Author: Water Dept.; Nova Cha
Date: 2003-10-14

Board of Directors
President
David Bixler
Vice President
Richard Borges
Michael Thomas
Dave Martin
General Manager
J. Paul Hendrix
The Board of Directors holds regular public meetings on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 9:00 am at the District office in Tulare.

In This Issue:

Banner Year for Recharge
Cover
Water Supply Outlook
Cover
Groundwater Report
2
2
Grant Award
2

Tulare Irrigation District
1350 W. San Joaquin Ave.
Tulare, California 93274

Founded in 1889, Tulare ID was one of the first irrigation districts in California. Its purpose is to serve the water supply needs of the greater Tulare area, a rich and agriculturally diverse region within the Southern San Joaquin Valley. The water provided comes locally from the Kaweah River and is also imported from the Federal Central Valley Project.

LOOK INSIDE…
Banner Year for Recharge
Water Supply Outlook
Groundwater Report
Grant Award
Visit Us At…
www.tulareid.org

The TID Tidings is published quarterly by the Tulare Irrigation District. Questions about the articles or items appearing in the TID Tidings can be answered by reaching the Tulare ID office at (559) 686-3425

TID TIDINGS

2nd Quarter 2005

Important Dates to Remember
JUNE
20th 2005 2nd Installment Due
JULY
AUGUST

GROUNDWATER
REPORT

TID has received a grant from the USBR for $300,000 to construct a “Modernization Project” to improve water efficiency and operations. The project will consist of a number of canal structures to provide better water level control and several telemetry (SCADA) sites to monitor water levels and flows in our system. Out of the seventeen western states eligible for such grants, only three in California were awarded the maximum grant amount of $300,000. The other two were Coachella Valley Water District and Imperial Irrigation District, both large districts in the southeastern part of the state drawing their supplies from the Colorado River.
TID worked closely with Cal Poly’s Irrigation and Training Research Center (ITRC) in preparing a project plan. The telemetry features of the plan will expand TID’s existing SCADA capabilities by adding to the recently constructed Kaweah SCADA project by the Kaweah River Power Authority. That project, also developed by the ITRC, now provides for control and monitoring of key water diversion structures from both the CVP and Kaweah River sources. The new SCADA sites will be situated primarily at regulating basins to track water levels in them on a continuous basis.
The structural features of the plan will likely consist of a number of long-crested weirs and automatic water-level gates at selected locations. The new weirs will replace older flashboard structures and provide for passing large flow fluctuations with minimal change in upstream canal water levels, thus affording more consistent service to upstream turnouts. The automatic gates, known as the ITRC Flap Gate, will be installed at locations where more precise control of upstream water levels is needed.
Our new modernization project is
anticipated to be completed within two years. It is our goal that this project will be a key component in enabling the District’s water department to provide for optimal water delivery service in our canal and ditch system in a manner which will minimize system losses and spills. We feel that this project, and possible additions to it in the future, are a proactive measure in demonstrating efficient water operations in a regulatory and legislative environment where increased focus is being placed on water districts’ management of the state’s limited water supplies.

GRANT AWARD

You've probably seen a lot of water in TID's canals and ditches for several months now. To be exact, we began running water in our system continuously since January 5th. The first week or so we were receiving our share of a flood release from Lake Kaweah. This flood release ended the latter part of the month and we then supplanted this source with imported CVP water from Millerton Lake via the Friant-Kern Canal. Effective January 23rd, the USBR declared an additional 10% Class 2 allocation for the Friant contractors, available for delivery through February, the end of the 2004 contract year. Shortly thereafter, USBR indicated that additional Class 2 water would be available for any contractors who could find a home for more. TID's Board of Directors, keenly aware of the last six years of below-average conditions and sinking groundwater levels, stepped up to the plate quickly and directed staff to commence delivery of as much CVP water as possible for as long as it's available. The surplus conditions, caused by a projected need to vacate space in Millerton Lake to offset anticipated high inflows for an extended period, continued into the 2005 contract year and might last well into June.
The scenario fit well with TID's conjunctive use plan of operation, a plan
that was described in last quarter's issue of TID Tidings. Often when surplus conditions exist within CVP's Friant Unit and surplus water is available from
Continued on page 3
Recharge continued
Millerton Lake, the same situation is being played out locally at Lake Kaweah. So, TID must pass on some or all of the CVP water since our system is full with deliveries from the Kaweah source. This year was different and we positioned
ourselves to take advantage of it. Lake Kaweah has only had nominal flood releases since January – those being at the end of the months of March and May. Thus, we had an "open window" for an extended period to deliver CVP water when it was available in quantities only limited by our channel system, while the ample local supply was being stored in Lake Kaweah (now larger by some 40,000 AF) for delivery in later months.
Realizing this unique opportunity, TID expanded the recharge program within the Kaweah basin by partnering with KDWCD to deliver even more water in upstream areas, all with the goal of providing groundwater benefits to TID's users as well as others. Likewise, the City of Visalia and its water purveyor, Calif. Water Service Company, participated in programs with TID to broaden the recharge efforts.
All told, TID has diverted Kaweah and CVP supplies totaling about 140,500 AF as of May 31st into its channel system for water sales and recharge deliveries since January 5th. Another 44,650 AF of CVP supplies have also been delivered for recharge under our partnership with KDWCD. This imported water, which in large part was directed into ponding basins for groundwater recharge, has not come without a cost. The cost for Friant Class 2 water under TID's contract is about $26/AF and, for TID's deliveries through May of about 87,600 AF, this totals $2.3 million. The days of this surplus water costing a fraction of this (TID's first CVP contract price for Class 2 water was $1.50/AF) are long gone. We have paid for this water out of reserves on hand for purposes such as this. However, the Board is mindful of budgetary impacts of major recharge operations and must consider water sale rates which begin to recoup these costs in the future.

BANNER YEAR FOR RECHARGE

WATER SUPPLY OUTLOOK

This winter and spring snowfall and temperature pattern have been nothing short of ideal, at least from a water supply standpoint. Snow pack and overall precipitation have stayed well ahead of average throughout the entire winter and have been further enhanced with several colder spring storms providing additional snow at higher elevations. With cooler than average temperatures extending well into May, much of the snow pack remains and will convert to river flows into Sierra reservoirs after flood space reservations in them have been lifted. This means more stored water for the summer irrigation season. So far we seem to be steering shy of an unmanageable flood year, where the large snow pack melts in a fashion where it cannot be stored or otherwise regulated and ends up causing unwanted water and attendant damages in the Tulare Lake Bed area.
With a substantial part of the runoff season ahead of us, our current estimates for TID’s annual Kaweah River supply is about 130,000 AF, nearly double the long-term average of 70,000 AF. For the CVP, we anticipate delivering nearly 200,000 AF by year’s end, a significant part of which will be devoted to much-needed underground recharge (see “Banner Year for Recharge” article in this issue). With such sizable quantities of water, we expect our summer irrigation run to extend well into September, an unusual occurrence for TID.
We hope that this year might signify a pattern of departure from the last six of dry, if not drought-like, conditions. A wetter pattern of years is what it will take to begin to recoup from the extensive groundwater overdraft that has recently occurred in the last few. This year is much appreciated by all in the water business and in agriculture, but unfortunately just one won’t be enough.

Shown below are our groundwater charts reflecting depth to groundwater as of February 2005. As is indicated for all three of the sectional areas depicted within the District, levels have continued to drop as compared to February last year. The average drop across the entire District is about 7 ft. The data does not show the rebound in groundwater levels that is anticipated due to this winter/spring period of considerable recharge conducted by TID and KDWCD using imported CVP water. From the near all-time lows in levels reached in the fall of 2004, we should begin to see reductions in groundwater depths when the fall 2005 measurements are taken. Look to the 4th quarter issue of TID Tidings for a summary of this information. Seeing the chart lines shown below take an upward swing at that time will be a welcome change!

SECTION LOCATIONS

Section 1 Section 2 Section 3

Water Fact
About one-half of TID’s water comes from the federal Central Valley Project, constructed over a 25-year period beginning in the 1940’s. Statewide, it’s a massive series of water storage and transportation projects, collectively irrigating one-third of all farmland in California (about 3 million acres) and delivering about 5 million AF for farms and 2 million AF for the other uses. California is the fourth largest agricultural region in the world, behind only the United States as a whole, Brazil, and China. One out of every four jobs in the CVP service area is directly related to agriculture.

ITRC Flap Gate

Proposed SCADA Sites

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