Dan Nelson interview
Item
Title
eng
Dan Nelson interview
Description
eng
Former executive director of the Delta Mendota San Luis Joint Powers Authority operating the Delta Mendota Canal and the San Luis Reservoir. Talked a lot about changes in water allocations from the Central Valley Project for westside farmers.
Creator
eng
Nelson, Dan
eng
Holyoke, Thomas
Relation
eng
Water Archive Oral Histories
Coverage
eng
California State University, Fresno
Date
eng
9/23/2013
Format
eng
Microsoft Word 2003 document, 24 pages
Identifier
eng
SCMS_waoh_00004
extracted text
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, we're here today with Dan Nelson from San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority. Let's just start with a little bit of
personal history of who are you?
>> Dan Nelson: I was actually--I'm a fifth generation Californian and
actually fifth generation west side San Joaquin Valley. I--My great
grandfather came to this area and he--late--late 1880s and started dry
farming up south of Dos Palos, and what's referred to as the Oro Loma
area. And my grandmother was born out in that area and-- and so we've
been in--we’ve been in--on--in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley or
had a valley present since, since that time. I was actually born in Los
Banos in 1952 and--and grew up there in Los Banos and took off to go to
college, and never to come up to the valley, and it ended up after
college, about 17 years later, I ended up back in the Firebaugh area and
have been working on water issues since about 1975 and had been working
on west side water issues since about that time. So I have a fairly
extensive history on the west side of the valley and a lot of practical
experience on water districts throughout the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of work were you doing when you came back
here from college?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, actually when I first came back from college I-I went up to the Dixon area and-- and I was working in a custom
application company and I did that for a couple of years but in--it was
about 1975 I believe it was, '76 when I went to work for the San Luis
canal. I had worked with San Luis Canal Company as--when I--when I was
growing up in the Los Banos, When I was in high school I--was employed
there as a summer job and worked there in summer and Christmas vacations
and then when I was in college I also worked at San Luis Canal Company as
a summer job. In 1977 there was a drought and San Luis Canal Company up
to that point in time hadn't been--hadn't been measuring any of their
water. They didn't have a need to measure it and in '77, they wanted to
initiate some measurements because of the drought and some of the
shortages and so they called up and wondered if I'd be opened to come
back and work with them a couple of years and so I--I went to work with
San Luis Canal Company. I believe it's in '77.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A--canal company like--like this one, it's a private
company that--builds canals for farmers or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. It--now has a public entity but it is what's
referred to as a mutual water company and they actually have
stockholders, and they have the water rights that were initially
developed by Miller & Lux back in the 1870s and their water rights date
back to that time from some of the initial diversions off of the San
Joaquin River and--and these water rights were later exchanged through
this development of the central valley project for central valley project
water, but nonetheless, they're still rooted in the old appropriation
water rights that Miller & Lux developed in the 1870s, 1880s, somewhere
up through there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you--It's OK if you don't know this, how water
rights came to this company from the old Miller & Lux holdings?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Actually my--my understanding of it is that
those water rights--are turned--are--are a part of the land and so when
you buy a parcel in that area you essentially, you--you buy, you know,
you buy a water right as a part of the land so it's my impression that
those-- that those water rights are--are established in a part of the
land and that's why you have the stockholders.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, the--these old water rights, these are--this is
for land adjacent to the river, these are what they call riparian rights
or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, generally speaking Henry Miller--in 1871 was the
first diversion that he made and they dug a canal off of the--off of the-the San Joaquin river from what was referred to as the old China slough
going way back then but it was--it comes out of what we refer to now as
the Mendota Pool off of the San Joaquin river and they started digging
that canal in the 18--about 1870 in the first deliveries they made were
an 1871. And then gradually they built additional canals. The water
rights for San Luis Canal Company actually were established off of Temple
Slough and that came, you know, I believe about 20 years later in the 18-early 1890s. But generally, they, they--established these canals. The
valley's very flat in that area and so with very, very, very little
physical work you can actually, you know, divert the river and follow
contours for a long period of time. So generally what Miller & Lux did is
strategically placed some of these diversions across San Joaquin River
and they used normally a slough that in high water--in in high water
periods the water would get off of the main branch of the river and go
into these sloughs and so it was very easy for Miller & Lux to use these
sloughs as the initial conveyance systems and with very little diversions
or blockage in the San Joaquin River they could divert water in these
sloughs that would meander, you know, parallel with the river. And--so
most of the initial diversions that Miller & Lux sloughs were just
natural sloughs and then they extended the canal and built, you know,
formalized them and honed them and made canals and-- and delivery system
out of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually--I--whenever I was thought, you know, Miller
& Lux I would sort of think of the fights that they had with Haggin and
Carr down on the Kern Rive but-- did Miller & Lux-- did actually
extensive development on the San Joaquin River as well as the Kern?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, they, they did. Miller & Lux, Henry Miller actually
didn't initiate the--the--the initial diversion off the San Joaquin
River. It was actually a group of very high powered investors from San
Francisco that came out and--and in part they were looking at this as a
transportation system, you know, I guess a long the lines of a Panama
canal typed thing of where--prior to that they were using the San Joaquin
River as a mechanism for--and steam ships, you know to come up and down
the San Joaquin River to bring in and out supplies from the west side of
the Valley and up as high as--as you know, the Tule River, I mean Tulare
Lake, excuse me. And--so, but that was very unpredictable because the
flows on the San Joaquin River could either be--are very volatile and
they could be either too high or too low to be able to rely on that form
of transportation and--and so they thought that these canals, you know,
would provide a mechanism for transportation. I think that they only used
it maybe four or five years and they began in 1871 but they only used it
for four to five years for transportation. It became evident that it was
much more useful for, you know, irrigation but-- but I diverted it. The
initial-- the initial investors were some high powered investors and but
they had to get easement from Miller & Lux 'cause Miller & Lux had most
of the land and so that's how Henry Miller became a partner. He, he
really wasn't all that enthusiastic about the project initially but it
didn't take him long once the delivery started to be made of the value
and, and certainly he saw immediately the value to, you know--being able
to irrigate pasture, and he immediately started buying up the stock of-of the other shareholders of the company and within four or five years he
became the-- the major shareholder of the company over 51 percent
gradually he bought it all and ended up operating and maintaining it. So
he kind of--he kind of was a reluctant participant but immediately saw
the value and once he saw the value he took it over.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, now back to a bit of your history then.
[ Laughter ]
Anything-- actually anything, any particular experiences you would wish
to relate sort of between working for the canal company before you came
to the San Luis authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it's been it's actually I've been--I've
been very, very fortunate in my career. I--I started with San Luis Canal
Company, you know, when I was working in high school just on the
maintenance crew and then when I-- when I went back to them after school
in 1977, I worked for them in the operations division and you know,
initiated some, some measuring for, for the company and even did some
ditch tending [phonetic] and enjoyed that quite a bit and from there I
went to Broadview Water District and it was a small district, southsouthwest of Firebaugh and--and a reclamation law district much different
than, you know, the water rights are CVP but they're much different than
the exchange contractor based water rights. And so I worked with
Broadview for seven or eight years as the general manager but it was a
very small district and so I had to do everything. You know, I oversaw
the maintenance crew, I dealt with insurance, I actually took care for a
period of time the accounting books and so, you know, I--I--it was kind
of, you did a little--you were the office staff. I think we had one other
person and so. But that proved to be a really good education because I
had to know a little bit about everything even if it was a small scale.
And from there I went to San Luis Water District and I was the manager of
San Luis Water District for about five years and it was a bigger district
based out of Los Banos. And--and that in retrospect, it was great
background for me because I, I threw the experience with the canal. I
started from the bottom and just kind of gradually worked--worked my way
up and it gave me broad experience from everything, you know, out in the
field, construction, maintenance, operations to, you know, the general
administration and oversight of, of a district and so. When we started
looking at forming the San Luis & Delta-Mendota water authority in the
late eighties and early nineties, you know, it was something--it was just
kind of a natural evolution for me, I think. And--so I, I had quite a bit
of experience in all the different facets of water districts by then.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just because I don't want to presume that people
watching this know certain things, what actually is water district?
>> Dan Nelson: You know water district is actually a, a really, really
good institutional tool for--for, you know, how it is that we can
distribute and--distribute water in different geographical areas and-and administrate that and-- but, but generally what a water district does
is most all water districts have some source of water supply and a water
district is a geographical area that has a source of supply. And
generally what a water district does is it figures out how to allocate
that water both physically and policy wise. It allocates the water, it
distributes the water but it also allocates and distributes the cost that
it takes that water district to distribute the water and so. Generally,
you know, it's an institution that provides for equitable allocation of
water within a geographical area and equitable allocation of cost within
that same geographical area. And--it's, it's really a good tool for and
its worked-- its served California well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We talking mostly about water for agriculture or this
include municipal->> Dan Nelson: No, all, all different types of water use. In fact, it
just in our organization as an example we have water districts, we have
irrigation districts and they're all, you know, they all serve the same
basic services, the allocation of water and--and--and cost but they do it
with--some of them have subtle differences in governance like an
irrigation district. As an example, you have to live within the
boundaries of that district to be a part of the governance of it whereas
a water district, you can be on the board if you're a land owner. It
doesn't matter if you live within that geographical area, if you own land
within that geographical area. So there are-- there are water districts,
there are irrigation districts, there are M&I district and water
districts can serve either urban areas or can serve agriculture. And in
fact one of our members is the Grassland Water District which serves duck
clubs and essentially waterfowl habitat and so. So there are, you know,
water districts can provide services to, you know, any water use that you
can imagine.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are these districts tend to acquire their water.
I mean they taking the water, holding the water rights and pulling the
water straight out of rivers, are they getting it from elsewhere?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it--yes to all of that. The districts that-that our organization deals with have contracts with the Federal Central
Valley Project and so their source of water is their contract with the
Federal Central Valley Project. Other water districts, Turlock, Modesto,
they all have developed their own water supplies from some of the east
side tributaries and, and so they, you know, were formed to develop some
of those tributary water supplies and allocate the cost of what--what it
takes to develop that water and, and then they have allocation policies
and so, the sources of water. And then there are some districts that, you
know, who are totally reliant upon groundwater and it's just a central
plumbing system for moving groundwater around and--and for administrating
the use of groundwater and so, the sources of water, you know, vary, you
know, tremendously throughout the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So when you were at San Luis District that was a
district that contracted with the Bureau of Reclamation for water out of
San Luis reservoir.
>> Dan Nelson: San Luis Water District, yes, is what is referred to as a
reclamation law water district and yes, it had a contract with the
federal government, the Federal Central Valley Project for all of its
water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Ok--OK, San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
>> Dan Nelson: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Before we get to why you created it, what is it?
>> Dan Nelson: The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority is a Joint
Powers Authority and that's another really good tool--for--for more than
one water district to get together and if you have a joint project that
you want to work on, a Joint Powers Authority is a mechanism where two or
more water districts can get together and form an umbrella organization
called the Joint Powers Authority. In, in our case we have 29 member
districts and these 29 member districts have formed the San Luis & DeltaMendota Water Authority. And the common bond of all of these districts is
that they all have Federal Central Valley Project contracts and they all
take their water south of the Delta through the Jones Pumping Plant in
the Delta-Mendota canal and so they, they formed together in the late
eighties and early nineties to where we--I think we signed the joint
powers agreement in mid-1991 and--and that's that's generally the
background of the--of the authority.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the authority operate or maintain the DeltaMendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: We do and in fact that was prior to 1991. We had an
informal organization that was initiated back. We call it our mother
company and we formed it back or it was formed back in I believe 1977 and
it was called the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Users Association and it
was in informal organization and it--it all of the same members applied
at that time. And--and the reason we formalized it into a quasigovernmental agency, a Joint Powers Authority was to take over the
operations and maintenance of the federal facilities and that opportunity
surfaced in the--oh late eighties and early nineties and so the federal
government before it was able to contract out for the operations and
maintenance of the federal facilities had to have a governmental agency
in order to be able to--to contract with. And so that's why we formalize
the association into a Joint Powers Authority was to takeover the
operations and maintenance of the Delta-Mendota canal, the Jones Pumping
Plant, the O'Neill Pumping Plant up at San Luis Reservoir and all of the
facilities south of the Delta. So yes that's one of the services that we
provide and it was the service that prompted us to formalize our
organization.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now just to be clear. Delta-Mendota canal, the water
for the central valley at least that part of the central valley project
is pumped out of the Delta, the Jones Pumping plant then put into DeltaMendota canal. And Delta-Mendota canal flows down to San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes, we--well, the Central Valley Project is designed to
deal with the dilemma that we have in the State of California and that's
where most of the water falls in the northern part of the state and most
of the uses in the southern part of the state. And so, generally, the CVP
components or the CVP facilities are Shasta Reservoir and-- and Folsom
reservoir on the American River. And--so we store water in those two
reservoirs--the federal government does, and then they release it
strategically down the Sacramento River and it meanders through the
Delta, our pumping plant is on the southern end of the Delta. And it's-it's the Jones Pumping Plant and-- and it pumps into the Delta-Mendota
Canal around the city of Tracy. And that flows to the south and
ultimately ends at the Mendota pool on the San Joaquin River. Prior to
getting there, it also--we have the option of taking some of that water
up into San Luis reservoir of where we--San Luis reservoir is partially a
CVP facility as well. And, so we have--we have the choice of either
taking water and storing in to San Luis. Or, taking the water out of San
Luis and supplementing our flows on the Delta-Mendota Canal. But, but the
Delta-Mendota Canal start to Tracy, runs generally south along the
western foothills on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to around
the San Luis dam area and then it goes southeast from there to the San
Joaquin River, and it flows about 88 miles I believe.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, Central Valley Project was originally built by the
US Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior Department I presumed that
earlier in its history that the Bureau operated the canal and the pumps
themselves directly. Why any particular reason they would want to give up
control?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. That's actually a very excellent question and leads
right back into, you know, why we formed the San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority. The Bureau constructed the project, going back in the
late '40s and--or that phase of the project and--and then preceded to
operate and maintain the project and did a really wonderful job of doing
all of that. They did a good job constructing it and also good job of
operating and maintaining it from the '50s through, through the '80s. And
we--we began to see a couple of changes in the late '80s. First of all,
we--we certainly were seeing-- being a lot more regulated in how we
operated the Central Valley Project, but we also saw the role of the
Bureau of Reclamation changing as well. And, I--I recall, you know, a
very specific instance that sort of, you know, highlights that. We had
the--at that time the regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation, I
believe this was probably a, you know, around 18--I mean, excuse me,
1989--I can't recall. 1889 but 1989, Dave Houston the regional director
of the Bureau of Reclamation came out to Los Banos and was giving a
presentation to the at a water users meeting. And generally Dave let
everybody know that prior to this--to that moment--or prior to that
general time, the Bureau of Reclamation had been representing the water
users to Washington. And he needed to let us know and to give us a heads
up that, you know, they were-- seeing their role more as representing
Washington to the water users. And if you think through that, that's
fairly fundamental. The water users up 'til that time had relied entirely
on the Bureau of Reclamation for delivering their water, for representing
them on contractual issues, representing them politically on water supply
issues, and legislatively, and essentially, the Bureau of Reclamation
represented the water users to end their contractors in all different
phases in both the physical delivery and likewise the political and
contractual issues. And essentially, you know, we were sensing this but
it was, you know, definitive when Houston let us know that their role had
changed and their mandates from congress and, and from that
administration had changed. And so at that time the water users realized,
you know, that they needed to step up and to represent themselves and to
gear up to be able to represent themselves on legislative issues,
political issues, legal issues, contractual issues. And at that same
time, the Bureau of Reclamation, I think it was the Bush Administration,
the first George Bush Administration, they were privati--privatization
and downsizing government was a really big thing. And so as part of that
the bureau had indicated it was open to have the water users take over
the operations and maintenance. And so the combination between those two
things, the bureau wanting to sort of back out of its role on, you know,
representing or having a different role then representing us on water
rights and stuff. And at the same time, wanting to downsize its force and
to let someone else do the operations and maintenance. Those two things
happened at the same time and that was the motivation, the initiative and
the reason why we form the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, is
to provide those two services that we used to rely upon on the bureau to
provide.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the authority does not own Delta-Mendota canal and
the pumping plants. That's still federal property.
>> Dan Nelson: That is correct.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you have all operation and maintenance
responsibilities?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, no. We have all the maintenance responsibilities
and once the water comes south of the Delta, once we--we pump it south of
the Delta, we have all of the operational responsibilities as well. We do
not operate the part of the Central Valley Project that determines when
water is released from the reservoirs or even determines when we can turn
on and off any of our pumping units at the Jones Pumping Plant. Those
operations are still done by the federal government. Once we pump it
south of the Delta, we are totally responsible for the operations of
getting it up in the San Luis Reservoir or determining whether we're
going to make releases from there, et cetera, but the operations of the
Jones Pumping Plant are-- are, are still done by, and those services are
still provided by the federal government. We do all maintenance of all of
those facilities. We do those entirely. Initially the relationship
between us and the bureau was sort of contractual relationship where they
contracted with us to provide certain services and then they paid us to
do those. And then ultimately they charged our member districts whatever
it is they paid us, they charged our member districts. I think it was-and we initiated all of that in about--in 1992, in October of '92 is when
we took over the first phase of the facilities and that was under what's
called a cooperative agreement which is essentially a contract. Four or
five years later, we changed the relationship between us and the bureau
whereas instead of them having a contract with us and, and then charging
our member agencies, we entered into a self-funding agreement where we
just self-funded amongst our agency, self-funded our operations. And, and
the reason for that is, is the Bureau of Reclamation when it was
contracting with us would still have to rely on congressional
appropriations. They--Once they got the congressional appropriations they
would contract with us and then whatever it is they paid us they would
charge our water users and so it was just a much cleaner relationship and
we had more control over our budgets and cash flows as opposed to relying
on appropriation from congress that we began to self funding our
operations as opposed to a contractual relationship and that occurred
several years later.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does so your authority then have, I mean you say you
have maintenance responsibility for the Delta-Mendota canal, does that
even mean--I mean this is a canal that's what--60, 70 years old?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I don't know what condit--well, actually what
condition is the Delta-Mendota canal in?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, I think it's in really good condition. You know,
we were nervous. Part of the reasons why we--we jumped on the opportunity
to take over the operations and maintenance of the canal from the federal
government is at that time, you know, it was, it was getting to be forty
years old and it was starting to show, you know, signs of being and, and
aging structure and we were getting worried about it being a viable, you
know, facility or facilities to be able to meet our needs and so overtime
and so-- And this was, you know, I don't want to sound too critical of
the Bureau of Reclamation but it just is an indication of the
inefficiencies of relying on congressional appropriations for O&M and-and likewise when you think about it no one has more incentive than the
water users from making sure that the facilities are in good shape to
provide them the water but also that that service is provided, you know,
economically efficiently as well because they're paying for it anyway.
And I mean even when the bureau was doing it, the bureau was charging the
water users whatever it cost the bureau to do it, you know, the bureau
was charging the water users. And so there--it just made so much sense
for the water users to takeover the facilities they they would--they're
the ones that have all the risk that there is downtime on the facilities
and they're the ones that are paying for. And so the water users jumped
in, the facilities were at that time, you know, showing signs of getting
older and needed some preventive maintenance and also, you know, a lot of
the technology had changed, you know, both electrical and--and, you know,
going into a digital era, we converted all of that, updated all of the
electrical stuff at the pumps, and we actually are pretty proud of the-the condition of the facilities right now, notwithstanding they’re, you
know, seven, 60 years old? Yeah, yeah, so they're in good shape and
they've been reliable and knock on wood, and we, you know, we just
haven't had much down time.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the current O&M funding--the way the money moves
right now, it's being paid by the people who are receiving the water. And
does that mean that the districts who are members of your authority
charge individual water users than for a portion of the O&M cost and then
the districts turn that money over to the authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. Generally how that works is--the authority develops
its budget on how much it thinks it's going to take for it to--how much
money it's going to cost to maintain the facility for a given year and
then it also determines--it speculates on how much water it's actually
going to deliver through those facilities. And based on that you come up
with--it's pretty simple calculation, a cost per acres foot. You figure
out your total cost and you figure out your acre foot. The next level of
detail is we actually do that in different regions of our delivery or
different phases of our water delivery so it's a little more complicated
but generally it all boils down to a cost per acres foot. For every acre
foot that we deliver to one of our member agencies, it goes through a
meter and so that, that agency pays us per acres foot that we deliver to
it. And and they pay us for that service to of delivering the water to
them. Once that agency gets its water, we'll just say, the San Luis Water
District as an example, once we deliver the water to San Luis Water
District it has paid us for the service at getting it to them, San Luis
then has to deliver that water to all of its, all of its farmers and that
earns San Luis Water District. And it has its own canal system and
plumbing system that it has to use and maintain. So by the time they send
their bills to their water users it has a component for our O&M, it has a
component for their O&M and any other incidental charges that San Luis
Water District has for, you know, operating the district. So that's
generally how the flow of money goes or if you--ultimately it's the water
user, the individual water user, whether you're an industrial user or
whether or you're an ag user, ultimately, you're the one that's paying
the bill for all of that infrastructure.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you have any senses to. You say an
industrial user as opposed to--opposed to an ag user. Is the majority of
your—of the users of the water with Delta-Mendota canal for farming or is
there a lot of industrial use or municipal use?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah, the majority is agriculture. Out of the--I
think we have contracts in the range right around 3.3 million acres feet,
our members have contracts for that amount of water. And probably out of
that, about 2.7 of that is probably for agriculture use, about 400,000 of
that is probably or is around the number that we use for wildlife
refugees and then maybe 200-250,000 for urban use and industrial use.
That includes one of our members is the Santa Clara Valley Water District
that includes Silicon Valley and so--when we say industrial use it's for
those, you know, types of uses that this water is used for.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I understand a lot of what happens in Silicon
actually takes a great deal of water.
>> Dan Nelson: You know they do, they do, yeah, and they're very
interested and engaged in a lot of our water issues as a result of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What towns and cities take water from Delta-Mendota->> Dan Nelson: Yeah, the city of Tracy is a CVP contractor and a member
of ours and takes water from the Delta-Mendota. Coalinga takes it from
Westlands, through Westlands. The Lemoore Naval base is--is a user
through Westlands and then we-- and then you know, incidentally the city
of Dos Palos and, and Los Banos are working on, you know, getting some
surface water from the CVP but--the major CVP urban user, south of the
Delta is the city and county of Santa Clara and-- and they use probably,
you know, 75 to 80 percent of the urban water that's delivered south at
the Delta. San Benito County also, you know, is converting more and more
of its agricultural ground to ranchettes as is a lot of the different ag
areas. But so most of our-- most of our CVP water that goes for
industrial and urban uses in Santa Clara but we do have Tracy and
Coalinga that are the major ones in the valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You also mentioned some wild life refuges that you are
responsible for. How did that--how was that come about?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it’s an inter--actually a very interesting
history, this area when the San Joaquin, as I said, it's the valley is
very, very flat and when the San Joaquin, you know, flows--when they
started the increase in the spring, they just kind of fanned out and
that's what caused all the sloughs and everything in the valley but when
they fanned out, you know, there was a lot of marsh land in the valley at
that time. And as a result of that, a lot of waterfowl in this area in
fact is-- the-- the it's incredible some of the stories that, you know,
that you have from the 1870s and 80s of where the skies were just, you
know, blackened by, you know, the waterfowl and so--and but ultimately as
Miller & Lux started doing diversions off the San Joaquin River and as
flood control came into play there weren't the same refugees that we had
along the basin of the valley. However, Miller & Lux when they developed
their canals and diverted water from the San Joaquin River, the final
overflow of that and--and the remnants of that ended up in an area just
south and north of Los Banos--in the Los Banos area of being overflow
waterfowl habitat from the Miller & Lux canals and out in the camp,
thirteen area, is a good example of that. And, and so it developed some
habitat. Well, when--when Miller & Lux exchanged their water rights for
Central Valley Project contract supply, the refugees you know, kind of
got left behind in that process whereas they had re--they had sort of
relied upon the Miller & Lux diversions for, you know, for their--for
their habitat and when that water was exchanged to the federal government
there really wasn't any water provided to the--to that grassland area.
And so led by Martin Winton, and some other Grassland Water District
reps, they ultimately got an initial contract. I believe it was in the
mid-50s of 50,000 acre feet and that's about the time when the Grassland
Water District was developed as part of all of that. And-- and then
through the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1991 or 1992 that
it was passed, they were able to get a much larger water supply in the
range of now around 400,000 acres feet that they--that they use for
their--for the waterfowl habitat. But it's kind of this evolution of
natural San Joaquin river overflows to Miller & Lux excess-- excess water
to now a much more formalized contractual relationship with the federal
government for, for their supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually with the Bureau of Reclamation putting more
water back into San Joaquin River, is that going to expand water supplies
in for some of those wildlife refugees?
>> Dan Nelson: No, not at all. They're not tied into that plumbing system
anymore at all. They're--they’re totally reliant upon the Central Valley
Project Plumbing System at this point and-- It, it is noteworthy that
there's probably a 125,000 acres within the Pacific flyway that relies on
this portion of the plumbing system. And some of those are state wildlife
refugees some of them are federal wildlife refugees and then the
Grassland Water District represents privately owned wildlife refugees,
mostly duck clubs and--and so it's--but the water supply for all of those
all come now from the Federal Central Valley Project.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does your authority have any responsibility for
operation or its maintenance of San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: We have--we operate the O'Neill Pumping Plant that pumps
up into the O'Neill Forebay which is at the base, and well that's the
forebay for the San Luis Reservoir. The Department of Water Resources
operates the Gianelli Pumping Plant and--and also the San Luis
Reservoirs. So we, we operate the forebay but we don't operate either
Gianelli or the--or the-- the major reservoir. We do coordinate closely
with DWR because, you know, there's deliveries of our water made out of
San Luis Reservoir down the San Luis canal to Westlands and other San
Luis Water District in Panoche through the San Luis Unit. And then
there's also a pipeline that goes over as we’ve discussed, it goes over
the-- the coastal range there into Santa Clara Valley and San Benito
County and so we have to coordinate very closely with DWR, of the
operations but they ultimately are the operators of San Luis Reservoir.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now as I understand San Luis Reservoir is actually a
combination of state and Federal Water.
>> Dan Nelson: It is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And technically you're only pumping out the Federal
Water.
>> Dan Nelson: Technically, yeah, yeah the clean water that you see up at
San Luis Reservoir is our water and the other water, yeah. No, it’s, it
was actually developed--the San Luis Unit was developed in the 1970s
actually constructed in the 1970s as and '60s when San Luis Reservoir was
constructed and began operating in 1970s I should say. San Luis Reservoir
has storage of about 2.1 million acre feet. It’s entirely imported water.
I say entirely it’s, it’s built on the San Luis Creek Basin. And it's got
2.1 million acre feet capacity. And to give you a sense of the San Luis
Creek average flows per year is about 35,000 acre feet. And that's about
what the evaporation is for San Luis Reservoir. And so generally it's-it's all imported water from Northern California that's imported in the
winter time and spring time. That's when we fill up San Luis Reservoir.
55 percent of that is state water contractor storage capacity and 45
percent of that is the Central Valley Project or the Federal Contractor
capacity and so it's split 55-45.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually something you just mentioned
always I found interesting you're talking about the, you
of water due to evaporation. You know something like San
is spread out all and exposed to the sun. Are these kind
even an effective way to store water?
in there is
know, the loss
Luis the water
of reservoirs
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely yeah. I mean certainly, you know, there's-absolutely. We rely on, you know, surface storage throughout the state.
And certainly I--I don't anticipate there ever being an efficient or, or
cost effective way of--of avoiding the evaporation, the incidental
evaporation that comes as a result of that but, as--as you are aware we
generally have two types of storage, one is above ground and one is, is
below ground and--and which has its own efficiencies below ground, The
aquifer is kind of, you know, not--not being as well defined and managed
but oh yeah, no, there's, you know, surface storage is very valuable to
us.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Still in some ways superior to say the ground banking
of water or->> Dan Nelson: Well it would depend on, you know, the nature of the
ground bank, you know, all--not all ground banks are created equal. And
there are some that are very well defined and very understood aquifers
that my understanding is they're managed, you know, pretty doggone
efficiently and as I say pretty well defined. But, but certainly, you
know, surface storage has their place.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is--your authority have any involvement at all with
any parts of the restoration of San Joaquin River say at the Mendota pool
area?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we, we do. The exchange contractors are members
of our organization and, and they still hold water rights on the San
Joaquin and->> Thomas Holyoke: Maybe we should step back then and explain what the
exchange contractors are.
>> Dan Nelson: Sure. Yeah that's--that, we shall do that. The--the
exchange contractors are as a result of the old Miller & Lux based lands
on the west side of the valley that initially began diverting water in
the 1870s and built a canal system through Henry-Miller's life and, you
know, let's say through the 1920s and developed maybe 300,000 acres of
land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley based on, you know,
diverting water and developing water rights off of the San Joaquin River.
The--so, so they held these water rights and and had the ability to be
able to divert water off the San Joaquin River. Well the Federal
Government came along and said, you know, we'd really like to put a dam
up in the Millerton area. And we would like to take your water there.
They’re saying this to the exchange contractor we'd like--we'd like to
take your water and use it on the east side. And in exchange for that
we're going to build some dams and reservoirs in the northern part of the
state and a big pumping plant in the Delta. And we're going--in exchange
for you to let us use your water rights on the east side of the valley
we're going to deliver you water out of the new Central Valley project.
And so they negotiated what's referred to as the exchange contracts and
that's actually what--what occurs, and what occurred. They entered into
those contracts and so the exchange contractors what is known as the
exchange contractors now. The old Miller & Lux based land and water
rights were given to the Federal Government to use to irrigate what is
now known as the Friant area or the east side of the valley. And in
exchange for that the Federal Government agrees to each and every year to
deliver water from Northern California to the exchange contractors
through the Jones Pumping Plant Delta-Mendota Canal. And that is to the
exchange.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK and then moving back to any responsibilities the
authority has on the river restoration around Mendota pool.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. So you-- we have that connection between the west
side and the east side and that connection’s primarily through the
exchange contract. Generally how we've been viewing the--we have been
supportive of the restoration of the San Joaquin River and the
implementation of the settlement agreement. So let me establish that
right from the beginning. We--we are in full support of the restoration
program as envisioned by the settlement. We are-- we have viewed this or
viewed that project mostly from the perspective of trying to make sure
that it didn't negatively impact us on the west side of the valley. And-and so most of our review of the environmental documents and--and just
following the progress and the process of--of meeting the imple--or the
restoration program have been from the context of making sure that there
were no third--what we refer to as third party impacts. And so we've
been--we've been--we’ve been supportive but not wanting to be impacted
as--as a part of it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you haven't been involved with like, you know,
changes to Mendota dam and some of the->> Dan Nelson: You know, we, it certainly does that we operate the--the
water deliveries out of the Mendota Dam or out of the Mendota pool. And
so certainly it--it has taken a--it includes now other elements of that
operation. We have now water flowing--flowing, you know, down the San
Joaquin River. And so it does take really close coordination between us
and Friant and the Bureau of Reclamation to make all of that happen. And- and so to--to the operations yes, we have been a, a part of that
because it's--it’s now integrated with our operations out of the Mendota
pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, some of the issues we’ve talked about with some
other people involved problem on the western side of the valley dealing
with drainage. Does-- do your authority have anything to do with the
drainage or even including operation of some of the drainage canal--the
drainage system?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we do. We--we took over the operations and
maintenance because, you know, just because you take water out of a
facility of which, you know, the drainage was closed back during the
Kesterson [phonetic] era. And--and so we--we took over the operations and
maintenance of the San Luis drain I think sometime in the, you know, mid
90s, maybe late 90s. And since we were taking, you know, since we were
doing all the O&M on all of the water delivery systems the bureau really
didn't have a lot of maintenance folks out in the area and so we took
over operations and maintenance of the drain as well. So we actually do-we we try to maintain the drained, you know, and--and to keep it in
condition whereas, you know, it can be used of some form of conveyance in
the future.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What--what is the drain?
>> Dan Nelson: The drain is a phenomena out of the Central Valley
Project. It was understood that when you--when you apply water to lands—
to to the lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley that you were
going to have a-- you were going to develop high water table. We--it was
understood that we had a clay layer, you know, an impervious clay layer a
hundred feet down to three hundred feet down. And once you started
applying water, you know, on the west side of the valley that generally
you’re going to have this—the the water was going to build up. And--and
you were also because of drainage and also you would have a salt
accumulation unless you did something about that. That was recognized
actually Miller & Lux folks had to deal with both water table issues and
salinity issues once they began even diverting water out of the San
Joaquin River. They had to deal with those issues as far back as the
1880s, 1890s, you know, they had a high water that developed in their
area as well. So this is--this was something that was well known and
anticipated when the Central Valley Project, you know, was being
conceptualized. The expected remedy for that would be--was to be a drain
that would initiate in the Firebaugh-Mendota area and actually even south
of that, south of Mendota area and would head all the way up to the Delta
and essentially would release water if I recall right in the Pittsburgh
area. And--and so this-- the that would be a mechanism for the valley to
be able to maintain its water table. But also even more important to
maintain its salt balance because no matter how pure water is, it's
always got some form to salt to it or some--some level of salts in it
and-- and without an outlet ultimately, you know, it accumulates. And so
it was recognized early on and it was anticipated that the remedy for
that would be this drain. That--the drain was constructed in the late 70s
and early 80s and-- and essentially my, my recollection of this is that
it was it authorized and they initiated construction but Congressman
George Miller of the Bay Area had essentially held up some of the
appropriations if I recall to where they--they weren't going to be able
to finish the drain and so essentially they were faced with a half built
facility. And they decided what they would do is while they were getting
permits to extend it the rest of the way and, and--and getting
appropriations for the rest of the way they would essentially use this
facility and develop some marsh lands. And as we had talked about earlier
there was a shortage of supply at that time for--for wildlife habitat.
And so they actually thought that they'd be able to use this for wildlife
production and--and develop wildlife marshes around the drain and where
it ended. And that is the legacy of Kesterson is the drainage water
contained a lot more than just salts and it certainly wasn't, you know,
useful in fact it was very destructive for wildlife habitat in its purest
form and--and so that was how we ended up with the problems at Kesterson
is we’d have tried to develop a wildlife area with this water and it
wasn't, you know, adequate water to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: That was in the early 1980s that that happened?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, it was--it was I recall it actually well because the
water district I was working for at the time the Broadview Water District
had it really extensive drainage problem. And--and we were dealing with
it through various mechanisms but working with Grassland Water District
at the time. But ultimately we anticipated that we would be a, you know,
that we would once the drain was completed and the permits were achieved
to extend the drain and the funding that we would hook up to it. And so
we were following it pretty closely. And I believe it was about 1981 when
the Bureau of Reclamation Fish and Wildlife Service decided well let's-let's, you know, while we're working on these permits to extend the drain
let's—they--they had envisioned as part of the drain to have marsh land
holding ponds and marsh land habitat to manage the flows. So when the
flows were higher and they couldn't release the all of the water out into
the Delta they would be able to put them into these ponds. And they had
several of these along the way designed. And so they were part of the
design of the, you know, the extension of the drain. When they were
delayed in extending the drain both permits and financially they decided
well let's take these holding basins and let's see if we can develop some
marsh habitats and then vap--and evaporate the water and--and initiate ,
you know, use of the drain. So that was--that was a, that was a fatal
decision that, you know, essentially they tried to evaporate--use these
marsh habitats as evaporation ponds instead of flow through. And as
evaporation ponds all of the elements that were in the water and selenium
proved out--proved to be the most lethal but just accumulated because
your evaporating the water out and you've got these, you know, the
selenium’s just accumulating and the salts and, and borons and everything
else that's in in--in the water. And that--that was essentially the—the,
the problem, you know, that, that--that just exploded with Kesterson.
And-- and no, it was--it was--it was really an an interesting and a
really tense time. It for both agriculture and the wildlife area. Prior
to that time, you know, agriculture had actually developed a pretty good
relationships and/or what we have thought were good relationships and a
working mechanism for dealing with our drainage through the refuges with
Grasslands and-- and and the Grasslands prior to that were really relying
a lot on agricultural drainage, you know, to keep things going 'cause it
didn't have enough water. The Kesterson example was an extreme example
because number one it was pure subsurface drainage whereas most of the
area--other areas that was using the drainage water for wildlife habitat
like the Grassland Water District was using diluted drainage water. It
was using a combination of surface excess flows with--with the subsurface
flows and it was also a flow through system. So it's flowing through the
marshes, whereas the Kesterson example was they--they took just pure
drainage water without any kind of surface dilution at all and then
evaporated it. And so it really magnified whatever problem that we didn't
recognize that was occurring using this drainage water prior to that was
magnified and brought to the surface at that point and so it changed
everything. It, you know, it certainly, you know, took away any of our
expectations that we were going to be releasing this water, you know, out
to the Delta. And it acertainly made us rethink how on a long term basis
we were going to deal with our salt build up and on a long term basis how
we were going to deal with drainage in the valley. It changed everything
fundamentally.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are you doing?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, actually, you know, it--it, it, it's really turned
out into a--a, a magnificent success story because, you know, at, at that
time, you know, things looked bleak. I mean we didn't--you can't build-you can't deal, you know, with a--an agricultural area that's just
inundated with salt. I mean you have to manage that somehow. And what
we've done is and--and again it was at a time we--we, up till that time
frame we had once again relied entirely on the Bureau of Reclamation to
provide drainage for us. And they were going to build this drain. It was
even part of our contracts with them that they would do this. And so we
a--up till that point we were relying entirely well that's, you know, the
bureau will fix that. And right at that point it’s when our water users
realized, you know, the bureau is not gonna be able to fix this, you
know. We, we, we probably shouldn't, you know, rely on the bureau to, to
pull this off. And so our water users, you know, to their credit all
stepped up. They became--they became, they embraced the problem and they,
they became accountable for the problem. And they developed a--a really
sophisticated monitoring system both quality and quantity to try to get a
grip on, you know, what was going on, where the hotspots and--and how to
manage this you need good data to figure out how to manage something. And
so they developed a good database on and did that themselves and then
they--they figured out ways of doing it and it, that have evolved over
the last 30 years and how to manage that with minimal releases outside
the area and working to ultimately cutting off any releases of any
drainage water, whatsoever in the next several years. And so, they-they've been able to, to, to implement things in a way that has met water
quality standards in the river, has met the water quality standards in
their area. And--but yet have isolated the salts from the ag land that
they're trying to protect.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there still some interesting developing in drain
system? Mean, I understand that Judge Wanger has ordered--well when he
was a Judge ordered the Bureau of Reclamation to get the project finished
even though the bureau apparently has no money to do so->> Dan Nelson: Or expertise strength.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. No--well, there's actually two drainage worlds
occurring. One is in the legal is in the courts and essentially that's
who's responsible for this. The courts have established the bureau--you
have a responsibility to do this. And essentially the courts have said
"Bureau go out and do this." And the Bureau has sort of, I-- frankly the
bureau, you know, and very candidly the bureau doesn't know how to do
this. They, they don't know how to meet the court order and to be able to
provide the drainage that it contracted out to the water users. But--so
you have--so—and, and I'm talking in very general terms here, but you
have this court order that is telling the bureau to do this. The bureau
doesn't know how to do it. The bureau ultimately probably wouldn't have
funding to do it. And—but, but sort of--they're, they’re going through
sort of the checklist of what they need to be but, the water users aren't
counting on that to solve their problem. You know, there maybe, you know,
some damages or something like that that ultimately will come out of it.
But, but as far as, you know, looking at--OK, how are we going to sustain
ourselves with this drainage issue that we have? How are we going to, you
know, have agricultural--agriculture be sustainable. They're not relying
on, on the bureau to do that. So, separate from those legal activities
you have the real world of what's going on out in the field over here and
that's essentially the water and drainage district stepping up and
providing services and managing this drainage water in a real time basis
and they've gotten good at it. They've gotten really good it. And you
know and, and as a result, you know, they, they, they, they are meeting
the regulatory issues but they're also thriving, you know, production
wise in agriculturally as well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, well let's go up to the northern end of DeltaMendota canal up to the, up to the Delta.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
Thomas Holyoke: I don't know maybe if this is the best point to start it
at but, start talking about maybe the changes in water delivery that
began with the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act if that's the
right place maybe to begin with.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know maybe, maybe the broader issue is, you
know, things have changed fundamentally in how we operate the Central
Valley project. They've changed, you know, what crops we grow. They
changed how we grow them. We, we’ve changed fundamentally how we manage
and irrigate them. And in, in retrospect those changes began to occur in
the late 80’s and early 90’s. And have, have, having lived through the-or the pre, you know, change conditions and now through the post change
conditions. Generally what occurred in the late 80’s and early 90’s is a
couple of things just as, as a perfect storm came together regulatorily.
Number one, we had two listed species that, that occurred. We had the
listing of the Delta smelt and the listing of the winter-run salmon. And
so, we had two--we had the Endangered Species Act that was being
implemented in ways that affected on a real-time basis how we operated
the system. And in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we didn't fully
appreciate the implications of that or really understood what that meant.
But nonetheless, that's when, you know, it occurred, the listings were
about in 1991. In 1992, we had the Central Valley Project Improvement Act
that was passed. And it fundamentally changed the Central Valley Project
changed the role of the Bureau of Reclamation formally at that point. It
changed how it is that we could operate, you know, the Central Valley
Project. And there were, there three provisions of that, that reallocated
water from the agricultural base to other uses. One was the Trinity River
restoration component of the CVP. The second was, we've talked about
wildlife refuges and their reliance upon drainage water for their water
supply. Well, the CVPIA provided them a fresh water supply from the
Central Valley Project that water had historically been delivered to
agriculture. And then, and, and, but now, it carved out a block of water
for those refuges. And so, that was the second area. And then third area,
it generally dedicated 800,000 acre feet of CVP yield for environmental
purposes, and again, that water had historically been used for
agriculture, so. So in 92, you had the passage of that. And then in 94, a
little bit later the State Water Resources Control board under the
umbrella of the Federal Clean Water Act started promulgating-- or looking
at coming up with new standards for the bay Delta. And so, those were the
three Federal Statutes that came to play pretty much within a five year
period of span the Endangered Species Act, the Central Valley Project
Improvement Act and the Clean Water Act. And, and also in the late 80s
and early 90s we were having a drought there just wasn't--and in fact it
was a pretty severe drought, it ended up lasting about five years. So,
you know, if you, if you think through that we've got this drought. And,
and by the way prior to 1989, 1990 when we started deliveries out of the
Federal Project in 1952 we had only had one year that we weren't able to
deliver a 100 percent supply-- contract supply to our water users and
that was the drought of 1977. So, the point of that is the CVP was a
very, very stable project. And, and, and the water supplies were very
certain out of the CVP. You knew you were, you know, likely gonna get a
100 percent each and every year and you knew that early. You knew, you
know, pretty early on the storage was sufficient and, and you can move
the water around, so, so, it was in that backdrop that all of this
started to occur. We, we started having the severe drought and we started
getting shortages. At the same time we were implementing or the Fish and
Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries was implementing Endangered
Species actions. And then we had the CVPIA passed. And--so, we were
getting these shortages but it wasn't clear to us, you know, how much of
this was the drought? How much of it was the new regulatory regime until
1993 and, and it rained really hard that winter--and we had, you know,
everything kind of recovered. And the water users still ended up with a
50 percent supply. And that was a huge, huge eye opener for the water
users. It was fundamental. I mean, you know, with all of this rain and
for them to get a 50 percent supply was a huge reality check. And, and it
was when they recognized for the first time. They had a sense that, you
know, ESA was gonna, you know, impact their lives and, and, and CVPIA
certainly but they didn't have a sense to the extent of that. And that
all came to a head there in 93 and, and that's when they realized they
needed to step up. And we started making investments, our authority
started making investments in, in the technical aspects of the fishery
declined, biologist, hydrologist and we started gearing up ourselves to
be able to participate in those discussions about, you know, what, what,
what was going on in the Delta and how we're gonna operate this CVP in a
way that meets the new needs for the, the, the fish and water quality as
well as the supply. And so, it was, it was in, you know, around mid 90s
when all of that just came to a head.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, that point in time like, like 1993 I guess the
year of the reality check, were there actually cut backs in pumping
because of the need to protect the fish [inaudible] that year?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, there was, there was. And, again, you know, it was
combination of cut, you know, low flows because of the drought as well as
you know, sensitivities to the fish and it was, it was hard for us to
separate it. Plus frankly at that time, we didn't have a lot of expertise
to figure out how they were operating the system. We, we hadn't had to
pay attention to that prior to that. That was mostly the bureau doing
that for us. And so we just didn't have a good sense of what was driving
the shortages at that time frankly. But it was you know, we had some
sense, it was ESA driven but we didn't know to the extent.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What-- changes--what--did any of your--you, your
authority any of your districts start to advocate for changes in the, in
the law like in [inaudible].
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely, well I mean--certainly we were very much
engaged actually in the legislative process for the passing of Central
Valley Project Improvement Act was extensive. And it took--my
recollection as it, it seemed going for a hundred years but it was
probably you know, over the course of the year, year and a half. Most of
our representation at that time in dealing with the legislation was
through the Central Valley Project Water Association. So it was all
Central Valley project water users, us, Friant, The Tehama-Colusa in
Northern California were all different segments of the Central Valley
project. But we were all combined under one organization called the
Central Valley Project Water Association and they represented us, Jason
Peltier was the executive director at the time and they represented us in
the CVPIA negotiations and, and the development of that legislation.
Subsequently, once the bill passed of course the administrations handed
this new law, they have to go implement it. And that has been very, very
contentious. And you know, to this day there are some loose ends but
generally especially during the 90s we were involved in many efforts to,
you know, to work in forums that would establish the policies for
implementation on the various components of it. And then ultimately, you
know, litigation in areas where we don't think that, you know, where we
didn't think that they, their policies were consistent with the law. And,
and so, and you know, there was an effort I believe--I think it was '96
or '97 to even amend it. And so there have been legislative efforts to
amend CVPIA, there's on-going administrative efforts to influence how the
law is implemented, and certainly legal issues and judicial issues
involved as well that you know, we've been involved in for 20 years,
regarding the implementation CVPIA.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In the 1990s we have something called the Bay Delta
accord which then leads to this, I guess attempted coordination called
CALFED, are you involved with that?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. I was, I was. And generally the background of the Bay
Delta Accord again is we were in the tail end of this drought and we now
had two federal statutes being implemented--regulatory statutes, CVPIA
and ESA that were being implemented. And then you had--then you had the
State Water Resources Control Board you know, wanting to develop a
standard. So when you, when you think through that morass essentially
under the Endangered Species Act you have the National Marines Fishery
Service is responsible for winter-run salmon. You have Fish and Wildlife
Service responsible for bringing back the Delta smelt for--so that's the
endangered species component of it. And then on the CVPIA had Fish and
Wildlife Service you know, that was responsible for implementing a lot of
different things. You had NIMS responsible for implementing in the Bureau
of Reclamation and you also had DWR that was involved, you know, on the
state side, DWR and Department of Fish & Game. And you literally had all
these different agencies trying to implement their little niche whether
it be for the winter-run salmon or for, for the Delta smelt or for, you
know, the 800,000 acre feet, they were all you know, kind of trying to
make sense out of all that. And it wasn't, it wasn't working let alone
certainly wasn't an efficient way of doing it. Senator Feinstein stepped
up at the time and saw this and then you have the state board on top of
all of that. You had the state board about ready to say OK, well, we
wanna come in and put new standards amongst all of that. And so that's
when Senator Feinstein stepped in and essentially a very long story,
short, got all of those folks together to see, is there a way that we can
come up with a way of operating the system in a more comprehensive way
that takes care of the needs of the individual species and takes care of
the water quality issues and sort of come up with one set of criteria for
operating for fish, water quality in the water supply. And that, that
resulted in our area meeting with Metropolitan Water District. And Jerry
Butcher the manager of Westlands at the time, you know, and myself met
with, with some metropolitan representative, the general manager and also
Tim Quinn who was with MED at the time and just, you know, had a
discussion about whether or not we thought we could come up with a plan,
you know, to do-- whether we wanted to make the effort of coming up with
this plan. And we decided at that meeting that we did and so we started
working with them. Ultimately we went down to Kern County Water Agency
and sort of made this proposal to them. You know, would you join us in
trying to work on this more comprehensive approach. And Tom Clark of Kern
County you know, ultimately, that Kern joined us. And so the water users
south of the Delta including Metropolitan, Kern County and the San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority began working on a proposal of what that
comprehensive plan may, may look like. And we worked through, you know,
Senator Feinstein, assisted in keeping everyone together and on the same
course. And then, there was a federal employee much more than that, an
appointed official on the Department of Interior. She was an assistant
secretary. Her name was Betsy Rieke and she was instrumental in
corralling all of the different federal agencies and leading and being
their rep whether it'd be NIMS, Fish and Wildlife, 'cause they're all
under different, different agencies. And so, she was responsible
corralling all of those. And so, we ultimately ended up with a package
that worked. On December 15th of '94, we signed the Bay Delta Accord and,
and it was intended to be a way that we collectively agreed that we would
implement all of these different regulatory statutes. We would, we would
use this for three or four years on an interim basis while we developed a
more long term strategy for the Delta. And that essentially was CALFED
and how--and so, we implemented the Bay Delta Accord in '94, December of
'94 and then initiated discussions on CALFED in '95.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And did it all work out?
>> Dan Nelson: No, no, no. Unfortunately it didn't. And you know, as--I
was a, you know, I was one of the negotiators of the Bay Delta Accord. I
had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of ownership in that in the sense
that I was totally committed to it. And, and felt very strongly. It was a
good plan. And by the way it wasn't, you know, uniformly embraced. You
know, I had a lot of criticism that we gave up too much for the accord
and then there was a lot of folks that, you know, recognized that we
stabilize things really well through the accord and actually postured
ourselves water supply wise in a good stable place. But, unfortunately
about two years later and you're gonna have to, you know, I'm a little
cynical about this because, because I was so vested in the accord. The
Bureau of Reclamation, you know, through the implementation of a certain
component of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, CVPIA, the
Bureau of Reclamation was still looking at implementing CVPIA which the
component that is that issue here is referred to as the B2 provision of
CVPIA which is Section 3406B2 and that dedicates 800,000 acre feet to the
environment. And so, the issue surfaced is--does or is the implementation
of B2 within the parameters of the accord. And you know, it was obvious
to us that it had been--that it was and that, you know, all of the
declarations about the accord and the words--unfortunately the words in
the accord itself were as clear as, you know, in retrospect it could have
been, but nonetheless, it was very clear that all of the water that we
were going to dedicate for environmental purposes under the CVPIA and,
and under the Endangered Species Act were embedded and within the
agreement and the operation to the agreement. And ultimately,
unfortunately the Bureau of Reclamation came to the conclusion "No,
there's a portion of the 800,000 acre feet that's up and above what you
agreed upon in the accord." So essentially we're gonna implement things
that even going to displace more water than the accord did. We ended up
in court, you know, about that. And unfortunately all of the accord was,
you know, characterized as the end of all water wars in California and,
and it lasted a couple of years before we had our first law suit about it
unfortunately. It was really disappointing. I, you know, to this day I, I
think it was very regrettable that that's where the Bureau ended up. I,
you know, there was a lot of things that came out of that that were just
totally unnecessary. You know and it was really distracting and really I
think put us on a course that we a regulatory based course that we
haven't been able to escape yet.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We seem to be in an area we're trying again, you know,
Governor Schwarzenegger when he tried to at least--I guess initiated the
current process we seem to be in now, he has big blue ribbon commission
on what to do about the Delta. Try to create some kind of guarantee of
water supply for agriculture while at the same doing all this
environmental stuff sort of trying to do, take care of the two main
problems simultaneously. Do you--would you--were you overly involved with
the Governor's commission or some of the things that have happened since
that have led to the plan we have seem to have today?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Yes, I was. And generally we went through the CALFED
process which was supposed--it was a very formalized processed, you know,
and came out with, you know, a record of decision that's really never
been implemented to any extent. But, as a result of some of the failures
of the CALFED process and I will generalize those failures as, as
probably being the result of trying to be all things to everybody, lost
its focus, and therefore couldn't ever really be implemented effectively.
As a result of that--on the heels of that, we began--and it was actually
initiated by Steve Thompson who was the--I don't believe they call them
Regional Directors but in effect the Regional Director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service. He was in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service in
California/Oregon area. And so, Steve Thompson, you know, called this
meeting with some water users. And since he said, you know, "This isn't
working well, you know, for water users. This isn't working well for the
fisheries. You know, we need to think of a new way of doing this. And,
you know, why don't, you know, he was--had some experience with, with
what's referred to under the Endangered Species Act habitat conservation
plans and you know very generally as opposed to dealing with endangered
species in an area, a species by species, you know, whether it be winterrun, just focusing on winter-run, Delta smelt or whatever. Instead of,
you know, having implementing the Endangered Species Act under a specie
by specie, the habitat conservation plan provides opportunities to deal
with it in a more comprehensive way. And where you're developing a
habitat is sort of the concept that work for all different species. And
it's a much more comprehensive approach to resolving endangered species
issues. And so, we saw the merit to it and we started working on that. We
recognized pretty early on after--and this is a whole different story
about, you know, how the implementation of ESA has evolved over the last
20 years. But as a result of banging our head against the wall of making
the current through Delta plumbing system of where the water flows
through the Delta from the Northern--generally the Sacramento River
through the Delta to our pumping plants to the south that's referred to
as the through Delta plumbing system. As opposed to continuing trying to
make that work we were going to look at how do we separate the plumbing
system from--and to not try to get it through the Delta but around the
Delta. And you know, we dusted off the old peripheral canal of which, you
know, by the way was, was advocated by a lot of Fish and Wildlife and a
lot of Fish & Game people as being, you know, what is, what is needed is
to separate the water plumbing system from the fishery, you know,
habitat.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually had your authority and your water districts
been supportive of the peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know, during CALFED we made a conscious decision
to not pursue a peripheral canal or we'll call it an isolated facility
where you isolate the water delivery system from, you know, we'll call it
the central Delta habitat system. We made a conscious decision in CALFED,
begrudgingly conscious decision from the water user's perspective that at
that time it was determined, Lester Snow was ahead of the CALFED program
at that time... And he was really reluctant to get CALFED in the motive
where it was promoting an isolated facility. He just thought politically
and financially. Just everything it would be too distracting, you know,
to the CAL--you know, that would--It just--and it was just too
overwhelming. And so we made a conscious decision to try to figure out a
plan, a CALFED comprehensive plan without doing it through an isolated
facility. At the tail end of all that when we realized all of that didn't
work and we started looking at a habitat conservation plan is when we
said, you know, if, if we're going to make this work, we've been
struggling now for 20 years to figure out how to make this through Delta
system work, if we're gonna make this work we're going to need an
isolated facility. Or--we're gonna at least have to explore that. And so
that was essentially the initiation of the discussion that we're still in
today and that is how to best, you know, how to best manage the Delta. We
think it's probably through an isolative facility. And we have now
settled on a pretty distinct plan for how--what we think the isolated
facility looks like and, we’re, we're pursuing that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And by here at September 2013 by isolated facility
you're referring to, this proposal to actually dig tunnels underneath the
Delta?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, two huge tunnels, two 30-foot tunnels, about, about
a 100-feet deep below the Delta from Clarksburg and, you know, down to
the pumps itself.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why this rather than a peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, for--actually for a, for a lot of different
reasons but the primary one is just the footprint of a surf--of a canal.
And the--a surface canal you know, would go right through the middle of
the Delta and, you know, it could, it’d be really, you know, I can see
where, you know, it would be pretty disruptive of all the different
transportation routes of everything in the Delta to have a huge canal go
through the middle of it. And so the primary reason for it is just the
huge footprint that a canal would take.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And this--and having a tunnel system benefits water
users South of the Delta how?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it separates the water delivery system from the
migration path of the salmon, it sepa--to a large extent. I mean
obviously from the Sacramento River, north from Clarksburg of course you
know, that's still a water delivery system and where salmon run as well.
But generally, you know, the Delta itself is just a maze of all of these
channels. And so there are fish living in that channel and the Delta
smelt’s a good example of that. So, so there are fish living in this
channel but there are also--there are also migrating fish that migrate
through that. And so the combination of having the fish trying to use
this as a combination of habitat and migrating corridors as well as it
being a delivery system? We, you know, we hadn't been able to figure out
how to best do that. And to meet the needs of the fish, to meet the needs
of supply and so, you know, separating the two gives us a better
opportunity to do that. To meet both the fishery needs better and to be
able to make, you know, stable supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And if you found working with the people representing
the fishing industry? People representing environmental interest to be-it [inaudible] be possible to get them on board with these plans?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it, it--if, if--it really is a mixed bag.
I mean we have certain environmental organizations that have embraced it.
And we've had other environmental organizations that have been fairly
adamant in their, in their opposition to it. We've--probably the center
of opposition is the Delta itself. And the folks in the Delta that are
you know concerned about removing you know, so much fresh water that
currently flows through there now on their way to our pumps, it still
flows through the Delta and so they're obviously concerned about water
quality issues. And rightfully so those issues all need to be addressed
adequately. And then you have a smattering of Northern California thinks
that this is going to be a way for, you know, somehow Southern California
to take more water from them. And so there’s certainly those concerns
and—but, but you also have Northern Californians that look at this as an
opportunity for them. And you have certainly environmental folks that
looked at this as being the best way of, of dealing with the fishery and
water quality issues. And so certainly you have, you know, folks that are
looking at this, in, from a lot of different perspectives.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, we may have to bring you back in a few years to
do an epilogue just to see how it all actually went.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Well things, you know, we're hoping are going to
come to a head here fairly soon. We--right now, the cost for the
environmental work are estimated and budgeted at around 260,000 dollars.
And we’re-- we've split that half with the state contractors of 130
million and a half with our organization in the federal contractor side
and the bureau had a 130 million. And so, we're looking at--the final
record of decision, you know, is, is expected to be out next-- sometime
next year 2014. And, and it will be, you know, at a hefty price tag just
to get to that stage.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. Well, thank you very much.
>> Dan Nelson: Uh-hmm.
[ Silence ]
Delta-Mendota Water Authority. Let's just start with a little bit of
personal history of who are you?
>> Dan Nelson: I was actually--I'm a fifth generation Californian and
actually fifth generation west side San Joaquin Valley. I--My great
grandfather came to this area and he--late--late 1880s and started dry
farming up south of Dos Palos, and what's referred to as the Oro Loma
area. And my grandmother was born out in that area and-- and so we've
been in--we’ve been in--on--in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley or
had a valley present since, since that time. I was actually born in Los
Banos in 1952 and--and grew up there in Los Banos and took off to go to
college, and never to come up to the valley, and it ended up after
college, about 17 years later, I ended up back in the Firebaugh area and
have been working on water issues since about 1975 and had been working
on west side water issues since about that time. So I have a fairly
extensive history on the west side of the valley and a lot of practical
experience on water districts throughout the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of work were you doing when you came back
here from college?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, actually when I first came back from college I-I went up to the Dixon area and-- and I was working in a custom
application company and I did that for a couple of years but in--it was
about 1975 I believe it was, '76 when I went to work for the San Luis
canal. I had worked with San Luis Canal Company as--when I--when I was
growing up in the Los Banos, When I was in high school I--was employed
there as a summer job and worked there in summer and Christmas vacations
and then when I was in college I also worked at San Luis Canal Company as
a summer job. In 1977 there was a drought and San Luis Canal Company up
to that point in time hadn't been--hadn't been measuring any of their
water. They didn't have a need to measure it and in '77, they wanted to
initiate some measurements because of the drought and some of the
shortages and so they called up and wondered if I'd be opened to come
back and work with them a couple of years and so I--I went to work with
San Luis Canal Company. I believe it's in '77.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A--canal company like--like this one, it's a private
company that--builds canals for farmers or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. It--now has a public entity but it is what's
referred to as a mutual water company and they actually have
stockholders, and they have the water rights that were initially
developed by Miller & Lux back in the 1870s and their water rights date
back to that time from some of the initial diversions off of the San
Joaquin River and--and these water rights were later exchanged through
this development of the central valley project for central valley project
water, but nonetheless, they're still rooted in the old appropriation
water rights that Miller & Lux developed in the 1870s, 1880s, somewhere
up through there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you--It's OK if you don't know this, how water
rights came to this company from the old Miller & Lux holdings?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Actually my--my understanding of it is that
those water rights--are turned--are--are a part of the land and so when
you buy a parcel in that area you essentially, you--you buy, you know,
you buy a water right as a part of the land so it's my impression that
those-- that those water rights are--are established in a part of the
land and that's why you have the stockholders.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, the--these old water rights, these are--this is
for land adjacent to the river, these are what they call riparian rights
or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, generally speaking Henry Miller--in 1871 was the
first diversion that he made and they dug a canal off of the--off of the-the San Joaquin river from what was referred to as the old China slough
going way back then but it was--it comes out of what we refer to now as
the Mendota Pool off of the San Joaquin river and they started digging
that canal in the 18--about 1870 in the first deliveries they made were
an 1871. And then gradually they built additional canals. The water
rights for San Luis Canal Company actually were established off of Temple
Slough and that came, you know, I believe about 20 years later in the 18-early 1890s. But generally, they, they--established these canals. The
valley's very flat in that area and so with very, very, very little
physical work you can actually, you know, divert the river and follow
contours for a long period of time. So generally what Miller & Lux did is
strategically placed some of these diversions across San Joaquin River
and they used normally a slough that in high water--in in high water
periods the water would get off of the main branch of the river and go
into these sloughs and so it was very easy for Miller & Lux to use these
sloughs as the initial conveyance systems and with very little diversions
or blockage in the San Joaquin River they could divert water in these
sloughs that would meander, you know, parallel with the river. And--so
most of the initial diversions that Miller & Lux sloughs were just
natural sloughs and then they extended the canal and built, you know,
formalized them and honed them and made canals and-- and delivery system
out of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually--I--whenever I was thought, you know, Miller
& Lux I would sort of think of the fights that they had with Haggin and
Carr down on the Kern Rive but-- did Miller & Lux-- did actually
extensive development on the San Joaquin River as well as the Kern?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, they, they did. Miller & Lux, Henry Miller actually
didn't initiate the--the--the initial diversion off the San Joaquin
River. It was actually a group of very high powered investors from San
Francisco that came out and--and in part they were looking at this as a
transportation system, you know, I guess a long the lines of a Panama
canal typed thing of where--prior to that they were using the San Joaquin
River as a mechanism for--and steam ships, you know to come up and down
the San Joaquin River to bring in and out supplies from the west side of
the Valley and up as high as--as you know, the Tule River, I mean Tulare
Lake, excuse me. And--so, but that was very unpredictable because the
flows on the San Joaquin River could either be--are very volatile and
they could be either too high or too low to be able to rely on that form
of transportation and--and so they thought that these canals, you know,
would provide a mechanism for transportation. I think that they only used
it maybe four or five years and they began in 1871 but they only used it
for four to five years for transportation. It became evident that it was
much more useful for, you know, irrigation but-- but I diverted it. The
initial-- the initial investors were some high powered investors and but
they had to get easement from Miller & Lux 'cause Miller & Lux had most
of the land and so that's how Henry Miller became a partner. He, he
really wasn't all that enthusiastic about the project initially but it
didn't take him long once the delivery started to be made of the value
and, and certainly he saw immediately the value to, you know--being able
to irrigate pasture, and he immediately started buying up the stock of-of the other shareholders of the company and within four or five years he
became the-- the major shareholder of the company over 51 percent
gradually he bought it all and ended up operating and maintaining it. So
he kind of--he kind of was a reluctant participant but immediately saw
the value and once he saw the value he took it over.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, now back to a bit of your history then.
[ Laughter ]
Anything-- actually anything, any particular experiences you would wish
to relate sort of between working for the canal company before you came
to the San Luis authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it's been it's actually I've been--I've
been very, very fortunate in my career. I--I started with San Luis Canal
Company, you know, when I was working in high school just on the
maintenance crew and then when I-- when I went back to them after school
in 1977, I worked for them in the operations division and you know,
initiated some, some measuring for, for the company and even did some
ditch tending [phonetic] and enjoyed that quite a bit and from there I
went to Broadview Water District and it was a small district, southsouthwest of Firebaugh and--and a reclamation law district much different
than, you know, the water rights are CVP but they're much different than
the exchange contractor based water rights. And so I worked with
Broadview for seven or eight years as the general manager but it was a
very small district and so I had to do everything. You know, I oversaw
the maintenance crew, I dealt with insurance, I actually took care for a
period of time the accounting books and so, you know, I--I--it was kind
of, you did a little--you were the office staff. I think we had one other
person and so. But that proved to be a really good education because I
had to know a little bit about everything even if it was a small scale.
And from there I went to San Luis Water District and I was the manager of
San Luis Water District for about five years and it was a bigger district
based out of Los Banos. And--and that in retrospect, it was great
background for me because I, I threw the experience with the canal. I
started from the bottom and just kind of gradually worked--worked my way
up and it gave me broad experience from everything, you know, out in the
field, construction, maintenance, operations to, you know, the general
administration and oversight of, of a district and so. When we started
looking at forming the San Luis & Delta-Mendota water authority in the
late eighties and early nineties, you know, it was something--it was just
kind of a natural evolution for me, I think. And--so I, I had quite a bit
of experience in all the different facets of water districts by then.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just because I don't want to presume that people
watching this know certain things, what actually is water district?
>> Dan Nelson: You know water district is actually a, a really, really
good institutional tool for--for, you know, how it is that we can
distribute and--distribute water in different geographical areas and-and administrate that and-- but, but generally what a water district does
is most all water districts have some source of water supply and a water
district is a geographical area that has a source of supply. And
generally what a water district does is it figures out how to allocate
that water both physically and policy wise. It allocates the water, it
distributes the water but it also allocates and distributes the cost that
it takes that water district to distribute the water and so. Generally,
you know, it's an institution that provides for equitable allocation of
water within a geographical area and equitable allocation of cost within
that same geographical area. And--it's, it's really a good tool for and
its worked-- its served California well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We talking mostly about water for agriculture or this
include municipal->> Dan Nelson: No, all, all different types of water use. In fact, it
just in our organization as an example we have water districts, we have
irrigation districts and they're all, you know, they all serve the same
basic services, the allocation of water and--and--and cost but they do it
with--some of them have subtle differences in governance like an
irrigation district. As an example, you have to live within the
boundaries of that district to be a part of the governance of it whereas
a water district, you can be on the board if you're a land owner. It
doesn't matter if you live within that geographical area, if you own land
within that geographical area. So there are-- there are water districts,
there are irrigation districts, there are M&I district and water
districts can serve either urban areas or can serve agriculture. And in
fact one of our members is the Grassland Water District which serves duck
clubs and essentially waterfowl habitat and so. So there are, you know,
water districts can provide services to, you know, any water use that you
can imagine.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are these districts tend to acquire their water.
I mean they taking the water, holding the water rights and pulling the
water straight out of rivers, are they getting it from elsewhere?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it--yes to all of that. The districts that-that our organization deals with have contracts with the Federal Central
Valley Project and so their source of water is their contract with the
Federal Central Valley Project. Other water districts, Turlock, Modesto,
they all have developed their own water supplies from some of the east
side tributaries and, and so they, you know, were formed to develop some
of those tributary water supplies and allocate the cost of what--what it
takes to develop that water and, and then they have allocation policies
and so, the sources of water. And then there are some districts that, you
know, who are totally reliant upon groundwater and it's just a central
plumbing system for moving groundwater around and--and for administrating
the use of groundwater and so, the sources of water, you know, vary, you
know, tremendously throughout the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So when you were at San Luis District that was a
district that contracted with the Bureau of Reclamation for water out of
San Luis reservoir.
>> Dan Nelson: San Luis Water District, yes, is what is referred to as a
reclamation law water district and yes, it had a contract with the
federal government, the Federal Central Valley Project for all of its
water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Ok--OK, San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
>> Dan Nelson: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Before we get to why you created it, what is it?
>> Dan Nelson: The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority is a Joint
Powers Authority and that's another really good tool--for--for more than
one water district to get together and if you have a joint project that
you want to work on, a Joint Powers Authority is a mechanism where two or
more water districts can get together and form an umbrella organization
called the Joint Powers Authority. In, in our case we have 29 member
districts and these 29 member districts have formed the San Luis & DeltaMendota Water Authority. And the common bond of all of these districts is
that they all have Federal Central Valley Project contracts and they all
take their water south of the Delta through the Jones Pumping Plant in
the Delta-Mendota canal and so they, they formed together in the late
eighties and early nineties to where we--I think we signed the joint
powers agreement in mid-1991 and--and that's that's generally the
background of the--of the authority.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the authority operate or maintain the DeltaMendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: We do and in fact that was prior to 1991. We had an
informal organization that was initiated back. We call it our mother
company and we formed it back or it was formed back in I believe 1977 and
it was called the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Users Association and it
was in informal organization and it--it all of the same members applied
at that time. And--and the reason we formalized it into a quasigovernmental agency, a Joint Powers Authority was to take over the
operations and maintenance of the federal facilities and that opportunity
surfaced in the--oh late eighties and early nineties and so the federal
government before it was able to contract out for the operations and
maintenance of the federal facilities had to have a governmental agency
in order to be able to--to contract with. And so that's why we formalize
the association into a Joint Powers Authority was to takeover the
operations and maintenance of the Delta-Mendota canal, the Jones Pumping
Plant, the O'Neill Pumping Plant up at San Luis Reservoir and all of the
facilities south of the Delta. So yes that's one of the services that we
provide and it was the service that prompted us to formalize our
organization.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now just to be clear. Delta-Mendota canal, the water
for the central valley at least that part of the central valley project
is pumped out of the Delta, the Jones Pumping plant then put into DeltaMendota canal. And Delta-Mendota canal flows down to San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes, we--well, the Central Valley Project is designed to
deal with the dilemma that we have in the State of California and that's
where most of the water falls in the northern part of the state and most
of the uses in the southern part of the state. And so, generally, the CVP
components or the CVP facilities are Shasta Reservoir and-- and Folsom
reservoir on the American River. And--so we store water in those two
reservoirs--the federal government does, and then they release it
strategically down the Sacramento River and it meanders through the
Delta, our pumping plant is on the southern end of the Delta. And it's-it's the Jones Pumping Plant and-- and it pumps into the Delta-Mendota
Canal around the city of Tracy. And that flows to the south and
ultimately ends at the Mendota pool on the San Joaquin River. Prior to
getting there, it also--we have the option of taking some of that water
up into San Luis reservoir of where we--San Luis reservoir is partially a
CVP facility as well. And, so we have--we have the choice of either
taking water and storing in to San Luis. Or, taking the water out of San
Luis and supplementing our flows on the Delta-Mendota Canal. But, but the
Delta-Mendota Canal start to Tracy, runs generally south along the
western foothills on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to around
the San Luis dam area and then it goes southeast from there to the San
Joaquin River, and it flows about 88 miles I believe.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, Central Valley Project was originally built by the
US Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior Department I presumed that
earlier in its history that the Bureau operated the canal and the pumps
themselves directly. Why any particular reason they would want to give up
control?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. That's actually a very excellent question and leads
right back into, you know, why we formed the San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority. The Bureau constructed the project, going back in the
late '40s and--or that phase of the project and--and then preceded to
operate and maintain the project and did a really wonderful job of doing
all of that. They did a good job constructing it and also good job of
operating and maintaining it from the '50s through, through the '80s. And
we--we began to see a couple of changes in the late '80s. First of all,
we--we certainly were seeing-- being a lot more regulated in how we
operated the Central Valley Project, but we also saw the role of the
Bureau of Reclamation changing as well. And, I--I recall, you know, a
very specific instance that sort of, you know, highlights that. We had
the--at that time the regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation, I
believe this was probably a, you know, around 18--I mean, excuse me,
1989--I can't recall. 1889 but 1989, Dave Houston the regional director
of the Bureau of Reclamation came out to Los Banos and was giving a
presentation to the at a water users meeting. And generally Dave let
everybody know that prior to this--to that moment--or prior to that
general time, the Bureau of Reclamation had been representing the water
users to Washington. And he needed to let us know and to give us a heads
up that, you know, they were-- seeing their role more as representing
Washington to the water users. And if you think through that, that's
fairly fundamental. The water users up 'til that time had relied entirely
on the Bureau of Reclamation for delivering their water, for representing
them on contractual issues, representing them politically on water supply
issues, and legislatively, and essentially, the Bureau of Reclamation
represented the water users to end their contractors in all different
phases in both the physical delivery and likewise the political and
contractual issues. And essentially, you know, we were sensing this but
it was, you know, definitive when Houston let us know that their role had
changed and their mandates from congress and, and from that
administration had changed. And so at that time the water users realized,
you know, that they needed to step up and to represent themselves and to
gear up to be able to represent themselves on legislative issues,
political issues, legal issues, contractual issues. And at that same
time, the Bureau of Reclamation, I think it was the Bush Administration,
the first George Bush Administration, they were privati--privatization
and downsizing government was a really big thing. And so as part of that
the bureau had indicated it was open to have the water users take over
the operations and maintenance. And so the combination between those two
things, the bureau wanting to sort of back out of its role on, you know,
representing or having a different role then representing us on water
rights and stuff. And at the same time, wanting to downsize its force and
to let someone else do the operations and maintenance. Those two things
happened at the same time and that was the motivation, the initiative and
the reason why we form the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, is
to provide those two services that we used to rely upon on the bureau to
provide.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the authority does not own Delta-Mendota canal and
the pumping plants. That's still federal property.
>> Dan Nelson: That is correct.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you have all operation and maintenance
responsibilities?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, no. We have all the maintenance responsibilities
and once the water comes south of the Delta, once we--we pump it south of
the Delta, we have all of the operational responsibilities as well. We do
not operate the part of the Central Valley Project that determines when
water is released from the reservoirs or even determines when we can turn
on and off any of our pumping units at the Jones Pumping Plant. Those
operations are still done by the federal government. Once we pump it
south of the Delta, we are totally responsible for the operations of
getting it up in the San Luis Reservoir or determining whether we're
going to make releases from there, et cetera, but the operations of the
Jones Pumping Plant are-- are, are still done by, and those services are
still provided by the federal government. We do all maintenance of all of
those facilities. We do those entirely. Initially the relationship
between us and the bureau was sort of contractual relationship where they
contracted with us to provide certain services and then they paid us to
do those. And then ultimately they charged our member districts whatever
it is they paid us, they charged our member districts. I think it was-and we initiated all of that in about--in 1992, in October of '92 is when
we took over the first phase of the facilities and that was under what's
called a cooperative agreement which is essentially a contract. Four or
five years later, we changed the relationship between us and the bureau
whereas instead of them having a contract with us and, and then charging
our member agencies, we entered into a self-funding agreement where we
just self-funded amongst our agency, self-funded our operations. And, and
the reason for that is, is the Bureau of Reclamation when it was
contracting with us would still have to rely on congressional
appropriations. They--Once they got the congressional appropriations they
would contract with us and then whatever it is they paid us they would
charge our water users and so it was just a much cleaner relationship and
we had more control over our budgets and cash flows as opposed to relying
on appropriation from congress that we began to self funding our
operations as opposed to a contractual relationship and that occurred
several years later.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does so your authority then have, I mean you say you
have maintenance responsibility for the Delta-Mendota canal, does that
even mean--I mean this is a canal that's what--60, 70 years old?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I don't know what condit--well, actually what
condition is the Delta-Mendota canal in?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, I think it's in really good condition. You know,
we were nervous. Part of the reasons why we--we jumped on the opportunity
to take over the operations and maintenance of the canal from the federal
government is at that time, you know, it was, it was getting to be forty
years old and it was starting to show, you know, signs of being and, and
aging structure and we were getting worried about it being a viable, you
know, facility or facilities to be able to meet our needs and so overtime
and so-- And this was, you know, I don't want to sound too critical of
the Bureau of Reclamation but it just is an indication of the
inefficiencies of relying on congressional appropriations for O&M and-and likewise when you think about it no one has more incentive than the
water users from making sure that the facilities are in good shape to
provide them the water but also that that service is provided, you know,
economically efficiently as well because they're paying for it anyway.
And I mean even when the bureau was doing it, the bureau was charging the
water users whatever it cost the bureau to do it, you know, the bureau
was charging the water users. And so there--it just made so much sense
for the water users to takeover the facilities they they would--they're
the ones that have all the risk that there is downtime on the facilities
and they're the ones that are paying for. And so the water users jumped
in, the facilities were at that time, you know, showing signs of getting
older and needed some preventive maintenance and also, you know, a lot of
the technology had changed, you know, both electrical and--and, you know,
going into a digital era, we converted all of that, updated all of the
electrical stuff at the pumps, and we actually are pretty proud of the-the condition of the facilities right now, notwithstanding they’re, you
know, seven, 60 years old? Yeah, yeah, so they're in good shape and
they've been reliable and knock on wood, and we, you know, we just
haven't had much down time.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the current O&M funding--the way the money moves
right now, it's being paid by the people who are receiving the water. And
does that mean that the districts who are members of your authority
charge individual water users than for a portion of the O&M cost and then
the districts turn that money over to the authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. Generally how that works is--the authority develops
its budget on how much it thinks it's going to take for it to--how much
money it's going to cost to maintain the facility for a given year and
then it also determines--it speculates on how much water it's actually
going to deliver through those facilities. And based on that you come up
with--it's pretty simple calculation, a cost per acres foot. You figure
out your total cost and you figure out your acre foot. The next level of
detail is we actually do that in different regions of our delivery or
different phases of our water delivery so it's a little more complicated
but generally it all boils down to a cost per acres foot. For every acre
foot that we deliver to one of our member agencies, it goes through a
meter and so that, that agency pays us per acres foot that we deliver to
it. And and they pay us for that service to of delivering the water to
them. Once that agency gets its water, we'll just say, the San Luis Water
District as an example, once we deliver the water to San Luis Water
District it has paid us for the service at getting it to them, San Luis
then has to deliver that water to all of its, all of its farmers and that
earns San Luis Water District. And it has its own canal system and
plumbing system that it has to use and maintain. So by the time they send
their bills to their water users it has a component for our O&M, it has a
component for their O&M and any other incidental charges that San Luis
Water District has for, you know, operating the district. So that's
generally how the flow of money goes or if you--ultimately it's the water
user, the individual water user, whether you're an industrial user or
whether or you're an ag user, ultimately, you're the one that's paying
the bill for all of that infrastructure.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you have any senses to. You say an
industrial user as opposed to--opposed to an ag user. Is the majority of
your—of the users of the water with Delta-Mendota canal for farming or is
there a lot of industrial use or municipal use?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah, the majority is agriculture. Out of the--I
think we have contracts in the range right around 3.3 million acres feet,
our members have contracts for that amount of water. And probably out of
that, about 2.7 of that is probably for agriculture use, about 400,000 of
that is probably or is around the number that we use for wildlife
refugees and then maybe 200-250,000 for urban use and industrial use.
That includes one of our members is the Santa Clara Valley Water District
that includes Silicon Valley and so--when we say industrial use it's for
those, you know, types of uses that this water is used for.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I understand a lot of what happens in Silicon
actually takes a great deal of water.
>> Dan Nelson: You know they do, they do, yeah, and they're very
interested and engaged in a lot of our water issues as a result of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What towns and cities take water from Delta-Mendota->> Dan Nelson: Yeah, the city of Tracy is a CVP contractor and a member
of ours and takes water from the Delta-Mendota. Coalinga takes it from
Westlands, through Westlands. The Lemoore Naval base is--is a user
through Westlands and then we-- and then you know, incidentally the city
of Dos Palos and, and Los Banos are working on, you know, getting some
surface water from the CVP but--the major CVP urban user, south of the
Delta is the city and county of Santa Clara and-- and they use probably,
you know, 75 to 80 percent of the urban water that's delivered south at
the Delta. San Benito County also, you know, is converting more and more
of its agricultural ground to ranchettes as is a lot of the different ag
areas. But so most of our-- most of our CVP water that goes for
industrial and urban uses in Santa Clara but we do have Tracy and
Coalinga that are the major ones in the valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You also mentioned some wild life refuges that you are
responsible for. How did that--how was that come about?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it’s an inter--actually a very interesting
history, this area when the San Joaquin, as I said, it's the valley is
very, very flat and when the San Joaquin, you know, flows--when they
started the increase in the spring, they just kind of fanned out and
that's what caused all the sloughs and everything in the valley but when
they fanned out, you know, there was a lot of marsh land in the valley at
that time. And as a result of that, a lot of waterfowl in this area in
fact is-- the-- the it's incredible some of the stories that, you know,
that you have from the 1870s and 80s of where the skies were just, you
know, blackened by, you know, the waterfowl and so--and but ultimately as
Miller & Lux started doing diversions off the San Joaquin River and as
flood control came into play there weren't the same refugees that we had
along the basin of the valley. However, Miller & Lux when they developed
their canals and diverted water from the San Joaquin River, the final
overflow of that and--and the remnants of that ended up in an area just
south and north of Los Banos--in the Los Banos area of being overflow
waterfowl habitat from the Miller & Lux canals and out in the camp,
thirteen area, is a good example of that. And, and so it developed some
habitat. Well, when--when Miller & Lux exchanged their water rights for
Central Valley Project contract supply, the refugees you know, kind of
got left behind in that process whereas they had re--they had sort of
relied upon the Miller & Lux diversions for, you know, for their--for
their habitat and when that water was exchanged to the federal government
there really wasn't any water provided to the--to that grassland area.
And so led by Martin Winton, and some other Grassland Water District
reps, they ultimately got an initial contract. I believe it was in the
mid-50s of 50,000 acre feet and that's about the time when the Grassland
Water District was developed as part of all of that. And-- and then
through the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1991 or 1992 that
it was passed, they were able to get a much larger water supply in the
range of now around 400,000 acres feet that they--that they use for
their--for the waterfowl habitat. But it's kind of this evolution of
natural San Joaquin river overflows to Miller & Lux excess-- excess water
to now a much more formalized contractual relationship with the federal
government for, for their supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually with the Bureau of Reclamation putting more
water back into San Joaquin River, is that going to expand water supplies
in for some of those wildlife refugees?
>> Dan Nelson: No, not at all. They're not tied into that plumbing system
anymore at all. They're--they’re totally reliant upon the Central Valley
Project Plumbing System at this point and-- It, it is noteworthy that
there's probably a 125,000 acres within the Pacific flyway that relies on
this portion of the plumbing system. And some of those are state wildlife
refugees some of them are federal wildlife refugees and then the
Grassland Water District represents privately owned wildlife refugees,
mostly duck clubs and--and so it's--but the water supply for all of those
all come now from the Federal Central Valley Project.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does your authority have any responsibility for
operation or its maintenance of San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: We have--we operate the O'Neill Pumping Plant that pumps
up into the O'Neill Forebay which is at the base, and well that's the
forebay for the San Luis Reservoir. The Department of Water Resources
operates the Gianelli Pumping Plant and--and also the San Luis
Reservoirs. So we, we operate the forebay but we don't operate either
Gianelli or the--or the-- the major reservoir. We do coordinate closely
with DWR because, you know, there's deliveries of our water made out of
San Luis Reservoir down the San Luis canal to Westlands and other San
Luis Water District in Panoche through the San Luis Unit. And then
there's also a pipeline that goes over as we’ve discussed, it goes over
the-- the coastal range there into Santa Clara Valley and San Benito
County and so we have to coordinate very closely with DWR, of the
operations but they ultimately are the operators of San Luis Reservoir.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now as I understand San Luis Reservoir is actually a
combination of state and Federal Water.
>> Dan Nelson: It is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And technically you're only pumping out the Federal
Water.
>> Dan Nelson: Technically, yeah, yeah the clean water that you see up at
San Luis Reservoir is our water and the other water, yeah. No, it’s, it
was actually developed--the San Luis Unit was developed in the 1970s
actually constructed in the 1970s as and '60s when San Luis Reservoir was
constructed and began operating in 1970s I should say. San Luis Reservoir
has storage of about 2.1 million acre feet. It’s entirely imported water.
I say entirely it’s, it’s built on the San Luis Creek Basin. And it's got
2.1 million acre feet capacity. And to give you a sense of the San Luis
Creek average flows per year is about 35,000 acre feet. And that's about
what the evaporation is for San Luis Reservoir. And so generally it's-it's all imported water from Northern California that's imported in the
winter time and spring time. That's when we fill up San Luis Reservoir.
55 percent of that is state water contractor storage capacity and 45
percent of that is the Central Valley Project or the Federal Contractor
capacity and so it's split 55-45.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually something you just mentioned
always I found interesting you're talking about the, you
of water due to evaporation. You know something like San
is spread out all and exposed to the sun. Are these kind
even an effective way to store water?
in there is
know, the loss
Luis the water
of reservoirs
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely yeah. I mean certainly, you know, there's-absolutely. We rely on, you know, surface storage throughout the state.
And certainly I--I don't anticipate there ever being an efficient or, or
cost effective way of--of avoiding the evaporation, the incidental
evaporation that comes as a result of that but, as--as you are aware we
generally have two types of storage, one is above ground and one is, is
below ground and--and which has its own efficiencies below ground, The
aquifer is kind of, you know, not--not being as well defined and managed
but oh yeah, no, there's, you know, surface storage is very valuable to
us.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Still in some ways superior to say the ground banking
of water or->> Dan Nelson: Well it would depend on, you know, the nature of the
ground bank, you know, all--not all ground banks are created equal. And
there are some that are very well defined and very understood aquifers
that my understanding is they're managed, you know, pretty doggone
efficiently and as I say pretty well defined. But, but certainly, you
know, surface storage has their place.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is--your authority have any involvement at all with
any parts of the restoration of San Joaquin River say at the Mendota pool
area?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we, we do. The exchange contractors are members
of our organization and, and they still hold water rights on the San
Joaquin and->> Thomas Holyoke: Maybe we should step back then and explain what the
exchange contractors are.
>> Dan Nelson: Sure. Yeah that's--that, we shall do that. The--the
exchange contractors are as a result of the old Miller & Lux based lands
on the west side of the valley that initially began diverting water in
the 1870s and built a canal system through Henry-Miller's life and, you
know, let's say through the 1920s and developed maybe 300,000 acres of
land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley based on, you know,
diverting water and developing water rights off of the San Joaquin River.
The--so, so they held these water rights and and had the ability to be
able to divert water off the San Joaquin River. Well the Federal
Government came along and said, you know, we'd really like to put a dam
up in the Millerton area. And we would like to take your water there.
They’re saying this to the exchange contractor we'd like--we'd like to
take your water and use it on the east side. And in exchange for that
we're going to build some dams and reservoirs in the northern part of the
state and a big pumping plant in the Delta. And we're going--in exchange
for you to let us use your water rights on the east side of the valley
we're going to deliver you water out of the new Central Valley project.
And so they negotiated what's referred to as the exchange contracts and
that's actually what--what occurs, and what occurred. They entered into
those contracts and so the exchange contractors what is known as the
exchange contractors now. The old Miller & Lux based land and water
rights were given to the Federal Government to use to irrigate what is
now known as the Friant area or the east side of the valley. And in
exchange for that the Federal Government agrees to each and every year to
deliver water from Northern California to the exchange contractors
through the Jones Pumping Plant Delta-Mendota Canal. And that is to the
exchange.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK and then moving back to any responsibilities the
authority has on the river restoration around Mendota pool.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. So you-- we have that connection between the west
side and the east side and that connection’s primarily through the
exchange contract. Generally how we've been viewing the--we have been
supportive of the restoration of the San Joaquin River and the
implementation of the settlement agreement. So let me establish that
right from the beginning. We--we are in full support of the restoration
program as envisioned by the settlement. We are-- we have viewed this or
viewed that project mostly from the perspective of trying to make sure
that it didn't negatively impact us on the west side of the valley. And-and so most of our review of the environmental documents and--and just
following the progress and the process of--of meeting the imple--or the
restoration program have been from the context of making sure that there
were no third--what we refer to as third party impacts. And so we've
been--we've been--we’ve been supportive but not wanting to be impacted
as--as a part of it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you haven't been involved with like, you know,
changes to Mendota dam and some of the->> Dan Nelson: You know, we, it certainly does that we operate the--the
water deliveries out of the Mendota Dam or out of the Mendota pool. And
so certainly it--it has taken a--it includes now other elements of that
operation. We have now water flowing--flowing, you know, down the San
Joaquin River. And so it does take really close coordination between us
and Friant and the Bureau of Reclamation to make all of that happen. And- and so to--to the operations yes, we have been a, a part of that
because it's--it’s now integrated with our operations out of the Mendota
pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, some of the issues we’ve talked about with some
other people involved problem on the western side of the valley dealing
with drainage. Does-- do your authority have anything to do with the
drainage or even including operation of some of the drainage canal--the
drainage system?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we do. We--we took over the operations and
maintenance because, you know, just because you take water out of a
facility of which, you know, the drainage was closed back during the
Kesterson [phonetic] era. And--and so we--we took over the operations and
maintenance of the San Luis drain I think sometime in the, you know, mid
90s, maybe late 90s. And since we were taking, you know, since we were
doing all the O&M on all of the water delivery systems the bureau really
didn't have a lot of maintenance folks out in the area and so we took
over operations and maintenance of the drain as well. So we actually do-we we try to maintain the drained, you know, and--and to keep it in
condition whereas, you know, it can be used of some form of conveyance in
the future.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What--what is the drain?
>> Dan Nelson: The drain is a phenomena out of the Central Valley
Project. It was understood that when you--when you apply water to lands—
to to the lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley that you were
going to have a-- you were going to develop high water table. We--it was
understood that we had a clay layer, you know, an impervious clay layer a
hundred feet down to three hundred feet down. And once you started
applying water, you know, on the west side of the valley that generally
you’re going to have this—the the water was going to build up. And--and
you were also because of drainage and also you would have a salt
accumulation unless you did something about that. That was recognized
actually Miller & Lux folks had to deal with both water table issues and
salinity issues once they began even diverting water out of the San
Joaquin River. They had to deal with those issues as far back as the
1880s, 1890s, you know, they had a high water that developed in their
area as well. So this is--this was something that was well known and
anticipated when the Central Valley Project, you know, was being
conceptualized. The expected remedy for that would be--was to be a drain
that would initiate in the Firebaugh-Mendota area and actually even south
of that, south of Mendota area and would head all the way up to the Delta
and essentially would release water if I recall right in the Pittsburgh
area. And--and so this-- the that would be a mechanism for the valley to
be able to maintain its water table. But also even more important to
maintain its salt balance because no matter how pure water is, it's
always got some form to salt to it or some--some level of salts in it
and-- and without an outlet ultimately, you know, it accumulates. And so
it was recognized early on and it was anticipated that the remedy for
that would be this drain. That--the drain was constructed in the late 70s
and early 80s and-- and essentially my, my recollection of this is that
it was it authorized and they initiated construction but Congressman
George Miller of the Bay Area had essentially held up some of the
appropriations if I recall to where they--they weren't going to be able
to finish the drain and so essentially they were faced with a half built
facility. And they decided what they would do is while they were getting
permits to extend it the rest of the way and, and--and getting
appropriations for the rest of the way they would essentially use this
facility and develop some marsh lands. And as we had talked about earlier
there was a shortage of supply at that time for--for wildlife habitat.
And so they actually thought that they'd be able to use this for wildlife
production and--and develop wildlife marshes around the drain and where
it ended. And that is the legacy of Kesterson is the drainage water
contained a lot more than just salts and it certainly wasn't, you know,
useful in fact it was very destructive for wildlife habitat in its purest
form and--and so that was how we ended up with the problems at Kesterson
is we’d have tried to develop a wildlife area with this water and it
wasn't, you know, adequate water to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: That was in the early 1980s that that happened?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, it was--it was I recall it actually well because the
water district I was working for at the time the Broadview Water District
had it really extensive drainage problem. And--and we were dealing with
it through various mechanisms but working with Grassland Water District
at the time. But ultimately we anticipated that we would be a, you know,
that we would once the drain was completed and the permits were achieved
to extend the drain and the funding that we would hook up to it. And so
we were following it pretty closely. And I believe it was about 1981 when
the Bureau of Reclamation Fish and Wildlife Service decided well let's-let's, you know, while we're working on these permits to extend the drain
let's—they--they had envisioned as part of the drain to have marsh land
holding ponds and marsh land habitat to manage the flows. So when the
flows were higher and they couldn't release the all of the water out into
the Delta they would be able to put them into these ponds. And they had
several of these along the way designed. And so they were part of the
design of the, you know, the extension of the drain. When they were
delayed in extending the drain both permits and financially they decided
well let's take these holding basins and let's see if we can develop some
marsh habitats and then vap--and evaporate the water and--and initiate ,
you know, use of the drain. So that was--that was a, that was a fatal
decision that, you know, essentially they tried to evaporate--use these
marsh habitats as evaporation ponds instead of flow through. And as
evaporation ponds all of the elements that were in the water and selenium
proved out--proved to be the most lethal but just accumulated because
your evaporating the water out and you've got these, you know, the
selenium’s just accumulating and the salts and, and borons and everything
else that's in in--in the water. And that--that was essentially the—the,
the problem, you know, that, that--that just exploded with Kesterson.
And-- and no, it was--it was--it was really an an interesting and a
really tense time. It for both agriculture and the wildlife area. Prior
to that time, you know, agriculture had actually developed a pretty good
relationships and/or what we have thought were good relationships and a
working mechanism for dealing with our drainage through the refuges with
Grasslands and-- and and the Grasslands prior to that were really relying
a lot on agricultural drainage, you know, to keep things going 'cause it
didn't have enough water. The Kesterson example was an extreme example
because number one it was pure subsurface drainage whereas most of the
area--other areas that was using the drainage water for wildlife habitat
like the Grassland Water District was using diluted drainage water. It
was using a combination of surface excess flows with--with the subsurface
flows and it was also a flow through system. So it's flowing through the
marshes, whereas the Kesterson example was they--they took just pure
drainage water without any kind of surface dilution at all and then
evaporated it. And so it really magnified whatever problem that we didn't
recognize that was occurring using this drainage water prior to that was
magnified and brought to the surface at that point and so it changed
everything. It, you know, it certainly, you know, took away any of our
expectations that we were going to be releasing this water, you know, out
to the Delta. And it acertainly made us rethink how on a long term basis
we were going to deal with our salt build up and on a long term basis how
we were going to deal with drainage in the valley. It changed everything
fundamentally.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are you doing?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, actually, you know, it--it, it, it's really turned
out into a--a, a magnificent success story because, you know, at, at that
time, you know, things looked bleak. I mean we didn't--you can't build-you can't deal, you know, with a--an agricultural area that's just
inundated with salt. I mean you have to manage that somehow. And what
we've done is and--and again it was at a time we--we, up till that time
frame we had once again relied entirely on the Bureau of Reclamation to
provide drainage for us. And they were going to build this drain. It was
even part of our contracts with them that they would do this. And so we
a--up till that point we were relying entirely well that's, you know, the
bureau will fix that. And right at that point it’s when our water users
realized, you know, the bureau is not gonna be able to fix this, you
know. We, we, we probably shouldn't, you know, rely on the bureau to, to
pull this off. And so our water users, you know, to their credit all
stepped up. They became--they became, they embraced the problem and they,
they became accountable for the problem. And they developed a--a really
sophisticated monitoring system both quality and quantity to try to get a
grip on, you know, what was going on, where the hotspots and--and how to
manage this you need good data to figure out how to manage something. And
so they developed a good database on and did that themselves and then
they--they figured out ways of doing it and it, that have evolved over
the last 30 years and how to manage that with minimal releases outside
the area and working to ultimately cutting off any releases of any
drainage water, whatsoever in the next several years. And so, they-they've been able to, to, to implement things in a way that has met water
quality standards in the river, has met the water quality standards in
their area. And--but yet have isolated the salts from the ag land that
they're trying to protect.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there still some interesting developing in drain
system? Mean, I understand that Judge Wanger has ordered--well when he
was a Judge ordered the Bureau of Reclamation to get the project finished
even though the bureau apparently has no money to do so->> Dan Nelson: Or expertise strength.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. No--well, there's actually two drainage worlds
occurring. One is in the legal is in the courts and essentially that's
who's responsible for this. The courts have established the bureau--you
have a responsibility to do this. And essentially the courts have said
"Bureau go out and do this." And the Bureau has sort of, I-- frankly the
bureau, you know, and very candidly the bureau doesn't know how to do
this. They, they don't know how to meet the court order and to be able to
provide the drainage that it contracted out to the water users. But--so
you have--so—and, and I'm talking in very general terms here, but you
have this court order that is telling the bureau to do this. The bureau
doesn't know how to do it. The bureau ultimately probably wouldn't have
funding to do it. And—but, but sort of--they're, they’re going through
sort of the checklist of what they need to be but, the water users aren't
counting on that to solve their problem. You know, there maybe, you know,
some damages or something like that that ultimately will come out of it.
But, but as far as, you know, looking at--OK, how are we going to sustain
ourselves with this drainage issue that we have? How are we going to, you
know, have agricultural--agriculture be sustainable. They're not relying
on, on the bureau to do that. So, separate from those legal activities
you have the real world of what's going on out in the field over here and
that's essentially the water and drainage district stepping up and
providing services and managing this drainage water in a real time basis
and they've gotten good at it. They've gotten really good it. And you
know and, and as a result, you know, they, they, they, they are meeting
the regulatory issues but they're also thriving, you know, production
wise in agriculturally as well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, well let's go up to the northern end of DeltaMendota canal up to the, up to the Delta.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
Thomas Holyoke: I don't know maybe if this is the best point to start it
at but, start talking about maybe the changes in water delivery that
began with the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act if that's the
right place maybe to begin with.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know maybe, maybe the broader issue is, you
know, things have changed fundamentally in how we operate the Central
Valley project. They've changed, you know, what crops we grow. They
changed how we grow them. We, we’ve changed fundamentally how we manage
and irrigate them. And in, in retrospect those changes began to occur in
the late 80’s and early 90’s. And have, have, having lived through the-or the pre, you know, change conditions and now through the post change
conditions. Generally what occurred in the late 80’s and early 90’s is a
couple of things just as, as a perfect storm came together regulatorily.
Number one, we had two listed species that, that occurred. We had the
listing of the Delta smelt and the listing of the winter-run salmon. And
so, we had two--we had the Endangered Species Act that was being
implemented in ways that affected on a real-time basis how we operated
the system. And in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we didn't fully
appreciate the implications of that or really understood what that meant.
But nonetheless, that's when, you know, it occurred, the listings were
about in 1991. In 1992, we had the Central Valley Project Improvement Act
that was passed. And it fundamentally changed the Central Valley Project
changed the role of the Bureau of Reclamation formally at that point. It
changed how it is that we could operate, you know, the Central Valley
Project. And there were, there three provisions of that, that reallocated
water from the agricultural base to other uses. One was the Trinity River
restoration component of the CVP. The second was, we've talked about
wildlife refuges and their reliance upon drainage water for their water
supply. Well, the CVPIA provided them a fresh water supply from the
Central Valley Project that water had historically been delivered to
agriculture. And then, and, and, but now, it carved out a block of water
for those refuges. And so, that was the second area. And then third area,
it generally dedicated 800,000 acre feet of CVP yield for environmental
purposes, and again, that water had historically been used for
agriculture, so. So in 92, you had the passage of that. And then in 94, a
little bit later the State Water Resources Control board under the
umbrella of the Federal Clean Water Act started promulgating-- or looking
at coming up with new standards for the bay Delta. And so, those were the
three Federal Statutes that came to play pretty much within a five year
period of span the Endangered Species Act, the Central Valley Project
Improvement Act and the Clean Water Act. And, and also in the late 80s
and early 90s we were having a drought there just wasn't--and in fact it
was a pretty severe drought, it ended up lasting about five years. So,
you know, if you, if you think through that we've got this drought. And,
and by the way prior to 1989, 1990 when we started deliveries out of the
Federal Project in 1952 we had only had one year that we weren't able to
deliver a 100 percent supply-- contract supply to our water users and
that was the drought of 1977. So, the point of that is the CVP was a
very, very stable project. And, and, and the water supplies were very
certain out of the CVP. You knew you were, you know, likely gonna get a
100 percent each and every year and you knew that early. You knew, you
know, pretty early on the storage was sufficient and, and you can move
the water around, so, so, it was in that backdrop that all of this
started to occur. We, we started having the severe drought and we started
getting shortages. At the same time we were implementing or the Fish and
Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries was implementing Endangered
Species actions. And then we had the CVPIA passed. And--so, we were
getting these shortages but it wasn't clear to us, you know, how much of
this was the drought? How much of it was the new regulatory regime until
1993 and, and it rained really hard that winter--and we had, you know,
everything kind of recovered. And the water users still ended up with a
50 percent supply. And that was a huge, huge eye opener for the water
users. It was fundamental. I mean, you know, with all of this rain and
for them to get a 50 percent supply was a huge reality check. And, and it
was when they recognized for the first time. They had a sense that, you
know, ESA was gonna, you know, impact their lives and, and, and CVPIA
certainly but they didn't have a sense to the extent of that. And that
all came to a head there in 93 and, and that's when they realized they
needed to step up. And we started making investments, our authority
started making investments in, in the technical aspects of the fishery
declined, biologist, hydrologist and we started gearing up ourselves to
be able to participate in those discussions about, you know, what, what,
what was going on in the Delta and how we're gonna operate this CVP in a
way that meets the new needs for the, the, the fish and water quality as
well as the supply. And so, it was, it was in, you know, around mid 90s
when all of that just came to a head.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, that point in time like, like 1993 I guess the
year of the reality check, were there actually cut backs in pumping
because of the need to protect the fish [inaudible] that year?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, there was, there was. And, again, you know, it was
combination of cut, you know, low flows because of the drought as well as
you know, sensitivities to the fish and it was, it was hard for us to
separate it. Plus frankly at that time, we didn't have a lot of expertise
to figure out how they were operating the system. We, we hadn't had to
pay attention to that prior to that. That was mostly the bureau doing
that for us. And so we just didn't have a good sense of what was driving
the shortages at that time frankly. But it was you know, we had some
sense, it was ESA driven but we didn't know to the extent.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What-- changes--what--did any of your--you, your
authority any of your districts start to advocate for changes in the, in
the law like in [inaudible].
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely, well I mean--certainly we were very much
engaged actually in the legislative process for the passing of Central
Valley Project Improvement Act was extensive. And it took--my
recollection as it, it seemed going for a hundred years but it was
probably you know, over the course of the year, year and a half. Most of
our representation at that time in dealing with the legislation was
through the Central Valley Project Water Association. So it was all
Central Valley project water users, us, Friant, The Tehama-Colusa in
Northern California were all different segments of the Central Valley
project. But we were all combined under one organization called the
Central Valley Project Water Association and they represented us, Jason
Peltier was the executive director at the time and they represented us in
the CVPIA negotiations and, and the development of that legislation.
Subsequently, once the bill passed of course the administrations handed
this new law, they have to go implement it. And that has been very, very
contentious. And you know, to this day there are some loose ends but
generally especially during the 90s we were involved in many efforts to,
you know, to work in forums that would establish the policies for
implementation on the various components of it. And then ultimately, you
know, litigation in areas where we don't think that, you know, where we
didn't think that they, their policies were consistent with the law. And,
and so, and you know, there was an effort I believe--I think it was '96
or '97 to even amend it. And so there have been legislative efforts to
amend CVPIA, there's on-going administrative efforts to influence how the
law is implemented, and certainly legal issues and judicial issues
involved as well that you know, we've been involved in for 20 years,
regarding the implementation CVPIA.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In the 1990s we have something called the Bay Delta
accord which then leads to this, I guess attempted coordination called
CALFED, are you involved with that?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. I was, I was. And generally the background of the Bay
Delta Accord again is we were in the tail end of this drought and we now
had two federal statutes being implemented--regulatory statutes, CVPIA
and ESA that were being implemented. And then you had--then you had the
State Water Resources Control Board you know, wanting to develop a
standard. So when you, when you think through that morass essentially
under the Endangered Species Act you have the National Marines Fishery
Service is responsible for winter-run salmon. You have Fish and Wildlife
Service responsible for bringing back the Delta smelt for--so that's the
endangered species component of it. And then on the CVPIA had Fish and
Wildlife Service you know, that was responsible for implementing a lot of
different things. You had NIMS responsible for implementing in the Bureau
of Reclamation and you also had DWR that was involved, you know, on the
state side, DWR and Department of Fish & Game. And you literally had all
these different agencies trying to implement their little niche whether
it be for the winter-run salmon or for, for the Delta smelt or for, you
know, the 800,000 acre feet, they were all you know, kind of trying to
make sense out of all that. And it wasn't, it wasn't working let alone
certainly wasn't an efficient way of doing it. Senator Feinstein stepped
up at the time and saw this and then you have the state board on top of
all of that. You had the state board about ready to say OK, well, we
wanna come in and put new standards amongst all of that. And so that's
when Senator Feinstein stepped in and essentially a very long story,
short, got all of those folks together to see, is there a way that we can
come up with a way of operating the system in a more comprehensive way
that takes care of the needs of the individual species and takes care of
the water quality issues and sort of come up with one set of criteria for
operating for fish, water quality in the water supply. And that, that
resulted in our area meeting with Metropolitan Water District. And Jerry
Butcher the manager of Westlands at the time, you know, and myself met
with, with some metropolitan representative, the general manager and also
Tim Quinn who was with MED at the time and just, you know, had a
discussion about whether or not we thought we could come up with a plan,
you know, to do-- whether we wanted to make the effort of coming up with
this plan. And we decided at that meeting that we did and so we started
working with them. Ultimately we went down to Kern County Water Agency
and sort of made this proposal to them. You know, would you join us in
trying to work on this more comprehensive approach. And Tom Clark of Kern
County you know, ultimately, that Kern joined us. And so the water users
south of the Delta including Metropolitan, Kern County and the San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority began working on a proposal of what that
comprehensive plan may, may look like. And we worked through, you know,
Senator Feinstein, assisted in keeping everyone together and on the same
course. And then, there was a federal employee much more than that, an
appointed official on the Department of Interior. She was an assistant
secretary. Her name was Betsy Rieke and she was instrumental in
corralling all of the different federal agencies and leading and being
their rep whether it'd be NIMS, Fish and Wildlife, 'cause they're all
under different, different agencies. And so, she was responsible
corralling all of those. And so, we ultimately ended up with a package
that worked. On December 15th of '94, we signed the Bay Delta Accord and,
and it was intended to be a way that we collectively agreed that we would
implement all of these different regulatory statutes. We would, we would
use this for three or four years on an interim basis while we developed a
more long term strategy for the Delta. And that essentially was CALFED
and how--and so, we implemented the Bay Delta Accord in '94, December of
'94 and then initiated discussions on CALFED in '95.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And did it all work out?
>> Dan Nelson: No, no, no. Unfortunately it didn't. And you know, as--I
was a, you know, I was one of the negotiators of the Bay Delta Accord. I
had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of ownership in that in the sense
that I was totally committed to it. And, and felt very strongly. It was a
good plan. And by the way it wasn't, you know, uniformly embraced. You
know, I had a lot of criticism that we gave up too much for the accord
and then there was a lot of folks that, you know, recognized that we
stabilize things really well through the accord and actually postured
ourselves water supply wise in a good stable place. But, unfortunately
about two years later and you're gonna have to, you know, I'm a little
cynical about this because, because I was so vested in the accord. The
Bureau of Reclamation, you know, through the implementation of a certain
component of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, CVPIA, the
Bureau of Reclamation was still looking at implementing CVPIA which the
component that is that issue here is referred to as the B2 provision of
CVPIA which is Section 3406B2 and that dedicates 800,000 acre feet to the
environment. And so, the issue surfaced is--does or is the implementation
of B2 within the parameters of the accord. And you know, it was obvious
to us that it had been--that it was and that, you know, all of the
declarations about the accord and the words--unfortunately the words in
the accord itself were as clear as, you know, in retrospect it could have
been, but nonetheless, it was very clear that all of the water that we
were going to dedicate for environmental purposes under the CVPIA and,
and under the Endangered Species Act were embedded and within the
agreement and the operation to the agreement. And ultimately,
unfortunately the Bureau of Reclamation came to the conclusion "No,
there's a portion of the 800,000 acre feet that's up and above what you
agreed upon in the accord." So essentially we're gonna implement things
that even going to displace more water than the accord did. We ended up
in court, you know, about that. And unfortunately all of the accord was,
you know, characterized as the end of all water wars in California and,
and it lasted a couple of years before we had our first law suit about it
unfortunately. It was really disappointing. I, you know, to this day I, I
think it was very regrettable that that's where the Bureau ended up. I,
you know, there was a lot of things that came out of that that were just
totally unnecessary. You know and it was really distracting and really I
think put us on a course that we a regulatory based course that we
haven't been able to escape yet.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We seem to be in an area we're trying again, you know,
Governor Schwarzenegger when he tried to at least--I guess initiated the
current process we seem to be in now, he has big blue ribbon commission
on what to do about the Delta. Try to create some kind of guarantee of
water supply for agriculture while at the same doing all this
environmental stuff sort of trying to do, take care of the two main
problems simultaneously. Do you--would you--were you overly involved with
the Governor's commission or some of the things that have happened since
that have led to the plan we have seem to have today?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Yes, I was. And generally we went through the CALFED
process which was supposed--it was a very formalized processed, you know,
and came out with, you know, a record of decision that's really never
been implemented to any extent. But, as a result of some of the failures
of the CALFED process and I will generalize those failures as, as
probably being the result of trying to be all things to everybody, lost
its focus, and therefore couldn't ever really be implemented effectively.
As a result of that--on the heels of that, we began--and it was actually
initiated by Steve Thompson who was the--I don't believe they call them
Regional Directors but in effect the Regional Director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service. He was in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service in
California/Oregon area. And so, Steve Thompson, you know, called this
meeting with some water users. And since he said, you know, "This isn't
working well, you know, for water users. This isn't working well for the
fisheries. You know, we need to think of a new way of doing this. And,
you know, why don't, you know, he was--had some experience with, with
what's referred to under the Endangered Species Act habitat conservation
plans and you know very generally as opposed to dealing with endangered
species in an area, a species by species, you know, whether it be winterrun, just focusing on winter-run, Delta smelt or whatever. Instead of,
you know, having implementing the Endangered Species Act under a specie
by specie, the habitat conservation plan provides opportunities to deal
with it in a more comprehensive way. And where you're developing a
habitat is sort of the concept that work for all different species. And
it's a much more comprehensive approach to resolving endangered species
issues. And so, we saw the merit to it and we started working on that. We
recognized pretty early on after--and this is a whole different story
about, you know, how the implementation of ESA has evolved over the last
20 years. But as a result of banging our head against the wall of making
the current through Delta plumbing system of where the water flows
through the Delta from the Northern--generally the Sacramento River
through the Delta to our pumping plants to the south that's referred to
as the through Delta plumbing system. As opposed to continuing trying to
make that work we were going to look at how do we separate the plumbing
system from--and to not try to get it through the Delta but around the
Delta. And you know, we dusted off the old peripheral canal of which, you
know, by the way was, was advocated by a lot of Fish and Wildlife and a
lot of Fish & Game people as being, you know, what is, what is needed is
to separate the water plumbing system from the fishery, you know,
habitat.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually had your authority and your water districts
been supportive of the peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know, during CALFED we made a conscious decision
to not pursue a peripheral canal or we'll call it an isolated facility
where you isolate the water delivery system from, you know, we'll call it
the central Delta habitat system. We made a conscious decision in CALFED,
begrudgingly conscious decision from the water user's perspective that at
that time it was determined, Lester Snow was ahead of the CALFED program
at that time... And he was really reluctant to get CALFED in the motive
where it was promoting an isolated facility. He just thought politically
and financially. Just everything it would be too distracting, you know,
to the CAL--you know, that would--It just--and it was just too
overwhelming. And so we made a conscious decision to try to figure out a
plan, a CALFED comprehensive plan without doing it through an isolated
facility. At the tail end of all that when we realized all of that didn't
work and we started looking at a habitat conservation plan is when we
said, you know, if, if we're going to make this work, we've been
struggling now for 20 years to figure out how to make this through Delta
system work, if we're gonna make this work we're going to need an
isolated facility. Or--we're gonna at least have to explore that. And so
that was essentially the initiation of the discussion that we're still in
today and that is how to best, you know, how to best manage the Delta. We
think it's probably through an isolative facility. And we have now
settled on a pretty distinct plan for how--what we think the isolated
facility looks like and, we’re, we're pursuing that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And by here at September 2013 by isolated facility
you're referring to, this proposal to actually dig tunnels underneath the
Delta?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, two huge tunnels, two 30-foot tunnels, about, about
a 100-feet deep below the Delta from Clarksburg and, you know, down to
the pumps itself.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why this rather than a peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, for--actually for a, for a lot of different
reasons but the primary one is just the footprint of a surf--of a canal.
And the--a surface canal you know, would go right through the middle of
the Delta and, you know, it could, it’d be really, you know, I can see
where, you know, it would be pretty disruptive of all the different
transportation routes of everything in the Delta to have a huge canal go
through the middle of it. And so the primary reason for it is just the
huge footprint that a canal would take.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And this--and having a tunnel system benefits water
users South of the Delta how?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it separates the water delivery system from the
migration path of the salmon, it sepa--to a large extent. I mean
obviously from the Sacramento River, north from Clarksburg of course you
know, that's still a water delivery system and where salmon run as well.
But generally, you know, the Delta itself is just a maze of all of these
channels. And so there are fish living in that channel and the Delta
smelt’s a good example of that. So, so there are fish living in this
channel but there are also--there are also migrating fish that migrate
through that. And so the combination of having the fish trying to use
this as a combination of habitat and migrating corridors as well as it
being a delivery system? We, you know, we hadn't been able to figure out
how to best do that. And to meet the needs of the fish, to meet the needs
of supply and so, you know, separating the two gives us a better
opportunity to do that. To meet both the fishery needs better and to be
able to make, you know, stable supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And if you found working with the people representing
the fishing industry? People representing environmental interest to be-it [inaudible] be possible to get them on board with these plans?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it, it--if, if--it really is a mixed bag.
I mean we have certain environmental organizations that have embraced it.
And we've had other environmental organizations that have been fairly
adamant in their, in their opposition to it. We've--probably the center
of opposition is the Delta itself. And the folks in the Delta that are
you know concerned about removing you know, so much fresh water that
currently flows through there now on their way to our pumps, it still
flows through the Delta and so they're obviously concerned about water
quality issues. And rightfully so those issues all need to be addressed
adequately. And then you have a smattering of Northern California thinks
that this is going to be a way for, you know, somehow Southern California
to take more water from them. And so there’s certainly those concerns
and—but, but you also have Northern Californians that look at this as an
opportunity for them. And you have certainly environmental folks that
looked at this as being the best way of, of dealing with the fishery and
water quality issues. And so certainly you have, you know, folks that are
looking at this, in, from a lot of different perspectives.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, we may have to bring you back in a few years to
do an epilogue just to see how it all actually went.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Well things, you know, we're hoping are going to
come to a head here fairly soon. We--right now, the cost for the
environmental work are estimated and budgeted at around 260,000 dollars.
And we’re-- we've split that half with the state contractors of 130
million and a half with our organization in the federal contractor side
and the bureau had a 130 million. And so, we're looking at--the final
record of decision, you know, is, is expected to be out next-- sometime
next year 2014. And, and it will be, you know, at a hefty price tag just
to get to that stage.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. Well, thank you very much.
>> Dan Nelson: Uh-hmm.
[ Silence ]
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, we're here today with Dan Nelson from San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority. Let's just start with a little bit of
personal history of who are you?
>> Dan Nelson: I was actually--I'm a fifth generation Californian and
actually fifth generation west side San Joaquin Valley. I--My great
grandfather came to this area and he--late--late 1880s and started dry
farming up south of Dos Palos, and what's referred to as the Oro Loma
area. And my grandmother was born out in that area and-- and so we've
been in--we’ve been in--on--in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley or
had a valley present since, since that time. I was actually born in Los
Banos in 1952 and--and grew up there in Los Banos and took off to go to
college, and never to come up to the valley, and it ended up after
college, about 17 years later, I ended up back in the Firebaugh area and
have been working on water issues since about 1975 and had been working
on west side water issues since about that time. So I have a fairly
extensive history on the west side of the valley and a lot of practical
experience on water districts throughout the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of work were you doing when you came back
here from college?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, actually when I first came back from college I-I went up to the Dixon area and-- and I was working in a custom
application company and I did that for a couple of years but in--it was
about 1975 I believe it was, '76 when I went to work for the San Luis
canal. I had worked with San Luis Canal Company as--when I--when I was
growing up in the Los Banos, When I was in high school I--was employed
there as a summer job and worked there in summer and Christmas vacations
and then when I was in college I also worked at San Luis Canal Company as
a summer job. In 1977 there was a drought and San Luis Canal Company up
to that point in time hadn't been--hadn't been measuring any of their
water. They didn't have a need to measure it and in '77, they wanted to
initiate some measurements because of the drought and some of the
shortages and so they called up and wondered if I'd be opened to come
back and work with them a couple of years and so I--I went to work with
San Luis Canal Company. I believe it's in '77.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A--canal company like--like this one, it's a private
company that--builds canals for farmers or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. It--now has a public entity but it is what's
referred to as a mutual water company and they actually have
stockholders, and they have the water rights that were initially
developed by Miller & Lux back in the 1870s and their water rights date
back to that time from some of the initial diversions off of the San
Joaquin River and--and these water rights were later exchanged through
this development of the central valley project for central valley project
water, but nonetheless, they're still rooted in the old appropriation
water rights that Miller & Lux developed in the 1870s, 1880s, somewhere
up through there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you--It's OK if you don't know this, how water
rights came to this company from the old Miller & Lux holdings?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Actually my--my understanding of it is that
those water rights--are turned--are--are a part of the land and so when
you buy a parcel in that area you essentially, you--you buy, you know,
you buy a water right as a part of the land so it's my impression that
those-- that those water rights are--are established in a part of the
land and that's why you have the stockholders.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, the--these old water rights, these are--this is
for land adjacent to the river, these are what they call riparian rights
or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, generally speaking Henry Miller--in 1871 was the
first diversion that he made and they dug a canal off of the--off of the-the San Joaquin river from what was referred to as the old China slough
going way back then but it was--it comes out of what we refer to now as
the Mendota Pool off of the San Joaquin river and they started digging
that canal in the 18--about 1870 in the first deliveries they made were
an 1871. And then gradually they built additional canals. The water
rights for San Luis Canal Company actually were established off of Temple
Slough and that came, you know, I believe about 20 years later in the 18-early 1890s. But generally, they, they--established these canals. The
valley's very flat in that area and so with very, very, very little
physical work you can actually, you know, divert the river and follow
contours for a long period of time. So generally what Miller & Lux did is
strategically placed some of these diversions across San Joaquin River
and they used normally a slough that in high water--in in high water
periods the water would get off of the main branch of the river and go
into these sloughs and so it was very easy for Miller & Lux to use these
sloughs as the initial conveyance systems and with very little diversions
or blockage in the San Joaquin River they could divert water in these
sloughs that would meander, you know, parallel with the river. And--so
most of the initial diversions that Miller & Lux sloughs were just
natural sloughs and then they extended the canal and built, you know,
formalized them and honed them and made canals and-- and delivery system
out of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually--I--whenever I was thought, you know, Miller
& Lux I would sort of think of the fights that they had with Haggin and
Carr down on the Kern Rive but-- did Miller & Lux-- did actually
extensive development on the San Joaquin River as well as the Kern?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, they, they did. Miller & Lux, Henry Miller actually
didn't initiate the--the--the initial diversion off the San Joaquin
River. It was actually a group of very high powered investors from San
Francisco that came out and--and in part they were looking at this as a
transportation system, you know, I guess a long the lines of a Panama
canal typed thing of where--prior to that they were using the San Joaquin
River as a mechanism for--and steam ships, you know to come up and down
the San Joaquin River to bring in and out supplies from the west side of
the Valley and up as high as--as you know, the Tule River, I mean Tulare
Lake, excuse me. And--so, but that was very unpredictable because the
flows on the San Joaquin River could either be--are very volatile and
they could be either too high or too low to be able to rely on that form
of transportation and--and so they thought that these canals, you know,
would provide a mechanism for transportation. I think that they only used
it maybe four or five years and they began in 1871 but they only used it
for four to five years for transportation. It became evident that it was
much more useful for, you know, irrigation but-- but I diverted it. The
initial-- the initial investors were some high powered investors and but
they had to get easement from Miller & Lux 'cause Miller & Lux had most
of the land and so that's how Henry Miller became a partner. He, he
really wasn't all that enthusiastic about the project initially but it
didn't take him long once the delivery started to be made of the value
and, and certainly he saw immediately the value to, you know--being able
to irrigate pasture, and he immediately started buying up the stock of-of the other shareholders of the company and within four or five years he
became the-- the major shareholder of the company over 51 percent
gradually he bought it all and ended up operating and maintaining it. So
he kind of--he kind of was a reluctant participant but immediately saw
the value and once he saw the value he took it over.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, now back to a bit of your history then.
[ Laughter ]
Anything-- actually anything, any particular experiences you would wish
to relate sort of between working for the canal company before you came
to the San Luis authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it's been it's actually I've been--I've
been very, very fortunate in my career. I--I started with San Luis Canal
Company, you know, when I was working in high school just on the
maintenance crew and then when I-- when I went back to them after school
in 1977, I worked for them in the operations division and you know,
initiated some, some measuring for, for the company and even did some
ditch tending [phonetic] and enjoyed that quite a bit and from there I
went to Broadview Water District and it was a small district, southsouthwest of Firebaugh and--and a reclamation law district much different
than, you know, the water rights are CVP but they're much different than
the exchange contractor based water rights. And so I worked with
Broadview for seven or eight years as the general manager but it was a
very small district and so I had to do everything. You know, I oversaw
the maintenance crew, I dealt with insurance, I actually took care for a
period of time the accounting books and so, you know, I--I--it was kind
of, you did a little--you were the office staff. I think we had one other
person and so. But that proved to be a really good education because I
had to know a little bit about everything even if it was a small scale.
And from there I went to San Luis Water District and I was the manager of
San Luis Water District for about five years and it was a bigger district
based out of Los Banos. And--and that in retrospect, it was great
background for me because I, I threw the experience with the canal. I
started from the bottom and just kind of gradually worked--worked my way
up and it gave me broad experience from everything, you know, out in the
field, construction, maintenance, operations to, you know, the general
administration and oversight of, of a district and so. When we started
looking at forming the San Luis & Delta-Mendota water authority in the
late eighties and early nineties, you know, it was something--it was just
kind of a natural evolution for me, I think. And--so I, I had quite a bit
of experience in all the different facets of water districts by then.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just because I don't want to presume that people
watching this know certain things, what actually is water district?
>> Dan Nelson: You know water district is actually a, a really, really
good institutional tool for--for, you know, how it is that we can
distribute and--distribute water in different geographical areas and-and administrate that and-- but, but generally what a water district does
is most all water districts have some source of water supply and a water
district is a geographical area that has a source of supply. And
generally what a water district does is it figures out how to allocate
that water both physically and policy wise. It allocates the water, it
distributes the water but it also allocates and distributes the cost that
it takes that water district to distribute the water and so. Generally,
you know, it's an institution that provides for equitable allocation of
water within a geographical area and equitable allocation of cost within
that same geographical area. And--it's, it's really a good tool for and
its worked-- its served California well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We talking mostly about water for agriculture or this
include municipal->> Dan Nelson: No, all, all different types of water use. In fact, it
just in our organization as an example we have water districts, we have
irrigation districts and they're all, you know, they all serve the same
basic services, the allocation of water and--and--and cost but they do it
with--some of them have subtle differences in governance like an
irrigation district. As an example, you have to live within the
boundaries of that district to be a part of the governance of it whereas
a water district, you can be on the board if you're a land owner. It
doesn't matter if you live within that geographical area, if you own land
within that geographical area. So there are-- there are water districts,
there are irrigation districts, there are M&I district and water
districts can serve either urban areas or can serve agriculture. And in
fact one of our members is the Grassland Water District which serves duck
clubs and essentially waterfowl habitat and so. So there are, you know,
water districts can provide services to, you know, any water use that you
can imagine.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are these districts tend to acquire their water.
I mean they taking the water, holding the water rights and pulling the
water straight out of rivers, are they getting it from elsewhere?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it--yes to all of that. The districts that-that our organization deals with have contracts with the Federal Central
Valley Project and so their source of water is their contract with the
Federal Central Valley Project. Other water districts, Turlock, Modesto,
they all have developed their own water supplies from some of the east
side tributaries and, and so they, you know, were formed to develop some
of those tributary water supplies and allocate the cost of what--what it
takes to develop that water and, and then they have allocation policies
and so, the sources of water. And then there are some districts that, you
know, who are totally reliant upon groundwater and it's just a central
plumbing system for moving groundwater around and--and for administrating
the use of groundwater and so, the sources of water, you know, vary, you
know, tremendously throughout the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So when you were at San Luis District that was a
district that contracted with the Bureau of Reclamation for water out of
San Luis reservoir.
>> Dan Nelson: San Luis Water District, yes, is what is referred to as a
reclamation law water district and yes, it had a contract with the
federal government, the Federal Central Valley Project for all of its
water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Ok--OK, San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
>> Dan Nelson: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Before we get to why you created it, what is it?
>> Dan Nelson: The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority is a Joint
Powers Authority and that's another really good tool--for--for more than
one water district to get together and if you have a joint project that
you want to work on, a Joint Powers Authority is a mechanism where two or
more water districts can get together and form an umbrella organization
called the Joint Powers Authority. In, in our case we have 29 member
districts and these 29 member districts have formed the San Luis & DeltaMendota Water Authority. And the common bond of all of these districts is
that they all have Federal Central Valley Project contracts and they all
take their water south of the Delta through the Jones Pumping Plant in
the Delta-Mendota canal and so they, they formed together in the late
eighties and early nineties to where we--I think we signed the joint
powers agreement in mid-1991 and--and that's that's generally the
background of the--of the authority.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the authority operate or maintain the DeltaMendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: We do and in fact that was prior to 1991. We had an
informal organization that was initiated back. We call it our mother
company and we formed it back or it was formed back in I believe 1977 and
it was called the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Users Association and it
was in informal organization and it--it all of the same members applied
at that time. And--and the reason we formalized it into a quasigovernmental agency, a Joint Powers Authority was to take over the
operations and maintenance of the federal facilities and that opportunity
surfaced in the--oh late eighties and early nineties and so the federal
government before it was able to contract out for the operations and
maintenance of the federal facilities had to have a governmental agency
in order to be able to--to contract with. And so that's why we formalize
the association into a Joint Powers Authority was to takeover the
operations and maintenance of the Delta-Mendota canal, the Jones Pumping
Plant, the O'Neill Pumping Plant up at San Luis Reservoir and all of the
facilities south of the Delta. So yes that's one of the services that we
provide and it was the service that prompted us to formalize our
organization.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now just to be clear. Delta-Mendota canal, the water
for the central valley at least that part of the central valley project
is pumped out of the Delta, the Jones Pumping plant then put into DeltaMendota canal. And Delta-Mendota canal flows down to San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes, we--well, the Central Valley Project is designed to
deal with the dilemma that we have in the State of California and that's
where most of the water falls in the northern part of the state and most
of the uses in the southern part of the state. And so, generally, the CVP
components or the CVP facilities are Shasta Reservoir and-- and Folsom
reservoir on the American River. And--so we store water in those two
reservoirs--the federal government does, and then they release it
strategically down the Sacramento River and it meanders through the
Delta, our pumping plant is on the southern end of the Delta. And it's-it's the Jones Pumping Plant and-- and it pumps into the Delta-Mendota
Canal around the city of Tracy. And that flows to the south and
ultimately ends at the Mendota pool on the San Joaquin River. Prior to
getting there, it also--we have the option of taking some of that water
up into San Luis reservoir of where we--San Luis reservoir is partially a
CVP facility as well. And, so we have--we have the choice of either
taking water and storing in to San Luis. Or, taking the water out of San
Luis and supplementing our flows on the Delta-Mendota Canal. But, but the
Delta-Mendota Canal start to Tracy, runs generally south along the
western foothills on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to around
the San Luis dam area and then it goes southeast from there to the San
Joaquin River, and it flows about 88 miles I believe.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, Central Valley Project was originally built by the
US Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior Department I presumed that
earlier in its history that the Bureau operated the canal and the pumps
themselves directly. Why any particular reason they would want to give up
control?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. That's actually a very excellent question and leads
right back into, you know, why we formed the San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority. The Bureau constructed the project, going back in the
late '40s and--or that phase of the project and--and then preceded to
operate and maintain the project and did a really wonderful job of doing
all of that. They did a good job constructing it and also good job of
operating and maintaining it from the '50s through, through the '80s. And
we--we began to see a couple of changes in the late '80s. First of all,
we--we certainly were seeing-- being a lot more regulated in how we
operated the Central Valley Project, but we also saw the role of the
Bureau of Reclamation changing as well. And, I--I recall, you know, a
very specific instance that sort of, you know, highlights that. We had
the--at that time the regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation, I
believe this was probably a, you know, around 18--I mean, excuse me,
1989--I can't recall. 1889 but 1989, Dave Houston the regional director
of the Bureau of Reclamation came out to Los Banos and was giving a
presentation to the at a water users meeting. And generally Dave let
everybody know that prior to this--to that moment--or prior to that
general time, the Bureau of Reclamation had been representing the water
users to Washington. And he needed to let us know and to give us a heads
up that, you know, they were-- seeing their role more as representing
Washington to the water users. And if you think through that, that's
fairly fundamental. The water users up 'til that time had relied entirely
on the Bureau of Reclamation for delivering their water, for representing
them on contractual issues, representing them politically on water supply
issues, and legislatively, and essentially, the Bureau of Reclamation
represented the water users to end their contractors in all different
phases in both the physical delivery and likewise the political and
contractual issues. And essentially, you know, we were sensing this but
it was, you know, definitive when Houston let us know that their role had
changed and their mandates from congress and, and from that
administration had changed. And so at that time the water users realized,
you know, that they needed to step up and to represent themselves and to
gear up to be able to represent themselves on legislative issues,
political issues, legal issues, contractual issues. And at that same
time, the Bureau of Reclamation, I think it was the Bush Administration,
the first George Bush Administration, they were privati--privatization
and downsizing government was a really big thing. And so as part of that
the bureau had indicated it was open to have the water users take over
the operations and maintenance. And so the combination between those two
things, the bureau wanting to sort of back out of its role on, you know,
representing or having a different role then representing us on water
rights and stuff. And at the same time, wanting to downsize its force and
to let someone else do the operations and maintenance. Those two things
happened at the same time and that was the motivation, the initiative and
the reason why we form the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, is
to provide those two services that we used to rely upon on the bureau to
provide.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the authority does not own Delta-Mendota canal and
the pumping plants. That's still federal property.
>> Dan Nelson: That is correct.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you have all operation and maintenance
responsibilities?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, no. We have all the maintenance responsibilities
and once the water comes south of the Delta, once we--we pump it south of
the Delta, we have all of the operational responsibilities as well. We do
not operate the part of the Central Valley Project that determines when
water is released from the reservoirs or even determines when we can turn
on and off any of our pumping units at the Jones Pumping Plant. Those
operations are still done by the federal government. Once we pump it
south of the Delta, we are totally responsible for the operations of
getting it up in the San Luis Reservoir or determining whether we're
going to make releases from there, et cetera, but the operations of the
Jones Pumping Plant are-- are, are still done by, and those services are
still provided by the federal government. We do all maintenance of all of
those facilities. We do those entirely. Initially the relationship
between us and the bureau was sort of contractual relationship where they
contracted with us to provide certain services and then they paid us to
do those. And then ultimately they charged our member districts whatever
it is they paid us, they charged our member districts. I think it was-and we initiated all of that in about--in 1992, in October of '92 is when
we took over the first phase of the facilities and that was under what's
called a cooperative agreement which is essentially a contract. Four or
five years later, we changed the relationship between us and the bureau
whereas instead of them having a contract with us and, and then charging
our member agencies, we entered into a self-funding agreement where we
just self-funded amongst our agency, self-funded our operations. And, and
the reason for that is, is the Bureau of Reclamation when it was
contracting with us would still have to rely on congressional
appropriations. They--Once they got the congressional appropriations they
would contract with us and then whatever it is they paid us they would
charge our water users and so it was just a much cleaner relationship and
we had more control over our budgets and cash flows as opposed to relying
on appropriation from congress that we began to self funding our
operations as opposed to a contractual relationship and that occurred
several years later.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does so your authority then have, I mean you say you
have maintenance responsibility for the Delta-Mendota canal, does that
even mean--I mean this is a canal that's what--60, 70 years old?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I don't know what condit--well, actually what
condition is the Delta-Mendota canal in?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, I think it's in really good condition. You know,
we were nervous. Part of the reasons why we--we jumped on the opportunity
to take over the operations and maintenance of the canal from the federal
government is at that time, you know, it was, it was getting to be forty
years old and it was starting to show, you know, signs of being and, and
aging structure and we were getting worried about it being a viable, you
know, facility or facilities to be able to meet our needs and so overtime
and so-- And this was, you know, I don't want to sound too critical of
the Bureau of Reclamation but it just is an indication of the
inefficiencies of relying on congressional appropriations for O&M and-and likewise when you think about it no one has more incentive than the
water users from making sure that the facilities are in good shape to
provide them the water but also that that service is provided, you know,
economically efficiently as well because they're paying for it anyway.
And I mean even when the bureau was doing it, the bureau was charging the
water users whatever it cost the bureau to do it, you know, the bureau
was charging the water users. And so there--it just made so much sense
for the water users to takeover the facilities they they would--they're
the ones that have all the risk that there is downtime on the facilities
and they're the ones that are paying for. And so the water users jumped
in, the facilities were at that time, you know, showing signs of getting
older and needed some preventive maintenance and also, you know, a lot of
the technology had changed, you know, both electrical and--and, you know,
going into a digital era, we converted all of that, updated all of the
electrical stuff at the pumps, and we actually are pretty proud of the-the condition of the facilities right now, notwithstanding they’re, you
know, seven, 60 years old? Yeah, yeah, so they're in good shape and
they've been reliable and knock on wood, and we, you know, we just
haven't had much down time.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the current O&M funding--the way the money moves
right now, it's being paid by the people who are receiving the water. And
does that mean that the districts who are members of your authority
charge individual water users than for a portion of the O&M cost and then
the districts turn that money over to the authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. Generally how that works is--the authority develops
its budget on how much it thinks it's going to take for it to--how much
money it's going to cost to maintain the facility for a given year and
then it also determines--it speculates on how much water it's actually
going to deliver through those facilities. And based on that you come up
with--it's pretty simple calculation, a cost per acres foot. You figure
out your total cost and you figure out your acre foot. The next level of
detail is we actually do that in different regions of our delivery or
different phases of our water delivery so it's a little more complicated
but generally it all boils down to a cost per acres foot. For every acre
foot that we deliver to one of our member agencies, it goes through a
meter and so that, that agency pays us per acres foot that we deliver to
it. And and they pay us for that service to of delivering the water to
them. Once that agency gets its water, we'll just say, the San Luis Water
District as an example, once we deliver the water to San Luis Water
District it has paid us for the service at getting it to them, San Luis
then has to deliver that water to all of its, all of its farmers and that
earns San Luis Water District. And it has its own canal system and
plumbing system that it has to use and maintain. So by the time they send
their bills to their water users it has a component for our O&M, it has a
component for their O&M and any other incidental charges that San Luis
Water District has for, you know, operating the district. So that's
generally how the flow of money goes or if you--ultimately it's the water
user, the individual water user, whether you're an industrial user or
whether or you're an ag user, ultimately, you're the one that's paying
the bill for all of that infrastructure.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you have any senses to. You say an
industrial user as opposed to--opposed to an ag user. Is the majority of
your—of the users of the water with Delta-Mendota canal for farming or is
there a lot of industrial use or municipal use?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah, the majority is agriculture. Out of the--I
think we have contracts in the range right around 3.3 million acres feet,
our members have contracts for that amount of water. And probably out of
that, about 2.7 of that is probably for agriculture use, about 400,000 of
that is probably or is around the number that we use for wildlife
refugees and then maybe 200-250,000 for urban use and industrial use.
That includes one of our members is the Santa Clara Valley Water District
that includes Silicon Valley and so--when we say industrial use it's for
those, you know, types of uses that this water is used for.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I understand a lot of what happens in Silicon
actually takes a great deal of water.
>> Dan Nelson: You know they do, they do, yeah, and they're very
interested and engaged in a lot of our water issues as a result of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What towns and cities take water from Delta-Mendota->> Dan Nelson: Yeah, the city of Tracy is a CVP contractor and a member
of ours and takes water from the Delta-Mendota. Coalinga takes it from
Westlands, through Westlands. The Lemoore Naval base is--is a user
through Westlands and then we-- and then you know, incidentally the city
of Dos Palos and, and Los Banos are working on, you know, getting some
surface water from the CVP but--the major CVP urban user, south of the
Delta is the city and county of Santa Clara and-- and they use probably,
you know, 75 to 80 percent of the urban water that's delivered south at
the Delta. San Benito County also, you know, is converting more and more
of its agricultural ground to ranchettes as is a lot of the different ag
areas. But so most of our-- most of our CVP water that goes for
industrial and urban uses in Santa Clara but we do have Tracy and
Coalinga that are the major ones in the valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You also mentioned some wild life refuges that you are
responsible for. How did that--how was that come about?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it’s an inter--actually a very interesting
history, this area when the San Joaquin, as I said, it's the valley is
very, very flat and when the San Joaquin, you know, flows--when they
started the increase in the spring, they just kind of fanned out and
that's what caused all the sloughs and everything in the valley but when
they fanned out, you know, there was a lot of marsh land in the valley at
that time. And as a result of that, a lot of waterfowl in this area in
fact is-- the-- the it's incredible some of the stories that, you know,
that you have from the 1870s and 80s of where the skies were just, you
know, blackened by, you know, the waterfowl and so--and but ultimately as
Miller & Lux started doing diversions off the San Joaquin River and as
flood control came into play there weren't the same refugees that we had
along the basin of the valley. However, Miller & Lux when they developed
their canals and diverted water from the San Joaquin River, the final
overflow of that and--and the remnants of that ended up in an area just
south and north of Los Banos--in the Los Banos area of being overflow
waterfowl habitat from the Miller & Lux canals and out in the camp,
thirteen area, is a good example of that. And, and so it developed some
habitat. Well, when--when Miller & Lux exchanged their water rights for
Central Valley Project contract supply, the refugees you know, kind of
got left behind in that process whereas they had re--they had sort of
relied upon the Miller & Lux diversions for, you know, for their--for
their habitat and when that water was exchanged to the federal government
there really wasn't any water provided to the--to that grassland area.
And so led by Martin Winton, and some other Grassland Water District
reps, they ultimately got an initial contract. I believe it was in the
mid-50s of 50,000 acre feet and that's about the time when the Grassland
Water District was developed as part of all of that. And-- and then
through the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1991 or 1992 that
it was passed, they were able to get a much larger water supply in the
range of now around 400,000 acres feet that they--that they use for
their--for the waterfowl habitat. But it's kind of this evolution of
natural San Joaquin river overflows to Miller & Lux excess-- excess water
to now a much more formalized contractual relationship with the federal
government for, for their supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually with the Bureau of Reclamation putting more
water back into San Joaquin River, is that going to expand water supplies
in for some of those wildlife refugees?
>> Dan Nelson: No, not at all. They're not tied into that plumbing system
anymore at all. They're--they’re totally reliant upon the Central Valley
Project Plumbing System at this point and-- It, it is noteworthy that
there's probably a 125,000 acres within the Pacific flyway that relies on
this portion of the plumbing system. And some of those are state wildlife
refugees some of them are federal wildlife refugees and then the
Grassland Water District represents privately owned wildlife refugees,
mostly duck clubs and--and so it's--but the water supply for all of those
all come now from the Federal Central Valley Project.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does your authority have any responsibility for
operation or its maintenance of San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: We have--we operate the O'Neill Pumping Plant that pumps
up into the O'Neill Forebay which is at the base, and well that's the
forebay for the San Luis Reservoir. The Department of Water Resources
operates the Gianelli Pumping Plant and--and also the San Luis
Reservoirs. So we, we operate the forebay but we don't operate either
Gianelli or the--or the-- the major reservoir. We do coordinate closely
with DWR because, you know, there's deliveries of our water made out of
San Luis Reservoir down the San Luis canal to Westlands and other San
Luis Water District in Panoche through the San Luis Unit. And then
there's also a pipeline that goes over as we’ve discussed, it goes over
the-- the coastal range there into Santa Clara Valley and San Benito
County and so we have to coordinate very closely with DWR, of the
operations but they ultimately are the operators of San Luis Reservoir.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now as I understand San Luis Reservoir is actually a
combination of state and Federal Water.
>> Dan Nelson: It is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And technically you're only pumping out the Federal
Water.
>> Dan Nelson: Technically, yeah, yeah the clean water that you see up at
San Luis Reservoir is our water and the other water, yeah. No, it’s, it
was actually developed--the San Luis Unit was developed in the 1970s
actually constructed in the 1970s as and '60s when San Luis Reservoir was
constructed and began operating in 1970s I should say. San Luis Reservoir
has storage of about 2.1 million acre feet. It’s entirely imported water.
I say entirely it’s, it’s built on the San Luis Creek Basin. And it's got
2.1 million acre feet capacity. And to give you a sense of the San Luis
Creek average flows per year is about 35,000 acre feet. And that's about
what the evaporation is for San Luis Reservoir. And so generally it's-it's all imported water from Northern California that's imported in the
winter time and spring time. That's when we fill up San Luis Reservoir.
55 percent of that is state water contractor storage capacity and 45
percent of that is the Central Valley Project or the Federal Contractor
capacity and so it's split 55-45.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually something you just mentioned
always I found interesting you're talking about the, you
of water due to evaporation. You know something like San
is spread out all and exposed to the sun. Are these kind
even an effective way to store water?
in there is
know, the loss
Luis the water
of reservoirs
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely yeah. I mean certainly, you know, there's-absolutely. We rely on, you know, surface storage throughout the state.
And certainly I--I don't anticipate there ever being an efficient or, or
cost effective way of--of avoiding the evaporation, the incidental
evaporation that comes as a result of that but, as--as you are aware we
generally have two types of storage, one is above ground and one is, is
below ground and--and which has its own efficiencies below ground, The
aquifer is kind of, you know, not--not being as well defined and managed
but oh yeah, no, there's, you know, surface storage is very valuable to
us.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Still in some ways superior to say the ground banking
of water or->> Dan Nelson: Well it would depend on, you know, the nature of the
ground bank, you know, all--not all ground banks are created equal. And
there are some that are very well defined and very understood aquifers
that my understanding is they're managed, you know, pretty doggone
efficiently and as I say pretty well defined. But, but certainly, you
know, surface storage has their place.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is--your authority have any involvement at all with
any parts of the restoration of San Joaquin River say at the Mendota pool
area?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we, we do. The exchange contractors are members
of our organization and, and they still hold water rights on the San
Joaquin and->> Thomas Holyoke: Maybe we should step back then and explain what the
exchange contractors are.
>> Dan Nelson: Sure. Yeah that's--that, we shall do that. The--the
exchange contractors are as a result of the old Miller & Lux based lands
on the west side of the valley that initially began diverting water in
the 1870s and built a canal system through Henry-Miller's life and, you
know, let's say through the 1920s and developed maybe 300,000 acres of
land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley based on, you know,
diverting water and developing water rights off of the San Joaquin River.
The--so, so they held these water rights and and had the ability to be
able to divert water off the San Joaquin River. Well the Federal
Government came along and said, you know, we'd really like to put a dam
up in the Millerton area. And we would like to take your water there.
They’re saying this to the exchange contractor we'd like--we'd like to
take your water and use it on the east side. And in exchange for that
we're going to build some dams and reservoirs in the northern part of the
state and a big pumping plant in the Delta. And we're going--in exchange
for you to let us use your water rights on the east side of the valley
we're going to deliver you water out of the new Central Valley project.
And so they negotiated what's referred to as the exchange contracts and
that's actually what--what occurs, and what occurred. They entered into
those contracts and so the exchange contractors what is known as the
exchange contractors now. The old Miller & Lux based land and water
rights were given to the Federal Government to use to irrigate what is
now known as the Friant area or the east side of the valley. And in
exchange for that the Federal Government agrees to each and every year to
deliver water from Northern California to the exchange contractors
through the Jones Pumping Plant Delta-Mendota Canal. And that is to the
exchange.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK and then moving back to any responsibilities the
authority has on the river restoration around Mendota pool.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. So you-- we have that connection between the west
side and the east side and that connection’s primarily through the
exchange contract. Generally how we've been viewing the--we have been
supportive of the restoration of the San Joaquin River and the
implementation of the settlement agreement. So let me establish that
right from the beginning. We--we are in full support of the restoration
program as envisioned by the settlement. We are-- we have viewed this or
viewed that project mostly from the perspective of trying to make sure
that it didn't negatively impact us on the west side of the valley. And-and so most of our review of the environmental documents and--and just
following the progress and the process of--of meeting the imple--or the
restoration program have been from the context of making sure that there
were no third--what we refer to as third party impacts. And so we've
been--we've been--we’ve been supportive but not wanting to be impacted
as--as a part of it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you haven't been involved with like, you know,
changes to Mendota dam and some of the->> Dan Nelson: You know, we, it certainly does that we operate the--the
water deliveries out of the Mendota Dam or out of the Mendota pool. And
so certainly it--it has taken a--it includes now other elements of that
operation. We have now water flowing--flowing, you know, down the San
Joaquin River. And so it does take really close coordination between us
and Friant and the Bureau of Reclamation to make all of that happen. And- and so to--to the operations yes, we have been a, a part of that
because it's--it’s now integrated with our operations out of the Mendota
pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, some of the issues we’ve talked about with some
other people involved problem on the western side of the valley dealing
with drainage. Does-- do your authority have anything to do with the
drainage or even including operation of some of the drainage canal--the
drainage system?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we do. We--we took over the operations and
maintenance because, you know, just because you take water out of a
facility of which, you know, the drainage was closed back during the
Kesterson [phonetic] era. And--and so we--we took over the operations and
maintenance of the San Luis drain I think sometime in the, you know, mid
90s, maybe late 90s. And since we were taking, you know, since we were
doing all the O&M on all of the water delivery systems the bureau really
didn't have a lot of maintenance folks out in the area and so we took
over operations and maintenance of the drain as well. So we actually do-we we try to maintain the drained, you know, and--and to keep it in
condition whereas, you know, it can be used of some form of conveyance in
the future.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What--what is the drain?
>> Dan Nelson: The drain is a phenomena out of the Central Valley
Project. It was understood that when you--when you apply water to lands—
to to the lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley that you were
going to have a-- you were going to develop high water table. We--it was
understood that we had a clay layer, you know, an impervious clay layer a
hundred feet down to three hundred feet down. And once you started
applying water, you know, on the west side of the valley that generally
you’re going to have this—the the water was going to build up. And--and
you were also because of drainage and also you would have a salt
accumulation unless you did something about that. That was recognized
actually Miller & Lux folks had to deal with both water table issues and
salinity issues once they began even diverting water out of the San
Joaquin River. They had to deal with those issues as far back as the
1880s, 1890s, you know, they had a high water that developed in their
area as well. So this is--this was something that was well known and
anticipated when the Central Valley Project, you know, was being
conceptualized. The expected remedy for that would be--was to be a drain
that would initiate in the Firebaugh-Mendota area and actually even south
of that, south of Mendota area and would head all the way up to the Delta
and essentially would release water if I recall right in the Pittsburgh
area. And--and so this-- the that would be a mechanism for the valley to
be able to maintain its water table. But also even more important to
maintain its salt balance because no matter how pure water is, it's
always got some form to salt to it or some--some level of salts in it
and-- and without an outlet ultimately, you know, it accumulates. And so
it was recognized early on and it was anticipated that the remedy for
that would be this drain. That--the drain was constructed in the late 70s
and early 80s and-- and essentially my, my recollection of this is that
it was it authorized and they initiated construction but Congressman
George Miller of the Bay Area had essentially held up some of the
appropriations if I recall to where they--they weren't going to be able
to finish the drain and so essentially they were faced with a half built
facility. And they decided what they would do is while they were getting
permits to extend it the rest of the way and, and--and getting
appropriations for the rest of the way they would essentially use this
facility and develop some marsh lands. And as we had talked about earlier
there was a shortage of supply at that time for--for wildlife habitat.
And so they actually thought that they'd be able to use this for wildlife
production and--and develop wildlife marshes around the drain and where
it ended. And that is the legacy of Kesterson is the drainage water
contained a lot more than just salts and it certainly wasn't, you know,
useful in fact it was very destructive for wildlife habitat in its purest
form and--and so that was how we ended up with the problems at Kesterson
is we’d have tried to develop a wildlife area with this water and it
wasn't, you know, adequate water to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: That was in the early 1980s that that happened?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, it was--it was I recall it actually well because the
water district I was working for at the time the Broadview Water District
had it really extensive drainage problem. And--and we were dealing with
it through various mechanisms but working with Grassland Water District
at the time. But ultimately we anticipated that we would be a, you know,
that we would once the drain was completed and the permits were achieved
to extend the drain and the funding that we would hook up to it. And so
we were following it pretty closely. And I believe it was about 1981 when
the Bureau of Reclamation Fish and Wildlife Service decided well let's-let's, you know, while we're working on these permits to extend the drain
let's—they--they had envisioned as part of the drain to have marsh land
holding ponds and marsh land habitat to manage the flows. So when the
flows were higher and they couldn't release the all of the water out into
the Delta they would be able to put them into these ponds. And they had
several of these along the way designed. And so they were part of the
design of the, you know, the extension of the drain. When they were
delayed in extending the drain both permits and financially they decided
well let's take these holding basins and let's see if we can develop some
marsh habitats and then vap--and evaporate the water and--and initiate ,
you know, use of the drain. So that was--that was a, that was a fatal
decision that, you know, essentially they tried to evaporate--use these
marsh habitats as evaporation ponds instead of flow through. And as
evaporation ponds all of the elements that were in the water and selenium
proved out--proved to be the most lethal but just accumulated because
your evaporating the water out and you've got these, you know, the
selenium’s just accumulating and the salts and, and borons and everything
else that's in in--in the water. And that--that was essentially the—the,
the problem, you know, that, that--that just exploded with Kesterson.
And-- and no, it was--it was--it was really an an interesting and a
really tense time. It for both agriculture and the wildlife area. Prior
to that time, you know, agriculture had actually developed a pretty good
relationships and/or what we have thought were good relationships and a
working mechanism for dealing with our drainage through the refuges with
Grasslands and-- and and the Grasslands prior to that were really relying
a lot on agricultural drainage, you know, to keep things going 'cause it
didn't have enough water. The Kesterson example was an extreme example
because number one it was pure subsurface drainage whereas most of the
area--other areas that was using the drainage water for wildlife habitat
like the Grassland Water District was using diluted drainage water. It
was using a combination of surface excess flows with--with the subsurface
flows and it was also a flow through system. So it's flowing through the
marshes, whereas the Kesterson example was they--they took just pure
drainage water without any kind of surface dilution at all and then
evaporated it. And so it really magnified whatever problem that we didn't
recognize that was occurring using this drainage water prior to that was
magnified and brought to the surface at that point and so it changed
everything. It, you know, it certainly, you know, took away any of our
expectations that we were going to be releasing this water, you know, out
to the Delta. And it acertainly made us rethink how on a long term basis
we were going to deal with our salt build up and on a long term basis how
we were going to deal with drainage in the valley. It changed everything
fundamentally.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are you doing?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, actually, you know, it--it, it, it's really turned
out into a--a, a magnificent success story because, you know, at, at that
time, you know, things looked bleak. I mean we didn't--you can't build-you can't deal, you know, with a--an agricultural area that's just
inundated with salt. I mean you have to manage that somehow. And what
we've done is and--and again it was at a time we--we, up till that time
frame we had once again relied entirely on the Bureau of Reclamation to
provide drainage for us. And they were going to build this drain. It was
even part of our contracts with them that they would do this. And so we
a--up till that point we were relying entirely well that's, you know, the
bureau will fix that. And right at that point it’s when our water users
realized, you know, the bureau is not gonna be able to fix this, you
know. We, we, we probably shouldn't, you know, rely on the bureau to, to
pull this off. And so our water users, you know, to their credit all
stepped up. They became--they became, they embraced the problem and they,
they became accountable for the problem. And they developed a--a really
sophisticated monitoring system both quality and quantity to try to get a
grip on, you know, what was going on, where the hotspots and--and how to
manage this you need good data to figure out how to manage something. And
so they developed a good database on and did that themselves and then
they--they figured out ways of doing it and it, that have evolved over
the last 30 years and how to manage that with minimal releases outside
the area and working to ultimately cutting off any releases of any
drainage water, whatsoever in the next several years. And so, they-they've been able to, to, to implement things in a way that has met water
quality standards in the river, has met the water quality standards in
their area. And--but yet have isolated the salts from the ag land that
they're trying to protect.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there still some interesting developing in drain
system? Mean, I understand that Judge Wanger has ordered--well when he
was a Judge ordered the Bureau of Reclamation to get the project finished
even though the bureau apparently has no money to do so->> Dan Nelson: Or expertise strength.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. No--well, there's actually two drainage worlds
occurring. One is in the legal is in the courts and essentially that's
who's responsible for this. The courts have established the bureau--you
have a responsibility to do this. And essentially the courts have said
"Bureau go out and do this." And the Bureau has sort of, I-- frankly the
bureau, you know, and very candidly the bureau doesn't know how to do
this. They, they don't know how to meet the court order and to be able to
provide the drainage that it contracted out to the water users. But--so
you have--so—and, and I'm talking in very general terms here, but you
have this court order that is telling the bureau to do this. The bureau
doesn't know how to do it. The bureau ultimately probably wouldn't have
funding to do it. And—but, but sort of--they're, they’re going through
sort of the checklist of what they need to be but, the water users aren't
counting on that to solve their problem. You know, there maybe, you know,
some damages or something like that that ultimately will come out of it.
But, but as far as, you know, looking at--OK, how are we going to sustain
ourselves with this drainage issue that we have? How are we going to, you
know, have agricultural--agriculture be sustainable. They're not relying
on, on the bureau to do that. So, separate from those legal activities
you have the real world of what's going on out in the field over here and
that's essentially the water and drainage district stepping up and
providing services and managing this drainage water in a real time basis
and they've gotten good at it. They've gotten really good it. And you
know and, and as a result, you know, they, they, they, they are meeting
the regulatory issues but they're also thriving, you know, production
wise in agriculturally as well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, well let's go up to the northern end of DeltaMendota canal up to the, up to the Delta.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
Thomas Holyoke: I don't know maybe if this is the best point to start it
at but, start talking about maybe the changes in water delivery that
began with the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act if that's the
right place maybe to begin with.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know maybe, maybe the broader issue is, you
know, things have changed fundamentally in how we operate the Central
Valley project. They've changed, you know, what crops we grow. They
changed how we grow them. We, we’ve changed fundamentally how we manage
and irrigate them. And in, in retrospect those changes began to occur in
the late 80’s and early 90’s. And have, have, having lived through the-or the pre, you know, change conditions and now through the post change
conditions. Generally what occurred in the late 80’s and early 90’s is a
couple of things just as, as a perfect storm came together regulatorily.
Number one, we had two listed species that, that occurred. We had the
listing of the Delta smelt and the listing of the winter-run salmon. And
so, we had two--we had the Endangered Species Act that was being
implemented in ways that affected on a real-time basis how we operated
the system. And in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we didn't fully
appreciate the implications of that or really understood what that meant.
But nonetheless, that's when, you know, it occurred, the listings were
about in 1991. In 1992, we had the Central Valley Project Improvement Act
that was passed. And it fundamentally changed the Central Valley Project
changed the role of the Bureau of Reclamation formally at that point. It
changed how it is that we could operate, you know, the Central Valley
Project. And there were, there three provisions of that, that reallocated
water from the agricultural base to other uses. One was the Trinity River
restoration component of the CVP. The second was, we've talked about
wildlife refuges and their reliance upon drainage water for their water
supply. Well, the CVPIA provided them a fresh water supply from the
Central Valley Project that water had historically been delivered to
agriculture. And then, and, and, but now, it carved out a block of water
for those refuges. And so, that was the second area. And then third area,
it generally dedicated 800,000 acre feet of CVP yield for environmental
purposes, and again, that water had historically been used for
agriculture, so. So in 92, you had the passage of that. And then in 94, a
little bit later the State Water Resources Control board under the
umbrella of the Federal Clean Water Act started promulgating-- or looking
at coming up with new standards for the bay Delta. And so, those were the
three Federal Statutes that came to play pretty much within a five year
period of span the Endangered Species Act, the Central Valley Project
Improvement Act and the Clean Water Act. And, and also in the late 80s
and early 90s we were having a drought there just wasn't--and in fact it
was a pretty severe drought, it ended up lasting about five years. So,
you know, if you, if you think through that we've got this drought. And,
and by the way prior to 1989, 1990 when we started deliveries out of the
Federal Project in 1952 we had only had one year that we weren't able to
deliver a 100 percent supply-- contract supply to our water users and
that was the drought of 1977. So, the point of that is the CVP was a
very, very stable project. And, and, and the water supplies were very
certain out of the CVP. You knew you were, you know, likely gonna get a
100 percent each and every year and you knew that early. You knew, you
know, pretty early on the storage was sufficient and, and you can move
the water around, so, so, it was in that backdrop that all of this
started to occur. We, we started having the severe drought and we started
getting shortages. At the same time we were implementing or the Fish and
Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries was implementing Endangered
Species actions. And then we had the CVPIA passed. And--so, we were
getting these shortages but it wasn't clear to us, you know, how much of
this was the drought? How much of it was the new regulatory regime until
1993 and, and it rained really hard that winter--and we had, you know,
everything kind of recovered. And the water users still ended up with a
50 percent supply. And that was a huge, huge eye opener for the water
users. It was fundamental. I mean, you know, with all of this rain and
for them to get a 50 percent supply was a huge reality check. And, and it
was when they recognized for the first time. They had a sense that, you
know, ESA was gonna, you know, impact their lives and, and, and CVPIA
certainly but they didn't have a sense to the extent of that. And that
all came to a head there in 93 and, and that's when they realized they
needed to step up. And we started making investments, our authority
started making investments in, in the technical aspects of the fishery
declined, biologist, hydrologist and we started gearing up ourselves to
be able to participate in those discussions about, you know, what, what,
what was going on in the Delta and how we're gonna operate this CVP in a
way that meets the new needs for the, the, the fish and water quality as
well as the supply. And so, it was, it was in, you know, around mid 90s
when all of that just came to a head.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, that point in time like, like 1993 I guess the
year of the reality check, were there actually cut backs in pumping
because of the need to protect the fish [inaudible] that year?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, there was, there was. And, again, you know, it was
combination of cut, you know, low flows because of the drought as well as
you know, sensitivities to the fish and it was, it was hard for us to
separate it. Plus frankly at that time, we didn't have a lot of expertise
to figure out how they were operating the system. We, we hadn't had to
pay attention to that prior to that. That was mostly the bureau doing
that for us. And so we just didn't have a good sense of what was driving
the shortages at that time frankly. But it was you know, we had some
sense, it was ESA driven but we didn't know to the extent.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What-- changes--what--did any of your--you, your
authority any of your districts start to advocate for changes in the, in
the law like in [inaudible].
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely, well I mean--certainly we were very much
engaged actually in the legislative process for the passing of Central
Valley Project Improvement Act was extensive. And it took--my
recollection as it, it seemed going for a hundred years but it was
probably you know, over the course of the year, year and a half. Most of
our representation at that time in dealing with the legislation was
through the Central Valley Project Water Association. So it was all
Central Valley project water users, us, Friant, The Tehama-Colusa in
Northern California were all different segments of the Central Valley
project. But we were all combined under one organization called the
Central Valley Project Water Association and they represented us, Jason
Peltier was the executive director at the time and they represented us in
the CVPIA negotiations and, and the development of that legislation.
Subsequently, once the bill passed of course the administrations handed
this new law, they have to go implement it. And that has been very, very
contentious. And you know, to this day there are some loose ends but
generally especially during the 90s we were involved in many efforts to,
you know, to work in forums that would establish the policies for
implementation on the various components of it. And then ultimately, you
know, litigation in areas where we don't think that, you know, where we
didn't think that they, their policies were consistent with the law. And,
and so, and you know, there was an effort I believe--I think it was '96
or '97 to even amend it. And so there have been legislative efforts to
amend CVPIA, there's on-going administrative efforts to influence how the
law is implemented, and certainly legal issues and judicial issues
involved as well that you know, we've been involved in for 20 years,
regarding the implementation CVPIA.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In the 1990s we have something called the Bay Delta
accord which then leads to this, I guess attempted coordination called
CALFED, are you involved with that?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. I was, I was. And generally the background of the Bay
Delta Accord again is we were in the tail end of this drought and we now
had two federal statutes being implemented--regulatory statutes, CVPIA
and ESA that were being implemented. And then you had--then you had the
State Water Resources Control Board you know, wanting to develop a
standard. So when you, when you think through that morass essentially
under the Endangered Species Act you have the National Marines Fishery
Service is responsible for winter-run salmon. You have Fish and Wildlife
Service responsible for bringing back the Delta smelt for--so that's the
endangered species component of it. And then on the CVPIA had Fish and
Wildlife Service you know, that was responsible for implementing a lot of
different things. You had NIMS responsible for implementing in the Bureau
of Reclamation and you also had DWR that was involved, you know, on the
state side, DWR and Department of Fish & Game. And you literally had all
these different agencies trying to implement their little niche whether
it be for the winter-run salmon or for, for the Delta smelt or for, you
know, the 800,000 acre feet, they were all you know, kind of trying to
make sense out of all that. And it wasn't, it wasn't working let alone
certainly wasn't an efficient way of doing it. Senator Feinstein stepped
up at the time and saw this and then you have the state board on top of
all of that. You had the state board about ready to say OK, well, we
wanna come in and put new standards amongst all of that. And so that's
when Senator Feinstein stepped in and essentially a very long story,
short, got all of those folks together to see, is there a way that we can
come up with a way of operating the system in a more comprehensive way
that takes care of the needs of the individual species and takes care of
the water quality issues and sort of come up with one set of criteria for
operating for fish, water quality in the water supply. And that, that
resulted in our area meeting with Metropolitan Water District. And Jerry
Butcher the manager of Westlands at the time, you know, and myself met
with, with some metropolitan representative, the general manager and also
Tim Quinn who was with MED at the time and just, you know, had a
discussion about whether or not we thought we could come up with a plan,
you know, to do-- whether we wanted to make the effort of coming up with
this plan. And we decided at that meeting that we did and so we started
working with them. Ultimately we went down to Kern County Water Agency
and sort of made this proposal to them. You know, would you join us in
trying to work on this more comprehensive approach. And Tom Clark of Kern
County you know, ultimately, that Kern joined us. And so the water users
south of the Delta including Metropolitan, Kern County and the San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority began working on a proposal of what that
comprehensive plan may, may look like. And we worked through, you know,
Senator Feinstein, assisted in keeping everyone together and on the same
course. And then, there was a federal employee much more than that, an
appointed official on the Department of Interior. She was an assistant
secretary. Her name was Betsy Rieke and she was instrumental in
corralling all of the different federal agencies and leading and being
their rep whether it'd be NIMS, Fish and Wildlife, 'cause they're all
under different, different agencies. And so, she was responsible
corralling all of those. And so, we ultimately ended up with a package
that worked. On December 15th of '94, we signed the Bay Delta Accord and,
and it was intended to be a way that we collectively agreed that we would
implement all of these different regulatory statutes. We would, we would
use this for three or four years on an interim basis while we developed a
more long term strategy for the Delta. And that essentially was CALFED
and how--and so, we implemented the Bay Delta Accord in '94, December of
'94 and then initiated discussions on CALFED in '95.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And did it all work out?
>> Dan Nelson: No, no, no. Unfortunately it didn't. And you know, as--I
was a, you know, I was one of the negotiators of the Bay Delta Accord. I
had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of ownership in that in the sense
that I was totally committed to it. And, and felt very strongly. It was a
good plan. And by the way it wasn't, you know, uniformly embraced. You
know, I had a lot of criticism that we gave up too much for the accord
and then there was a lot of folks that, you know, recognized that we
stabilize things really well through the accord and actually postured
ourselves water supply wise in a good stable place. But, unfortunately
about two years later and you're gonna have to, you know, I'm a little
cynical about this because, because I was so vested in the accord. The
Bureau of Reclamation, you know, through the implementation of a certain
component of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, CVPIA, the
Bureau of Reclamation was still looking at implementing CVPIA which the
component that is that issue here is referred to as the B2 provision of
CVPIA which is Section 3406B2 and that dedicates 800,000 acre feet to the
environment. And so, the issue surfaced is--does or is the implementation
of B2 within the parameters of the accord. And you know, it was obvious
to us that it had been--that it was and that, you know, all of the
declarations about the accord and the words--unfortunately the words in
the accord itself were as clear as, you know, in retrospect it could have
been, but nonetheless, it was very clear that all of the water that we
were going to dedicate for environmental purposes under the CVPIA and,
and under the Endangered Species Act were embedded and within the
agreement and the operation to the agreement. And ultimately,
unfortunately the Bureau of Reclamation came to the conclusion "No,
there's a portion of the 800,000 acre feet that's up and above what you
agreed upon in the accord." So essentially we're gonna implement things
that even going to displace more water than the accord did. We ended up
in court, you know, about that. And unfortunately all of the accord was,
you know, characterized as the end of all water wars in California and,
and it lasted a couple of years before we had our first law suit about it
unfortunately. It was really disappointing. I, you know, to this day I, I
think it was very regrettable that that's where the Bureau ended up. I,
you know, there was a lot of things that came out of that that were just
totally unnecessary. You know and it was really distracting and really I
think put us on a course that we a regulatory based course that we
haven't been able to escape yet.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We seem to be in an area we're trying again, you know,
Governor Schwarzenegger when he tried to at least--I guess initiated the
current process we seem to be in now, he has big blue ribbon commission
on what to do about the Delta. Try to create some kind of guarantee of
water supply for agriculture while at the same doing all this
environmental stuff sort of trying to do, take care of the two main
problems simultaneously. Do you--would you--were you overly involved with
the Governor's commission or some of the things that have happened since
that have led to the plan we have seem to have today?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Yes, I was. And generally we went through the CALFED
process which was supposed--it was a very formalized processed, you know,
and came out with, you know, a record of decision that's really never
been implemented to any extent. But, as a result of some of the failures
of the CALFED process and I will generalize those failures as, as
probably being the result of trying to be all things to everybody, lost
its focus, and therefore couldn't ever really be implemented effectively.
As a result of that--on the heels of that, we began--and it was actually
initiated by Steve Thompson who was the--I don't believe they call them
Regional Directors but in effect the Regional Director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service. He was in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service in
California/Oregon area. And so, Steve Thompson, you know, called this
meeting with some water users. And since he said, you know, "This isn't
working well, you know, for water users. This isn't working well for the
fisheries. You know, we need to think of a new way of doing this. And,
you know, why don't, you know, he was--had some experience with, with
what's referred to under the Endangered Species Act habitat conservation
plans and you know very generally as opposed to dealing with endangered
species in an area, a species by species, you know, whether it be winterrun, just focusing on winter-run, Delta smelt or whatever. Instead of,
you know, having implementing the Endangered Species Act under a specie
by specie, the habitat conservation plan provides opportunities to deal
with it in a more comprehensive way. And where you're developing a
habitat is sort of the concept that work for all different species. And
it's a much more comprehensive approach to resolving endangered species
issues. And so, we saw the merit to it and we started working on that. We
recognized pretty early on after--and this is a whole different story
about, you know, how the implementation of ESA has evolved over the last
20 years. But as a result of banging our head against the wall of making
the current through Delta plumbing system of where the water flows
through the Delta from the Northern--generally the Sacramento River
through the Delta to our pumping plants to the south that's referred to
as the through Delta plumbing system. As opposed to continuing trying to
make that work we were going to look at how do we separate the plumbing
system from--and to not try to get it through the Delta but around the
Delta. And you know, we dusted off the old peripheral canal of which, you
know, by the way was, was advocated by a lot of Fish and Wildlife and a
lot of Fish & Game people as being, you know, what is, what is needed is
to separate the water plumbing system from the fishery, you know,
habitat.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually had your authority and your water districts
been supportive of the peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know, during CALFED we made a conscious decision
to not pursue a peripheral canal or we'll call it an isolated facility
where you isolate the water delivery system from, you know, we'll call it
the central Delta habitat system. We made a conscious decision in CALFED,
begrudgingly conscious decision from the water user's perspective that at
that time it was determined, Lester Snow was ahead of the CALFED program
at that time... And he was really reluctant to get CALFED in the motive
where it was promoting an isolated facility. He just thought politically
and financially. Just everything it would be too distracting, you know,
to the CAL--you know, that would--It just--and it was just too
overwhelming. And so we made a conscious decision to try to figure out a
plan, a CALFED comprehensive plan without doing it through an isolated
facility. At the tail end of all that when we realized all of that didn't
work and we started looking at a habitat conservation plan is when we
said, you know, if, if we're going to make this work, we've been
struggling now for 20 years to figure out how to make this through Delta
system work, if we're gonna make this work we're going to need an
isolated facility. Or--we're gonna at least have to explore that. And so
that was essentially the initiation of the discussion that we're still in
today and that is how to best, you know, how to best manage the Delta. We
think it's probably through an isolative facility. And we have now
settled on a pretty distinct plan for how--what we think the isolated
facility looks like and, we’re, we're pursuing that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And by here at September 2013 by isolated facility
you're referring to, this proposal to actually dig tunnels underneath the
Delta?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, two huge tunnels, two 30-foot tunnels, about, about
a 100-feet deep below the Delta from Clarksburg and, you know, down to
the pumps itself.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why this rather than a peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, for--actually for a, for a lot of different
reasons but the primary one is just the footprint of a surf--of a canal.
And the--a surface canal you know, would go right through the middle of
the Delta and, you know, it could, it’d be really, you know, I can see
where, you know, it would be pretty disruptive of all the different
transportation routes of everything in the Delta to have a huge canal go
through the middle of it. And so the primary reason for it is just the
huge footprint that a canal would take.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And this--and having a tunnel system benefits water
users South of the Delta how?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it separates the water delivery system from the
migration path of the salmon, it sepa--to a large extent. I mean
obviously from the Sacramento River, north from Clarksburg of course you
know, that's still a water delivery system and where salmon run as well.
But generally, you know, the Delta itself is just a maze of all of these
channels. And so there are fish living in that channel and the Delta
smelt’s a good example of that. So, so there are fish living in this
channel but there are also--there are also migrating fish that migrate
through that. And so the combination of having the fish trying to use
this as a combination of habitat and migrating corridors as well as it
being a delivery system? We, you know, we hadn't been able to figure out
how to best do that. And to meet the needs of the fish, to meet the needs
of supply and so, you know, separating the two gives us a better
opportunity to do that. To meet both the fishery needs better and to be
able to make, you know, stable supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And if you found working with the people representing
the fishing industry? People representing environmental interest to be-it [inaudible] be possible to get them on board with these plans?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it, it--if, if--it really is a mixed bag.
I mean we have certain environmental organizations that have embraced it.
And we've had other environmental organizations that have been fairly
adamant in their, in their opposition to it. We've--probably the center
of opposition is the Delta itself. And the folks in the Delta that are
you know concerned about removing you know, so much fresh water that
currently flows through there now on their way to our pumps, it still
flows through the Delta and so they're obviously concerned about water
quality issues. And rightfully so those issues all need to be addressed
adequately. And then you have a smattering of Northern California thinks
that this is going to be a way for, you know, somehow Southern California
to take more water from them. And so there’s certainly those concerns
and—but, but you also have Northern Californians that look at this as an
opportunity for them. And you have certainly environmental folks that
looked at this as being the best way of, of dealing with the fishery and
water quality issues. And so certainly you have, you know, folks that are
looking at this, in, from a lot of different perspectives.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, we may have to bring you back in a few years to
do an epilogue just to see how it all actually went.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Well things, you know, we're hoping are going to
come to a head here fairly soon. We--right now, the cost for the
environmental work are estimated and budgeted at around 260,000 dollars.
And we’re-- we've split that half with the state contractors of 130
million and a half with our organization in the federal contractor side
and the bureau had a 130 million. And so, we're looking at--the final
record of decision, you know, is, is expected to be out next-- sometime
next year 2014. And, and it will be, you know, at a hefty price tag just
to get to that stage.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. Well, thank you very much.
>> Dan Nelson: Uh-hmm.
[ Silence ]
Delta-Mendota Water Authority. Let's just start with a little bit of
personal history of who are you?
>> Dan Nelson: I was actually--I'm a fifth generation Californian and
actually fifth generation west side San Joaquin Valley. I--My great
grandfather came to this area and he--late--late 1880s and started dry
farming up south of Dos Palos, and what's referred to as the Oro Loma
area. And my grandmother was born out in that area and-- and so we've
been in--we’ve been in--on--in the west side of the San Joaquin Valley or
had a valley present since, since that time. I was actually born in Los
Banos in 1952 and--and grew up there in Los Banos and took off to go to
college, and never to come up to the valley, and it ended up after
college, about 17 years later, I ended up back in the Firebaugh area and
have been working on water issues since about 1975 and had been working
on west side water issues since about that time. So I have a fairly
extensive history on the west side of the valley and a lot of practical
experience on water districts throughout the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of work were you doing when you came back
here from college?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, actually when I first came back from college I-I went up to the Dixon area and-- and I was working in a custom
application company and I did that for a couple of years but in--it was
about 1975 I believe it was, '76 when I went to work for the San Luis
canal. I had worked with San Luis Canal Company as--when I--when I was
growing up in the Los Banos, When I was in high school I--was employed
there as a summer job and worked there in summer and Christmas vacations
and then when I was in college I also worked at San Luis Canal Company as
a summer job. In 1977 there was a drought and San Luis Canal Company up
to that point in time hadn't been--hadn't been measuring any of their
water. They didn't have a need to measure it and in '77, they wanted to
initiate some measurements because of the drought and some of the
shortages and so they called up and wondered if I'd be opened to come
back and work with them a couple of years and so I--I went to work with
San Luis Canal Company. I believe it's in '77.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A--canal company like--like this one, it's a private
company that--builds canals for farmers or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. It--now has a public entity but it is what's
referred to as a mutual water company and they actually have
stockholders, and they have the water rights that were initially
developed by Miller & Lux back in the 1870s and their water rights date
back to that time from some of the initial diversions off of the San
Joaquin River and--and these water rights were later exchanged through
this development of the central valley project for central valley project
water, but nonetheless, they're still rooted in the old appropriation
water rights that Miller & Lux developed in the 1870s, 1880s, somewhere
up through there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you--It's OK if you don't know this, how water
rights came to this company from the old Miller & Lux holdings?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Actually my--my understanding of it is that
those water rights--are turned--are--are a part of the land and so when
you buy a parcel in that area you essentially, you--you buy, you know,
you buy a water right as a part of the land so it's my impression that
those-- that those water rights are--are established in a part of the
land and that's why you have the stockholders.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, the--these old water rights, these are--this is
for land adjacent to the river, these are what they call riparian rights
or--?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, generally speaking Henry Miller--in 1871 was the
first diversion that he made and they dug a canal off of the--off of the-the San Joaquin river from what was referred to as the old China slough
going way back then but it was--it comes out of what we refer to now as
the Mendota Pool off of the San Joaquin river and they started digging
that canal in the 18--about 1870 in the first deliveries they made were
an 1871. And then gradually they built additional canals. The water
rights for San Luis Canal Company actually were established off of Temple
Slough and that came, you know, I believe about 20 years later in the 18-early 1890s. But generally, they, they--established these canals. The
valley's very flat in that area and so with very, very, very little
physical work you can actually, you know, divert the river and follow
contours for a long period of time. So generally what Miller & Lux did is
strategically placed some of these diversions across San Joaquin River
and they used normally a slough that in high water--in in high water
periods the water would get off of the main branch of the river and go
into these sloughs and so it was very easy for Miller & Lux to use these
sloughs as the initial conveyance systems and with very little diversions
or blockage in the San Joaquin River they could divert water in these
sloughs that would meander, you know, parallel with the river. And--so
most of the initial diversions that Miller & Lux sloughs were just
natural sloughs and then they extended the canal and built, you know,
formalized them and honed them and made canals and-- and delivery system
out of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually--I--whenever I was thought, you know, Miller
& Lux I would sort of think of the fights that they had with Haggin and
Carr down on the Kern Rive but-- did Miller & Lux-- did actually
extensive development on the San Joaquin River as well as the Kern?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, they, they did. Miller & Lux, Henry Miller actually
didn't initiate the--the--the initial diversion off the San Joaquin
River. It was actually a group of very high powered investors from San
Francisco that came out and--and in part they were looking at this as a
transportation system, you know, I guess a long the lines of a Panama
canal typed thing of where--prior to that they were using the San Joaquin
River as a mechanism for--and steam ships, you know to come up and down
the San Joaquin River to bring in and out supplies from the west side of
the Valley and up as high as--as you know, the Tule River, I mean Tulare
Lake, excuse me. And--so, but that was very unpredictable because the
flows on the San Joaquin River could either be--are very volatile and
they could be either too high or too low to be able to rely on that form
of transportation and--and so they thought that these canals, you know,
would provide a mechanism for transportation. I think that they only used
it maybe four or five years and they began in 1871 but they only used it
for four to five years for transportation. It became evident that it was
much more useful for, you know, irrigation but-- but I diverted it. The
initial-- the initial investors were some high powered investors and but
they had to get easement from Miller & Lux 'cause Miller & Lux had most
of the land and so that's how Henry Miller became a partner. He, he
really wasn't all that enthusiastic about the project initially but it
didn't take him long once the delivery started to be made of the value
and, and certainly he saw immediately the value to, you know--being able
to irrigate pasture, and he immediately started buying up the stock of-of the other shareholders of the company and within four or five years he
became the-- the major shareholder of the company over 51 percent
gradually he bought it all and ended up operating and maintaining it. So
he kind of--he kind of was a reluctant participant but immediately saw
the value and once he saw the value he took it over.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, now back to a bit of your history then.
[ Laughter ]
Anything-- actually anything, any particular experiences you would wish
to relate sort of between working for the canal company before you came
to the San Luis authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it's been it's actually I've been--I've
been very, very fortunate in my career. I--I started with San Luis Canal
Company, you know, when I was working in high school just on the
maintenance crew and then when I-- when I went back to them after school
in 1977, I worked for them in the operations division and you know,
initiated some, some measuring for, for the company and even did some
ditch tending [phonetic] and enjoyed that quite a bit and from there I
went to Broadview Water District and it was a small district, southsouthwest of Firebaugh and--and a reclamation law district much different
than, you know, the water rights are CVP but they're much different than
the exchange contractor based water rights. And so I worked with
Broadview for seven or eight years as the general manager but it was a
very small district and so I had to do everything. You know, I oversaw
the maintenance crew, I dealt with insurance, I actually took care for a
period of time the accounting books and so, you know, I--I--it was kind
of, you did a little--you were the office staff. I think we had one other
person and so. But that proved to be a really good education because I
had to know a little bit about everything even if it was a small scale.
And from there I went to San Luis Water District and I was the manager of
San Luis Water District for about five years and it was a bigger district
based out of Los Banos. And--and that in retrospect, it was great
background for me because I, I threw the experience with the canal. I
started from the bottom and just kind of gradually worked--worked my way
up and it gave me broad experience from everything, you know, out in the
field, construction, maintenance, operations to, you know, the general
administration and oversight of, of a district and so. When we started
looking at forming the San Luis & Delta-Mendota water authority in the
late eighties and early nineties, you know, it was something--it was just
kind of a natural evolution for me, I think. And--so I, I had quite a bit
of experience in all the different facets of water districts by then.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just because I don't want to presume that people
watching this know certain things, what actually is water district?
>> Dan Nelson: You know water district is actually a, a really, really
good institutional tool for--for, you know, how it is that we can
distribute and--distribute water in different geographical areas and-and administrate that and-- but, but generally what a water district does
is most all water districts have some source of water supply and a water
district is a geographical area that has a source of supply. And
generally what a water district does is it figures out how to allocate
that water both physically and policy wise. It allocates the water, it
distributes the water but it also allocates and distributes the cost that
it takes that water district to distribute the water and so. Generally,
you know, it's an institution that provides for equitable allocation of
water within a geographical area and equitable allocation of cost within
that same geographical area. And--it's, it's really a good tool for and
its worked-- its served California well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We talking mostly about water for agriculture or this
include municipal->> Dan Nelson: No, all, all different types of water use. In fact, it
just in our organization as an example we have water districts, we have
irrigation districts and they're all, you know, they all serve the same
basic services, the allocation of water and--and--and cost but they do it
with--some of them have subtle differences in governance like an
irrigation district. As an example, you have to live within the
boundaries of that district to be a part of the governance of it whereas
a water district, you can be on the board if you're a land owner. It
doesn't matter if you live within that geographical area, if you own land
within that geographical area. So there are-- there are water districts,
there are irrigation districts, there are M&I district and water
districts can serve either urban areas or can serve agriculture. And in
fact one of our members is the Grassland Water District which serves duck
clubs and essentially waterfowl habitat and so. So there are, you know,
water districts can provide services to, you know, any water use that you
can imagine.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are these districts tend to acquire their water.
I mean they taking the water, holding the water rights and pulling the
water straight out of rivers, are they getting it from elsewhere?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it--yes to all of that. The districts that-that our organization deals with have contracts with the Federal Central
Valley Project and so their source of water is their contract with the
Federal Central Valley Project. Other water districts, Turlock, Modesto,
they all have developed their own water supplies from some of the east
side tributaries and, and so they, you know, were formed to develop some
of those tributary water supplies and allocate the cost of what--what it
takes to develop that water and, and then they have allocation policies
and so, the sources of water. And then there are some districts that, you
know, who are totally reliant upon groundwater and it's just a central
plumbing system for moving groundwater around and--and for administrating
the use of groundwater and so, the sources of water, you know, vary, you
know, tremendously throughout the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So when you were at San Luis District that was a
district that contracted with the Bureau of Reclamation for water out of
San Luis reservoir.
>> Dan Nelson: San Luis Water District, yes, is what is referred to as a
reclamation law water district and yes, it had a contract with the
federal government, the Federal Central Valley Project for all of its
water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Ok--OK, San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
>> Dan Nelson: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Before we get to why you created it, what is it?
>> Dan Nelson: The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority is a Joint
Powers Authority and that's another really good tool--for--for more than
one water district to get together and if you have a joint project that
you want to work on, a Joint Powers Authority is a mechanism where two or
more water districts can get together and form an umbrella organization
called the Joint Powers Authority. In, in our case we have 29 member
districts and these 29 member districts have formed the San Luis & DeltaMendota Water Authority. And the common bond of all of these districts is
that they all have Federal Central Valley Project contracts and they all
take their water south of the Delta through the Jones Pumping Plant in
the Delta-Mendota canal and so they, they formed together in the late
eighties and early nineties to where we--I think we signed the joint
powers agreement in mid-1991 and--and that's that's generally the
background of the--of the authority.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the authority operate or maintain the DeltaMendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: We do and in fact that was prior to 1991. We had an
informal organization that was initiated back. We call it our mother
company and we formed it back or it was formed back in I believe 1977 and
it was called the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Users Association and it
was in informal organization and it--it all of the same members applied
at that time. And--and the reason we formalized it into a quasigovernmental agency, a Joint Powers Authority was to take over the
operations and maintenance of the federal facilities and that opportunity
surfaced in the--oh late eighties and early nineties and so the federal
government before it was able to contract out for the operations and
maintenance of the federal facilities had to have a governmental agency
in order to be able to--to contract with. And so that's why we formalize
the association into a Joint Powers Authority was to takeover the
operations and maintenance of the Delta-Mendota canal, the Jones Pumping
Plant, the O'Neill Pumping Plant up at San Luis Reservoir and all of the
facilities south of the Delta. So yes that's one of the services that we
provide and it was the service that prompted us to formalize our
organization.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now just to be clear. Delta-Mendota canal, the water
for the central valley at least that part of the central valley project
is pumped out of the Delta, the Jones Pumping plant then put into DeltaMendota canal. And Delta-Mendota canal flows down to San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes, we--well, the Central Valley Project is designed to
deal with the dilemma that we have in the State of California and that's
where most of the water falls in the northern part of the state and most
of the uses in the southern part of the state. And so, generally, the CVP
components or the CVP facilities are Shasta Reservoir and-- and Folsom
reservoir on the American River. And--so we store water in those two
reservoirs--the federal government does, and then they release it
strategically down the Sacramento River and it meanders through the
Delta, our pumping plant is on the southern end of the Delta. And it's-it's the Jones Pumping Plant and-- and it pumps into the Delta-Mendota
Canal around the city of Tracy. And that flows to the south and
ultimately ends at the Mendota pool on the San Joaquin River. Prior to
getting there, it also--we have the option of taking some of that water
up into San Luis reservoir of where we--San Luis reservoir is partially a
CVP facility as well. And, so we have--we have the choice of either
taking water and storing in to San Luis. Or, taking the water out of San
Luis and supplementing our flows on the Delta-Mendota Canal. But, but the
Delta-Mendota Canal start to Tracy, runs generally south along the
western foothills on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to around
the San Luis dam area and then it goes southeast from there to the San
Joaquin River, and it flows about 88 miles I believe.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, Central Valley Project was originally built by the
US Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior Department I presumed that
earlier in its history that the Bureau operated the canal and the pumps
themselves directly. Why any particular reason they would want to give up
control?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. That's actually a very excellent question and leads
right back into, you know, why we formed the San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority. The Bureau constructed the project, going back in the
late '40s and--or that phase of the project and--and then preceded to
operate and maintain the project and did a really wonderful job of doing
all of that. They did a good job constructing it and also good job of
operating and maintaining it from the '50s through, through the '80s. And
we--we began to see a couple of changes in the late '80s. First of all,
we--we certainly were seeing-- being a lot more regulated in how we
operated the Central Valley Project, but we also saw the role of the
Bureau of Reclamation changing as well. And, I--I recall, you know, a
very specific instance that sort of, you know, highlights that. We had
the--at that time the regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation, I
believe this was probably a, you know, around 18--I mean, excuse me,
1989--I can't recall. 1889 but 1989, Dave Houston the regional director
of the Bureau of Reclamation came out to Los Banos and was giving a
presentation to the at a water users meeting. And generally Dave let
everybody know that prior to this--to that moment--or prior to that
general time, the Bureau of Reclamation had been representing the water
users to Washington. And he needed to let us know and to give us a heads
up that, you know, they were-- seeing their role more as representing
Washington to the water users. And if you think through that, that's
fairly fundamental. The water users up 'til that time had relied entirely
on the Bureau of Reclamation for delivering their water, for representing
them on contractual issues, representing them politically on water supply
issues, and legislatively, and essentially, the Bureau of Reclamation
represented the water users to end their contractors in all different
phases in both the physical delivery and likewise the political and
contractual issues. And essentially, you know, we were sensing this but
it was, you know, definitive when Houston let us know that their role had
changed and their mandates from congress and, and from that
administration had changed. And so at that time the water users realized,
you know, that they needed to step up and to represent themselves and to
gear up to be able to represent themselves on legislative issues,
political issues, legal issues, contractual issues. And at that same
time, the Bureau of Reclamation, I think it was the Bush Administration,
the first George Bush Administration, they were privati--privatization
and downsizing government was a really big thing. And so as part of that
the bureau had indicated it was open to have the water users take over
the operations and maintenance. And so the combination between those two
things, the bureau wanting to sort of back out of its role on, you know,
representing or having a different role then representing us on water
rights and stuff. And at the same time, wanting to downsize its force and
to let someone else do the operations and maintenance. Those two things
happened at the same time and that was the motivation, the initiative and
the reason why we form the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, is
to provide those two services that we used to rely upon on the bureau to
provide.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the authority does not own Delta-Mendota canal and
the pumping plants. That's still federal property.
>> Dan Nelson: That is correct.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you have all operation and maintenance
responsibilities?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, no. We have all the maintenance responsibilities
and once the water comes south of the Delta, once we--we pump it south of
the Delta, we have all of the operational responsibilities as well. We do
not operate the part of the Central Valley Project that determines when
water is released from the reservoirs or even determines when we can turn
on and off any of our pumping units at the Jones Pumping Plant. Those
operations are still done by the federal government. Once we pump it
south of the Delta, we are totally responsible for the operations of
getting it up in the San Luis Reservoir or determining whether we're
going to make releases from there, et cetera, but the operations of the
Jones Pumping Plant are-- are, are still done by, and those services are
still provided by the federal government. We do all maintenance of all of
those facilities. We do those entirely. Initially the relationship
between us and the bureau was sort of contractual relationship where they
contracted with us to provide certain services and then they paid us to
do those. And then ultimately they charged our member districts whatever
it is they paid us, they charged our member districts. I think it was-and we initiated all of that in about--in 1992, in October of '92 is when
we took over the first phase of the facilities and that was under what's
called a cooperative agreement which is essentially a contract. Four or
five years later, we changed the relationship between us and the bureau
whereas instead of them having a contract with us and, and then charging
our member agencies, we entered into a self-funding agreement where we
just self-funded amongst our agency, self-funded our operations. And, and
the reason for that is, is the Bureau of Reclamation when it was
contracting with us would still have to rely on congressional
appropriations. They--Once they got the congressional appropriations they
would contract with us and then whatever it is they paid us they would
charge our water users and so it was just a much cleaner relationship and
we had more control over our budgets and cash flows as opposed to relying
on appropriation from congress that we began to self funding our
operations as opposed to a contractual relationship and that occurred
several years later.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does so your authority then have, I mean you say you
have maintenance responsibility for the Delta-Mendota canal, does that
even mean--I mean this is a canal that's what--60, 70 years old?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I don't know what condit--well, actually what
condition is the Delta-Mendota canal in?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, I think it's in really good condition. You know,
we were nervous. Part of the reasons why we--we jumped on the opportunity
to take over the operations and maintenance of the canal from the federal
government is at that time, you know, it was, it was getting to be forty
years old and it was starting to show, you know, signs of being and, and
aging structure and we were getting worried about it being a viable, you
know, facility or facilities to be able to meet our needs and so overtime
and so-- And this was, you know, I don't want to sound too critical of
the Bureau of Reclamation but it just is an indication of the
inefficiencies of relying on congressional appropriations for O&M and-and likewise when you think about it no one has more incentive than the
water users from making sure that the facilities are in good shape to
provide them the water but also that that service is provided, you know,
economically efficiently as well because they're paying for it anyway.
And I mean even when the bureau was doing it, the bureau was charging the
water users whatever it cost the bureau to do it, you know, the bureau
was charging the water users. And so there--it just made so much sense
for the water users to takeover the facilities they they would--they're
the ones that have all the risk that there is downtime on the facilities
and they're the ones that are paying for. And so the water users jumped
in, the facilities were at that time, you know, showing signs of getting
older and needed some preventive maintenance and also, you know, a lot of
the technology had changed, you know, both electrical and--and, you know,
going into a digital era, we converted all of that, updated all of the
electrical stuff at the pumps, and we actually are pretty proud of the-the condition of the facilities right now, notwithstanding they’re, you
know, seven, 60 years old? Yeah, yeah, so they're in good shape and
they've been reliable and knock on wood, and we, you know, we just
haven't had much down time.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the current O&M funding--the way the money moves
right now, it's being paid by the people who are receiving the water. And
does that mean that the districts who are members of your authority
charge individual water users than for a portion of the O&M cost and then
the districts turn that money over to the authority?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. Generally how that works is--the authority develops
its budget on how much it thinks it's going to take for it to--how much
money it's going to cost to maintain the facility for a given year and
then it also determines--it speculates on how much water it's actually
going to deliver through those facilities. And based on that you come up
with--it's pretty simple calculation, a cost per acres foot. You figure
out your total cost and you figure out your acre foot. The next level of
detail is we actually do that in different regions of our delivery or
different phases of our water delivery so it's a little more complicated
but generally it all boils down to a cost per acres foot. For every acre
foot that we deliver to one of our member agencies, it goes through a
meter and so that, that agency pays us per acres foot that we deliver to
it. And and they pay us for that service to of delivering the water to
them. Once that agency gets its water, we'll just say, the San Luis Water
District as an example, once we deliver the water to San Luis Water
District it has paid us for the service at getting it to them, San Luis
then has to deliver that water to all of its, all of its farmers and that
earns San Luis Water District. And it has its own canal system and
plumbing system that it has to use and maintain. So by the time they send
their bills to their water users it has a component for our O&M, it has a
component for their O&M and any other incidental charges that San Luis
Water District has for, you know, operating the district. So that's
generally how the flow of money goes or if you--ultimately it's the water
user, the individual water user, whether you're an industrial user or
whether or you're an ag user, ultimately, you're the one that's paying
the bill for all of that infrastructure.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you have any senses to. You say an
industrial user as opposed to--opposed to an ag user. Is the majority of
your—of the users of the water with Delta-Mendota canal for farming or is
there a lot of industrial use or municipal use?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, yeah, the majority is agriculture. Out of the--I
think we have contracts in the range right around 3.3 million acres feet,
our members have contracts for that amount of water. And probably out of
that, about 2.7 of that is probably for agriculture use, about 400,000 of
that is probably or is around the number that we use for wildlife
refugees and then maybe 200-250,000 for urban use and industrial use.
That includes one of our members is the Santa Clara Valley Water District
that includes Silicon Valley and so--when we say industrial use it's for
those, you know, types of uses that this water is used for.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I understand a lot of what happens in Silicon
actually takes a great deal of water.
>> Dan Nelson: You know they do, they do, yeah, and they're very
interested and engaged in a lot of our water issues as a result of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What towns and cities take water from Delta-Mendota->> Dan Nelson: Yeah, the city of Tracy is a CVP contractor and a member
of ours and takes water from the Delta-Mendota. Coalinga takes it from
Westlands, through Westlands. The Lemoore Naval base is--is a user
through Westlands and then we-- and then you know, incidentally the city
of Dos Palos and, and Los Banos are working on, you know, getting some
surface water from the CVP but--the major CVP urban user, south of the
Delta is the city and county of Santa Clara and-- and they use probably,
you know, 75 to 80 percent of the urban water that's delivered south at
the Delta. San Benito County also, you know, is converting more and more
of its agricultural ground to ranchettes as is a lot of the different ag
areas. But so most of our-- most of our CVP water that goes for
industrial and urban uses in Santa Clara but we do have Tracy and
Coalinga that are the major ones in the valley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You also mentioned some wild life refuges that you are
responsible for. How did that--how was that come about?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it’s an inter--actually a very interesting
history, this area when the San Joaquin, as I said, it's the valley is
very, very flat and when the San Joaquin, you know, flows--when they
started the increase in the spring, they just kind of fanned out and
that's what caused all the sloughs and everything in the valley but when
they fanned out, you know, there was a lot of marsh land in the valley at
that time. And as a result of that, a lot of waterfowl in this area in
fact is-- the-- the it's incredible some of the stories that, you know,
that you have from the 1870s and 80s of where the skies were just, you
know, blackened by, you know, the waterfowl and so--and but ultimately as
Miller & Lux started doing diversions off the San Joaquin River and as
flood control came into play there weren't the same refugees that we had
along the basin of the valley. However, Miller & Lux when they developed
their canals and diverted water from the San Joaquin River, the final
overflow of that and--and the remnants of that ended up in an area just
south and north of Los Banos--in the Los Banos area of being overflow
waterfowl habitat from the Miller & Lux canals and out in the camp,
thirteen area, is a good example of that. And, and so it developed some
habitat. Well, when--when Miller & Lux exchanged their water rights for
Central Valley Project contract supply, the refugees you know, kind of
got left behind in that process whereas they had re--they had sort of
relied upon the Miller & Lux diversions for, you know, for their--for
their habitat and when that water was exchanged to the federal government
there really wasn't any water provided to the--to that grassland area.
And so led by Martin Winton, and some other Grassland Water District
reps, they ultimately got an initial contract. I believe it was in the
mid-50s of 50,000 acre feet and that's about the time when the Grassland
Water District was developed as part of all of that. And-- and then
through the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1991 or 1992 that
it was passed, they were able to get a much larger water supply in the
range of now around 400,000 acres feet that they--that they use for
their--for the waterfowl habitat. But it's kind of this evolution of
natural San Joaquin river overflows to Miller & Lux excess-- excess water
to now a much more formalized contractual relationship with the federal
government for, for their supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually with the Bureau of Reclamation putting more
water back into San Joaquin River, is that going to expand water supplies
in for some of those wildlife refugees?
>> Dan Nelson: No, not at all. They're not tied into that plumbing system
anymore at all. They're--they’re totally reliant upon the Central Valley
Project Plumbing System at this point and-- It, it is noteworthy that
there's probably a 125,000 acres within the Pacific flyway that relies on
this portion of the plumbing system. And some of those are state wildlife
refugees some of them are federal wildlife refugees and then the
Grassland Water District represents privately owned wildlife refugees,
mostly duck clubs and--and so it's--but the water supply for all of those
all come now from the Federal Central Valley Project.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Out of the Delta-Mendota canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does your authority have any responsibility for
operation or its maintenance of San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dan Nelson: We have--we operate the O'Neill Pumping Plant that pumps
up into the O'Neill Forebay which is at the base, and well that's the
forebay for the San Luis Reservoir. The Department of Water Resources
operates the Gianelli Pumping Plant and--and also the San Luis
Reservoirs. So we, we operate the forebay but we don't operate either
Gianelli or the--or the-- the major reservoir. We do coordinate closely
with DWR because, you know, there's deliveries of our water made out of
San Luis Reservoir down the San Luis canal to Westlands and other San
Luis Water District in Panoche through the San Luis Unit. And then
there's also a pipeline that goes over as we’ve discussed, it goes over
the-- the coastal range there into Santa Clara Valley and San Benito
County and so we have to coordinate very closely with DWR, of the
operations but they ultimately are the operators of San Luis Reservoir.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now as I understand San Luis Reservoir is actually a
combination of state and Federal Water.
>> Dan Nelson: It is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And technically you're only pumping out the Federal
Water.
>> Dan Nelson: Technically, yeah, yeah the clean water that you see up at
San Luis Reservoir is our water and the other water, yeah. No, it’s, it
was actually developed--the San Luis Unit was developed in the 1970s
actually constructed in the 1970s as and '60s when San Luis Reservoir was
constructed and began operating in 1970s I should say. San Luis Reservoir
has storage of about 2.1 million acre feet. It’s entirely imported water.
I say entirely it’s, it’s built on the San Luis Creek Basin. And it's got
2.1 million acre feet capacity. And to give you a sense of the San Luis
Creek average flows per year is about 35,000 acre feet. And that's about
what the evaporation is for San Luis Reservoir. And so generally it's-it's all imported water from Northern California that's imported in the
winter time and spring time. That's when we fill up San Luis Reservoir.
55 percent of that is state water contractor storage capacity and 45
percent of that is the Central Valley Project or the Federal Contractor
capacity and so it's split 55-45.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually something you just mentioned
always I found interesting you're talking about the, you
of water due to evaporation. You know something like San
is spread out all and exposed to the sun. Are these kind
even an effective way to store water?
in there is
know, the loss
Luis the water
of reservoirs
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely yeah. I mean certainly, you know, there's-absolutely. We rely on, you know, surface storage throughout the state.
And certainly I--I don't anticipate there ever being an efficient or, or
cost effective way of--of avoiding the evaporation, the incidental
evaporation that comes as a result of that but, as--as you are aware we
generally have two types of storage, one is above ground and one is, is
below ground and--and which has its own efficiencies below ground, The
aquifer is kind of, you know, not--not being as well defined and managed
but oh yeah, no, there's, you know, surface storage is very valuable to
us.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Still in some ways superior to say the ground banking
of water or->> Dan Nelson: Well it would depend on, you know, the nature of the
ground bank, you know, all--not all ground banks are created equal. And
there are some that are very well defined and very understood aquifers
that my understanding is they're managed, you know, pretty doggone
efficiently and as I say pretty well defined. But, but certainly, you
know, surface storage has their place.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is--your authority have any involvement at all with
any parts of the restoration of San Joaquin River say at the Mendota pool
area?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we, we do. The exchange contractors are members
of our organization and, and they still hold water rights on the San
Joaquin and->> Thomas Holyoke: Maybe we should step back then and explain what the
exchange contractors are.
>> Dan Nelson: Sure. Yeah that's--that, we shall do that. The--the
exchange contractors are as a result of the old Miller & Lux based lands
on the west side of the valley that initially began diverting water in
the 1870s and built a canal system through Henry-Miller's life and, you
know, let's say through the 1920s and developed maybe 300,000 acres of
land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley based on, you know,
diverting water and developing water rights off of the San Joaquin River.
The--so, so they held these water rights and and had the ability to be
able to divert water off the San Joaquin River. Well the Federal
Government came along and said, you know, we'd really like to put a dam
up in the Millerton area. And we would like to take your water there.
They’re saying this to the exchange contractor we'd like--we'd like to
take your water and use it on the east side. And in exchange for that
we're going to build some dams and reservoirs in the northern part of the
state and a big pumping plant in the Delta. And we're going--in exchange
for you to let us use your water rights on the east side of the valley
we're going to deliver you water out of the new Central Valley project.
And so they negotiated what's referred to as the exchange contracts and
that's actually what--what occurs, and what occurred. They entered into
those contracts and so the exchange contractors what is known as the
exchange contractors now. The old Miller & Lux based land and water
rights were given to the Federal Government to use to irrigate what is
now known as the Friant area or the east side of the valley. And in
exchange for that the Federal Government agrees to each and every year to
deliver water from Northern California to the exchange contractors
through the Jones Pumping Plant Delta-Mendota Canal. And that is to the
exchange.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK and then moving back to any responsibilities the
authority has on the river restoration around Mendota pool.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. So you-- we have that connection between the west
side and the east side and that connection’s primarily through the
exchange contract. Generally how we've been viewing the--we have been
supportive of the restoration of the San Joaquin River and the
implementation of the settlement agreement. So let me establish that
right from the beginning. We--we are in full support of the restoration
program as envisioned by the settlement. We are-- we have viewed this or
viewed that project mostly from the perspective of trying to make sure
that it didn't negatively impact us on the west side of the valley. And-and so most of our review of the environmental documents and--and just
following the progress and the process of--of meeting the imple--or the
restoration program have been from the context of making sure that there
were no third--what we refer to as third party impacts. And so we've
been--we've been--we’ve been supportive but not wanting to be impacted
as--as a part of it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But you haven't been involved with like, you know,
changes to Mendota dam and some of the->> Dan Nelson: You know, we, it certainly does that we operate the--the
water deliveries out of the Mendota Dam or out of the Mendota pool. And
so certainly it--it has taken a--it includes now other elements of that
operation. We have now water flowing--flowing, you know, down the San
Joaquin River. And so it does take really close coordination between us
and Friant and the Bureau of Reclamation to make all of that happen. And- and so to--to the operations yes, we have been a, a part of that
because it's--it’s now integrated with our operations out of the Mendota
pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, some of the issues we’ve talked about with some
other people involved problem on the western side of the valley dealing
with drainage. Does-- do your authority have anything to do with the
drainage or even including operation of some of the drainage canal--the
drainage system?
>> Dan Nelson: You know we do. We--we took over the operations and
maintenance because, you know, just because you take water out of a
facility of which, you know, the drainage was closed back during the
Kesterson [phonetic] era. And--and so we--we took over the operations and
maintenance of the San Luis drain I think sometime in the, you know, mid
90s, maybe late 90s. And since we were taking, you know, since we were
doing all the O&M on all of the water delivery systems the bureau really
didn't have a lot of maintenance folks out in the area and so we took
over operations and maintenance of the drain as well. So we actually do-we we try to maintain the drained, you know, and--and to keep it in
condition whereas, you know, it can be used of some form of conveyance in
the future.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What--what is the drain?
>> Dan Nelson: The drain is a phenomena out of the Central Valley
Project. It was understood that when you--when you apply water to lands—
to to the lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley that you were
going to have a-- you were going to develop high water table. We--it was
understood that we had a clay layer, you know, an impervious clay layer a
hundred feet down to three hundred feet down. And once you started
applying water, you know, on the west side of the valley that generally
you’re going to have this—the the water was going to build up. And--and
you were also because of drainage and also you would have a salt
accumulation unless you did something about that. That was recognized
actually Miller & Lux folks had to deal with both water table issues and
salinity issues once they began even diverting water out of the San
Joaquin River. They had to deal with those issues as far back as the
1880s, 1890s, you know, they had a high water that developed in their
area as well. So this is--this was something that was well known and
anticipated when the Central Valley Project, you know, was being
conceptualized. The expected remedy for that would be--was to be a drain
that would initiate in the Firebaugh-Mendota area and actually even south
of that, south of Mendota area and would head all the way up to the Delta
and essentially would release water if I recall right in the Pittsburgh
area. And--and so this-- the that would be a mechanism for the valley to
be able to maintain its water table. But also even more important to
maintain its salt balance because no matter how pure water is, it's
always got some form to salt to it or some--some level of salts in it
and-- and without an outlet ultimately, you know, it accumulates. And so
it was recognized early on and it was anticipated that the remedy for
that would be this drain. That--the drain was constructed in the late 70s
and early 80s and-- and essentially my, my recollection of this is that
it was it authorized and they initiated construction but Congressman
George Miller of the Bay Area had essentially held up some of the
appropriations if I recall to where they--they weren't going to be able
to finish the drain and so essentially they were faced with a half built
facility. And they decided what they would do is while they were getting
permits to extend it the rest of the way and, and--and getting
appropriations for the rest of the way they would essentially use this
facility and develop some marsh lands. And as we had talked about earlier
there was a shortage of supply at that time for--for wildlife habitat.
And so they actually thought that they'd be able to use this for wildlife
production and--and develop wildlife marshes around the drain and where
it ended. And that is the legacy of Kesterson is the drainage water
contained a lot more than just salts and it certainly wasn't, you know,
useful in fact it was very destructive for wildlife habitat in its purest
form and--and so that was how we ended up with the problems at Kesterson
is we’d have tried to develop a wildlife area with this water and it
wasn't, you know, adequate water to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: That was in the early 1980s that that happened?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, it was--it was I recall it actually well because the
water district I was working for at the time the Broadview Water District
had it really extensive drainage problem. And--and we were dealing with
it through various mechanisms but working with Grassland Water District
at the time. But ultimately we anticipated that we would be a, you know,
that we would once the drain was completed and the permits were achieved
to extend the drain and the funding that we would hook up to it. And so
we were following it pretty closely. And I believe it was about 1981 when
the Bureau of Reclamation Fish and Wildlife Service decided well let's-let's, you know, while we're working on these permits to extend the drain
let's—they--they had envisioned as part of the drain to have marsh land
holding ponds and marsh land habitat to manage the flows. So when the
flows were higher and they couldn't release the all of the water out into
the Delta they would be able to put them into these ponds. And they had
several of these along the way designed. And so they were part of the
design of the, you know, the extension of the drain. When they were
delayed in extending the drain both permits and financially they decided
well let's take these holding basins and let's see if we can develop some
marsh habitats and then vap--and evaporate the water and--and initiate ,
you know, use of the drain. So that was--that was a, that was a fatal
decision that, you know, essentially they tried to evaporate--use these
marsh habitats as evaporation ponds instead of flow through. And as
evaporation ponds all of the elements that were in the water and selenium
proved out--proved to be the most lethal but just accumulated because
your evaporating the water out and you've got these, you know, the
selenium’s just accumulating and the salts and, and borons and everything
else that's in in--in the water. And that--that was essentially the—the,
the problem, you know, that, that--that just exploded with Kesterson.
And-- and no, it was--it was--it was really an an interesting and a
really tense time. It for both agriculture and the wildlife area. Prior
to that time, you know, agriculture had actually developed a pretty good
relationships and/or what we have thought were good relationships and a
working mechanism for dealing with our drainage through the refuges with
Grasslands and-- and and the Grasslands prior to that were really relying
a lot on agricultural drainage, you know, to keep things going 'cause it
didn't have enough water. The Kesterson example was an extreme example
because number one it was pure subsurface drainage whereas most of the
area--other areas that was using the drainage water for wildlife habitat
like the Grassland Water District was using diluted drainage water. It
was using a combination of surface excess flows with--with the subsurface
flows and it was also a flow through system. So it's flowing through the
marshes, whereas the Kesterson example was they--they took just pure
drainage water without any kind of surface dilution at all and then
evaporated it. And so it really magnified whatever problem that we didn't
recognize that was occurring using this drainage water prior to that was
magnified and brought to the surface at that point and so it changed
everything. It, you know, it certainly, you know, took away any of our
expectations that we were going to be releasing this water, you know, out
to the Delta. And it acertainly made us rethink how on a long term basis
we were going to deal with our salt build up and on a long term basis how
we were going to deal with drainage in the valley. It changed everything
fundamentally.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What are you doing?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, actually, you know, it--it, it, it's really turned
out into a--a, a magnificent success story because, you know, at, at that
time, you know, things looked bleak. I mean we didn't--you can't build-you can't deal, you know, with a--an agricultural area that's just
inundated with salt. I mean you have to manage that somehow. And what
we've done is and--and again it was at a time we--we, up till that time
frame we had once again relied entirely on the Bureau of Reclamation to
provide drainage for us. And they were going to build this drain. It was
even part of our contracts with them that they would do this. And so we
a--up till that point we were relying entirely well that's, you know, the
bureau will fix that. And right at that point it’s when our water users
realized, you know, the bureau is not gonna be able to fix this, you
know. We, we, we probably shouldn't, you know, rely on the bureau to, to
pull this off. And so our water users, you know, to their credit all
stepped up. They became--they became, they embraced the problem and they,
they became accountable for the problem. And they developed a--a really
sophisticated monitoring system both quality and quantity to try to get a
grip on, you know, what was going on, where the hotspots and--and how to
manage this you need good data to figure out how to manage something. And
so they developed a good database on and did that themselves and then
they--they figured out ways of doing it and it, that have evolved over
the last 30 years and how to manage that with minimal releases outside
the area and working to ultimately cutting off any releases of any
drainage water, whatsoever in the next several years. And so, they-they've been able to, to, to implement things in a way that has met water
quality standards in the river, has met the water quality standards in
their area. And--but yet have isolated the salts from the ag land that
they're trying to protect.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there still some interesting developing in drain
system? Mean, I understand that Judge Wanger has ordered--well when he
was a Judge ordered the Bureau of Reclamation to get the project finished
even though the bureau apparently has no money to do so->> Dan Nelson: Or expertise strength.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. No--well, there's actually two drainage worlds
occurring. One is in the legal is in the courts and essentially that's
who's responsible for this. The courts have established the bureau--you
have a responsibility to do this. And essentially the courts have said
"Bureau go out and do this." And the Bureau has sort of, I-- frankly the
bureau, you know, and very candidly the bureau doesn't know how to do
this. They, they don't know how to meet the court order and to be able to
provide the drainage that it contracted out to the water users. But--so
you have--so—and, and I'm talking in very general terms here, but you
have this court order that is telling the bureau to do this. The bureau
doesn't know how to do it. The bureau ultimately probably wouldn't have
funding to do it. And—but, but sort of--they're, they’re going through
sort of the checklist of what they need to be but, the water users aren't
counting on that to solve their problem. You know, there maybe, you know,
some damages or something like that that ultimately will come out of it.
But, but as far as, you know, looking at--OK, how are we going to sustain
ourselves with this drainage issue that we have? How are we going to, you
know, have agricultural--agriculture be sustainable. They're not relying
on, on the bureau to do that. So, separate from those legal activities
you have the real world of what's going on out in the field over here and
that's essentially the water and drainage district stepping up and
providing services and managing this drainage water in a real time basis
and they've gotten good at it. They've gotten really good it. And you
know and, and as a result, you know, they, they, they, they are meeting
the regulatory issues but they're also thriving, you know, production
wise in agriculturally as well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, well let's go up to the northern end of DeltaMendota canal up to the, up to the Delta.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah.
Thomas Holyoke: I don't know maybe if this is the best point to start it
at but, start talking about maybe the changes in water delivery that
began with the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act if that's the
right place maybe to begin with.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know maybe, maybe the broader issue is, you
know, things have changed fundamentally in how we operate the Central
Valley project. They've changed, you know, what crops we grow. They
changed how we grow them. We, we’ve changed fundamentally how we manage
and irrigate them. And in, in retrospect those changes began to occur in
the late 80’s and early 90’s. And have, have, having lived through the-or the pre, you know, change conditions and now through the post change
conditions. Generally what occurred in the late 80’s and early 90’s is a
couple of things just as, as a perfect storm came together regulatorily.
Number one, we had two listed species that, that occurred. We had the
listing of the Delta smelt and the listing of the winter-run salmon. And
so, we had two--we had the Endangered Species Act that was being
implemented in ways that affected on a real-time basis how we operated
the system. And in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we didn't fully
appreciate the implications of that or really understood what that meant.
But nonetheless, that's when, you know, it occurred, the listings were
about in 1991. In 1992, we had the Central Valley Project Improvement Act
that was passed. And it fundamentally changed the Central Valley Project
changed the role of the Bureau of Reclamation formally at that point. It
changed how it is that we could operate, you know, the Central Valley
Project. And there were, there three provisions of that, that reallocated
water from the agricultural base to other uses. One was the Trinity River
restoration component of the CVP. The second was, we've talked about
wildlife refuges and their reliance upon drainage water for their water
supply. Well, the CVPIA provided them a fresh water supply from the
Central Valley Project that water had historically been delivered to
agriculture. And then, and, and, but now, it carved out a block of water
for those refuges. And so, that was the second area. And then third area,
it generally dedicated 800,000 acre feet of CVP yield for environmental
purposes, and again, that water had historically been used for
agriculture, so. So in 92, you had the passage of that. And then in 94, a
little bit later the State Water Resources Control board under the
umbrella of the Federal Clean Water Act started promulgating-- or looking
at coming up with new standards for the bay Delta. And so, those were the
three Federal Statutes that came to play pretty much within a five year
period of span the Endangered Species Act, the Central Valley Project
Improvement Act and the Clean Water Act. And, and also in the late 80s
and early 90s we were having a drought there just wasn't--and in fact it
was a pretty severe drought, it ended up lasting about five years. So,
you know, if you, if you think through that we've got this drought. And,
and by the way prior to 1989, 1990 when we started deliveries out of the
Federal Project in 1952 we had only had one year that we weren't able to
deliver a 100 percent supply-- contract supply to our water users and
that was the drought of 1977. So, the point of that is the CVP was a
very, very stable project. And, and, and the water supplies were very
certain out of the CVP. You knew you were, you know, likely gonna get a
100 percent each and every year and you knew that early. You knew, you
know, pretty early on the storage was sufficient and, and you can move
the water around, so, so, it was in that backdrop that all of this
started to occur. We, we started having the severe drought and we started
getting shortages. At the same time we were implementing or the Fish and
Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries was implementing Endangered
Species actions. And then we had the CVPIA passed. And--so, we were
getting these shortages but it wasn't clear to us, you know, how much of
this was the drought? How much of it was the new regulatory regime until
1993 and, and it rained really hard that winter--and we had, you know,
everything kind of recovered. And the water users still ended up with a
50 percent supply. And that was a huge, huge eye opener for the water
users. It was fundamental. I mean, you know, with all of this rain and
for them to get a 50 percent supply was a huge reality check. And, and it
was when they recognized for the first time. They had a sense that, you
know, ESA was gonna, you know, impact their lives and, and, and CVPIA
certainly but they didn't have a sense to the extent of that. And that
all came to a head there in 93 and, and that's when they realized they
needed to step up. And we started making investments, our authority
started making investments in, in the technical aspects of the fishery
declined, biologist, hydrologist and we started gearing up ourselves to
be able to participate in those discussions about, you know, what, what,
what was going on in the Delta and how we're gonna operate this CVP in a
way that meets the new needs for the, the, the fish and water quality as
well as the supply. And so, it was, it was in, you know, around mid 90s
when all of that just came to a head.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, that point in time like, like 1993 I guess the
year of the reality check, were there actually cut backs in pumping
because of the need to protect the fish [inaudible] that year?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, there was, there was. And, again, you know, it was
combination of cut, you know, low flows because of the drought as well as
you know, sensitivities to the fish and it was, it was hard for us to
separate it. Plus frankly at that time, we didn't have a lot of expertise
to figure out how they were operating the system. We, we hadn't had to
pay attention to that prior to that. That was mostly the bureau doing
that for us. And so we just didn't have a good sense of what was driving
the shortages at that time frankly. But it was you know, we had some
sense, it was ESA driven but we didn't know to the extent.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What-- changes--what--did any of your--you, your
authority any of your districts start to advocate for changes in the, in
the law like in [inaudible].
>> Dan Nelson: Oh absolutely, well I mean--certainly we were very much
engaged actually in the legislative process for the passing of Central
Valley Project Improvement Act was extensive. And it took--my
recollection as it, it seemed going for a hundred years but it was
probably you know, over the course of the year, year and a half. Most of
our representation at that time in dealing with the legislation was
through the Central Valley Project Water Association. So it was all
Central Valley project water users, us, Friant, The Tehama-Colusa in
Northern California were all different segments of the Central Valley
project. But we were all combined under one organization called the
Central Valley Project Water Association and they represented us, Jason
Peltier was the executive director at the time and they represented us in
the CVPIA negotiations and, and the development of that legislation.
Subsequently, once the bill passed of course the administrations handed
this new law, they have to go implement it. And that has been very, very
contentious. And you know, to this day there are some loose ends but
generally especially during the 90s we were involved in many efforts to,
you know, to work in forums that would establish the policies for
implementation on the various components of it. And then ultimately, you
know, litigation in areas where we don't think that, you know, where we
didn't think that they, their policies were consistent with the law. And,
and so, and you know, there was an effort I believe--I think it was '96
or '97 to even amend it. And so there have been legislative efforts to
amend CVPIA, there's on-going administrative efforts to influence how the
law is implemented, and certainly legal issues and judicial issues
involved as well that you know, we've been involved in for 20 years,
regarding the implementation CVPIA.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In the 1990s we have something called the Bay Delta
accord which then leads to this, I guess attempted coordination called
CALFED, are you involved with that?
>> Dan Nelson: Yes. I was, I was. And generally the background of the Bay
Delta Accord again is we were in the tail end of this drought and we now
had two federal statutes being implemented--regulatory statutes, CVPIA
and ESA that were being implemented. And then you had--then you had the
State Water Resources Control Board you know, wanting to develop a
standard. So when you, when you think through that morass essentially
under the Endangered Species Act you have the National Marines Fishery
Service is responsible for winter-run salmon. You have Fish and Wildlife
Service responsible for bringing back the Delta smelt for--so that's the
endangered species component of it. And then on the CVPIA had Fish and
Wildlife Service you know, that was responsible for implementing a lot of
different things. You had NIMS responsible for implementing in the Bureau
of Reclamation and you also had DWR that was involved, you know, on the
state side, DWR and Department of Fish & Game. And you literally had all
these different agencies trying to implement their little niche whether
it be for the winter-run salmon or for, for the Delta smelt or for, you
know, the 800,000 acre feet, they were all you know, kind of trying to
make sense out of all that. And it wasn't, it wasn't working let alone
certainly wasn't an efficient way of doing it. Senator Feinstein stepped
up at the time and saw this and then you have the state board on top of
all of that. You had the state board about ready to say OK, well, we
wanna come in and put new standards amongst all of that. And so that's
when Senator Feinstein stepped in and essentially a very long story,
short, got all of those folks together to see, is there a way that we can
come up with a way of operating the system in a more comprehensive way
that takes care of the needs of the individual species and takes care of
the water quality issues and sort of come up with one set of criteria for
operating for fish, water quality in the water supply. And that, that
resulted in our area meeting with Metropolitan Water District. And Jerry
Butcher the manager of Westlands at the time, you know, and myself met
with, with some metropolitan representative, the general manager and also
Tim Quinn who was with MED at the time and just, you know, had a
discussion about whether or not we thought we could come up with a plan,
you know, to do-- whether we wanted to make the effort of coming up with
this plan. And we decided at that meeting that we did and so we started
working with them. Ultimately we went down to Kern County Water Agency
and sort of made this proposal to them. You know, would you join us in
trying to work on this more comprehensive approach. And Tom Clark of Kern
County you know, ultimately, that Kern joined us. And so the water users
south of the Delta including Metropolitan, Kern County and the San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority began working on a proposal of what that
comprehensive plan may, may look like. And we worked through, you know,
Senator Feinstein, assisted in keeping everyone together and on the same
course. And then, there was a federal employee much more than that, an
appointed official on the Department of Interior. She was an assistant
secretary. Her name was Betsy Rieke and she was instrumental in
corralling all of the different federal agencies and leading and being
their rep whether it'd be NIMS, Fish and Wildlife, 'cause they're all
under different, different agencies. And so, she was responsible
corralling all of those. And so, we ultimately ended up with a package
that worked. On December 15th of '94, we signed the Bay Delta Accord and,
and it was intended to be a way that we collectively agreed that we would
implement all of these different regulatory statutes. We would, we would
use this for three or four years on an interim basis while we developed a
more long term strategy for the Delta. And that essentially was CALFED
and how--and so, we implemented the Bay Delta Accord in '94, December of
'94 and then initiated discussions on CALFED in '95.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And did it all work out?
>> Dan Nelson: No, no, no. Unfortunately it didn't. And you know, as--I
was a, you know, I was one of the negotiators of the Bay Delta Accord. I
had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of ownership in that in the sense
that I was totally committed to it. And, and felt very strongly. It was a
good plan. And by the way it wasn't, you know, uniformly embraced. You
know, I had a lot of criticism that we gave up too much for the accord
and then there was a lot of folks that, you know, recognized that we
stabilize things really well through the accord and actually postured
ourselves water supply wise in a good stable place. But, unfortunately
about two years later and you're gonna have to, you know, I'm a little
cynical about this because, because I was so vested in the accord. The
Bureau of Reclamation, you know, through the implementation of a certain
component of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, CVPIA, the
Bureau of Reclamation was still looking at implementing CVPIA which the
component that is that issue here is referred to as the B2 provision of
CVPIA which is Section 3406B2 and that dedicates 800,000 acre feet to the
environment. And so, the issue surfaced is--does or is the implementation
of B2 within the parameters of the accord. And you know, it was obvious
to us that it had been--that it was and that, you know, all of the
declarations about the accord and the words--unfortunately the words in
the accord itself were as clear as, you know, in retrospect it could have
been, but nonetheless, it was very clear that all of the water that we
were going to dedicate for environmental purposes under the CVPIA and,
and under the Endangered Species Act were embedded and within the
agreement and the operation to the agreement. And ultimately,
unfortunately the Bureau of Reclamation came to the conclusion "No,
there's a portion of the 800,000 acre feet that's up and above what you
agreed upon in the accord." So essentially we're gonna implement things
that even going to displace more water than the accord did. We ended up
in court, you know, about that. And unfortunately all of the accord was,
you know, characterized as the end of all water wars in California and,
and it lasted a couple of years before we had our first law suit about it
unfortunately. It was really disappointing. I, you know, to this day I, I
think it was very regrettable that that's where the Bureau ended up. I,
you know, there was a lot of things that came out of that that were just
totally unnecessary. You know and it was really distracting and really I
think put us on a course that we a regulatory based course that we
haven't been able to escape yet.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We seem to be in an area we're trying again, you know,
Governor Schwarzenegger when he tried to at least--I guess initiated the
current process we seem to be in now, he has big blue ribbon commission
on what to do about the Delta. Try to create some kind of guarantee of
water supply for agriculture while at the same doing all this
environmental stuff sort of trying to do, take care of the two main
problems simultaneously. Do you--would you--were you overly involved with
the Governor's commission or some of the things that have happened since
that have led to the plan we have seem to have today?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Yes, I was. And generally we went through the CALFED
process which was supposed--it was a very formalized processed, you know,
and came out with, you know, a record of decision that's really never
been implemented to any extent. But, as a result of some of the failures
of the CALFED process and I will generalize those failures as, as
probably being the result of trying to be all things to everybody, lost
its focus, and therefore couldn't ever really be implemented effectively.
As a result of that--on the heels of that, we began--and it was actually
initiated by Steve Thompson who was the--I don't believe they call them
Regional Directors but in effect the Regional Director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service. He was in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service in
California/Oregon area. And so, Steve Thompson, you know, called this
meeting with some water users. And since he said, you know, "This isn't
working well, you know, for water users. This isn't working well for the
fisheries. You know, we need to think of a new way of doing this. And,
you know, why don't, you know, he was--had some experience with, with
what's referred to under the Endangered Species Act habitat conservation
plans and you know very generally as opposed to dealing with endangered
species in an area, a species by species, you know, whether it be winterrun, just focusing on winter-run, Delta smelt or whatever. Instead of,
you know, having implementing the Endangered Species Act under a specie
by specie, the habitat conservation plan provides opportunities to deal
with it in a more comprehensive way. And where you're developing a
habitat is sort of the concept that work for all different species. And
it's a much more comprehensive approach to resolving endangered species
issues. And so, we saw the merit to it and we started working on that. We
recognized pretty early on after--and this is a whole different story
about, you know, how the implementation of ESA has evolved over the last
20 years. But as a result of banging our head against the wall of making
the current through Delta plumbing system of where the water flows
through the Delta from the Northern--generally the Sacramento River
through the Delta to our pumping plants to the south that's referred to
as the through Delta plumbing system. As opposed to continuing trying to
make that work we were going to look at how do we separate the plumbing
system from--and to not try to get it through the Delta but around the
Delta. And you know, we dusted off the old peripheral canal of which, you
know, by the way was, was advocated by a lot of Fish and Wildlife and a
lot of Fish & Game people as being, you know, what is, what is needed is
to separate the water plumbing system from the fishery, you know,
habitat.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually had your authority and your water districts
been supportive of the peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. You know, during CALFED we made a conscious decision
to not pursue a peripheral canal or we'll call it an isolated facility
where you isolate the water delivery system from, you know, we'll call it
the central Delta habitat system. We made a conscious decision in CALFED,
begrudgingly conscious decision from the water user's perspective that at
that time it was determined, Lester Snow was ahead of the CALFED program
at that time... And he was really reluctant to get CALFED in the motive
where it was promoting an isolated facility. He just thought politically
and financially. Just everything it would be too distracting, you know,
to the CAL--you know, that would--It just--and it was just too
overwhelming. And so we made a conscious decision to try to figure out a
plan, a CALFED comprehensive plan without doing it through an isolated
facility. At the tail end of all that when we realized all of that didn't
work and we started looking at a habitat conservation plan is when we
said, you know, if, if we're going to make this work, we've been
struggling now for 20 years to figure out how to make this through Delta
system work, if we're gonna make this work we're going to need an
isolated facility. Or--we're gonna at least have to explore that. And so
that was essentially the initiation of the discussion that we're still in
today and that is how to best, you know, how to best manage the Delta. We
think it's probably through an isolative facility. And we have now
settled on a pretty distinct plan for how--what we think the isolated
facility looks like and, we’re, we're pursuing that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And by here at September 2013 by isolated facility
you're referring to, this proposal to actually dig tunnels underneath the
Delta?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, two huge tunnels, two 30-foot tunnels, about, about
a 100-feet deep below the Delta from Clarksburg and, you know, down to
the pumps itself.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why this rather than a peripheral canal?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, for--actually for a, for a lot of different
reasons but the primary one is just the footprint of a surf--of a canal.
And the--a surface canal you know, would go right through the middle of
the Delta and, you know, it could, it’d be really, you know, I can see
where, you know, it would be pretty disruptive of all the different
transportation routes of everything in the Delta to have a huge canal go
through the middle of it. And so the primary reason for it is just the
huge footprint that a canal would take.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And this--and having a tunnel system benefits water
users South of the Delta how?
>> Dan Nelson: You know, it separates the water delivery system from the
migration path of the salmon, it sepa--to a large extent. I mean
obviously from the Sacramento River, north from Clarksburg of course you
know, that's still a water delivery system and where salmon run as well.
But generally, you know, the Delta itself is just a maze of all of these
channels. And so there are fish living in that channel and the Delta
smelt’s a good example of that. So, so there are fish living in this
channel but there are also--there are also migrating fish that migrate
through that. And so the combination of having the fish trying to use
this as a combination of habitat and migrating corridors as well as it
being a delivery system? We, you know, we hadn't been able to figure out
how to best do that. And to meet the needs of the fish, to meet the needs
of supply and so, you know, separating the two gives us a better
opportunity to do that. To meet both the fishery needs better and to be
able to make, you know, stable supplies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And if you found working with the people representing
the fishing industry? People representing environmental interest to be-it [inaudible] be possible to get them on board with these plans?
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah, you know, it, it--if, if--it really is a mixed bag.
I mean we have certain environmental organizations that have embraced it.
And we've had other environmental organizations that have been fairly
adamant in their, in their opposition to it. We've--probably the center
of opposition is the Delta itself. And the folks in the Delta that are
you know concerned about removing you know, so much fresh water that
currently flows through there now on their way to our pumps, it still
flows through the Delta and so they're obviously concerned about water
quality issues. And rightfully so those issues all need to be addressed
adequately. And then you have a smattering of Northern California thinks
that this is going to be a way for, you know, somehow Southern California
to take more water from them. And so there’s certainly those concerns
and—but, but you also have Northern Californians that look at this as an
opportunity for them. And you have certainly environmental folks that
looked at this as being the best way of, of dealing with the fishery and
water quality issues. And so certainly you have, you know, folks that are
looking at this, in, from a lot of different perspectives.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, we may have to bring you back in a few years to
do an epilogue just to see how it all actually went.
>> Dan Nelson: Yeah. Well things, you know, we're hoping are going to
come to a head here fairly soon. We--right now, the cost for the
environmental work are estimated and budgeted at around 260,000 dollars.
And we’re-- we've split that half with the state contractors of 130
million and a half with our organization in the federal contractor side
and the bureau had a 130 million. And so, we're looking at--the final
record of decision, you know, is, is expected to be out next-- sometime
next year 2014. And, and it will be, you know, at a hefty price tag just
to get to that stage.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. Well, thank you very much.
>> Dan Nelson: Uh-hmm.
[ Silence ]