have is going to be offset by the requirement to conserve.
So they are currently, where they're currently, is staying the way it is.
So as they develop, there's still, there is no increased ground water.
They're not allocated for any additional ground water pumping.
What they have currently is what they have.
So I think that was a good job of answering this question.
But I think it goes to your point about this is an ongoing study.
I mean, we're going to continue not just every five years, but every year we're going
to be reviewing it.
So as things change in our environment, you know, things get paved over whatever we'll
be updating this on a regular basis.
Right.
I mean, it is, you know, I mean, it's a moving target.
This is what we have currently, yeah, as they have development plans, where's the water
going to come from. I think maybe that's where Mr. Emerson is going, is at some point they still
may not have enough water after their development. And if they continue on these development trends,
where is that water going to come from? It's got to come from somewhere. Is there more reliance on
surface water? And those are questions that are all yet to be, I think, have to be sorted out.
But currently, as it stands, as the snapshot now, what the municipalities currently have with respect
to groundwater is what they will continue to, is what they have for the next, till 2042.
Last, you know, the data starts to show different direction, and at that point, if we want to make some changes, then that will be, you know, that'll be part of the GSP process, updating the GSP, updating the figures, updating the numbers, updating, you know, it's all about making those required updates.
Okay. Does that answer you guys questions?
Any more questions by the board? We're good to go. Somebody want to make a motion?
Frank says we can do it in one motion.
So Frank, if you can help me with this, I'll make the motion to approve
Barring any septic symptoms changes being made.
Yeah, you would say as I would motion to approve the resolutions because there's actually two resolutions one for each as presented.
subject to any substance changes being made and if there are, then they will come back to the board for a further review.
So you can just say so moved if you like what I just said.
It's so moved.
That's easier.
that. I'll second it.
So with that, you got the motion, Frank. Okay. With that, let's
do a roll call, Bill. Please. Dr. Bird. Yes. President Furbos. Yes. Vice President
Bore. Yes. Director Ott. Yes. Motion panel. Thank you. Jesse, thank you for that.
That's
a lot of work to protect the ground water for future generations.
No, considering what's at stake, it's a good discussion, so I appreciate it, thank you.
Thank you for your efforts.
Okay, so let's move on, I guess we're done with that, so let's move on to items too late for the agenda.
Do we have any of that?
Jimmy, right?
Okay, how about any announcements from board members?
Yeah, going.
far away. Last Tuesday just an update that served like a committee report
because I know what's going on. Last Tuesday we had a DPRA meeting. It was
presented. The only action item was presented was a 2% increase on top of
the 3% in mooring and the houseboats and a 3% on top of the 3% that they had
for 2026 for all other moorings that was approved with the contention of there's projects
that have to be started by May 1st if not started DPRA will be pulling all that back
out. So that's a report from DPRA meeting. Any questions?
Thank you for that vice president for I would like to point out that we received a letter
from Senator Marie Alvarado-Gill regarding last board meetings vote and events that occurred
I very much appreciate it.
Appreciate her concerns. I want to have all options available to make this right and make sure the rate payers are protected. And I hope my colleagues feel the same way. With that, we're going to go to Jimmy and see what he has for an update for us. Three items here. First, we just spent quite a bit of time talking about groundwater. And so just to keep with that theme, as you know,
We, a long, long time ago, November, we had, we held an evening workshop on our ground and water replenishment program.
It's a really good meeting, well, good turnout and a feedback received.
Following that, we've incorporated some of the feedback, both at the board level and from some of the stakeholders to try to enhance what was already submitted in that evening workshop.
The revised agreement and application have been posted on our website and I believe that we've also shared them on other social media channels.
We're planning to present these items for your consideration coming up here soon.
And so just January 27th is what we're targeting so that'll be here at the end of the month.
Again, I think we have really good momentum received feedback from all different folks and hopefully that's all that's represented.
Secondly,
you might have gone out to the mall for some shopping during the holiday season, and
or to maybe have dinner.
And you might have noticed there's a new mural out there just outside where the restaurants are in the Apple Store.
MID partnered with the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau Foundation to help build this mural up.
That brings awareness to agriculture and the important store community obviously driven by water.
There was an event out there, I think just before Thanksgiving with City of
Minnesota, and some other folks, I think there was a couple assembly members,
Center, all of our other guilds as well as a one and a lease out there.
And we've received some good, some good press coverage, I think, since that event.
And then last but not least, just want to give, again, a big thank you to our employees
beyond keeping the lights on and the water flowing and all the work that you saw.
All presented this meeting, just before Christmas, one of our traditions is to partner with the Stanislaus Community Services Agency, Child and Family Services Group.
We partner with them to provide gifts to about 100 different children in foster care.
This was all employee volunteers who volunteer their time and of course, their donations to provide these gifts during this important time.
And I just want to give a big thank you to all who are involved.
always a team ever, but I do want to specifically highlight Blanca and Alex in our Energy Services Group who spearheaded that effort this year.
Thank you for taking time and a busy time to think of others.
So that concludes my general manager update.
General, Mr. Sulfur.
Yeah, I actually, you said something to remind me of other part of one of it in my announcement is to I want to put a big kudos out to our staff and
everything. Also, in lieu of the big storms that were coming up in December, they prepared
for it. And we were one of the areas in California that at least amount of outages were back
up and going. And we listened to the radio for calls and everything else in the fire department
side of it. And it was very quiet. There was not a whole lot of wires down. Customers
worked without power for long period of time. The preparation that went into that it showed
and I want to just say appreciative to the staff that they did an excellent job on keeping
the lights on during a pretty good wind event and the rain event. Excellent for that John and
Jimmy and we thank you for those comments and the next board meetings are January 20th next week
and January 27th and this meeting is adjourned.