[0:13] The time is 9.59.

[0:20] Okay.

[1:04] How about now? Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the December 15th

[1:13] Mojave Water Agency Technical Advisory Committee. We'll call the meeting door at 10 a.m.

[1:20] And with that, we'll ask one of our old friends Lance Eckhart to lead the pledge of allegiance.

[1:25] Thank

[1:47] you, Lance.

[1:51] So before we begin, I'll just apologize in advance for a bumpy ride today.

[1:57] I haven't run one of these in 20 years on this side of the day, so I think the last time

[2:02] I had Jack Clark helping me out.

[2:05] So I'll be leaning on Perry and Adnan in the trees to keep us out of trouble and swimming

[2:11] in the right direction, hopefully.

[2:13] So, we'll go on to item number three approval of agenda, and I'll ask for a motion.

[2:23] And can you please state your name?

[2:26] Chuck Bell.

[2:27] And a second?

[2:30] We have a second in the back.

[2:32] I'll have to learn names as we go.

[2:35] Thank you.

[2:37] Thank you.

[2:38] Any opposed?

[2:41] Good.

[2:41] And one thing I miss, lettries, if you could recognize any of the directors online or present?

[2:47] Definitely online we have Director Cox, Director Hayhurst, Director Limbaugh, Director Raleigh,

[2:56] and in attendance we have Director Page, make sure, and Director Wes, sorry about that for

[3:04] you to.

[3:06] Thank you.

[3:07] You're welcome.

[3:09] We'll go on to item 4, adoption of Committee Meeting Summary, I'll ask for a motion.

[3:19] Thank you, Tech.

[3:20] Second.

[3:22] Come on, George.

[3:23] Thank you.

[3:25] Any opposed?

[3:27] And that one passes as well.

[3:30] Okay.

[3:32] Now we'll get into the meeting and we'll go on to item 5, a ground water quality of the

[3:40] and I'll hand that over to Adnan to introduce.

[3:46] Thank you, Doug.

[3:48] So yeah, we'll just, I'll give this right over to Wes and Missal,

[3:51] who'll introduce our speaker for today.

[3:53] And I don't want to steal any thunder, so please go ahead, Wes.

[3:57] All right, so Joseph Fakrow from USGS will be presenting this.

[4:02] He is remote.

[4:05] This is kind of the next two presentations.

[4:08] Nations are a culmination of work that started in 1996.

[4:14] Some of the people in this room can probably speak to that entire body of work better than me.

[4:19] But they are here to present kind of final final findings as we move forward to citing a recharge basin in this zone.

[4:38] Hi, this is Joe Fackroll, can everyone hear me all right?

[4:44] Loud and clear, yeah.

[4:45] Alright,

[4:52] so I'm Joe Fackroll with the USGS California Water Science Center. I'm

[4:59] going to be giving a short presentation on groundwater quality of the

[5:03] Lucerne Valley groundwater basin.

[5:12] So we're gonna hear a lot more about the basin

[5:17] with Josh's talk next, but I'll give a brief introduction over here. So

[5:23] Lucerne Valley is in the Southwestern Mojave Desert. It's utilized primarily for

[5:27] agricultural purposes. It's a dependent on ground water for irrigation and

[5:33] domestic supply. So we've had a long-running study going on in cooperation with

[5:39] the Mojave Water Agency to look at questions regarding land use and

[5:44] application of imported water in Lucerne Valley. So the results of this OFR that

[5:54] I'm going to be presenting here.

[5:56] They're a complement to the larger report, the SIR,

[6:00] on hydrogeology and the groundwater model

[6:03] that Josh is going to be presenting.

[6:05] This presentation is focused on the water quality.

[6:13] So the purpose of this is to first summarize

[6:16] the findings of previous studies on water quality

[6:19] in Lucerne Valley.

[6:21] There's been a few over the years.

[6:24] We're going to be looking specifically

[6:25] specifically at a post-1990 water quality data collected by the USGS, and we're going to

[6:32] be looking more specifically at the results of some groundwater samples we collected

[6:37] in 2021, just down gradient of the of the borough effluent application site to determine

[6:44] the transport of this water in the subsurface and its water quality impacts.

[6:55] And again, to a little more of the description of the study area, I'm going to be using

[7:02] Using the hydrogeologic framework described in the SIR as a basis for interpretation of

[7:09] groundwater quality.

[7:11] That interpretation is that Lucerne Valley groundwater basin has four distinct units.

[7:18] There's an upper aquifer, it's typically less than 200 feet thick, it's made a sediment

[7:24] from the San Bernardino mountain.

[7:27] There's a widespread confiding unit.

[7:29] It's formed of lake deposits that you think are associated with previous versions of

[7:37] Lucerne Dry Lake.

[7:39] Then underneath that confining unit, there's a middle aquifer between 15500 feet thick made

[7:46] of mojave desert sediment.

[7:48] That's the primary aquifer that's utilized for irrigation and domestic purposes.

[7:55] Now underneath the middle aquifer, there's a lower aquifer.

[7:58] and that's also from Mojave Desert Direct sediment,

[8:03] it's a much older sediment.

[8:12] Here's a map of the study area and a cross-section

[8:18] along the Southeast Northwest transect.

[8:24] So most of the samples we're looking at here

[8:28] are from the portion of the groundwater basin

[8:32] kind of between the dry lake and the borough application site. There's a couple samples,

[8:37] older samples to the Northeast to the dry lake as well.

[8:45] The cross section is, you can see where

[8:49] the F1 application site is, and we serve dry lake. This is a pretty simplified version of the

[8:57] of stratigraphy, the next presentation will give a little more detailed version of this,

[9:03] but for the purposes of interpreting groundwater quality, this is what we're looking at, upper

[9:08] aquifer, middle aquifer and lower aquifer with the confining units separating the middle

[9:13] and upper aquifers.

[9:20] So for previous studies, there was some reports in the 1950s and 1960s, they found high quality

[9:29] groundwater south and northwest of Lucerne Lake and poor quality groundwater to the northeast.

[9:36] This was kind of before they had a really good idea of how the aquifer was layered,

[9:41] so most of these are probably middle aquifer samples. There's a more in-depth study by

[9:48] Schaefer in 1979, found similar kind of trends. There's poor quality groundwater

[9:54] water underlying in east of Lucerne dry lake.

[9:58] And there are some samples collected in the upper aquifer

[10:01] that had high TDS and nitrate concentrations

[10:05] that were attributed to agricultural irrigation returns.

[10:11] There are studies by John Isbicki in 2004

[10:16] looking at groundwater age.

[10:19] He determined that groundwater in the basin

[10:21] that's farther away from the base of the San Bernardino Mountains is old,

[10:27] a thousand years old, and recharge under climate conditions different in

[10:32] wetter than those of today. And that recent recharge, like within the last 50,

[10:36] 100 years, is only found both to the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains and some

[10:43] along the Hellendale fault trace.

[10:50] So the approach for this study is basically

[10:54] looking at water quality parameters to interpret groundwater quality sources of groundwater

[11:00] recharge and relative ages of groundwater.

[11:04] There is a special emphasis on the samples we collected in 2021 to look at transport

[11:10] and faith of Parla S1.

[11:13] Parameters we're looking at are basic water quality indicators like pH, dissolved oxygen and

[11:19] total dissolved solids.

[11:21] We're looking at inorganic constituents, including chloride, nitrate, silica, fluoride, arsenic,

[11:28] boron, iron, manganese, and chromium, and looking at stable isotope ratios of oxygen and hydrogen

[11:35] and water.

[11:36] These are very useful tracers for looking at sources of groundwater recharge since they

[11:42] They can vary on where water initially

[11:46] fell as precipitation, higher elevation precipitation,

[11:50] and precipitation farther inland precipitation

[11:54] under colder conditions.

[11:55] We'll have different water isotopes signatures.

[11:58] We're also looking at tridium activities.

[12:02] These indicate the presence of water

[12:04] recharged after 1950s atmospheric nuclear testing, which

[12:08] released a lot of tridium into the atmosphere.

[12:11] here.

[12:18] I think here's some plots of the results for water quality. This is a straight from

[12:26] the report. Lower aquifer is pink, middle aquifer is yellow, and upper aquifer is in blue.

[12:34] Also shown on here for relevant samples are the EPA secondary maximum contaminant limits

[12:42] or maximum contaminant limits as appropriate for drinking water.

[12:50] The basic gist of this is that samples collected from the lower aquifer are consistent with long ground water residents times.

[12:59] They tend to be enriched in parameters like total dissolved solids, chloride, boron, iron,

[13:08] things that you'd expect to be higher in older water.

[13:14] They have lower values for some parameters as well,

[13:17] like nitrate and dissolved oxygen.

[13:21] These are things that will tend to be fleet in groundwater over time.

[13:27] The middle aquifer samples were generally of pretty good quality.

[13:31] They got lower TDS, lower chlorides.

[13:36] There were some samples that had elevated nitrate values and this range could be indicative

[13:47] of some contribution of irrigation or septic returns.

[13:53] The upper aquifer samples were in most respects pretty similar to the middle aquifer samples.

[14:01] This is somewhat surprising given that previous studies had found elevated nitrate in this aquifer.

[14:14] A couple reasons this could be the case.

[14:17] Since that study, there's been a pretty significant decrease in the amount of irrigated agriculture in the basin.

[14:25] And also, there's potential for bias of sampling higher quality water from upper aquifer well since the wells that have water quality issues are less likely to be maintained and service and then less likely to be sampled by us during our sampling trips.

[14:44] The

[14:50] next thing we're going to look at is water exit totes, a plot of delta oxygen 18 values

[14:58] versus delta deuterium.

[15:03] So, lower values for both these tracers tend to indicate rain that fell under colder conditions

[15:13] or at higher elevations. And as water evaporates, these values tend to increase along lines with

[15:25] characteristic slopes. So these are evaporative trans lines from water that would have initially

[15:31] fallen this rain somewhere in these regions. Also shown here is the global meteoric water

[15:39] lines. This is just a line that precipitation worldwide tends to cluster around.

[15:48] These

[15:48] These values are indicating two primary sources of recharge.

[15:54] There's this kind of cluster up here.

[15:57] We're interpreting these values as precipitation that fell in the San Bernardino Mountains under

[16:03] colder and lighter conditions in those of today.

[16:05] And we also have evidence that there's a source, some way down here somewhere, as evidenced

[16:10] by the samples along this evaporation trend.

[16:13] We're interpreting this source as precipitation itself on mountains in the Mojave Desert under

[16:20] much cooler and wetter climate conditions in the even more distant past because we don't

[16:25] get much precipitation falling on those mountains today.

[16:30] The lower aquifer samples tend to have more recharge from this older Mojave Desert source,

[16:36] though there are a couple that show some mixture.

[16:38] middle aquifer samples. We have some evidence for both sources contributing and some samples

[16:47] with intermediate values between the two sources. Upper aquifer samples, not surprisingly

[16:54] are the tend to be the more recent source. Also shown here for reference, this is what we expect

[17:05] from Barla effluent based on the one sample of that we took and this X here is an example of

[17:13] modern San Bernardino mountain precipitation. So we have a we have a couple samples that maybe show

[17:20] a little bit of influence of modern precipitation and maybe a little influence of a Barla like

[17:27] and member which is also more similar to modern precipitation. We also have a few strangely

[17:34] anomalous samples. We have this sample here 2Q2 which is located strategically in the upper aquifer

[17:41] but has these water ice and tilt values that are much more similar to lower aquifer values.

[17:51] So I have 13R3 here which is showing contribution of modern recharge

[17:59] and 3Q4 which we're going to talk about a little more later. It's a middle

[18:03] lock for sample that shows kind of an intermediate

[18:07] contribution between the two different sources.

[18:16] So getting into specifically a borrower effluent fate,

[18:20] we're looking at results from these six samples here

[18:24] that we collected in 2021.

[18:29] Also got some data from the regional water quality control

[18:33] board from these monitor wells located directly

[18:36] under the borrower, epsilon application site.

[18:40] We got TDS and nitrate concentrations for those wells.

[18:45] For the ones we sampled, we got the water quality data,

[18:49] stable isotopes and tridium activity.

[18:51] We also sampled the borrower epsilon itself,

[18:53] that was that one water isotope value,

[18:56] showed in the previous plot.

[18:58] And the basic direction of groundwater flow

[19:01] and some groundwater level contours are shown on here.

[19:04] The

[19:11] results for these samples are shown in this table.

[19:16] You can see that the borough epsilon itself doesn't have all that high of nitrate concentrations.

[19:25] The monitor wells located immediately underneath the site have quite high nitrate concentrations.

[19:32] Some of that's due to organic nitrogen and the effluent being oxidized to nitrate.

[19:37] As it infiltrates, some of it may also be related to the cultivation of the south alpha on the site that reclaimed the water.

[19:47] These are the results for the samples we collected.

[19:52] So what we're looking for to indicate presence of faraway affluent in these samples is elevated nitrate concentrations like we saw in the monitor wellus underneath and also tridium activity since the

[20:05] Estimate application started in the 1980s.

[20:09] We would expect any of that effluent to contain detectable tridium since basically any

[20:17] recharge after the 1950s should have some tridium in it from the palm pulses.

[20:23] So the results are not, don't show any really clear evidence of borough effluent in any of

[20:32] down gradient, middle aquifer wells that we sampled.

[20:36] There's one sample with pretty elevated nitrate concentrations, but it did not have any

[20:42] tridium indicating that it was recharged probably before 1950.

[20:46] So that's not indicative of faraway effluent, it's more indicative of some kind of legacy

[20:52] source of nitrate there in the subsurface.

[20:55] We did have one sample that had detectable tridium indicating that it has some recent recharge,

[21:06] but it would have low nitrate concentrations and built to 18O values that are quite different

[21:12] from what we'd expect from Barwa. So that's fairly ambiguous. We know there's recent recharge,

[21:20] but it, you know, doesn't, is not obviously Barla F1 based on those tracer values.

[21:32] So here's a East West cross section of Lucerne Valley.

[21:37] This is right around the Barla F1 application site.

[21:41] That application site is here.

[21:44] And I wanted to show this because this is the confining layer right here

[21:52] between the upper and middle aquifers, and in this area, it kind of pinches out.

[21:59] And this could be a place where modern recharge can infiltrate from the surface

[22:10] into the middle aquifer here along the Cougar deutes fault trace.

[22:13] It could also be a place where depending on pressure gradients, deeper water could flow

[22:21] up vertically.

[22:27] That one sample down gradient, 3Q4, that showed modern recharge. That's

[22:35] right around in this area and it could be related to this pinch out in the confining layer

[22:41] where some modern recharge is getting down there. Also, well, 2Q2, which was that upper aquifer

[22:47] sample that had water isotope values similar to the lower and middle aquifers.

[22:52] That's also in this area and that can indicate some evidence of vertical flow from the middle

[22:59] aquifer or lower aquifer to the upper aquifer in this area.

[23:09] So to summarize these findings, the results for the water quality indicators were the most

[23:16] part consistent with those of previous studies.

[23:18] The lower aquifer is enriched in dissolved solids and is consistent with a long, long water

[23:27] residence times.

[23:29] The middle aquifer is a higher quality.

[23:33] It's shown maybe some evidence of irrigation returns or septic returns.

[23:39] Upper aquifer samples looked a lot like the middle aquifer samples and not sure if that's

[23:44] due to improvements in water quality.

[23:47] or due to sample bias of measuring water from wells that had higher water quality could easily be some combination of both those factors.

[24:01] The samples we collected in 2021 to look at the transport of Barwa effluent were not conclusive.

[24:11] There was no definite evidence of borough ethylone in any of those middle aquifer samples we looked at.

[24:20] That indicates that this ethylone is probably confined to the upper aquifer primarily at this point

[24:27] and that it's not getting through that confining layer.

[24:31] There were some interesting results though.

[24:33] We know that there's got to be some kind of legacy source of nitrate that's causing those

[24:40] higher, that high nitrate concentration in that one well, and it looks like there's

[24:46] some evidence of vertical flow near the coogervutes fault trace where both water may be able

[24:54] to flow up from the middle aquifer into the upper aquifer and modern recharge can maybe

[24:59] flow down from that from the surface into the middle aquifer.

[25:06] If we want to get a better idea of

[25:09] where the borough effluent is in the subsurface and where it's going it would be good to put in

[25:16] some short-screen monitor wells at strategic locations such as down gradient from the application site

[25:24] That could help us figure out if this, you know, how far this stuff has gone and where it

[25:29] is vertically.

[25:31] All we know now is that it does not seem to be in the middle aquifer, you know, even

[25:36] immediately downgradient of the echelon application site.

[25:45] Here's the references cited in this study, that's all I have for this, I'm happy to take

[25:53] questions.

[25:57] Thank you, Joseph.

[25:58] I would open it up to any questions or comments from anybody in attendance are online?

[26:07] I have a question for you, Joseph.

[26:10] Did you see any evidence of Barlow effluent in the upper aquifer?

[26:17] Yes, absolutely.

[26:19] So these three monitor wells, they're quite shallow, they're completed in the upper aquifer

[26:26] And they're pretty clearly, you know, have elevated nitrate concentrations consistent with the presence of effluent.

[26:36] Unfortunately, we did not get access to or could not sample any wells completed in the upper aquifer, you know, anywhere close to the vicinity of the application site in this kind of down gradient area.

[26:52] So, that's something we're hoping to do in the future is find wells in the

[26:59] uprock for there and sample them or construct our own if we can.

[27:04] Okay, and were you able to sample or collect isotope data from those samples?

[27:12] Yes, these samples we have stable isotope data for, that's in this table right here

[27:19] And that was one of the things that, you know, this sample here, 3, 2, 4, you know, had

[27:26] tritium.

[27:27] So, you know, maybe that's modern recharge.

[27:29] Maybe it's borrow as well, but the borrow as well, it looks much more, it's much more enriched

[27:34] in Delta-18O than any of the samples we collected.

[27:38] So, there wasn't really good water isotope evidence for any borrow as well.

[27:46] All right.

[27:46] Thank you.

[27:47] Any other questions or comments at in?

[27:52] Just a quick question.

[27:53] Do you set one of your samples in the upper aquifer showed older groundwater?

[28:01] Is that occurring at the fault?

[28:03] And did you experience that anywhere else?

[28:08] Right.

[28:08] So that's this sample right here, 2Q2.

[28:13] That was the only upper, all the rest of the upper aquifer samples are plotting up here.

[28:19] like San Bernardino recharge. This is the only one that's looking like this old water.

[28:25] And I'll see if I can show you where it was. Yeah, 2Q2 is right here and that's pretty close

[28:33] to the Cougar buttes fault trace. So that that was part of the, you know, 2Q2s here, 3Q4s here

[28:41] a little farther away. This is the one that looks like water might be moving up and this is the one

[28:45] and it looks like modern recharge might be moving down.

[28:49] So it's definitely something to consider

[28:53] and future interpretations of what's happening

[28:56] because we haven't.

[28:58] There hasn't been a lot of specific work done

[29:00] along the co-reviewed fault traces.

[29:02] There's not a lot of samples here.

[29:04] So it's something to think about.

[29:07] Thank you.

[29:12] Question from Chuck.

[29:17] The question from Chuck Bell

[29:18] Are there future studies funded for this?

[29:26] There's definitely been talk of doing different things here in Lucerne Valley,

[29:31] but we don't have any hard funding right now to do any additional work.

[29:42] There are plans in the works, but nothing is funded at this point, Chuck.

[29:53] And Joseph, just one last thing before you go,

[29:56] because there's a very mixed audience here as far as technical

[30:00] Understanding of hydrogeology. If you were going to tell your grandma what the three big takeaways from the study are, what would they be?

[30:10] I guess my biggest takeaways would be in terms of the groundwater quality. We don't see any big changes or shifts from what we've seen historically. In terms of the faraway effluent, I would say we don't see any evidence of it getting into the middle aquifer. It appears to be confined.

[30:33] to the upper aquifer.

[30:40] All right, thank you.

[30:42] Great question.

[30:43] That helped me out a lot.

[30:44] So, yeah, that was good.

[30:47] So, thank you, Joseph, for presenting today.

[30:50] And we'll move on to item number six.

[30:52] Seeing no other questions or comments,

[30:54] which is the hydrogeology and simulation of ground water flow

[30:59] in the Lucerne Valley ground water basin by USGS.

[31:02] And I'll let Adnan tee this one up.

[31:06] That's the right over to Wes.

[31:07] Yes. Thanks, Adnan. Same story here. This is just a continuation of the body of work

[31:14] that MWA and USGS have teamed together to do in the certain valley. The ultimate goal

[31:20] is obviously a recharge base and out there. And this is part of that, you know, two and

[31:25] a half decade long process, apparently. So take it away, Josh.

[31:29] Alright,

[31:46] can you see my screen?

[31:52] Yes. Okay, great. So yeah, I'm Josh Larson, and I work for US Geological

[32:03] Survey California Water Science Center as a hydrologist, and I'm going to talk today about the report

[32:12] hydrogeology and simulation of groundwater flow. We've seen valley groundwater basin. And this

[32:18] This presentation is to serve as a summary kind of a companion to that report.

[32:27] So Lutheran Valley located in the southwestern Mojave Desert and this USGS study was done

[32:35] to evaluate the hydroology of the basin and then create a groundwater model that can serve

[32:42] as a groundwater management tool for this basin.

[32:47] The results from this study were documented in the recent reports, and there's a link

[32:56] to that report here in the slides.

[33:00] So this presentation is just going to talk about the results of the hydrogeology portion

[33:08] and the hydrologic model,

[33:12] okay.

[33:13] So the figure on the right shows the Lucerne Valley study area.

[33:18] The study area is about 175 square miles.

[33:23] And it's located around 13 miles east of Apple Valley where many of you are sitting today.

[33:30] And if you're remote, it's about 75 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

[33:35] This basin is a closed lubial filled mojave desert basin and what we mean by closed is the basins bound on all sides.

[33:48] So in the west, the basins bound by the hollandale fault that acts as a no-flow boundary.

[33:56] In the northwest, the Granite Mountains act as a boundary to flow.

[34:02] The north, the orrid mountains from the basin, and in the east, Kruger buttes, and in the

[34:11] south, the San Bernardino Mountains.

[34:18] The basin is also fairly rural.

[34:20] It supports about a population of 5,300 people as of 2016 census estimates, and another way

[34:30] to think about it is about 2,000 residences reside within the Lucerne Valley basin.

[34:40] So for this population, groundwater is the sole source of the water supply.

[34:47] There's no perennial surface water sources and the

[34:52] ephemeral surface water flow is precipitation driven and

[34:56] mostly isolated along the margins of the San Bernardino

[35:01] Mountains.

[35:07] As Joe had mentioned before, agriculture is a

[35:12] large, this is an agricultural basin and in 2016 about 2% of

[35:23] the study area was irrigated.

[35:26] So in this figure on the right,

[35:28] we can see our study area boundary in gray

[35:32] and the agricultural plots,

[35:37] which are variously colored,

[35:39] depending on the crop type.

[35:41] So now the white or green, these are alfalfa,

[35:45] which is the primary crop grown in the basin,

[35:51] about 70% of agriculture was out in 2016 and down here in the southern part of the base and

[36:02] is that Bara affluent application site as well. And just to describe some more of the

[36:12] agriculture out here, about 8% of the agriculture was orchards in 2016,

[36:20] And then about 2% was a newer crop to the base and jujubes.

[36:29] So in this study, we put together some estimates of the crop requirements from 2007 to 2016.

[36:39] So the figure on the bottom, the Y-axis shows the estimated water requirement and the X-axis shows the year.

[36:48] In 2016, we estimated about 4,000 acre feet, or about 80% of the agricultural water used

[36:59] in the basin, just towards south-false growth.

[37:04] Fortards is about 6% or 400 acre feet, and jujubes about 200 acre feet or 3% of the water

[37:13] use in the basin.

[37:16] And so to understand where this water use is coming from, most of the water is coming from.

[37:27] For water use we put together a hydrogeologic framework during this study.

[37:34] And what we see on the right hand figure is just a fan view map with some of the main geological units.

[37:42] And we're really focused in this cross-sectional line BB prime that circled in red that goes from south to north.

[37:52] The figure on the bottom left shows that cross-section.

[37:58] And from this cross-section, we were able to determine the different aquifer systems that and some additional data.

[38:10] So, this yellow unit on the top is our upper aquifer, and this is upper sand, or sand-burned

[38:23] you know, direct sediment.

[38:25] These blues are lake deposits, very rich in clay in our confining unit, and we can see

[38:34] that it's thicker towards the south and thick in the center and then it kind of pinches

[38:40] out as we go further north along this cross sectional line.

[38:47] This lower yellow unit that is the middle aquifer that's Mojave derived sediment and then

[38:56] the lower aquifer is in pink and this is much older material, more compact and more cemented.

[39:04] So most of the pumping we see comes out of layer three,

[39:09] especially for agricultural purposes.

[39:15] You can also look at this in east west profile,

[39:18] or west to east.

[39:20] Joe showed this picture before, this figure before.

[39:23] So aquar aquifer is here in yellow.

[39:27] You'll notice that there is light deposits

[39:32] from historic extent of looser and light.

[39:37] in the separate aquifer, and then our confining unit layer 2, the dark blue, that kind of

[39:43] pinches out as we get over here by the cougar beautes fault, kind of near the affluent application

[39:50] site, and then middle aquifer and lower aquifer.

[40:00] Joe touched on this and talked about this actually in the detail, but a previous study was

[40:07] performed back in 2004 by Isbecky and Michael and they looked at Tritium and Carbon 14 within

[40:16] the Lucerne Valley groundwater basin and other parts and the Upper Mojave River groundwater

[40:22] basin. In the takeaways from these slides is that most of the groundwater in the basin

[40:30] and from natural recharge is very old,

[40:35] and was recharged under different climatic conditions.

[40:39] So this dark pink on the plot on the right,

[40:43] waters up to about 370 years old.

[40:47] So younger water up to 370 years old,

[40:51] the medium pink, the waters estimated

[40:54] to be 370 to 5700 years old,

[40:58] light pink, 5,700 up to 10,000, and these areas in white are greater than 10,000 years old.

[41:08] That being said, this study did not measure any affluent application from Bauer's, the Bauer

[41:17] affluent application site, and was only looking at natural recharge.

[41:22] We

[41:28] also used another USGS tool to create estimates of natural recharge for the basin.

[41:36] So the basin characterization model was applied.

[41:40] And in this figure, you can see on the y-axis potential annual recharge estimated from that model,

[41:49] calendar year from 1942 to 2016, and then the secondary Y-axis is cumulative recharge.

[41:59] So they take away from these. The slide is average recharge estimates are about 628 to 940 acre feet per year, depending on what we use as the base and boundary.

[42:12] And the cumulative total for the entire study period is around 70,000 acre

[42:19] feeds of natural recharge into the basin.

[42:26] There's also transfers into the basin at the Bara Appluent application site.

[42:34] And these ranged, they started in 1980 and we looked at it from 1980 to 2016.

[42:44] and the transfers range from about 1500 to 4,000 acre feet per year or an average of about 2600 acre feet per year.

[42:56] In this figure on the bottom you can see total of fluent on the y-axis and then the year on the x-axis and the field.

[43:06] The effluent is spread over both alfalfa fields

[43:11] and into infiltration times.

[43:14] And what we can see from this figure in the yellowy green

[43:18] is that fields get the majority of the water, affluent application.

[43:24] And because of this, recharges likely a little lower due to losses

[43:30] from the baffle transpiration just based on drawing the alfalfa.

[43:35] He

[43:44] also put together estimates of pumping from historic estimates and from water

[43:54] master reports and re-estimated about 700,000 acre feet of groundwater from 1942 to 2016.

[44:07] and the range depending on the year from about 3,000 acre feet per year back

[44:17] year in the 40s and some lower years in modern times to about 18,000 acre

[44:26] feet of puppets per year during the 1980s with a peak being about 1984. So most of

[44:35] this purpose was for our agricultural purposes about 93% or 650,000

[44:41] acre feet and when we sum up the component for domestic industrial and

[44:50] municipal that makes up about 50,000 acre feet or 7%. So one of the takeaways

[44:57] from this slide is the...

[45:00] Groundwater that was extracted is about 10 times more than natural recharge that comes into the system throughout the study period.

[45:13] We looked at groundwater level contours throughout the study period, and the figure on the

[45:23] right is a composite sample taken or groundwater levels taken from about 2014 to 2016 to get

[45:33] approximate contours of the basin. And what we see when we look at the contours is that water

[45:42] levels are higher in the north, east and south than the center of the basin. And that creates a

[45:51] flow gradient where water flows from the south to the center, the east to the center, and the north

[45:59] to the center of the basin, naturally, as it tries to kind of balance out and fill that gradient.

[46:12] Long-term hydrographs were also looked at in this study.

[46:17] And what we saw from these is that middle aquifers, the primary place where groundwater is pumped.

[46:27] And we can look at a couple of these hydrographs here.

[46:32] So this 25G1 that's circled here in red, we see from about mid-1950s to about 1996.

[46:46] We have this strong study decline of about 100 feet in the middle of the basin within the

[46:52] middle aquifer.

[46:53] And then in, right around 96, pumping has been decreased and we get a slight upward direction

[47:05] or the water level slightly rise to 2016.

[47:12] So, when we looked at the southern part of the basin during that same period of time,

[47:18] And we see that water levels are still declining here in the south.

[47:26] And the increases in water levels in the center from 96 to 2016 are offset by declines

[47:35] in the northern and southern eastern parts of the basin as the system is trying to naturally

[47:41] they fill that hydraulic gradient with the reduction in pumpage.

[47:52] In Lucerne Lake, there is also land subsidence that we worked out

[47:56] and we use remote sensing data to compile estimates of land subsidence

[48:04] throughout the basin. So here on the figure on the figure on the right

[48:10] can see the different stations we used as the green dots and the one that's

[48:17] circled here this is where the greatest amount of land subsiding has occurred

[48:22] in the basin and if we look at our estimates can see that between 92 and

[48:29] 2010 almost a foot of subsidence occurred within the central part of the

[48:36] So

[48:40] with all of this data in mind, we created a hydrologic model to represent historic conditions in the basin.

[48:51] So this figure on the right shows the model boundary or the study area boundary in the dark thick gray line.

[48:59] The lighter gray lines are the model grid cells that we use to simulate flow.

[49:08] And we use the model flow one water hydrologic model to simulate flow from 1942 to 2016.

[49:20] We selected this because it includes farm process to simulate irritated agriculture.

[49:26] The model was also calibrated to historic conditions using 86 observation wells throughout

[49:33] the basin and you can see all of those points on the figure in blue.

[49:44] So to look at some of the calibration results, this 25G1, which is one of the wells I showed

[49:53] before you can see in the figure on the right the y-axis shows the ground water level elevation

[50:00] and feet and the x-axis is the calendar year or yeah the date and the blue line in this figure is

[50:15] the model hydraulic hot or water level which you'd like to think of it that way and the open black

[50:22] circles are the groundwater level observations from the observation level.

[50:29] So we can see that we get the trend that we were expecting, that sharp decline in water level into the 90s,

[50:37] followed by the water level slightly rising from the mid 90s up to 2016.

[50:46] You looked at the southern part of the basin, one of our multiple well-managering sites.

[50:55] We can see here that water levels are declining in the southern part of the basin and all

[51:02] three aquifers.

[51:05] So the green line is hydraulic head and the upper aquifer in the model.

[51:11] The blue line is middle aquifer, and the brown line is lower aquifer, and we match the observations pretty well in here.

[51:25] We also simulated subsidence within the model, and the takeaway from this figure right here is that we use 11 observation points throughout the model.

[51:40] and about seven and a half foot, or up to seven and a half foot, the subsidence was estimated to have occurred from 1942 to 2016, south of Lucerne Lake here.

[51:56] This is where we have the maximum amount of subsidence in the basin.

[51:59] And this is occurring based on these figures and based on the model in layer two where we have a lot, a lot of clay deposits, not much subsidence is occurring in layer one, three or four.

[52:16] When

[52:22] we move or when we look at the northwestern part of the basin if you remember from the geologic cross section that can find unit starts pinching out once we go further north into here.

[52:37] We see that only about a half a foot of compaction has occurred and this is likely due to that thinner clay rich confining unit.

[52:53] Drawdown results were also put together from the model and so the figure on the right

[52:59] shows simulated drawdown from 1942 to 2016 and how we get that is we take our initial

[53:08] condition, our initial water levels from 1942 and then we subtract the water levels that

[53:15] simulated in 2016. And this figure shows that maximum of about 135 feet of

[53:24] drawdown has occurred near the center of the basin throughout the study period.

[53:34] When we look at 96 to 2016, so using 96 water levels as our initial

[53:42] condition and subtracting 2016 water levels off. We see increases of about 15 feet in the small

[53:52] area near the center of the basin and about 0 to 5 feet. They're here on these lighter blue

[54:01] patches and then we see decreases all around the periphery of the basin. So up here in the northeast

[54:11] the north in the south. And what this is is water migrating from the south into the center,

[54:20] north east into the center, and north into the center.

[54:29] And one of the great things about models is we can put together a water budget for all of the

[54:36] simulated years. So this is kind of a complex figure, but I'll walk throughout a piece at a time,

[54:44] So the blues in this budget, this is recharge from natural recharge, agricultural return flows,

[54:55] and also from the Barra affluent facility. The greens down here is agricultural pumping,

[55:06] and then the other browns and darker colors. This is municipal industrial and domestic pumping,

[55:13] And then the yellow is storage and the confusing part about these figures is when storage is on the positive side of the axis.

[55:25] This is this represents a loss of storage from the system because it is a water bill. The top has to balance the bottom.

[55:32] So these are storage losses.

[55:35] And the takeaway from this is twofold.

[55:39] Agricultural pumping is the greatest use of groundwater

[55:42] within the Lucerne Valley basin.

[55:46] And then groundwater depletion has occurred every year

[55:50] throughout our study period from 1942 to 2016.

[56:01] We can also look at this a different way.

[56:03] So this is once again looking at pumping, so we've just taken the bottom half of that previous graph, flipped it over and plotted it up.

[56:17] So the takeaways from this slide is the groundwater removed from aquifer storage is estimated to be about 465,000 acre feet.

[56:29] So that this number includes recharge going in to the system and pumping going out to the system, going out of the system.

[56:45] So pumping within the basin, the model estimates are about 641,000 acre feet were used for agricultural purposes.

[56:57] 32,000 for domestic water use, 12,000 for industrial water use, and then municipal water use used

[57:06] about 6,500 acre feet during the study period.

[57:14] So in summary, with that Lucerne Valley, the

[57:21] Lucerne Valley groundwater basin, which is near Apple Valley, and supplies water to a rural

[57:29] community, rural agricultural community of about 5,000 people. The groundwater supply has been

[57:38] depleted since about 1940, since 1942, and during the study period there have been groundwater

[57:47] water level declines about to 135 feet between 90s, between 42 and 2016. Storage loss

[57:58] from the basin has been over about 460,000 acre feet of water removed. And the primary

[58:07] use of this groundwater is for irrigated agriculture.

[58:15] Part of this study, hydrologic

[58:18] model has been created and calibrated to historic conditions. And this model, what it really

[58:26] can be used for is for resource managers to gain insights into proposed future water management

[58:32] scenarios. So one of the powerful things you can do with models is compare relative effects of

[58:40] different management strategies and even different climate scenarios. One of the other things we can

[58:47] do is track the fate of water molecules, molecules such as infiltration from Bara, or if you select

[58:57] another infiltration site to add on to, can track the fate of those particles to get an idea of

[59:06] where they're going to end up in the natural system. So with that, thank you, and I'll take any

[59:14] questions that you have now.

[59:22] Thank you, Josh. That was extremely informative.

[59:27] All I can say is, wow. I understand why Chuck is so engaged.

[59:32] I get it. With that, I'll open it up to any questions or comments.

[59:40] It'd be best up here. Everybody can hear you, especially the ones online.

[1:00:00] Hold on just a second. I think they're trying to get your mic active. Is that right?

[1:00:53] So do you want to repeat that to Josh? I don't know if Josh can hear it or if that's one. You said

[1:01:03] you were not able to hear it. I was not able to hear the question. I think the question was, does the agriculture that went out of production, do the recession, did that coincide with the recovery of the

[1:01:19] the groundwater depression, the cone in the center of the, of the basin.

[1:01:24] Um, so here, let me scroll back through the slides.

[1:01:29] I can.

[1:01:30] I

[1:01:34] repeat the question.

[1:01:37] Um, so he got it.

[1:01:40] So back here in, I think it was, um, the early 90s.

[1:01:46] Is this the recession that you're talking about?

[1:01:53] So back in the early 90s.

[1:01:54] We've noticed the goals we treat in the expense of agricultural production and that does correspond to when groundwater levels in the center of the basin began to rise.

[1:02:16] Other questions, comments?

[1:02:21] Yeah, this is Perry Dulles from Gold State Water.

[1:02:24] So we're looking at all this data.

[1:02:26] I think the $1,000 question is for recharge into the basin since it still looks like.

[1:02:34] still extract them more water than's getting in naturally and it looks like

[1:02:39] the upper levels pretty confined so probably the only way to get recharged into

[1:02:43] this basin effectively is through injection wells or something or what's

[1:02:49] going to any ideas or thoughts on how to manage that going forward so you can get

[1:02:54] water underneath the top layer that seems to be the confining layer.

[1:02:59] Yeah, that's a good question. And what we see in the geological data is the

[1:03:10] confining unit pinches out as we go to the north. So we actually refer to this

[1:03:18] middle aquifer, or this middle aquifer has been referred to in previous studies as

[1:03:24] partially confined aquifer. So back here in the southern part of the basin, the data would suggest

[1:03:34] that injection wells would have to be drilled to access this middle aquifer. In the northern part

[1:03:41] of the basin, that might not be the same story because this clay layer is much thinner. But I think

[1:03:52] more geologic data might need to be taken in some of these other areas to really evaluate that.

[1:04:13] Well, thank you, Josh. With that, we'll move on to our next item. It is Mojabi Basin,

[1:04:20] one water concept, and this one's being presented by Darren Polson, the GM of VVWRA.

[1:04:28] Thank you, Darren.

[1:04:28] Yeah.

[1:04:29] Doug, thank you very much.

[1:04:31] Theresa, are you going to work at the buttons or then

[1:04:36] you've got the, I'll give you the

[1:04:37] high sign and we'll move forward.

[1:04:39] All right, let's do a match.

[1:04:40] That does not want to stay up there.

[1:04:45] All right, well, we'll leave it right there.

[1:04:47] All right, and I don't like having my back, everybody.

[1:04:59] Oh, that's much better.

[1:05:01] As Doug said, my name is Darren Poulson.

[1:05:03] I'm the general manager over at the VVWRA.

[1:05:07] next month will mark 36 years for me in the water and wastewater industry. I've lived my entire

[1:05:14] life here in Apple Valley and most of my water and wastewater experience came on the other side of

[1:05:19] Go Home Pass where previously to come into work here at VVWA I did a lot of water resource

[1:05:25] management for a number of communities and special districts on the other side of Go Home Pass and

[1:05:30] One significant difference that I found once I came up here to the high desert was very

[1:05:38] much like the water industry back in the 80s and 90s when I got started. A lot of the

[1:05:42] agencies on the other side of home past were operating very separately. You were a waste

[1:05:49] water guy, you were a recycled water guy, you were a ground water guy, a surface water

[1:05:52] imported water. Nobody was really working together. And it didn't start until the late 90s

[1:06:00] roughly. At that point in time, I was on the board for the Chino Basin Water Master.

[1:06:04] I've also sat on the board for six basins, water master as well as the Spodger Basin

[1:06:10] Water Master, sat on a number of tech committees for the Empire Utilities agencies, then to

[1:06:16] another of metropolitan meetings. It was about that time period that all of these agencies

[1:06:20] you started realizing that there's only one water, and I don't care where it comes from,

[1:06:25] whether it's storm water, whether it's recycled water, it's ground water, it's surface

[1:06:30] water, it's imported water, and what we started seeing was the fact that we were becoming

[1:06:34] much more successful of developing significant grants and providing much more impact to our

[1:06:39] basins when we all started working together.

[1:06:43] Working for those cities and communities I did, I was responsible for recycled water, ground

[1:06:47] I was responsible for the MS-4 that a lot of work with the Santa Ana region, the L.A. County region, that a lot of Irwin projects together, with IEUA in the last 15, 20 years with them.

[1:07:01] When those agencies all calibrate, collaborate to write metropolitan IEUA, the number of the communities around IEUA has probably in last 10 or 15 years earned, almost a half a billion dollars were the grants.

[1:07:13] And I have a million dollars that they've reinvested back into their basin to build collaborative

[1:07:20] projects to recharge not only the storm water but also the recycled water and desalters.

[1:07:27] So they started managing all of this is one basin and one water.

[1:07:31] And since coming to the VVWA, I started noticing immediately some of the concerns I was having

[1:07:37] at my plan and when I started looking at those concerns and looking for possible solutions

[1:07:43] it kind of led me to some thoughts from some of my past experiences on hey what else could

[1:07:48] we do in the Mojave Basin and I started reaching out to my member agencies at the city of

[1:07:53] Victorville and the town of Apple Valley and the city of Asperia and the county and saying

[1:07:57] hey is there a way that you know maybe we could maximize VVWA's efforts started reaching

[1:08:03] out to the Mojave Water Agency and started having conversations with them about considering

[1:08:08] an optimum basin management plan, something we could do differently to create more yield

[1:08:14] and benefit in our basin, similar to some of the work that I had done on the other side

[1:08:17] of the hill.

[1:08:18] So, I kind of come together and put this concept and this thought of a Mojave basin, one

[1:08:23] water concept.

[1:08:24] And what could that look like?

[1:08:25] And today, what I was asked to do was kind of identify some of the water resource issues

[1:08:31] that all of us are dealing with on a daily basis and then kind of take those

[1:08:35] challenges and see if I can't apply them directly to this concept and these

[1:08:39] thoughts of what we could do on a larger scale. So these are just kind of these

[1:08:44] items that I'm going to cover today. The high ground water issue is actually

[1:08:47] something the VVWA is dealing with and I'll kind of get into more detail on that.

[1:08:51] But I really want to talk about effective recharge. I want to talk about maybe some

[1:08:55] underutilized assets here at Mojave Water Agency. The issues with the storm

[1:08:59] water management and the climate change and these new atmospheric rivers that we're seeing today that

[1:09:03] are bringing huge amounts of water to our area very quickly. I know our Mojave rivers were fortunate

[1:09:10] in the fact that it's not mine somewhere to some of the rivers down on the other side of

[1:09:14] the home path but still any water that we can keep in our upper zones is opposed to just letting

[1:09:18] it fall out to Afton Canyon. That would be a huge benefit. So we're going to touch based on all of

[1:09:23] these challenges and all of these facts today and then we're going to talk about this concept that I

[1:09:27] have in mind and I think I'm going to start here kind of just today I noticed and I checked

[1:09:31] on my newsfeed before I even came in. Today I saw three newsfeed articles hit my inbox

[1:09:37] today, right? One of them was Metropolitan Water District. There's a state water project

[1:09:42] contractor right similar to Mojave and the LA County Sanitation District. So a collaboration

[1:09:47] between a state water project contractor and a water treatment facility, LA County, one

[1:09:52] of the largest in the United States, if not the world. Today they are getting ready to

[1:09:56] launch almost a billion-dollar project. It's over $600 million for the project where today,

[1:10:03] they're going to take the Hyperion Flow, which is one of the largest treatment plants

[1:10:06] L.A. County San has. Today, their wastewater discharge, their recycle water discharge,

[1:10:11] go straight to the ocean, about a hundred million gallons per day. And now,

[1:10:16] right, metropolitan estate water project contractor, now has seen the vision of, hey, why don't we

[1:10:21] collaborate with these guys? Find a way to treat that water to a level of a higher quality.

[1:10:25] And let's keep it inland and let's recharge and they're building huge pipelines and larger treatment plants, right?

[1:10:31] That was one article.

[1:10:32] The other article I saw today was on, again, right, the issues with the drought and the fact that metropolitan is going to continue to push, right, more drought requirements, the fact that our state water project

[1:10:45] allocations are going to continue to fall, right? I saw articles on that today. So these issues and these challenges we're dealing with are hitting us every day.

[1:10:52] And when I look at our Mojave basin and compare it, we're probably about 20 or 30 years behind what they're doing on the other side of compass.

[1:11:01] The great part about that is the fact that if we can get us started on this, if we can start collaborating today with our projects and thinking beyond just our simple storm water project or our recycled water project, if we can all work together right, there's significant dollars out there available to us.

[1:11:18] And I think if we all start thinking along those lines, ultimately what we end up with

[1:11:22] is a much better and more proficient basin.

[1:11:27] So let's start with the high ground water levels in the transition zone.

[1:11:31] So, you know, if you want one, let's go ahead and hit to the second map that's kind of an

[1:11:34] easier explanation.

[1:11:38] Ah, that's awesome.

[1:11:39] All right, where do I point it?

[1:11:42] This one?

[1:11:42] No, just go?

[1:11:44] Nope, where do I point it?

[1:11:55] So for those of you who maybe don't know where BVWRA is, BVWRA is within the transition

[1:12:03] zone, right?

[1:12:03] We are between the lower narrows and the hellendale fault.

[1:12:07] So our discharge point right there, every day, we're pushing into the river about 11 to

[1:12:13] 12 million gallons per day.

[1:12:15] If we're not doing a direct recharge, we have percolation pawns that we push water

[1:12:22] to when we're doing maintenance and we're not chlorinaire hitting it with disinfection

[1:12:25] UV.

[1:12:27] So we have both direct discharge and percolation pawns that are right on the edge of the

[1:12:30] river that fall very quickly into the transition zone.

[1:12:35] And I recently had a hydrojologist come out and help me with regards to this high ground

[1:12:40] water concern and I'll get to the details as to why I have these concerns.

[1:12:44] But what we were able to find is that within the transition zone over the last 20 years

[1:12:49] Those groundwater levels have ridden risen significantly primarily attributed to my discharge, right?

[1:12:55] Every border that we're dumping into that ground. It can't get out of the transition zone fast enough

[1:12:59] go ahead

[1:13:05] and

[1:13:07] And then the way we know that too, right is because within the within the central basin downstream of the Helen Delphalt area

[1:13:13] The central basin is seeing so you can begin declines

[1:13:16] So I'm really thinking of, well, if I'm putting more and more water into the

[1:13:20] transition zone and it's not making it to the areas that have the the low

[1:13:24] ground water issues or the lowering ground water issues, there's something

[1:13:27] wrong with our palette, right? Something's not working, right? I mean, we

[1:13:30] really should be thinking about really effective management of our aquifer

[1:13:34] recharge. Being more specific and direct makes much more sense than just randomly

[1:13:38] dropping it into the transition zone and hoping that it makes its way there.

[1:13:42] Go ahead.

[1:13:44] So this is a close-up of our facility. And you can see the groundwater contours where

[1:13:50] are even the water from those ponds that are basically on the southern end. Those are upper

[1:13:55] percolation ponds. Those south percolation ponds are where today when our UV disinfection is offline,

[1:14:00] we push water up into those ponds and allow it to recharge. The direct outfall is about where that

[1:14:06] pink looking number section is right there. We have lower ponds. So if you go further north and

[1:14:12] up against the river. You can see there's about four ponds that used to be historically

[1:14:17] where we used to discharge our water too. Those ponds today are completely full, and

[1:14:24] we have not put water in those ponds in probably 12 to 15 years. And the reason they're flow,

[1:14:30] the reason they're full, those ponds that water level is groundwater level. So they are sitting

[1:14:36] there on my property full of groundwater. And those percolation ponds in the south move

[1:14:44] water towards the river and to those ponds and they fill those ponds. And for those

[1:14:49] of you who aren't familiar with what an MPDS permit is, right, that means that I can't

[1:14:53] allow the water to flow off my property. My problem is, is those ponds are in a continual

[1:14:58] Thread of...

[1:15:00] Overflowing from groundwater. Not from my, you brought not from my recharge. So I'm in a constant basis. I have huge

[1:15:07] Godwin pumps where I pump in a circle. I literally put it in the most northern pond and pump it all the way back up to

[1:15:14] avoid an M.P.D.S. permit issue. Super costly, super inefficient. Law hot and water board doesn't like it. They're on my case,

[1:15:21] and I'm struggling with what you want me to do. I don't control groundwater, right? So the high groundwater is causing

[1:15:27] issues with the potential thread of an NPDS violation. Also, just to the left of our discharge

[1:15:34] point, I have primary clarifiers, right? So the wastewater after it grows through screening

[1:15:40] and brick capture goes into these large clarifiers where the sludge starts to fall out. And these

[1:15:46] are about 20 feet deep. And you have to go down into the basement area about 25 feet and I have

[1:15:53] a pump gallery where these pumps are pulling the sludge off the bottom of these clarifiers

[1:15:57] and moving the sludge to my digesters.

[1:16:01] The floor in my basement has water in it all the time.

[1:16:05] And I have these huge electric pumps that my staff walks around in and my submersibles

[1:16:10] have a hard time keeping up with the ground water infiltrating in through the walls.

[1:16:15] So high ground water in the transition zone, high ground water in the plant is causing me

[1:16:21] some significant concerns. And I started thinking about, well, the easiest way to do that,

[1:16:27] if you could hit the next button, right, is, well, let's just maximize the use of recycled

[1:16:33] water instead of just discharging it. How do I get it to my member agencies and really

[1:16:37] start using it? Well, now there's restrictions and issues with this, right? There's impediments

[1:16:43] to using that recycled water, right? There's a constraint by the MOU requirements, right?

[1:16:48] We have an EMOU requirement where efficient wildlife requires a certain amount of discharge to the

[1:16:54] repair and areas that I've got to meet every year. And then my member agencies who basically own

[1:16:59] the recycle water have this subarea obligation of this 23,000 acre foot of water that they've got to

[1:17:05] meet within the transition zone that ultimately we've got to figure out a solution for because the

[1:17:10] reality is is that I need to move where I'm discharging. Go ahead.

[1:17:17] Right. I really need to think

[1:17:19] think about how do I discharge someplace else other than right there in my own backyard

[1:17:23] and causing my own issues with high ground water.

[1:17:26] So I started thinking about this and I contacted a number of staff here at the MWA and I started

[1:17:31] thinking about that pipeline right that MWA operates today between the aqueduct all the way

[1:17:37] out to Daggett.

[1:17:38] And that large pipeline today isn't used every day, it's not an asset that ultimately gets

[1:17:46] used on a very significant amount of time.

[1:17:49] And my thought was, wow, did anybody know the fact

[1:17:52] that my recycle water line flows up

[1:17:54] to the high desert power plant?

[1:17:57] And that Victorville operates a line

[1:17:58] from the high desert power plant back to that line

[1:18:01] to where they could take state project water off of that?

[1:18:03] Literally, there is a way to connect my recycled water,

[1:18:06] even Victorville's recycled water from their industrial plant.

[1:18:10] To that pipeline, and the connections probably less

[1:18:13] than 50 feet apart.

[1:18:14] All right, so we're not talking about a huge engineering project ultimately to get this

[1:18:20] potentially connected and maybe get us thinking about the fact of rather than just dropping

[1:18:25] water in the transition zone, how do we really become effective rechargers of this resource?

[1:18:31] How do we utilize this resource more effectively?

[1:18:34] It could be used maybe someday by the city of Victorville with regards to maybe doing more landscape

[1:18:40] work.

[1:18:40] but what do we do with recycled water right now when it's 28 degrees in the

[1:18:44] morning when we wake up, right? Nobody's using that water today. Same thing we did

[1:18:48] on the other side of the hill. It was easy. You use the water on golf courses and

[1:18:52] landscape in the summertime and then when it got cold we recharged, right? All of

[1:18:58] that, that recycled water was put into recharge basins that they were using for

[1:19:02] stormwater recharge. Now they're also using them for recycled water recharge.

[1:19:07] So my thought was, is progressing down these one water concepts, is there a way to partner

[1:19:14] with Mojave Water Agency and our member agencies and think about finding a solution of moving

[1:19:20] this water where it's needed in the central basin and more effectively use our recycled

[1:19:24] water?

[1:19:28] So there are those challenges I talked about, right?

[1:19:31] I would love to get rid of my high ground water.

[1:19:33] We're going to have to find solutions with regards to what agreements would need to be in

[1:19:38] place, how much is the hot and going to push back on this, how much is fish and wildlife

[1:19:43] going to push back on this, right?

[1:19:45] There's a lot of things that we need to address, but all of them make really good sense

[1:19:50] to me with regards to maximizing the use of this resource.

[1:19:55] The one requirement with regards to the fish and wildlife I even found a unique solution

[1:20:00] to, hopefully, and that is the Mojave Desert Regional Conservation District just recently

[1:20:04] purchased a large section of land by the Palisades.

[1:20:08] My thought would be to approach the Fish and Wildlife and to create a controlled discharge

[1:20:14] of recycled water to that land that is managed for public benefit.

[1:20:18] So that in my mind would ultimately take away the concerns that Fish and Wildlife have about

[1:20:23] a repairing area that's being managed because now there's actually somebody who's overseeing

[1:20:28] that area as opposed to the area where I'm dumping it today at nobody's management.

[1:20:31] So there's a lot of good ideas on a lot of people involved and hopefully, you know, could get engaged in all of this

[1:20:37] And I'm excited to think about, you know, hopefully getting all of you interested and sitting down

[1:20:42] Maybe with all of you and talking about hey, what what other

[1:20:46] Challenges do you have that maybe projects like this could address?

[1:20:50] Okay

[1:20:52] Another big one that I'm sitting on that's kind of a

[1:20:55] An interesting one today for those of you probably know right? There's a significant water quality plume sitting at the old George Air Force base

[1:21:01] A number of VOCs and PFAS and PFOLO concerns that are there today, there's a continuous

[1:21:09] battle between their force and the federal government and the regional water quality

[1:21:13] board with regards to what they're going to do with that.

[1:21:16] The one thing that's actually preventing that plume from dropping into the greater flow

[1:21:22] of the Mojave River is our discharge.

[1:21:25] We have literally created this nice mound right at the plant, which is directly east of

[1:21:31] this plume which prevents it from going down into the river.

[1:21:35] The one thing that seems to make really good sense to me, and maybe this is even further

[1:21:39] down the road to think about, but we need to be thinking about how do we work together

[1:21:42] with them to mitigate this concern.

[1:21:44] This plume isn't going to disappear.

[1:21:46] One thing that stands out to me in my mind is someday somebody is going to come up and tell

[1:21:50] me that my recycled water is going to need to be treated for PFAS and PFOA concerns.

[1:21:54] It's coming.

[1:21:55] It's on point.

[1:21:56] Right?

[1:21:56] Well, if that's the case, then why aren't I working with the federal government and saying,

[1:21:59] look, you've got a plume that has PFOS and PFO. I've got PFOS and PFO in my recycled

[1:22:05] water. Why aren't we collaborating and building a treatment plant there that maybe we could

[1:22:09] even do direct-paltable reuse some day? Think about that, right? Then we could actually

[1:22:14] be treating that plume, treating my recycled water. And during the summertime in high demands,

[1:22:18] we could actually be supplementing our groundwater with this direct-paltable reuse water that we could

[1:22:24] treat from this plume and my water and Victorville's water. Maybe Adolanto's water, right? So

[1:22:29] a lot of interesting water quality partnerships that are also out there. Go ahead.

[1:22:36] Boy, I've

[1:22:36] really went way too far on that one. Let's cut a few more slides because I talked about all

[1:22:39] of those things. Let's get to the sixth one. So this one to me I think is a no-brainer and we're really

[1:22:46] fortunate and I'm hopeful that we can get people to really think about this, right? One of the big

[1:22:51] struggles I had on the other side at home pass was that like Kukamonga Creek and San Antonio Creek

[1:22:56] right that run out of the San Gabriel Mountains, they immediately went to

[1:22:59] concrete channels once they got into the urban areas, right, whether you were

[1:23:03] in North Rancho Cucamango or North The Verne, right, where those channels came

[1:23:08] in, water that was naturally recharging those upper basins was flowing out of

[1:23:15] the mountains and flowing straight to the San Ana River. Today, if you drive

[1:23:20] around Apple Valley, the Sparia, parts of Victorville, you can see them today.

[1:23:24] those open channels exist. You can see the big areas that flood during rainstorms, and the

[1:23:29] nice thing is they aren't concrete line today. They would make ideal spots for thinking about

[1:23:35] capturing these huge storm events and keeping water in your particular zones, rather than allowing

[1:23:40] it to flow out. And these recharge basins could be built anywhere, central basin, Baja, they could

[1:23:45] be built in the alto. But we need to be thinking about utilizing our combined efforts on our combined

[1:23:51] dollars to be able to say look if I can put if you can put stormwater in there as part of an

[1:23:55] urban or wind project why can't I put recycle water in there as part of it as well we should be

[1:23:59] thinking about funding all of these together and collaborating on our engineering projects to make

[1:24:03] sure that we're you know considering all those needs the next one the climate change in the drought

[1:24:11] and why do I bring this up because it's not going away and right now our opportunities are pretty

[1:24:15] great with regards to the fact that this is very visible in the public today this is

[1:24:20] is something that everybody in Southern California understands is a major concern.

[1:24:25] So when we think about funding these projects and getting the communities and

[1:24:28] getting our local municipalities and our constituents interested in these,

[1:24:32] I think it's no brainer.

[1:24:34] I think everybody can look at these ideas that we're talking about and

[1:24:36] realize that if we're going to overcome these drought and these climate change issues,

[1:24:42] we're going to need to think bigger and we're going to need to be thinking together.

[1:24:44] All right,

[1:24:47] we've got to be thinking about, you know, all of our, everybody in this room

[1:24:53] is working probably on some master plan of projects that they want to put together.

[1:24:59] All of those master plans need to be somehow, some way mutually collaborative with regards

[1:25:04] to everybody.

[1:25:05] Everybody needs to sit down and think about, if Victorial, I know, is getting ready to make

[1:25:09] a big improvement to their recycled water system.

[1:25:13] Why isn't that MWA line part of that decision?

[1:25:17] Because not only could it flow all the way north, right?

[1:25:21] If we wanted to pump it, we could pump it south, right?

[1:25:24] It could become a major arterial line for recycled water

[1:25:27] that could bring water all the way to the city of Asperia if we needed it to.

[1:25:31] So, I guess what I'm saying is that, go ahead, is that the more that we can work together,

[1:25:37] the more that we can realize that we're all in this together and realize this is one basin,

[1:25:43] one water, the better off we're going to be, right? Our cost of imported water is rising, right?

[1:25:50] Our availability of that state project water is diminishing, right? We need to get ahead of this.

[1:25:59] Let me hit the next one. Look, I just randomly went out and started looking at the funding

[1:26:04] that's available today and there is a ton of funding available today.

[1:26:11] Not only for construction but for actual studies, you know, maybe what we need to be thinking

[1:26:16] about doing is let's, you know, let's start getting together and thinking about, you know,

[1:26:22] what's the list of projects that we could do, not only from a state water project perspective

[1:26:27] but all of our one water perspectives.

[1:26:29] And thinking about can we do on maybe an optimum basin management study with regards to all

[1:26:34] of these sources of water that we could mutually agree on projects that would be beneficial to

[1:26:40] everybody.

[1:26:41] Go ahead.

[1:26:45] Right?

[1:26:45] I mean, what is the benefit of doing it now?

[1:26:47] It's, again, because we're not urbanized, right?

[1:26:51] We have available space.

[1:26:53] You know, we need to be thinking about long-term and the plans of, you know, our each individual

[1:26:56] communities.

[1:26:57] What we don't want to become is an impediment to growth.

[1:27:00] And ultimately, if we don't start thinking around these ways, we're going to become more

[1:27:03] and more of an impediment to that, right?

[1:27:07] We need to think about, you know, maximizing our water supplies, right?

[1:27:11] Protecting our water quality.

[1:27:14] I think all of these things are possible

[1:27:16] with this kind of a concept in place, right?

[1:27:24] Again, there's challenges, right?

[1:27:25] We're going to have to invite all of these parties to the table, right?

[1:27:28] The regional board's going to have to be there.

[1:27:30] The wild life's going to have to be there.

[1:27:32] The water master, MWA, the member agencies, VVWA, but if we each individually tried to tackle these on our own, those costs don't make sense.

[1:27:43] Hard to think about millions and millions of dollars spent if it was only going to benefit your individual agency and nobody has that kind of available cash just sitting around.

[1:27:50] So, the more we can collaborate, the more that we can present a case for these grant

[1:27:55] dollars on a larger scale.

[1:27:57] I think we become much more attractive to the people who want to award these grants.

[1:28:02] And I think with those costs can actually be minimized if we think along these lines.

[1:28:09] So, let's start it off as a high ground water issue for me.

[1:28:12] And my staff worrying about an MPDS violation and actually getting shocked playing in the

[1:28:23] initial thoughts over the last few months, I've done a lot of reaching out and I've done

[1:28:26] a lot of communication with a lot of people who've kind of said, yeah, I think that makes

[1:28:31] sense. Let's think about that. And I think, you know, that's, again, why I was invited

[1:28:38] here today was to kind of get this kicked off with all of you. And really, what I would like

[1:28:43] to do is, you know, how do we get all of everybody together to start thinking about these? And

[1:28:48] My thought is, is let's think about this one water concept and realize that we're all in this together.

[1:28:54] Go ahead.

[1:28:55] You know, my recommended next step, and this really, you know, this committee's decision on where they'd like to go and MWA, where they'd like to go.

[1:29:02] If we're going to think along this larger holistic line, but what I really like to do, and what I've done at a couple different,

[1:29:09] when I worked with a couple different agencies on the other side of the hill, we literally had these big workshops where

[1:29:15] We had these massive maps up on these walls and we'd have five or six stations and we rotate between the stations and everybody would share ideas with regards to maybe this was a storm water map.

[1:29:26] Maybe this was a recycle water map. Maybe this was a state water project map and where the water was available for recharge.

[1:29:33] And we just all started writing on this map and writing down everything that we could think of of what would be beneficial if we could work together.

[1:29:41] And kind of the next thought on my mind would be, you know, maybe this committee could consider, you know, putting a committee like that together, maybe it is this committee.

[1:29:49] And we start thinking about, you know, making sure people like Doug are at the meeting with regards to their planning and their engineering committees and making sure that, you know, let's start getting that list.

[1:30:00] All of this together, because in my mind, if we could get that list together, I think we could probably fund what I would call kind of an optimum basin management plan with all of these water resources that I think would benefit all of us. And that's, that's my sales pitch today with regards to where I'd like to go. So that's it for me.

[1:30:22] Thank you, Darren.

[1:30:29] We'll open it up to questions. Do you want to come Tony? Tony, what are you got?

[1:30:33] But he is not on my payroll, but I felt like he was plugging something that I just have to mention and bring that full circle.

[1:30:44] So, Mojave Water Agency is on the verge of a master plan document.

[1:30:48] We're out for RFP right now, that RFP period actually closes tomorrow at the end of the day.

[1:30:55] We're looking for a consultant to help us facilitate a master plan.

[1:30:58] And a significant component of that plan is stakeholder involvement.

[1:31:03] So anybody who's here, anybody who's involved in the water industry in our region, please look forward to that.

[1:31:11] It'll be coming soon in a month or so.

[1:31:16] We're going to the board for approval of the firm that we select.

[1:31:21] And like I said, you're not on my payroll, but it felt like you were preaching my project.

[1:31:27] So I wanted to put in a plug for the master plan.

[1:31:30] Please look forward to that and please participate.

[1:31:34] Thanks Tony.

[1:31:35] So, you know, I think some of this is low hanging fruit

[1:31:38] that doesn't have a lot of costs that, you know,

[1:31:40] really is the regulatory challenges.

[1:31:42] We're going to be facing that.

[1:31:43] But with this body here and with MWA's help,

[1:31:46] we can certainly push a little harder to get some of it realized.

[1:31:51] We're definitely in support of it for my agency.

[1:31:54] For sure.

[1:31:54] I think there's a lot of benefit to more than one basin, but with more heads together here,

[1:32:00] you know, there may be other ideas how to get some of this water elsewhere as well. So,

[1:32:05] I would open it up to any other questions or comments.

[1:32:18] Jeff Gastra, a numerous springs lake association.

[1:32:22] You can put your water in my house. This guy's got a water problem because he's got too much.

[1:32:29] And who here else has the same problem?

[1:32:32] Nobody.

[1:32:34] Those were all common sense solutions you're bringing up.

[1:32:38] And I'm in favor of working together to find out.

[1:32:41] You know, one thing that kind of worries me is all this recycled water talk,

[1:32:45] even up in Victorville.

[1:32:47] You know, your recycled water then doesn't come downstream.

[1:32:52] Right? So that kind of affects everybody living downstream.

[1:32:57] I don't know if we've ever discussed that issue very much.

[1:33:04] If the groundwater level in the transition zone is continuing to rise, then we're doing

[1:33:09] effective amount of putting water into that area, well, then how come I'm not seeing

[1:33:12] rising groundwater in the centre, right?

[1:33:16] I can tell you why.

[1:33:17] It's the hell of a default and it's the amount of vegetation that is gobbling up all

[1:33:21] that recycled water in an area that has no public benefit, right?

[1:33:25] And if the fish and wildlife have an issue with, yes, keep preparing an area fixed and taking

[1:33:29] I think you're fine.

[1:33:30] I've got a solution.

[1:33:31] Ask the Mojave Desert Regional Conservation District and their palisades area to manage

[1:33:35] the water based on the need and the volume of water to sustain that area rather than just

[1:33:41] randomly dump 9,000 acre feet of water into that zone.

[1:33:45] There's just so much more.

[1:33:47] When you think about 9,000 acre feet of water every year, that's like how much water it takes

[1:33:52] to irrigate probably like three or four golf courses in the summertime, right?

[1:33:56] It's a huge volume of water, right?

[1:33:58] that it has to be used for what? If you want public benefit, nobody can use that land outside

[1:34:04] my plant. You can't get to it. It's surrounded by public property. But if the conservation district

[1:34:08] is going to have public land and you want to keep a Mojave area protected, let's protect it there

[1:34:14] and let's be direct on how we use that water. And then let's move the water around it

[1:34:18] to where it needs to go and protect the fish and wildlife scene.

[1:34:23] I would say, let's have a motion to have a meeting, you know, and discuss all this stuff

[1:34:29] and, you know, and put boards up on the wall with ideas, I mean, all that, that's what we

[1:34:34] got to do. Thank you.

[1:34:37] If I make a plug as well here for Mojave Water Agency, this is a very timely presentation

[1:34:42] there and we're really well thought out and we appreciate it.

[1:34:45] And we're on the heels of an update to the Irwin, the Integrated Regional Water Management

[1:34:49] Plan.

[1:34:50] And I think that's probably a really good forum for us all to get together and talk about different issues,

[1:34:56] needs and wants as you put it and make joint use projects that make sense for the region.

[1:35:03] So there's definitely a forum for that.

[1:35:05] And I think we can get some support with consultant help with making sure we can run the meetings and brainstorm activities.

[1:35:12] So we do plan on kicking that process off early next year.

[1:35:18] and probably play out as a two-year process to update what we've got.

[1:35:22] It's probably a good mechanism as well to secure and look for, compete for grants, funding.

[1:35:28] So there's definitely, this is timely.

[1:35:30] And considering that I think the last update to our Irwin came off the back of pretty wet,

[1:35:35] at least wet in the state years.

[1:35:38] We're in a very different time right now and water projects are slow moving,

[1:35:43] but we also have to update on a regular cycle to make sure that they're relevant.

[1:35:47] So, thank you.

[1:35:49] Yeah.

[1:35:50] Oh, we're not done yet.

[1:35:51] I still have some comments too.

[1:35:53] So, Darren, yes.

[1:35:55] Great points.

[1:35:56] Good ideas.

[1:35:57] There are some challenges, most definitely.

[1:36:00] While you were spending 30 years down the hill,

[1:36:02] I happen to be spending 30 years up here dealing with this.

[1:36:05] And started with the judgment,

[1:36:07] and started with this whole process.

[1:36:09] The whole process is,

[1:36:12] and the reason why transition zone's so full

[1:36:14] is because that was the terms of the judgment.

[1:36:17] The reason why, because at 23,000 acre feet,

[1:36:21] the loan behold gets accounted for as going to Centro,

[1:36:24] but it does not get there.

[1:36:26] And I've been arguing that for 30 years

[1:36:28] and we haven't been getting anywhere.

[1:36:30] Matter of fact, during the judgment proceedings,

[1:36:33] while we were drafting it,

[1:36:36] one of the comments that was made there,

[1:36:38] the judgment is supposed to restore a substitute

[1:36:40] for the long-term average flow

[1:36:42] so that central and Baja don't become dewatered.

[1:36:46] The idea was 23,000 acre feet goes in the transition zone.

[1:36:51] Supposed to keep that water bridge there,

[1:36:53] so when we have flows in the river,

[1:36:55] they go right across the central.

[1:36:57] Well, they haven't.

[1:36:59] I think the hydrographs show that.

[1:37:03] Been arguing that for years, but we're not getting anywhere.

[1:37:06] So now that you're getting grounded out

[1:37:07] because the transition zone's getting full,

[1:37:11] maybe this is the time we need to reevaluate all that stuff. The other

[1:37:15] challenge is the judgment did prohibit interference with storm flows because

[1:37:20] again the concept is whether we don't see much going on after Afton Canyon there

[1:37:25] is life out there and something does rely on the flows that goes downstream but

[1:37:30] we're not supposed to interfere with the storm flows and but the long-term

[1:37:35] average it was a 23,000 acre feet and oddly enough when they do their accounting balance they

[1:37:40] always count for that water being in the central. My argument has always been let me see it always

[1:37:47] stays in the transition zone which by the way the transition zone that we really haven't

[1:37:52] gotten the details is 18 miles long it starts in the middle of the alto zone technically it's still

[1:38:00] in alto gets a transition zone to Centro, but yeah, that's the problem. That's why

[1:38:07] you have high water levels because the judgment called for that to help minimize interference

[1:38:12] of storm flows. We've all discussed the issues at Palisades with all the stuff that's

[1:38:19] grown in there that hinder storm flows, but our big road blocks there are fishing game

[1:38:26] and flood control for getting in and opening up the channel,

[1:38:29] let the water get out, right?

[1:38:31] Those have been the challenges that we all face.

[1:38:34] So, but definitely appreciate the enthusiasm

[1:38:39] and the willingness to look at the stuff

[1:38:41] and maybe that's what we need and get back

[1:38:43] and I think TAC is the place to bring this to the whole group

[1:38:47] because this should represent all the constituents,

[1:38:50] the pumpers and the basin.

[1:38:51] And this is where we need to take action and do these things and figure out how to get

[1:38:59] more water downstream because downstream is suffering horribly because the judgment

[1:39:04] in my opinion is not working as intended.

[1:39:07] I don't think anybody's intention is to think about sitting

[1:39:13] on as many water masterboards

[1:39:14] and water master meetings still midnight and ag people and the other people who all are concerned

[1:39:22] about being there.

[1:39:24] But we're a significantly different basin than we were when they're due to the basin.

[1:39:29] But then the transition to the zone that was a great deal more agriculture that doesn't

[1:39:32] exist today.

[1:39:34] Right.

[1:39:38] If different sciences, we have different information, we have different data, look, I think

[1:39:42] that the mission and the purpose of the adjudication can still be met, but it can be operated differently

[1:39:48] and still meet those goals without breaching any big, you know, opening up of the judgment.

[1:39:59] I can tell you this, I just signed a contract for eight years, so you got me for eight years

[1:40:03] on this fighting side to make this happen.

[1:40:12] A nice little thing for me, though, right now is fact that I get to hopefully make these

[1:40:16] changes in my hometown as opposed to something.

[1:40:19] That's what's exciting for me.

[1:40:21] Thank you.

[1:40:23] Well, I'm sure we're going to keep these discussions moving forward with MWA and VVWA and for

[1:40:29] for sure, VVDBRA's member agency.

[1:40:32] So now that we got Perry awake over here, we're going to move on to item eight and that

[1:40:38] is the MWA history book and I'll pass it off to Yvonne.

[1:40:42] Okay.

[1:40:43] Thank you very much.

[1:40:44] Today I am pleased to introduce Jeff Criter with Criter Public Relations and he is the author

[1:40:52] of the history book.

[1:40:53] We have copies out in the lobby.

[1:40:55] This has been a long endeavor putting this together and Jeff is going to share some of the insights that he had writing this book.

[1:41:05] He's not going to go into all the details. That is for you to go through as you read the book, but he's going to give us his perspective and he's written many history books.

[1:41:16] But for some reason, our stands out. Jeff will tell us about that.

[1:41:21] Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, all right, great. So I should give you a

[1:41:29] little background about, you know, who I am and what I do. I'm a former newspaper reporter.

[1:41:35] Worked as a newspaper reporter for almost a dozen years and all over inland southern California.

[1:41:41] Started in the Imperial Valley, then went to the Coachella Valley and then Riverside and Temecula

[1:41:46] after that. And I ended up going into public relations work after that. And the company

[1:41:54] I went to work for was US filter, who I'm sure many of you are familiar with. They were

[1:41:59] headquartered in Palm Desert for a period of time. So I left the press enterprise, which

[1:42:04] was my last newspaper. And I went to work for US filter and I was their public relations

[1:42:09] manager. So I was with them in 1988 and 1999, which kind of dates me a little bit.

[1:42:16] that gives you a little bit of perspective.

[1:42:19] And that was my introduction to water.

[1:42:21] I'd covered agriculture in inland southern California,

[1:42:24] but I hadn't really gotten to know

[1:42:27] what was going on in the water industry.

[1:42:30] Well, U.S. filter was great background

[1:42:32] because that taught me what was going on worldwide,

[1:42:35] because we had operations in 95 countries,

[1:42:38] and it was my job to basically oversee

[1:42:40] all the press releases going out what we were communicating.

[1:42:43] And so after U.S. filter, I went on to work for Storsa Communications, which was based

[1:42:50] in Riverside.

[1:42:51] That was a PR firm that had a lot of clients in the water industry.

[1:42:56] And so I made the transition at that point and went to work for Dick Hyall at Eastern Municipal

[1:43:02] Water District at that time.

[1:43:03] Then I later got referred to other agencies and I basically helped them with their media

[1:43:08] strategy.

[1:43:08] Well, lo and behold, 24 years has gone by, and I'm still working with water agencies all over Southern California even in Arizona.

[1:43:16] And what's happened over this time is I've gotten more and more familiar with what the challenges are that agencies face all over the West.

[1:43:25] And I actually just finished a book for the Central Arizona Project in Arizona, so if you think the problems are bad here,

[1:43:31] I, it's worse over in Arizona from everything I was able to discern and then you were talking

[1:43:39] earlier about this project that's taking place in LA with Metropolitan Water District.

[1:43:46] They're actually partnering with the Southern Nevada Water Agency and also with agencies

[1:43:52] in Arizona on that project and the thinking is is that if they can get all of this together

[1:43:59] there may be a way for metropolitan to take less Colorado River water in exchange for

[1:44:06] producing, having these other agencies help them produce more recycled water for the

[1:44:10] LA basin, and then Las Vegas and Arizona could take a little bit more metropolitan share

[1:44:16] of Colorado River water. So these are the kinds of things I get exposed to in doing my work.

[1:44:22] Well, I got involved in doing history books back in 2013 and at that time I was doing quite

[1:44:30] a bit of work for San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District and Doug Hedrick was my boss.

[1:44:36] And one day Doug invited me into his office and he said, Jeff, I have another project for you.

[1:44:42] And his thinking was, was that he wanted to produce a history book and I thought, gosh, who's

[1:44:49] going to read a history book on this agency?

[1:44:51] And so I was worried about it. I didn't tell him no. I said of course I'll dive right into it

[1:44:56] But I was really worried about what was going to happen with this book

[1:45:00] And then I set out about the task of doing interviews and I started interviewing people who had been working with water agencies a long time and I found that a couple of them weren't really that, I mean they gave me good background but they really weren't precise in terms of dates and things when certain things happened. So I thought well for a history book we have to be accurate. Well, I started doing some database research and as I started looking back at old newspaper articles going back 100 years or so.

[1:45:30] So I found really passionate quotes from people about water and it turns out that people

[1:45:36] are as passionate about water as they are about anything.

[1:45:40] If you want to get a room riled up, start talking about their water supply or their lack

[1:45:43] of water.

[1:45:45] Well, from a journalist perspective, that was really good for me because I thought, aha,

[1:45:50] I can make this so that it's not boring.

[1:45:52] And so what I've done over the years is I've developed this approach where I don't write

[1:45:59] history as a narrative, because I love history, I studied history in college and

[1:46:04] whatnot, but I find it difficult to read history as a narrative. And so what I

[1:46:10] do is I write the chapters of the history books as if they're news articles. And I

[1:46:15] have lots of quotes that I weave into the text. And so what I do is I try to stay

[1:46:22] out of the way of the history and let the people who were there do the talking and that's

[1:46:30] what I try to do in the book. So I use as much historical archive material as I can find

[1:46:36] from published reports and then I weave that together with information from interviews

[1:46:42] that I do with people and then I use the technical reports from USGS, from the integrated regional

[1:46:50] water management plans and whatnot. And so what I do is I basically assemble all this information

[1:46:56] and then try to figure out to West's point earlier, you know, how would you explain this

[1:47:02] in a way your grandmother could understand. That's kind of the road map that I use in putting

[1:47:07] these books together. And so I started getting involved with Ivan and the Mojave Water Agency's story.

[1:47:14] This was back in 2015 when we started.

[1:47:18] I had already done a book for San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District.

[1:47:22] I had started on a book for Catella Valley Water District at that time.

[1:47:26] And then Yvonne and I started talking.

[1:47:29] And then the thing that really impressed me about this agency that I want to make sure the

[1:47:35] board understands, Mojave, as many of you know, has a rough history, a very turbulent history.

[1:47:41] And the waters of turbulence didn't really start to calm down, historically speaking,

[1:47:48] until maybe about 15 years ago, it took a long time from a hobby to work through the

[1:47:54] challenges that had to take place up here.

[1:47:58] And the thing that really impressed me is that there was never a conversation, there was

[1:48:05] never a phone call from anybody here at the agency saying, Jeff, you can't write about

[1:48:10] that. It was hands-off, basically go do the work, and so my task was basically to interview

[1:48:20] current and former general managers here. I interviewed board members. I mean, I drove

[1:48:27] out to Arizona and I interviewed, interviewed Norm Kowett, who had been here almost 20 years

[1:48:33] and he had kind of taken on a role of, like, an in-house historian, and after spending

[1:48:40] the day with Norm, I remember I had taken my son with me to go out there because then

[1:48:47] we stayed in Arizona for a couple of days, and I remember thinking, what have I got myself

[1:48:51] into with this agency?

[1:48:54] And fortunately though, norm was like a mentor for me.

[1:49:01] And so as I would start learning more and more about the agency, I could call him up,

[1:49:08] you know, send him messages and whatnot, and we could discuss things because he had

[1:49:12] more of the technical knowledge of everything.

[1:49:15] And then what I would do is I would take the information about what happened and then try

[1:49:19] to distill it down into something that the average person would find interesting.

[1:49:23] And then I interviewed Kirby Burl when he was here and then I spent time with the board members

[1:49:29] I got to sit down and have like a three-hour lunch with Bev Lowry who brought me up to speed on a lot of things

[1:49:35] The other thing that was really interesting and this I

[1:49:40] Really appreciated a lot is Iban set up basically a two-day field trip for me where I went out with Lance and

[1:49:48] and Ana Garcia, and we went out across the desert here, and Lance in particular explained

[1:49:58] the challenges that we heard about earlier with the groundwater basins here.

[1:50:03] The fact that, yes, there's like five major basins, but there's a gazillion subbasins

[1:50:09] in there, and you could literally walk in some of those basins from this podium to the screen

[1:50:16] back there and get different readings on what was going on in the basins, and so actually

[1:50:22] going out there into the field really helped educate me about what this agency was facing,

[1:50:30] and then that got to be really helpful later on when I started going through the actual

[1:50:34] history of the agency, and studying the adjudication attempts, you know, which started back at,

[1:50:46] you

[1:50:46] It's really cool because that's practically 50 years ahead of the state of California

[1:50:51] passing the law about sustainable groundwater management and then mandating that agencies

[1:50:57] do the kind of planning that Mahabhi was trying to do almost 50 years prior to that.

[1:51:02] But the interesting thing was they didn't have the data at this agency to support everything

[1:51:07] that they were doing.

[1:51:09] And then as Lance and I discussed a couple of times the state of California itself would

[1:51:13] come out with reports from time to time that would say everything was fine in terms of

[1:51:17] groundwater. And then Mojave internally would come up with its own analysis of other areas

[1:51:23] and discover, you know, we're in trouble here. We need to start adjudicating the area.

[1:51:29] But it wasn't an easy task because the agency would send out staff members to go take

[1:51:37] readings at Wells and they didn't get a very kind reception. As a matter of fact, you

[1:51:42] know and I was shocked this is first time I ever heard about this. Some of the

[1:51:47] residents out here would greet the well readers with guns pointed at them, saying

[1:51:52] you're not you're not going to take any measurements here. And so this gave

[1:51:57] it kind of a Wild West, you know kind of feel to it which was why you know the

[1:52:01] book has kind of a Wild West, you know, look to it. But it's interesting because I was

[1:52:09] was always able to write about all of this.

[1:52:12] It wasn't, you know, sometimes agencies can be very stiff

[1:52:15] and worried about, you know, letting some information

[1:52:18] come out, but Mojave was always very transparent

[1:52:22] and very willing to just let me go where the facts went.

[1:52:26] And so I was able to interview people,

[1:52:28] talk to them, share information, you know,

[1:52:32] there were periods of time in the agency's history

[1:52:34] when, you know, the agency wasn't very well regarded

[1:52:38] locally and employees were worried about even driving around in company vehicles that had,

[1:52:43] you know, the agency's name on the side, that's in the book. And I think it's really interesting

[1:52:49] because the agency went through this process over the years of, you know, mending fences,

[1:52:56] working with other agencies, you know, the talk that you just had right now about working together,

[1:53:00] That alone shows how far this agency has come over the last, you know, six decades because that kind of interaction would not have happened or would not have been able to happen, you know, 40 years ago because of all the turbulence and whatnot, you know, taking place.

[1:53:21] Yvonne wanted me to just talk about a couple of things that stood out to me in doing this

[1:53:26] research.

[1:53:27] She said a lot of you are already familiar with a lot of the history, so I don't need

[1:53:30] to really go through and talk about some of that.

[1:53:34] But there's a couple of things that I wanted to mention.

[1:53:39] One of the presentations that Anna used to do when she was with the agency is she would

[1:53:44] talk about the river of gold underneath the, what is it, the Cocoaweep mountains, you

[1:53:52] know, between Baker and Las Vegas. And there was this legend of a river and also of a gold

[1:54:01] mine underneath Cocoaweep peak. And this was started back in the 1930s. And what happened

[1:54:09] was it was this fun legend that got started and the guy that that started it was very serious

[1:54:16] about it and he started getting some newspaper publicity about it and it got to the point

[1:54:21] where the National Park Service actually went out to do research they found that there

[1:54:25] was nothing there there was no there there but that didn't stop the stories the stories kept

[1:54:31] getting produced I mean and there was even like a TV report done on this like an unsolved

[1:54:36] mysteries kind of thing. And what ended up happening eventually is you ended up with people

[1:54:42] the out in the desert that really believed that there was a, you know, this massive river

[1:54:46] taking place out there. And that, you know, then you ended up with like conspiracy theories

[1:54:53] starting to develop. Well, I was thinking about that in, you know, I have a whole chapter in the book

[1:54:58] in one of the early chapters where we talk about this. And when you think about it from a communication

[1:55:05] This is a challenge that every agency faces.

[1:55:08] You could look at that story and say, yeah, that's a funny anecdote about, you know,

[1:55:12] a particular, you know, legend that got started out in the desert.

[1:55:16] But the challenge, though, is that if the public doesn't believe you,

[1:55:20] you're not going to go very far with any of the policy initiatives or anything else that you want to do.

[1:55:26] You have to be able to have the people on board.

[1:55:28] So there's lessons that become apparent as you read this book.

[1:55:33] The other thing that I thought was fascinating, we discovered in the research,

[1:55:40] and I say, we, because Yvonne had assigned an intern to help me do research,

[1:55:45] and that was through the Water Resources Institute.

[1:55:49] And we were doing some research, and we stumbled onto some articles written back in the 1930s,

[1:55:55] where there was an attempt by James Irvine of the Irvine company to try to basically redirect

[1:56:02] the water of the Mojave River down Cahombas across Southern California to Irvine and Orange

[1:56:11] County so that he could use that water for irrigating the orange grobes. I just thought that was

[1:56:17] fascinating. There was one article where someone was quoted saying, we're worried we're going to

[1:56:23] the next Owens Valley. And I thought that was such a fascinating quote because this was the 1930s

[1:56:29] and the whole debacle and the Owens Valley had just happened. But as I've learned through my

[1:56:34] research with other agencies, there were Owens Valley type situations all over California. I mean,

[1:56:41] Coachella Valley Water District itself, I live out in Palm Desert. Coachella Valley Water District

[1:56:45] itself was formed in 1918 in an effort to protect the water supply there because there was a scheme

[1:56:54] underway with investors in LA and San Diego and some farmers in the Imperial Valley who wanted

[1:57:01] to steal the water from beneath San Gorgonio and divert it down to the Imperial Valley. Well, that

[1:57:07] scared the heck out of the people in the Coachella Valley and so they realized that they would have to

[1:57:12] form a water district to start filing for water rights and that's what happened.

[1:57:18] But I just thought this was fascinating because it indicates the fact that here in California,

[1:57:23] we've never had enough water.

[1:57:25] We've been fighting jurisdiction to jurisdiction over water for as long as great numbers of

[1:57:31] people have been out here.

[1:57:33] But this has just been a fascinating thing for me to get involved.

[1:57:37] and I've done about, I was counting them up, I think about nine different books for

[1:57:41] agencies so far, mostly in California, and what I do is I weave

[1:57:47] the economic development story together with the water story,

[1:57:51] because I'm writing for a general audience, and so when you tell the story of a

[1:57:56] water agency from an economic development perspective,

[1:58:00] I think it makes it makes it more interesting and understandable,

[1:58:03] Because then you can look at it in terms of what happened with agriculture, what happened

[1:58:08] with the cities in their economic growth, what happened with jobs and whatnot.

[1:58:13] I did a book for Palmdale water district a few years ago.

[1:58:18] And it turns out that the US military located there and developed their Skunk Works facility

[1:58:23] and everything else because of water supply that was developed in that area.

[1:58:28] And I found an old annual report from Palmdale Water District in their, you know, back

[1:58:36] room and their archives that specifically said that the reason that the military located

[1:58:42] there was because they were able to show that they had water.

[1:58:45] They needed water to be able to put out fires.

[1:58:48] So as they were testing the rockets and the jets and whatnot, they needed the water supply

[1:58:53] to know that they could put out those fires.

[1:58:55] So this has been just a really fascinating journey for me, you know, I'd never planned

[1:59:01] to be writing water history of all things, but, you know, what I've been trying to do

[1:59:06] is make it fun and interesting and informative, and there's agencies that tell me that they

[1:59:12] use these books to educate their employees, as well as the general public.

[1:59:18] And then I hear from the Water Resources Institute, which has all of my books that the students

[1:59:25] use them for their research. So, as we look to the future and try to educate a new generation

[1:59:31] of people to, you know, basically replace us and be able to take on these challenges,

[1:59:38] these kinds of books give them perspective on the challenges and successes that the agencies

[1:59:44] have had. So that's kind of what I've been doing with this. Then I appreciate it. Thank you.

[1:59:50] Thank you so much Jeff again we have books out in the lobby and while we have a big supply

[2:00:00] So if you want to take a couple of feel free and we'll just continue to replenish the supply. Yeah, I would encourage you to take one. It's really, really well put together and they had it at the last board meeting, I believe, right? Yeah. All right. So now we're going to look for the readers, digest version on items 9 and 10, I think, but we got item 9. So Valerie, party is pumping outside the judgment.

[2:00:29] I apologize ahead of time. This is going to be awfully dry after Mr. Criter's presentation.

[2:00:33] So let's see, I've done an update a few times about this project, we want to call it projects more like a court order.

[2:00:43] Going back about 18 months, Judge Rimer ordered us to bring in those parties that were more than 10 acre feet that are outside of the judgment and came in later.

[2:00:55] We put together kind of a phased approach and we started with the SD and OST subarea.

[2:01:04] That's where we saw most of those parties located.

[2:01:10] So we cataloged them, we determined water use types, our water master engineer has been

[2:01:16] called as well as the water master department.

[2:01:20] and in June, we filed a motion to cross-complaint,

[2:01:26] which was the second-minute cross-complaint.

[2:01:29] And we took that to the court.

[2:01:31] And the court didn't like that approach.

[2:01:33] You basically denied that approach and asked us to go

[2:01:37] forth and go to the San Bernardino Court and file a new action

[2:01:40] against these parties.

[2:01:42] And so in August, we filed a complaint for the

[2:01:46] Communication of rights to produce the groundwater and the hobby base and parties and ask if the provisions of the judgment be entered against these parties.

[2:01:57] So there.

[2:02:01] Sorry about that.

[2:02:03] So that has been filed with the San Bernardino County Court and the parties have been served some of those parties are answering at this time and are legal as handling that side of things.

[2:02:14] For S&O S&U we had about 45 locations, the number of parties is a little bit more due

[2:02:19] to multiple ownerships, so we're dealing with those 45 at this point.

[2:02:23] In June of this year the court said, okay you've got to finish the other three sub areas,

[2:02:28] so we went forth and worked on the other three sub areas and have identified a number

[2:02:34] of parcels and locations about 46 in the other three sub areas.

[2:02:40] And so in the meantime we've also filed with the judicial council of California to coordinate the new San Bernardino case with the original Judication case, which is in the Riverside County courts.

[2:02:55] And they have to grant that.

[2:02:57] And so it's currently pending. We don't know if we're going to grant it yet, but we're hopeful that they will so that we can keep things consistent and have the same rules for both groups.

[2:03:09] And then we'll also, as soon as group two, this is the other three sub areas are completed.

[2:03:15] We will also add those into the San Bernardino case.

[2:03:19] So that's where we're at with that. We continue to work on it.

[2:03:22] At least six more months before we probably have all the parties combined into the San Bernardino case.

[2:03:29] And then hopefully move to the Riverside County Court.

[2:03:35] Any questions or comments?

[2:03:37] I mean, this is a big deal for sure.

[2:03:39] There's a lot of pumping going on out there

[2:03:41] that we need to identify and somehow get accounted for.

[2:03:46] Any questions or comments?

[2:03:51] Okay.

[2:03:52] Thank you, Valerie.

[2:03:54] Keep it up.

[2:03:57] And we'll move on to item 10 legislative update from Yvonne.

[2:04:02] This, I will go through this very quickly.

[2:04:05] This is not a typical legislative update

[2:04:07] As you are aware, Congress is in session trying to get things wrapped up and the California State Legislature will be in session on the third.

[2:04:16] I just wanted to give a very, very brief report to this group.

[2:04:21] The Mojave Water Agency is developing a legislative priority policy.

[2:04:26] We've never had one before. We have tracked legislation. We've been active, but we didn't really develop a policy.

[2:04:32] The purpose for the policy is one to just keep us on track that we're following through with our mission and our strategic plan.

[2:04:39] It also enables staff to move very quickly because things move very quickly on the legislative front and we don't always have time to run back to the board on on a key issue that we may need to act very quickly.

[2:04:52] So, the purpose of this document is to outline some key areas that are priorities, have the board approve that on an annual or a biannual basis, and that way staff can move forward.

[2:05:05] So, we're going to just walk through very quickly seven priority areas because I know people know there's lunch outside.

[2:05:12] Okay. So, the first priority area is on drought. Obviously, that is a major concern to all of us.

[2:05:19] I'm not going to go through every point on this slide, but I think what's important to keep in mind is that we will be looking at legislation that does support processes to streamline things, either with the state water project.

[2:05:34] We're also looking at any support that we can give for local supply, again, as we were talking about supply earlier with that presentation.

[2:05:44] And we have a big focus on our disadvantaged communities, as you know, we are primarily

[2:05:50] made up of disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged communities.

[2:05:54] We always want to make sure that we're providing that technical and financial expertise.

[2:05:58] And if there are bills out there that can help us do that, we need to support that.

[2:06:02] Next slide.

[2:06:03] And this is more on this one is on water management reliability.

[2:06:08] We're also going to be looking at groundwater storage.

[2:06:11] We're going to be looking at any options that would help with local supply development.

[2:06:18] Also, we are looking at, again, continuing to focus on increasing fines for water theft.

[2:06:24] We may or may not directly call out cannabis because that's not our only problem with water theft,

[2:06:29] although it's a huge problem right now.

[2:06:32] And also, as was mentioned by Jeff, while we were ahead of the curve on adjudication here in this area

[2:06:39] before we had Sigma come to us.

[2:06:44] What we would like to do is to make sure that a lot of that legislation will apply to adjudicated basins, as opposed to just Sigma agencies.

[2:06:54] Next slide, we'll be looking at water supply, obviously that's very important.

[2:06:59] In any effort, we can look at that will help with either regulations or any other entanglement.

[2:07:06] that keeps the state water project system from being enhanced.

[2:07:11] That's something that we would look at supporting.

[2:07:14] Also, again, as I mentioned, disadvantaged communities.

[2:07:17] That is very, very important to us.

[2:07:20] So any legislation that looks at funding, we would be very supportive of that.

[2:07:27] Conservation, obviously, is a key.

[2:07:30] Again, we're looking at for home business industrial, any kind of technology

[2:07:35] that would be appropriate to help us continue to reduce water.

[2:07:41] I'm also for water quality, as we know that's a growing concern.

[2:07:45] And so what we need to do is look at if there's any legislation that we can be supportive

[2:07:50] and I do not recommend anyone drink a glass of water that looks like that.

[2:07:54] Next slide. For development, and this is really more focused on water facilities

[2:08:01] is again we recognize the Joshua Tree is beautiful, it is iconic however because of what are the current requirements it can make a cost prohibitive for any of us in the water industry to continue to develop facilities and so what we'd be looking at is any kind of affordable mitigation pathways that would help us still preserve the Joshua Tree but still be able to build a project that we can afford to build on next slide.

[2:08:31] And so the next steps are we will be taking these ideas to the Executive Technical Advisory Committee.

[2:08:39] We have been working with our State and Federal, I call them lobbyists or advocates, and

[2:08:45] they are going to help us fine tune some of these ideas.

[2:08:49] This document has been sent to our business community to see if they've had any input on that.

[2:08:54] And then the approval process will be, we will go to the Legal Legislative and

[2:08:59] community partners committee in January and then we will bring it forward to the Board

[2:09:06] of Directors for review and for their input.

[2:09:09] And so this is what we are working on right now.

[2:09:13] We wanted to again make sure that we are involving all of our stakeholders in this.

[2:09:18] If you have any ideas, please feel free to reach out to me.

[2:09:22] We will put those on the list here and we will look forward to working with you and we'll

[2:09:28] be back with the final product once that's approved. And with that, I'll take any quick

[2:09:33] questions, but I know everyone's hungry.

[2:09:37] That was impressive. That was fast. I know the Joshua Tree is a big issue. We have

[2:09:43] a well site that we can't upgrade security going from chain leak to block walk, because

[2:09:48] there's a Joshua Tree 20 feet away inside. You know, it's just kind of crazy right now.

[2:09:54] really really hampers you.

[2:09:57] Any other questions or comments?

[2:10:01] Okay, we'll go on to item 11, a certificate of appreciation.

[2:10:07] I'll hand it off to Ed Mann.

[2:10:09] Thank you, Doug.

[2:10:10] So I'll try to be brief here, but I want to mention

[2:10:15] we've had Marina West here as Chair of the Tax Committee

[2:10:17] for the last few years since 2019.

[2:10:21] I want to say you took on the mantle

[2:10:23] Right at the heels of the start of COVID, so that's no easy challenge to overcome.

[2:10:30] And yet, you kept this committee effective and relevant, so we really appreciate everything

[2:10:35] you've done for the agency, for the stakeholders, for the different agencies within our service

[2:10:40] area to make this an effective forum for discussion of current events.

[2:10:46] You've had issues related to cannabis and water theft that you championed, a response

[2:10:51] and got county sheriff department

[2:10:56] and it's just been an extraordinary effort there.

[2:10:59] That's ongoing.

[2:11:00] County well permitting, I mean,

[2:11:02] we adopted the agency adopted the Urban Water Management Plan

[2:11:05] update under your tenure here as chair.

[2:11:08] So no shortage of accomplishments

[2:11:12] through one of the most challenging times for collaboration,

[2:11:15] COVID and growing pains that came with it.

[2:11:17] So thank you.

[2:11:19] We're losing you as chair of the committee,

[2:11:21] but we gained you as our director of the Mojave Water Agency Board, so we're very happy

[2:11:27] to see you there, and I'm glad you can continue to participate on those. And I'll just say

[2:11:32] big shoes to fill, but I'm sure Doug's after the challenge, so welcome, Doug.

[2:11:37] I've got a certificate here, so if you could stand up, we'll hand this over to you, Marina.

[2:11:50] Hi, we'll just add you made it look easy the whole time. The virtual meetings and in-person meetings,

[2:11:55] That means it's, wow, thank you.

[2:12:25] We didn't want to ruin that picture.

[2:12:28] All right, our last item is comments and announcements.

[2:12:34] So I guess we'll look to MWA staff for any comments or announcements to begin with.

[2:12:42] Next scheduled meeting for the tax is February 2nd, the 10 AM.

[2:12:46] That's my only announcement.

[2:12:49] And anything from the public?

[2:12:52] Okay.

[2:12:54] Lunch is awaiting.

[2:12:55] With that, I know we have a lot of items coming down the pike, so I would, the attendance today is great, I would encourage you to get more people involved.

[2:13:05] I know Marina left me three pages of priorities.

[2:13:09] We will be working really closely with the executive tack to really look at the purpose and purview of tack and executive tack and start not start, but to make sure we continue to bring relevant items and meet the needs of everybody here.

[2:13:24] so please get involved, please reach out to us.

[2:13:28] And with that, we will adjourn this meeting at 12-13.

[2:13:31] There is lunch outside.

[2:13:33] Thank you for coming today.

REVISED Technical Advisory Committee (Remote Access Available)

Agenda

Transcript