KDWCD Water Report Volume 1, Issue 1

March 30, 2011

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KDWCD Board of Directors

Don Mills, President

Mark Watte, Vice President

Ron Clark

Stan Gomes

Jeff Ritchie

Mike Shannon

Chris Tantau

KDWCD Management Team Water Supply - Long-Term Surface Water Supply Contract Secured Mark Larsen, General Manager Last year, Larry Dotson, Kaweah Delta Water Senior Engineer Conservation District Gene Kilgore, put the finishing Field Operations Manager Tom Weddle, touches on a long-term River Operations Manager surface water supply Shane Smith, contract with the United Projects/Administrative Manager States Bureau of Recla- Dian Rader, mation (USBR) securing Administration/HR Coordinator an additional 8,600 Shelley Orth, acre-feet for the Dis- Editor trict’s groundwater re- charge and conjunctive Kaweah Delta Water use efforts. Conservation District The new con- tract provides the Dis- trict with 1,200 acre- For more than 80 years, the feet of Class 1 water Kaweah Delta Water Conser- and 7,400 acre-feet of vation District has been Class 2 water from the working to fulfill its mission Friant Division of the by conserving and storing waters of the , . maintaining channels for Class 1 water is defined as a “dependable” wa- control, and by con- Millerton Lake serving and protecting the ter supply. Class 2 water is considered an underground waters of the Since 2004, the Dis- annually to benefit the Dis- “undependable” supply and Kaweah River Basin. Through trict and Ivanhoe Irrigation trict’s groundwater recharge its efforts, and the efforts of is furnished only after all District have participated in a efforts. The water will flow other coordinating local Class 1 supplies have been Resource Exchange Agree- through the District via natural agencies, Kaweah Delta WCD fulfilled for USBR contractors ment, in which IID assigned a water ways and irrigation dis- helps ensure reliable and and only when it can be portion of its existing USBR trict ditches and/or other con- adequate water supplies for made available as it is highly contract to the District in ex- veyance facilities. The District its service area now and into dependant on the conditions change for the District’s as- uses these conveyance ele- the future. of the water year. signment to IID of certain wa- ments to deliver water to its “The addition of this Inside this Issue ter rights on the Kaweah River groundwater recharge basins, contracted water supply is a and certain rights to storage in of which there are more than huge boon for our long-term Long-Term Surface Water Terminus . The pro- 40, totaling close to 4,000 groundwater recharge and Supply Contract Secured gram worked to improve the acres. management programs,” dry year reliability of the sur- Now that the District said Mark Larsen, the Dis- Groundwater Management face water supplies available to has its own USBR contract, it is trict’s General Manager. “As Update IID and to provide greater fully responsible for all rights the Kaweah Basin continues reliability of CVP water for and obligations of a contractor, to face a groundwater over- Local Agency Cooperation Kaweah Delta as it previously including an obligation to repay draft situation, having more received under short term and its proportionate share of the surface water available for McKay Point Structure temporary water service con- CVP capital obligation that is storage and recharge will Rehabilitation tracts. owed or that may become ow- help us move toward chang- The new surface wa- ing under the Contract, as well ing that trend line.” Additional Info/Links ter supply will be managed as other requirements. KDWCD Water Report Groundwater Management Page 2

Cooperative Efforts Lead to Local Groundwater Management Planning

With a new administration at the helm in Sacramento, one question is on every water manager’s mind: “What’s going to happen with respect to groundwater?” Several legislators already have indicated that groundwater regulation is a necessary component of ’s long-term water supply plan. Hopefully those same legislators recognize that for more than 10 years, water managers throughout California have been working to implement groundwater manage- ment programs at the local level and are achieving success. Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District Management has been involved in an Integrated Re- gional Water Management Planning process for several years. The idea behind the IRWMP is simple: local managers can best manage their local resources, and collaboration of local managers will result in the best solutions for the area. The Friant-Kern In this effort, the District has been joined by the City of Visalia, City of Tulare, City of Lindsay, , a feature of Tulare Irrigation District, Exeter Irrigation District, Lakeside Irrigation District, Tulare County and Califor- the Federal nia Water Service Company. The agencies meet regularly to discuss groundwater issues and management Central Valley solutions. Two areas in which the group regularly works are: increasing water supply reliability, which in- Project (CVP), cludes conjunctive water management by combining surface water and groundwater storage; and inte- transverses the grating flood management through and detention, and surface water protection and ground- easterly portion of water recharge. the District, In addition to groundwater protection, Kaweah Delta WCD continues to work alongside other delivering water agencies in an effort to resolve local water issues. The District belongs to several working groups, all of which stress local management for resolving water issues. from Millerton Southern San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition – The Coalition serves farmers and landowners in Lake located to the Basin watershed from the south to the Tehachapi Mountains. Its goal is the north. The to protect and preserve the water supplies and associated water rights of the Coalition members and Tulare Irrigation those they serve. Friant Water Authority – The District has always maintained an alliance with Friant, given that District (TID), many of its members are long-term water contractors. Now that the District is a contractor and a mem- which lies entirely ber, participation in this organization bears more significance. within the Kaweah Valley Ag Water Coalition – This organization provides leadership and advocacy on issues relating Delta Water to the development and delivery of a reliable farm water supply. Conservation Groundwater Overdraft Trend Continues District (KDWCD), also obtains water Everyone knows that if Historical Average Depth to Groundwater (Fall Measurement) -- Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District from the Friant- you take out more money than you put into your bank account, Kern Canal under you’ll run into an overdraft situa- % Water Year Avg. Depth to Groundwater Historical Trend a long-term tion. Well, groundwater supplies 0 350% contract with the work the same way. And in the 20 United States. Kaweah Basin, the groundwater 300% supply is in an overdraft situa- 40 tion: we simply pump out more 250%

groundwater than is replaced 60 every year. 200%

Water supply for agricul- 80 % Water Year Water % tural, residential and industrial (Feet) Depth 150% 100 lands in the District comes from 100% the surface water of the Kaweah 120 River watershed, rainfall or pre- 50% cipitation, and groundwater. 140 Since surface water and precipita-

160 0%

1958 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1988 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 1960 1986 1990 tion supplies fall short of the Dis- 1956 trict’s annual needs, groundwater makes up the difference. This reliance on groundwater has cre- and uneconomical pumping lifts, inflow include streambed and ca- ated a state of overdraft in the and land subsidence. nal conveyance seepage, precipi- District, in which more water is Through natural precipi- tation, recharge basins, subsur- pumped from the groundwater tation and recharge efforts, the face inflow and waste water in- basin than is replenished. District received about 615,000 flow. Based on recent studies, acre-feet of groundwater inflow, In summary, based on the District knows that its safe which was determined in a 2007 the District’s current conditions of yield is 575,000 acre-feet per study conducted for the District. development and available water year. Safe yield is the volume of Groundwater inflow supply, the District as a whole is groundwater that can be pumped comes from many sources, with in a condition of overdraft. The annually without producing unde- more than a third resulting from magnitude of the overdraft is be- sirable results, such as decreas- percolation of irrigation water tween 21,700 acre-feet/year and ing groundwater supplies, water that leaches past the root zone. 36,000 acre-feet/year depending quality degradation, unreasonable Other sources of groundwater on the exact method used. KDWCD Water Report District Projects Page 3

Mc Kay Point Reconstruction Complete

With its structural volved the construction and Mc Kay Point Structure Prior to Construction integrity in question and op- operation of new wa- erational safety a concern, ter control structures McKay Point on the Kaweah on the Lower Kaweah River was given a face-lift River and on the St. and now has two new water Johns River. The new control structures, one on the structures are down- Lower Kaweah River and one stream and replace on the St. Johns River. The the upstream weirs. new structures are located The elevation of a immediately downstream and short segment of the are replacements to the up- north and south bank stream McKay Point weirs. of the St. Johns River The Kaweah River and the north bank of flows westward 32 miles the Lower Kaweah from the to River between the old the Central Valley, where it and new structures flows into and was raised and im- is managed for flood protec- provements to the tion and stored for irrigation new channel banks purposes. From there, the were required to river splits into two rivers – maintain adequate Lower Kaweah and St. Johns free board (the dis- – at McKay Point, located tance between nor- southeast of the City of mal water level and Woodlake. At McKay Point, top of the weir structure) weirs constructed in the above the water surface. and 1920s or 1930s diverted the The Project was per- Kaweah & St. Johns Rivers Asso- Reservoir, located water equally into the two formed in compliance with all ciation and Kaweah Delta Water on the Kaweah Conservation District and the rivers for downstream water local, State and Federal regu- River about 3-1/2 rights users. For years, this latory and/or resources three owners of the McKay point miles to the east of was how the rivers were agency requirements. The property, defining each entity’s managed for downstream Project goal of providing safe responsibility regarding the new the District, was users. operating conditions with a facilities. The District and Asso- completed in 1961 The structure was higher degree of control dur- ciation were each responsible for by the U.S. Army half the cost associated with the upgraded in the 1960s; how- ing both irrigation and flood Corps of Engineers. ever, as time went by, sev- flows was achieved. construction. Total costs for the eral water managers began Agreements have project were about $4 million. The dam is an to raise concerns about the been executed between the earthfill structure structural integrity of the about 250 ft high. It McKay Point weirs. Likewise, currently has a operational safety became an Mc Kay Point Structure After Construction reservoir capacity of issue and the ability to con- trol flows was impeded be- about 186,600 acre- cause of the massive feet amounts of debris – every- or 60,803,876,278 thing from animals and fenc- gallons of water! ing to branches and whole Terminus Reservoir trees – that accumulated on the weirs. Most of that debris has provided a high had to be removed by hand. degree of river “The situation really control by was becoming quite danger- substantially ous,” said Tom Weddle - En- gineer and River Operations reducing the Manager, “not only for opera- frequency of flood tions and maintenance per- damage and by sonnel, but for the general regulating seasonal public as well. The situation runoff for irrigation needed to be fixed as Mc Kay point is the major control demands. structure for managing downstream flows.” The McKay Point Reconstruction Project in- 2975 N. Farmersville Blvd. Farmersville, CA 93223 Phone (559) 747-5601

Visit our website at www.kdwcd.com for more information!

We here at the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District hope you have found the information in this issue of the KDWCD Water Report helpful. It is our goal to provide water resource information that is relevant and useful to those who live and work in our service area. As our district strives to protect and enhance the groundwater resources of the Kaweah River Basin, we also would like our landowners/ water users and the general public to be informed and knowledgeable about our water resources, so that together we can make the best use of our water now and into the future. Water/Weather Related Web Links

California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS) United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) www.cimis.water.ca.gov www.usbr.gov

National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) www.noaa.gov www.usace.army.mil

California Department of Water Resources Friant Water Authority - www.friantwater.org www.water.ca.gov Agricultural Water Management Resources

CA Agricultural Technology Institute - A non-profit, educational institution dedicated to improving California agriculture Irrigation and Training Research Center - An irrigation teaching program through outside activities specializing in training, research, and technical support National Weather Service - Provides forecasts and warnings for the central U.S. CA Water Institute - Offers seminars and classes dealing with Regional Water Issues, Irrigation Technology, and Research UC Ag Extension - Includes farm, nutrition, family and consumer science advisors based in more than 50 county offices, reaching millions of farmers, businesses and residents every year Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT) - As an independent research and testing facility, CIT assists designers, manufacturers and users of irrigation equipment to make the technological advances required for our growing and ever changing world. Provides pump efficiency testing USDA Farm Service Agency - Provides contact information as well as a listing of the programs and offices that make up the Farm Service Agency USDA/ARS Water Management Research Laboratory - The development of water and weed management technologies and practices for irrigated agriculture in water deficit areas that use water efficiently, improve agricultural productivity, sustainability and reduce negative envi- ronmental impacts Farm Advisors Office, Agricultural Commissioners’ Offices, Tulare and Kings Counties