Jack Threlkeld interview
Item
Title
eng
Jack Threlkeld interview
Description
eng
Former water engineer for the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors, explaining how the water rights of the exchange contractors create so much confusion in the river’s water allocations.
Creator
eng
Threlkeld, Jack
eng
Holyoke, Thomas
Relation
eng
Water Archive Oral Histories
Coverage
eng
California State University, Fresno
Date
eng
6/10/2011
Format
eng
Microsoft Word 2003 document, 16 pages
Identifier
eng
SCMS_waoh_00007
extracted text
>> Thomas Holyoke: June 10, 2011 interviewing Mr. Jack Threlkeld. Let's just
start with a little bit of personal history. Where are you from? How did you end
up here?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well I was born in San Francisco in 1935 and raised in
Fresno. My family had farming interests in cotton and barley in Tulare Lake and
I went to school at Menlo Park and UC Davis for two years. And then after five
years in the family farming business I went to work for Miller and Lux in Los
Banos. Subsequently when they dissolved with their successor interest Bowles
Farming Company, besides being General Manager of Farming I was-- took care of
their water interests and therefore was on the boards of the San Luis Canal
Company and the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where were your own family farms at?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Tulare Lake; that's Corcoran, actually where I got to know
Miller and Lux was through Buena Vista Lake. We leased Buena Vista Lake when
Miller and Lux got that back from their lawsuits in the 50s. [Laughter] So
that's where that came from and then->> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops did your family grow again?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Cotton and barley, mainly I think some seed alfalfa, but
mainly cotton and barley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You say Miller and Lux, now that's an important part of
California, more important history in general, but California water history in
particular. Could you just talk a little bit about Henry Miller and the kind of
business he had, what he grew and some of his importance in the history of
water.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well Henry Miller came to the country in the 1850s, late
1850s I guess from Germany. He's a butcher and in supplying meat for his butcher
shop he got into the cattle business and eventually started growing -- in South
San Francisco he had pastures. He eventually got over-- got down to the Gilroy
area and then branched over into the valley and the stories have it that he at
one point he was -- had over a million acres of farmland in California, Oregon,
Nevada and Idaho I guess. He was really a conservationist I guess. He would put
up, he'd flood lands, grow grass, put up hay and when there were drought periods
he would first be in a position to buy the cattle and then to -- because he had
the feed and then to buy the land because with no cattle the land wasn't worth
anything so he -- and he had a real passion for getting all the land he could.
He just -- Lux spent all his time trying to cover the drafts and Henry Miller
was out buying land. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who was Lux?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Lux was a San Francisco banker I believe. Well I guess he was
a butcher originally and he had some land that was strategically located just
south of San Francisco where they could hold the cattle as they were taking it
to the final stages of you know, going to slaughter.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I guess one of the things Henry Miller is known for is
having developed-- I don't know-- well maybe developed is the word but developed
some of the earliest of the valley's water infrastructure. Do you know where he
drew a lot of his water out of? Was it the San Joaquin or--
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well either the San Joaquin River or the Kings River, Kern
River and some of the northern rivers also. So there were some San Francisco
interests that took some-- built some irrigation facilities. This San Joaquin
River and Kings River Canal Companies, they built facilities and had subdivided
land so that they could give into the jewels to come and buy it. Henry Miller
bought into this canal company structure so that number one he could control and
make sure that the water was handled properly and also get water for his own
land and be there if he needed to pick up the pieces because he didn't feel the
thing was going to be a financial success. So as I understand it, he would try
to get people water and he would control the canal company and make sure it was
operated properly. And if and when land came up for sale he was there to take
it. So he ended up owning, or operating not owning, but operating the four canal
companies that made up the exchange contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually I think I knew that. All four of the -- I guess it's
districts now and exchange contractors had their origin with Henry Miller?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well yes, they're all originally Henry Miller Canal Companies
and in the 50s I guess, late-- early ’50s the biggest canal company, which was
the one I talked about the San Joaquin River and Kings River Canal Company, that
one was taken over by the individuals in the district informed the CCID, the
Central California Irrigation District. That was the basic canal company that he
had and he made sure that he appropriated water for that canal company,
documented it and so forth and when he felt satisfied with the documentation on
that canal company, then he started documenting the water used for the company
owned lands and so forth, which was mainly the San Luis Canal Company. And the
two other canal companies which were both mutuals, San Luis Canal Company is a
mutual water company and as was Firebaugh Canal Company and Columbia Canal
Company. And since the Firebaugh Canal Company has become a water district and
San Luis Canal Company stayed a canal company, a mutual canal company, but they
also formed a reclamation district. So they're -- all of their facilities and
their operation is all done with the reclamation district whereas the water
rights and the business and everything is handled by the mutuals.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually if you would just explain a little bit about this
notion of water rights because he also mentioned documenting the water usage,
sort of just take a second to explain why that's important.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well you need to prove and verify your history of water
rights and Henry Miller was very careful about this. He had two water rights
basically, one is riparian and one is appropriative. Riparian is next to the
river; it is overflow. It's water that gets to a piece of ground by contiguous
connection to the river whereas appropriative rights are water that you document
by your use. You can pump it or pipeline it or however you get it to the
property it would be appropriative and here especially you need to document it
and verify it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Most of the water that Henry Miller used was done under the
appropriative rights doctrine.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He was more in favor I think, from what I've read, in the
riparian part.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He felt this was a sure thing, but in a lawsuit in Kern
County, with Kern County he was-- the state appellate court I think it was,
overturned him and they found in favor of the appropriative rights on the Kern
River. So he lost the riparian rights and I think that's when he started really
get appropriate -- you know building the appropriative record. Some years later
I think, 10 or 15 years later, at least the early 1900s, they revisited that and
the state Supreme Court found in his favor, so it was a situation that the
riparians kind of won that round. And as I understand it he went to a guy's name
I believe was Hagan, and they worked out a deal between them. To where they said
“I'll take so much riparian or you give me so much riparian and you can take so
much appropriative.” So they ->> Thomas Holyoke: The canal companies that Henry Miller and the infrastructure
he would have been creating in the 19th century, does any of that still exist in
the original ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yea there's -- some of the canals are still you know still on
the same right of ways and Mendota Dam is in the area. So that's where the
exchange contractors water is delivered is to the Mendota Dam on the San Joaquin
River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Mendota Dam was originally a Henry Miller creation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Hmm, okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's been rebuilt since -- [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just explain briefly what an irrigation district is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: An irrigation district is an entity-- it's a public entity;
they're all public entities. Well I shouldn't say that. The irrigation district
is a public entity and the voting is by the residents of the area. So regardless
of whether they have water, or farming interests or what not, if they live
within the district they vote for directors. A -- that's a California irrigation
district. A water district is slightly different in that it is -- I think the
voting is by the people, the ownership of the district. In other words it'd be
one vote, one acre or something like that. A mutual canal company is put
together with a -- that's a corporation under the railroad act. And it's -- well
San Luis Canal company, our mutual is one acre, one vote and it's the landowners
who have land within the canal company service area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What do irrigation districts do for fun? What's the purpose?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they manage the water, protect the water rights, deliver
the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What's their function in getting the water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they
supplied. I mean if they had
outlet or in this case in an
method -- you want me to get
would get it from whatever, wherever they were
a well it would be a well. If they had a river
exchange contract, if you had quite a different
into that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well just a second.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So an irrigation district as I understand it gets its water
by -- it's a contract with the bureau of reclamation or the city?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they got their water originally by their riparian and
appropriative rights on the San Joaquin River; you're talking about those
entities.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay so then they have the right then to ->> Jack Threlkeld: They have the basic water rights on the San -- well on the -go ahead. [Laughter] They have the water rights and that's were they got ’em and
then-- I think we're gonna get into what they did with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: One quick question. You mentioned something called a
reclamation district. I'm not familiar with that. I mean I've heard of them but
what is a reclamation district?
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's a public entity. It can be set up under various rules.
It is a residence, at least the -- it's a residential district. In other words
the voters are residents of the area delineated by the district. But they're all
sorts of them as far as you know you can pick and choose as to how you want your
particular entity constructed.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what then is the exchange contractor? That's not a
district. Is that something else?
>> Jack Threlkeld: The exchange contractors are CCID, San Luis Canal Company,
Fire Canal Water District, and Columbia Canal Company, those are the four Henry
Miller water entities and they -- Miller and Lux for years managed all those
districts. And then in various times the people in the district, the voters and
so forth took over some of the districts themselves. These water right holders
were approached by the Bureau ->> Thomas Holyoke: Of Reclamation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Of Reclamation, the United States Bureau of Reclamation to
provide the water for the Friant Dam Project. And in 1939 I believe it was they
signed the exchange contractor, therefore where the exchange contractors come
because of that contract. That contract took the water rights in the San Joaquin
River that belonged to Miller and Lux and the bureau became the custodian of
those rights and that water and kept it behind Friant Dam for use on the east
side of the valley. And the water was exchanged; thus the exchange contract
terminology, was exchanged for water that was accumulated in shafts, behind
shafts of the dam on the Sacramento River, came down the shafts of Sacramento
and was pumped into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy and delivered to the
exchange contractors in Mendota, the Mendota pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the exchange contractors they gave up the old rights that
they had. [Inaudible] That's not right.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure of the legal terminology here but they did not
give up the rights. They gave up the custodial -- the management of those rights
to the bureau under the exchange contract.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So they're -- they're San Joaquin River water was going to be
sent by the Bureau of Reclamation then to other areas and then the exchange
contractors get delta water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why did they agree to do that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, one of the problems with the San Joaquin River Water
was that it all came down in the spring. Flood water, snow melt etcetera, so
that by July, August, September there was very little water. All of the farming
was done with the water that came down in various amounts depending on the year.
They -- so it was the timing of water. They now get it on a schedule that covers
eleven months. They get more water because of the salinity. So they get a
greater amount of water at a more timely -- more timely. That's the basic thing.
It's more reliable. The trigger for the -- there's also two amounts of water,
two criteria for the water. It's based on inflow to Shasta. So the natural
inflow to Shasta, if its four million acre feet then the exchange contractors
get 100 percent of their water, which is like 840,000 acre feet. And they're
first in line. There's nobody else in the CVP that comes before them because it
is their water that enabled the CVP. So they get that water and if you're
triggering a critical year or a year where there's less water, this is done by
subtracting the difference between whatever the inflow is and the four million.
And that will accumulate until it reaches 800,000 or the inflow gets down to 3
million two hundred thousand. When that happens it triggers a dry year scenario
and the exchange contractors would get 75 percent of their water at that point.
And then of course it takes a four million acre foot year before the thing would
reach that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Has this happened?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes it's happened I believe three years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Now I understand there are scenarios in which exchange
contractors can reclaim their San Joaquin water. I mean it's still theirs. Take
San Joaquin water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure that's right terminology but I think what you're
driving at is that if the bureau was unable to deliver the water for some
reason. They had the canal blowout or something that they were unable -- the
exchange contractor would have the right to re -- go back on the river. They'd
be able to go back on river flows and this has never happened, other than flood
years. The technicality there would be I guess that when there was flood water
and the bureau wasn't willing to use that as documented flows, or water to make
it documented flows the exchange contractors could take it without going against
them.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: But that was just a couple of times.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is -- I only ask because sometimes it seems to come up,
especially in some of the drought years we've had recently as to whether the
exchange contractors may assert their river rights and that seems to be
sometimes a wild card I hear in the planning for the use of San Joaquin river
water as in the last few years there has been less of it. But have the exchange
contractors ever seriously discussed a certain -- returning to river water even
just temporarily because of cutbacks from delta pumping or just a sheer lack of
water in the delta?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think I'm right on this. They only did it as planning
for something that might happen in that particular year. You know they saw a
disaster coming and we're talking strategy so to speak, how they would act. I
don't think it's ever happened.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Let's see, I personally am ready to move on from the
exchange contractors in and of themselves. Have I missed anything crucial?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think -- well one of the things on the -- back to the
exchange contractor and the river water, the bureau bought up all of the
remaining rights, riparian rights on the San Joaquin River at the time of the
exchange contract with the exception of I think one downstream riparian holder
or small holder. They also bought the Kings River riparian water rights from
Miller and Lux; I think that was for a million dollars. [Laughter] So that was a
pretty good deal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah, especially in 1939. That's a serious chunk of money.
[Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: That was a way I guess -- I think that was a good thing to do
that they got all of the other riparian owners that would be involved with the
exception of Miller and Lux that they took them out of the equation and also the
Kings River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor's water from the delta comes down the
Delta Mendota Canal?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: There is a connection however between San Luis reservoir and
the Delta Mendota Canal. So the bureau has the ability to store water in San
Luis reservoir and supply to the exchange contractors from San Luis reservoir.
And there was a lawsuit on that because at one point the U.S. side federal
landowners thought because the San Luis Act provided the San Luis Dam to them,
they were the only one that could use it but the [Laughter] but it's the bureau
and the court rule, but the bureau's prerogative, responsibility to deliver the
water to the exchange contractors and they could use any of the tools they had
to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just one question to clarify something; the districts that
make up the exchange contractors, they primarily serve farmers around the
Mendota, Los Banos-- that's the service area?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea the service area runs from Mendota to Gustine Newman area
on the north.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops are being grown there usually?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There's alfalfa, cotton, grains, various tree crops, a lot of
almonds, tomatoes, some of the vegetable crops. So a variety -- it's alkalized
soil for the most part. So it has to be crops that will stand some alkalinity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain that a bit more, alkalized soil.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well alkali is the -- on the pH scale, and I'm not a chemist
[Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Neither am I.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The pH 7.6 is neutral and the alkalized soils are the saltier
soils and higher sodium soils and they would have a lower pH and to counter that
you would use acids and gypsum and various things that convert the soil, convert
the alkaline to be where you could leech it out. And so when we talked earlier
about having more water and the exchange getting more water and that was because
you needed a leeching coefficient and needed extra water to leech the salt out
of the soils and you have to have drainage for that salty water or it just
continues to compound in the soil.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor -- is that area then -- it's getting
caught up in some of the same problems that I guess the Westlands Water District
has with a lot of salinity and selenium in the soils and then inability to
drink-- they have had a history of trouble with drainage. Did exchange
contractors have that same trouble being able to build a drainage infrastructure
to get the water out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well this has been the theme that the exchange contractors
have argued forever, that we need a drain. We need to be able to get rid of this
water. You know you need to put water in. You need to put extra water in and you
take the runoff and you need to have a place for that go or you're just looking
at a Salton Sea kind of a situation where salt would build up and eventually
everything dies. When you talk about selenium and boron and some of the other
things, yes the exchange contractors have about 10 percent I'd say of the soil
on the west side and the south of Los Banos. It has some selenium and needs to
be gotten rid of. Firebaugh Canal Company has some selenium problems.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How are they handling those problems now?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they're trying to manage it now. They've put holding
ponds and settling ponds in on the west side. They're pumping with tile drains
and they're trying to segregate the water from where they pump it in a drain
with levels and trying to segregate the water that doesn't have selenium and put
it through an existing drain. Of course, the selenium has such a low tolerance
that there's not much you can do so you're looking at a reverse osmosis or some
sort of a cleansing process that you could get the selenium out of the water and
if they're able to do that, are they able to -- how do they get rid of the
selenium. Is there some water left that is still -- you're still unable to drain
through the river system?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do they need to have an actual drainage canal built, I mean
for a long time ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yes the San Luis Act provided for a drainage facility, a
drainage canal and that was one of the things the exchange contract insisted on
and congress put it in the act. However, they never appropriated the money for
it. So they've never followed through but on various of the things that they've
done they never followed through with what they're free to do. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: So it's not likely that anyone's going to built in the near
future -- [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's not gonna happen. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Along that same line the peripheral canal was a way of taking
the water that goes into the Delta and feeding it you know if you had the
tributaries and all in here the water would get blocked up in the sewage. The
tides would push the salt back into the sloughs and then it would -- in order to
get that salt water out they just have to use it. Well with the peripheral canal
around the edge, you'd be able to drop some water out of the peripheral canal in
the sloughs and scour those sloughs out and you know manage the situation but we
didn't get a peripheral canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are you still hoping for one?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's the real solution. I think it's probably the
only solution to our problem in the Delta. It's a management tool and you just
need something to be able to manage that water and the way we're doing it is
just wasting an awful lot of water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain a bit about generally how the peripheral canal is
supposed to work, where it's supposed to start from and then where it's supposed
to end up at and the purpose of this was, or is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, as you know, the water goes through the Delta and is
taken when the flows are high enough is pulled over by Tracy, which is the south
end of the Delta and pumped as is the San Luis pumps, the Clifton Court pumps
are the same way, the federal/state pumps. And what the peripheral canal was
going to do was going to start up in the north Delta where the Sacramento feeds
in and divert part of that water around the Delta, just kind of loop it around
and feed it into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy. What this would do would
enable number one to keep better water; you wouldn't get it adulterated in the
Delta and ->> Thomas Holyoke: Adulterated with saltwater?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Saltwater, you know the tidal actually. So you wouldn't get
that you know the salt being introduced to the water. You'd have the pure water
coming out of the Sacramento and going around. And as I said earlier, you'd be
adding water that got pushed up into these areas, these fingerlets that go up
above the delta could be washed out. They'd be flushed just by turning the valve
or whatever, so you could manage your water. This is one of the things I think
that was really a mistake when the selenium thing came on it was the bureau had
flood waters occurring and they had a problem in Kesterson and with salts and so
forth and rather than flushing that flood water which would have helped take the
pressure off the flooding, they kept the water out. They created more of a flood
problem and didn't use that extra water to flush those salts out of Kesterson
and they were allowed to build up and had the deformities with the ducks and so
forth.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did reclamation know that was going to be a problem and why
would they not do it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think [Laughter] I don't know. I don't know why they would
[Laughter] but I think its because of regulations; there are just so many
regulations that even if they've got tools to come out of things, they don't -they don't dare, is that a proper way to put it, [Laughter] because of the
regulations and because everybody is looking over their shoulder trying to --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Back to the 1980s quick, when the peripheral canal idea died
its first death, what happened to it? I mean I know it ->> Jack Threlkeld: Well, it was a referendum and I think Boswell Company didn't
want it to happen, and pumped some money into it to defeat it and it got
defeated.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why would J.D. Boswell?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I'm not sure that they can tell you right now. I'm sure
they had a reason. [Laughter] I don't know. I can't speak for that, but it was - it was -- it was defeated. I think that maybe they tipped the scales by trying
to defeat it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think that there's a really good chance that it's
going to come back? I mean people are talking -- I guess now it's a peripheral
tunnel. I mean it's going to go under the Delta rather than around the Delta I
heard. But do you think it's a realistic chance that it could be built in the
next few years? I think people are talking about it again.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well it's one of the things that the water bond, the state
water bond is -- one of the options that they could do with that 12 billion or
whatever it is. But yea, I've always felt that it should have been built and I
felt that it -- you know everybody kind of come to their senses and would build
it eventually. I'm not in the majority there at all. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does it help having Jerry Brown back? He championed it the
first time and ->> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know.
>> Thomas Holyoke. Okay. [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: He's surprising me. He's doing [Laughter] a lot of things
that seem good, that is good I think. That I think is good.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In 1992 we had the passage of a piece of federal legislation,
Central Valley Project Improvement Act, created -- I guess this is sort of the
landmark piece of legislation that really brought environmental policy deeply
into California's water wars. Did the enactment of that legislation have a major
effect on the exchange contractors, the time or now I mean?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well of course indirectly it did. It took -- it didn't take
any of the exchange contractors water, because as I said they've got the
enabling water but it took a lot of water from the Delta and from the CVP,
federal land owners. It took 800,000 just on general principles. It was just a - if you need it's there, you can take it. It took water on the Trinity River
and it took for fish and wildlife for the refuges and the fish and wildlife and
reallocated a bunch of that water and it took it away from west side agriculture
and well in the state too I guess. I think it affected both. I'm not sure about
that. CVP is a federal -- I shouldn't get into that because I don't know.
[Laughter] Anyway that was one of the main things; they'd -- they took some
water. The other thing they did was they changed the contract term from 40 years
renewable contracts for the federal water users from 40 years to 25 years. And
the thing they did that helped us was they authorized the bureau to approve
inter-district water sales, inner district water transfers. And so that was
really the backbone of our water transfer system which has been very good you
know for the last 20 years or whatever it's been.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What does that mean, water transfer system can you explain
that a bit.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Somebody has water that they've conserved, the simplest way
could be that they fallowed a piece of land maybe for some reason and they have
the water free for a year. Other things that the exchange contractors are doing
is they're putting in conservation lining canals, putting in reservoirs so they
can manage the water and coming up with surplus or extra water that can be
transferred and they've been transferring water for the last five years or so.
To Westlands Water District and the other districts in the federal area, San
Luis federal area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is this the sale of the water or is this simply ->> Jack Threlkeld: It's the sale of the -- yea the sale of the yield of water
that year. It's a not a sale of water rights or anything. They're not getting
into that. They're not getting into -- and that would have been a real problem.
People have trouble going there. But to sell off part of whatever water they
have because they’ve -- well for instance the exchange contractors are taking
this water. They're selling it. They're using the money they get from those
sales to build infrastructure that will conserve water. So, it's good all the
way around.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Some have pointed to passage of CVPIA adds, big watershed
moment, this transition from I guess a culture of water extraction to a culture
of water conservation, it's when the environmental interests all of a sudden
became involved and a lot of this fighting began between environmental
organizations, farmers, is that how you remember it that there was sort of a big
dramatic moment of change or that there's a lot of fighting and confrontation
now that did not use to exist?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think -- yeah, I think that the environmental
movement, the ESA challenges, the Endangered Species Act challenges, that's all
created a war zone if you will. There's you know, there’s a lot of pros and
cons. One area says that you know the scientific documentation is not proper
being misused and they're in court all the time to try to prove whether an
environmental study was factual or not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did a lot of this hostility exist prior to the 1990s?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No prior to the 1990s it seems to me it was the 160 acre
limitation. There was a challenge you know of water being given, subsidizing
farmers and so forth that maybe was unjust but the reclamation act had given a
bunch of contracts, given federal water to various farmers for a period of 10
years and then they were supposed to sell the land into 160 acre plots and that
was basically what was happening before that. We had some Kings River and Kern
water, Kern River water rights you know, fights and the ->> Thomas Holyoke: Was the acreage ->> Jack Threlkeld: Kings River never got into the reclamation law. The Kings
River wasn't under reclamation law; the Friant was.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The Kings River was done by the Army Corps right?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: They built them.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The limitation, the 160 acre limitation, was that as big a
deal for the exchange contractor farmers as it was for some of Westlands?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No, reclamation law doesn't apply to the exchange
contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: So hey have nothing to do with that. And they have been very
careful to keep that. [Laughter] Make sure it doesn't happen.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, coming back now to the San Joaquin River, also part of
the large area of conflict I guess between farmers and environmentalists if you
want to put it that way, the fights in court over the San Joaquin River and the
restoration of salmon, which has led to the settlement a few years back, were
the exchange contractors involved with those very long series of cases?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big one we were in -- well we weren't involved with
any of the challenges, like the NRDC case against Friant the exchange
contractors were not involved. They did get involved and tried to influence and
they had some influence on the legislation but not on the court case at all.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Are the exchanged contractors by and large satisfied by
the way the settlement came out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I don't know that they [Laughter] –>> Thomas Holyoke: I mean they –
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think anytime you start reshuffling the deck and reappropriating water, and it's in a political way, nobody can be comfortable with
it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the settlement have a direct effect on the exchange
contractors of river water rights?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big problem, of course, is that they're re-watering
the river. And the river is involved in our main stem water; it's our main
source of water. So we're getting into -- if they do get the fish back into it
we're talking about fish racks, fish screens, maintenance of fish screens, pump
takes, you know whether there's pump kills, all of these things and one of the
things-- or the main thing that the exchange contractor has been having or
trying to do is get whatever legislation came out of that to mitigate these
damages; seepage along the liver. But here again you get -- you know the water
is going to seep out. It's going to leech salts. It's going to raise the water
table, force the salts to the surface and ruin farmland. One of the things that
the farmers can say well it's great as long as you mitigate but the bureau does
not have a great record of mitigating. They say they will but they don't. Right
now some of that land is -- some of the farmers are putting in tile lines to
intercept the water coming out of the river and the bureau is refusing to pay
for it. We didn't wait while their process went through. The farmer didn't wait
until the process went through.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So let me make sure I understand this. The concern there is
that once more water is put back into the river, a lot of that water is going to
then flow into the farms, the ground of the farms along the river, so there's
going to be a lot more water in the soil, which can cause damage to some types
of crops.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well in the past historically when water flows down you know
periodically, it flowed down in flood years and didn't so much in non-flood
years. The water would flood and it would overflow and it would put some good
soil on top and put some water on there and would flush out some salts, some
drainage water and so forth. So it would probably do as much good as it did
harm. Now, the water is going to be going down every year. It's going to be
subbing through the levies or under the levies, out into the farmland and the
farmland is going to become alkaline and not farmable. Now the whole point is,
of this agreement and the legislation was that they were supposed to mitigate
these problems. Well, here they're just getting started the first year or two
and they're not mitigating the problem.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How do you mitigate the problem? You said ->> Jack Threlkeld: If you can ->> Thomas Holyoke: Tile line
>> Jack Threlkeld: You can pay for a tile line. You can pay for a -- you can put
in some facilities, which they have, one of the farmers put in a tile line. He's
got -- it's obviously being influenced by the river and he's getting flooded out
and that presumably the bureau would step forward and pay some of those bills or
subsidize that as their contract said they would, and they're not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the bureau is setting itself up for lawsuits?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Oh yea, they're in court constantly. And it's one of the
reasons they're so -- you know so gun shy because they're being sued all the
time. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, let's see so just a few more items here actually. We're
-- I have just been reading through some of the material on the exchange
contractors there's references to some things like the Central Valley Regional
Water Quality Control Board and some issues I'd seen in your material about
water quality, I guess we covered some of that with the salts and the boron.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well not really. That's a recent phenomenon.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The Clean Water Act I guess is what is dictating that and the
water control board; State Water Control Board is managing it. The entity that
San Joaquin River, what is the name, the SWC, the SWJRC, anyway it is a -- when
the Water Quality Control Board said you had to meet certain criteria to drain
water, they were -- and they flexed their muscles and said we're going to do
this by a date certain there was a way that people could satisfy the bureau that
you could either -- the bureau would -- not the bureau but the Water Quality
Control Board would go to the smallest piece of ground and would provide a drain
place where they could monitor the drainage off that piece of ground. And you
got into all of the problems like well what if you have you know flood waters or
what if you have runoff from heavy rainstorms, how does this affect the farmers?
Does the farmer get penalized because there's some water coming over his ground
and going through his checkout? They formed-- we formed an area that covered all
of the exchange contractors and all of the area and had people sign up and we
got the signatures of all these people so that we had an outlet for that big
area so that the whole area was being monitored by the Water Quality Control
Board not specific plots and so we thought there was some -- and this is a
management area. It's a waste water management. I can't remember the name of
what they call that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] It’s okay. In Oakland the purpose of this is to
monitor water quality and be able to take some water quality and take some kind
of action if it turns out that water is no longer meeting the standards of the
Clean Water Act or ->> Jack Threlkeld: Oh there would be penalties and -- I'm not conversant with
all those penalties but they would come down on a farmer for not -- and they're
looking at all sorts of things. They're looking at insecticides and selenium,
boron the whole works.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So this is really kind of a proactive way of dealing with it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, but they got everybody's attention and they got this
thing put through fairly quickly in a matter of a year or two. And it was -- and
I think it has worked basically. I haven't head of any real major problem, major
difficulties on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay,
in this -- at least here
of building a new dam on
exchange contractors are
solution to the need for
the last couple little things here. Do you think pushes
in the Fresno area on the San Joaquin River is the idea
the river up in Temperance Flat. Is that something that
concerned with or do you think that's a promising
more water storage?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think
that would produce about a
is that it's probably only
a real productive area and
already, so to that extent
but we do need more water.
it's good. I think we need on-stream storage. I think
million acre feat. The problem -- the concern I have
going to fill once every 10 years. You know it isn't
most of the production is being handled by Friant
there’s maybe better places in the state to put dams
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there any interest in doing water banking around here? Is
it imposed in the new reservoir?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There are places where you can do water banking and I think
incentives for water banking are good, you get into the problems of depleting
the water, you know the ground water. You can also get into -- by over-pumping
an area you can bring water, salt water into that aquifer and spoil the aquifer.
So, there are some problems with it. But I think where it's feasible and safe
that's one way, one of the tools we need to have.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do farmers and water district managers feel that they're
being terribly overregulated having to tangle with regulations, I mean we’ve had
the federal government and the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior
Department, the EPA and it's a large state regulatory apparatus. I mean, do you
ever get the feeling that there's too many regulations, too many laws to cope
with when it comes to water and its usage? [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I got to the stage at the end of my career I was
spending 100 percent of my time on water because the exchange contractors are
largely a defense against the over regulation and you know the threats wherever
they come from with their water. We got involved with -- after they built the
cords with vamp where we align ourselves with other tributaries on the San
Joaquin to provide water and the bureau paid for the water. It was one of the
first real transfers the bureau paid the seven districts. It was the four
tributaries of the San Joaquin that was Tuolumne, the Merced, San Joaquin,
Oakdale Irrigation District and Stanislaus. And the exchange contractors came
into that also and so did Friant. Friant did with money rather than water. And
eventually San Francisco, the city and county of San Francisco joined that
group. But anyway that was water that was provided under different year types
for a fee that the bureau paid. Well, last year was the last year of that and
this year is the first extension and next year it sounds like they're going to
have a real tough time. They don't have any money and they're -- you know
they're probably not gonna go on with it but there was a very successful program
that would put a charge of water down the San Joaquin and when the smelts were
migrating to the ocean and the idea was that they would take them out into the
Delta into the north Delta and get them outside the suck of the pumps to where
they would get on out into the ocean. So, there was a situation where you had
regulations and people, they were all trying to meet with ESA and a lot of these
tributary groups had their FIRC problems, their electrical contracts that were
dictating that they do these things for the ESA. Your initial question, are
there too many regulations and are they -- is there mismanagement, yea I think
so. A lot of times if we just let the guy out there with his shovel take care of
it, it works. That's an oversimplification but I think that the cure for a lot
of our problems in this state is -- are fairly simple management, being able to
use tools, being able to you know do things that aren't quite 100 percent when
it's necessary. And I think we're getting to the point where we -- or have
gotten to the point where if you can't do it 100 percent you're very vulnerable
and therefore it's not -- nothing's getting done and that's a tough road to be
going down.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, what do you think the future is going to hold for water
and farming in the valley or California? Where do you see it going?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I think [Laughter] I don't think we can continue to
take the water from agriculture and then give it you know waste it, which is
what a lot of what is occurring. We’re flushing great amounts of water out the
Delta and for -- and you know we all want to save the salmon and the split tale
and all these problems, we don't want to be messing up the environment. Farmers
for instance are probably the best environmentalists there are because they are
working with the environment on a daily basis and if they make a mistake it's
costly. But, you need more water supply. We need to have some more tools like
the peripheral canal that will keep us from wasting the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think Californians understand that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Do Californians understand that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yea.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know. [Laughter] It's common sense. It's -- I'm -I'm amazed that most people don't understand that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well most Californians including many of them who would have
to vote on the water bond, live down in Los Angeles, San Francisco, you know not
that familiar with water and agriculture. They don't come out here that often.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, so how do we get the message to them? [Laughter] How do
we convince them that -- well I think one of the alternatives is going to be
that the coastal urban areas are going to be desalinizing their own water.
That's very, very expensive, but if you're only talking about your quarter acre
or whatever, the water for that, then it's not too bad a cost. So I think that's
maybe, if we keep ignoring the practical way of water we're going to end up
forcing all the urban areas along the coast and they've got an unending water
supply. All they have to do is clean it up. [Laughter] Get their reverse osmosis
going. They can take the salt and shovel it back into the ocean. [Laughter] So I
think the answer is that's what's going to happen and it's going to be very
costly to the urban areas. And I'm afraid agriculture and the fish are going to
lose some water in the meantime.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, I'm out of questions. Anything else, anything dramatic
I missed? Anything you want to add?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think so. I think we pretty well covered it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's an interesting situation and I hope we can -- in the
future we can cure the problem. Most of these entities we've been talking about
are formed because there's a certain synergy in people getting together and
defending themselves on common problems. So you're -- you know probably three
quarters or more of those entities we talked about were formed to defend against
whatever comes down the pike to threaten water, water supplies and agriculture.
And, that's specifically with the exchange contractors. They got together and
formed the water authority to make sure that they protected themselves against - rather than doing it -- we found we were doing it individually. Each entity
had its own legal staff and it's own experts and paying for it individually. And
then we decided it's better to form the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors
Water Authority for the very purpose of telling people what the exchange
contractors were all about, what we needed whether -- you know just collectively
higher the attorneys and provide the whatever it is –- the -- and you know
trying to influence legislatures. And you can't just ignore that because all of
the people that are on the other side of whatever issue you're talking about are
out there after their legislators to do what they feel is right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you feel your legislators understand?
>> Jack Threlkeld: They don't -- I don't always agree with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: That's inevitable.
>> Jack Threlkeld: They have many different ways that they feel that they -that this thing should go. So I don't know. I think things like this help;
getting the word out and trying to do what's right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I hope it is. I thank you for the --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Opportunity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you very much.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
start with a little bit of personal history. Where are you from? How did you end
up here?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well I was born in San Francisco in 1935 and raised in
Fresno. My family had farming interests in cotton and barley in Tulare Lake and
I went to school at Menlo Park and UC Davis for two years. And then after five
years in the family farming business I went to work for Miller and Lux in Los
Banos. Subsequently when they dissolved with their successor interest Bowles
Farming Company, besides being General Manager of Farming I was-- took care of
their water interests and therefore was on the boards of the San Luis Canal
Company and the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where were your own family farms at?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Tulare Lake; that's Corcoran, actually where I got to know
Miller and Lux was through Buena Vista Lake. We leased Buena Vista Lake when
Miller and Lux got that back from their lawsuits in the 50s. [Laughter] So
that's where that came from and then->> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops did your family grow again?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Cotton and barley, mainly I think some seed alfalfa, but
mainly cotton and barley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You say Miller and Lux, now that's an important part of
California, more important history in general, but California water history in
particular. Could you just talk a little bit about Henry Miller and the kind of
business he had, what he grew and some of his importance in the history of
water.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well Henry Miller came to the country in the 1850s, late
1850s I guess from Germany. He's a butcher and in supplying meat for his butcher
shop he got into the cattle business and eventually started growing -- in South
San Francisco he had pastures. He eventually got over-- got down to the Gilroy
area and then branched over into the valley and the stories have it that he at
one point he was -- had over a million acres of farmland in California, Oregon,
Nevada and Idaho I guess. He was really a conservationist I guess. He would put
up, he'd flood lands, grow grass, put up hay and when there were drought periods
he would first be in a position to buy the cattle and then to -- because he had
the feed and then to buy the land because with no cattle the land wasn't worth
anything so he -- and he had a real passion for getting all the land he could.
He just -- Lux spent all his time trying to cover the drafts and Henry Miller
was out buying land. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who was Lux?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Lux was a San Francisco banker I believe. Well I guess he was
a butcher originally and he had some land that was strategically located just
south of San Francisco where they could hold the cattle as they were taking it
to the final stages of you know, going to slaughter.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I guess one of the things Henry Miller is known for is
having developed-- I don't know-- well maybe developed is the word but developed
some of the earliest of the valley's water infrastructure. Do you know where he
drew a lot of his water out of? Was it the San Joaquin or--
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well either the San Joaquin River or the Kings River, Kern
River and some of the northern rivers also. So there were some San Francisco
interests that took some-- built some irrigation facilities. This San Joaquin
River and Kings River Canal Companies, they built facilities and had subdivided
land so that they could give into the jewels to come and buy it. Henry Miller
bought into this canal company structure so that number one he could control and
make sure that the water was handled properly and also get water for his own
land and be there if he needed to pick up the pieces because he didn't feel the
thing was going to be a financial success. So as I understand it, he would try
to get people water and he would control the canal company and make sure it was
operated properly. And if and when land came up for sale he was there to take
it. So he ended up owning, or operating not owning, but operating the four canal
companies that made up the exchange contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually I think I knew that. All four of the -- I guess it's
districts now and exchange contractors had their origin with Henry Miller?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well yes, they're all originally Henry Miller Canal Companies
and in the 50s I guess, late-- early ’50s the biggest canal company, which was
the one I talked about the San Joaquin River and Kings River Canal Company, that
one was taken over by the individuals in the district informed the CCID, the
Central California Irrigation District. That was the basic canal company that he
had and he made sure that he appropriated water for that canal company,
documented it and so forth and when he felt satisfied with the documentation on
that canal company, then he started documenting the water used for the company
owned lands and so forth, which was mainly the San Luis Canal Company. And the
two other canal companies which were both mutuals, San Luis Canal Company is a
mutual water company and as was Firebaugh Canal Company and Columbia Canal
Company. And since the Firebaugh Canal Company has become a water district and
San Luis Canal Company stayed a canal company, a mutual canal company, but they
also formed a reclamation district. So they're -- all of their facilities and
their operation is all done with the reclamation district whereas the water
rights and the business and everything is handled by the mutuals.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually if you would just explain a little bit about this
notion of water rights because he also mentioned documenting the water usage,
sort of just take a second to explain why that's important.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well you need to prove and verify your history of water
rights and Henry Miller was very careful about this. He had two water rights
basically, one is riparian and one is appropriative. Riparian is next to the
river; it is overflow. It's water that gets to a piece of ground by contiguous
connection to the river whereas appropriative rights are water that you document
by your use. You can pump it or pipeline it or however you get it to the
property it would be appropriative and here especially you need to document it
and verify it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Most of the water that Henry Miller used was done under the
appropriative rights doctrine.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He was more in favor I think, from what I've read, in the
riparian part.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He felt this was a sure thing, but in a lawsuit in Kern
County, with Kern County he was-- the state appellate court I think it was,
overturned him and they found in favor of the appropriative rights on the Kern
River. So he lost the riparian rights and I think that's when he started really
get appropriate -- you know building the appropriative record. Some years later
I think, 10 or 15 years later, at least the early 1900s, they revisited that and
the state Supreme Court found in his favor, so it was a situation that the
riparians kind of won that round. And as I understand it he went to a guy's name
I believe was Hagan, and they worked out a deal between them. To where they said
“I'll take so much riparian or you give me so much riparian and you can take so
much appropriative.” So they ->> Thomas Holyoke: The canal companies that Henry Miller and the infrastructure
he would have been creating in the 19th century, does any of that still exist in
the original ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yea there's -- some of the canals are still you know still on
the same right of ways and Mendota Dam is in the area. So that's where the
exchange contractors water is delivered is to the Mendota Dam on the San Joaquin
River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Mendota Dam was originally a Henry Miller creation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Hmm, okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's been rebuilt since -- [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just explain briefly what an irrigation district is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: An irrigation district is an entity-- it's a public entity;
they're all public entities. Well I shouldn't say that. The irrigation district
is a public entity and the voting is by the residents of the area. So regardless
of whether they have water, or farming interests or what not, if they live
within the district they vote for directors. A -- that's a California irrigation
district. A water district is slightly different in that it is -- I think the
voting is by the people, the ownership of the district. In other words it'd be
one vote, one acre or something like that. A mutual canal company is put
together with a -- that's a corporation under the railroad act. And it's -- well
San Luis Canal company, our mutual is one acre, one vote and it's the landowners
who have land within the canal company service area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What do irrigation districts do for fun? What's the purpose?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they manage the water, protect the water rights, deliver
the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What's their function in getting the water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they
supplied. I mean if they had
outlet or in this case in an
method -- you want me to get
would get it from whatever, wherever they were
a well it would be a well. If they had a river
exchange contract, if you had quite a different
into that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well just a second.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So an irrigation district as I understand it gets its water
by -- it's a contract with the bureau of reclamation or the city?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they got their water originally by their riparian and
appropriative rights on the San Joaquin River; you're talking about those
entities.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay so then they have the right then to ->> Jack Threlkeld: They have the basic water rights on the San -- well on the -go ahead. [Laughter] They have the water rights and that's were they got ’em and
then-- I think we're gonna get into what they did with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: One quick question. You mentioned something called a
reclamation district. I'm not familiar with that. I mean I've heard of them but
what is a reclamation district?
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's a public entity. It can be set up under various rules.
It is a residence, at least the -- it's a residential district. In other words
the voters are residents of the area delineated by the district. But they're all
sorts of them as far as you know you can pick and choose as to how you want your
particular entity constructed.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what then is the exchange contractor? That's not a
district. Is that something else?
>> Jack Threlkeld: The exchange contractors are CCID, San Luis Canal Company,
Fire Canal Water District, and Columbia Canal Company, those are the four Henry
Miller water entities and they -- Miller and Lux for years managed all those
districts. And then in various times the people in the district, the voters and
so forth took over some of the districts themselves. These water right holders
were approached by the Bureau ->> Thomas Holyoke: Of Reclamation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Of Reclamation, the United States Bureau of Reclamation to
provide the water for the Friant Dam Project. And in 1939 I believe it was they
signed the exchange contractor, therefore where the exchange contractors come
because of that contract. That contract took the water rights in the San Joaquin
River that belonged to Miller and Lux and the bureau became the custodian of
those rights and that water and kept it behind Friant Dam for use on the east
side of the valley. And the water was exchanged; thus the exchange contract
terminology, was exchanged for water that was accumulated in shafts, behind
shafts of the dam on the Sacramento River, came down the shafts of Sacramento
and was pumped into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy and delivered to the
exchange contractors in Mendota, the Mendota pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the exchange contractors they gave up the old rights that
they had. [Inaudible] That's not right.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure of the legal terminology here but they did not
give up the rights. They gave up the custodial -- the management of those rights
to the bureau under the exchange contract.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So they're -- they're San Joaquin River water was going to be
sent by the Bureau of Reclamation then to other areas and then the exchange
contractors get delta water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why did they agree to do that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, one of the problems with the San Joaquin River Water
was that it all came down in the spring. Flood water, snow melt etcetera, so
that by July, August, September there was very little water. All of the farming
was done with the water that came down in various amounts depending on the year.
They -- so it was the timing of water. They now get it on a schedule that covers
eleven months. They get more water because of the salinity. So they get a
greater amount of water at a more timely -- more timely. That's the basic thing.
It's more reliable. The trigger for the -- there's also two amounts of water,
two criteria for the water. It's based on inflow to Shasta. So the natural
inflow to Shasta, if its four million acre feet then the exchange contractors
get 100 percent of their water, which is like 840,000 acre feet. And they're
first in line. There's nobody else in the CVP that comes before them because it
is their water that enabled the CVP. So they get that water and if you're
triggering a critical year or a year where there's less water, this is done by
subtracting the difference between whatever the inflow is and the four million.
And that will accumulate until it reaches 800,000 or the inflow gets down to 3
million two hundred thousand. When that happens it triggers a dry year scenario
and the exchange contractors would get 75 percent of their water at that point.
And then of course it takes a four million acre foot year before the thing would
reach that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Has this happened?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes it's happened I believe three years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Now I understand there are scenarios in which exchange
contractors can reclaim their San Joaquin water. I mean it's still theirs. Take
San Joaquin water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure that's right terminology but I think what you're
driving at is that if the bureau was unable to deliver the water for some
reason. They had the canal blowout or something that they were unable -- the
exchange contractor would have the right to re -- go back on the river. They'd
be able to go back on river flows and this has never happened, other than flood
years. The technicality there would be I guess that when there was flood water
and the bureau wasn't willing to use that as documented flows, or water to make
it documented flows the exchange contractors could take it without going against
them.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: But that was just a couple of times.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is -- I only ask because sometimes it seems to come up,
especially in some of the drought years we've had recently as to whether the
exchange contractors may assert their river rights and that seems to be
sometimes a wild card I hear in the planning for the use of San Joaquin river
water as in the last few years there has been less of it. But have the exchange
contractors ever seriously discussed a certain -- returning to river water even
just temporarily because of cutbacks from delta pumping or just a sheer lack of
water in the delta?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think I'm right on this. They only did it as planning
for something that might happen in that particular year. You know they saw a
disaster coming and we're talking strategy so to speak, how they would act. I
don't think it's ever happened.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Let's see, I personally am ready to move on from the
exchange contractors in and of themselves. Have I missed anything crucial?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think -- well one of the things on the -- back to the
exchange contractor and the river water, the bureau bought up all of the
remaining rights, riparian rights on the San Joaquin River at the time of the
exchange contract with the exception of I think one downstream riparian holder
or small holder. They also bought the Kings River riparian water rights from
Miller and Lux; I think that was for a million dollars. [Laughter] So that was a
pretty good deal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah, especially in 1939. That's a serious chunk of money.
[Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: That was a way I guess -- I think that was a good thing to do
that they got all of the other riparian owners that would be involved with the
exception of Miller and Lux that they took them out of the equation and also the
Kings River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor's water from the delta comes down the
Delta Mendota Canal?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: There is a connection however between San Luis reservoir and
the Delta Mendota Canal. So the bureau has the ability to store water in San
Luis reservoir and supply to the exchange contractors from San Luis reservoir.
And there was a lawsuit on that because at one point the U.S. side federal
landowners thought because the San Luis Act provided the San Luis Dam to them,
they were the only one that could use it but the [Laughter] but it's the bureau
and the court rule, but the bureau's prerogative, responsibility to deliver the
water to the exchange contractors and they could use any of the tools they had
to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just one question to clarify something; the districts that
make up the exchange contractors, they primarily serve farmers around the
Mendota, Los Banos-- that's the service area?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea the service area runs from Mendota to Gustine Newman area
on the north.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops are being grown there usually?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There's alfalfa, cotton, grains, various tree crops, a lot of
almonds, tomatoes, some of the vegetable crops. So a variety -- it's alkalized
soil for the most part. So it has to be crops that will stand some alkalinity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain that a bit more, alkalized soil.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well alkali is the -- on the pH scale, and I'm not a chemist
[Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Neither am I.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The pH 7.6 is neutral and the alkalized soils are the saltier
soils and higher sodium soils and they would have a lower pH and to counter that
you would use acids and gypsum and various things that convert the soil, convert
the alkaline to be where you could leech it out. And so when we talked earlier
about having more water and the exchange getting more water and that was because
you needed a leeching coefficient and needed extra water to leech the salt out
of the soils and you have to have drainage for that salty water or it just
continues to compound in the soil.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor -- is that area then -- it's getting
caught up in some of the same problems that I guess the Westlands Water District
has with a lot of salinity and selenium in the soils and then inability to
drink-- they have had a history of trouble with drainage. Did exchange
contractors have that same trouble being able to build a drainage infrastructure
to get the water out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well this has been the theme that the exchange contractors
have argued forever, that we need a drain. We need to be able to get rid of this
water. You know you need to put water in. You need to put extra water in and you
take the runoff and you need to have a place for that go or you're just looking
at a Salton Sea kind of a situation where salt would build up and eventually
everything dies. When you talk about selenium and boron and some of the other
things, yes the exchange contractors have about 10 percent I'd say of the soil
on the west side and the south of Los Banos. It has some selenium and needs to
be gotten rid of. Firebaugh Canal Company has some selenium problems.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How are they handling those problems now?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they're trying to manage it now. They've put holding
ponds and settling ponds in on the west side. They're pumping with tile drains
and they're trying to segregate the water from where they pump it in a drain
with levels and trying to segregate the water that doesn't have selenium and put
it through an existing drain. Of course, the selenium has such a low tolerance
that there's not much you can do so you're looking at a reverse osmosis or some
sort of a cleansing process that you could get the selenium out of the water and
if they're able to do that, are they able to -- how do they get rid of the
selenium. Is there some water left that is still -- you're still unable to drain
through the river system?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do they need to have an actual drainage canal built, I mean
for a long time ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yes the San Luis Act provided for a drainage facility, a
drainage canal and that was one of the things the exchange contract insisted on
and congress put it in the act. However, they never appropriated the money for
it. So they've never followed through but on various of the things that they've
done they never followed through with what they're free to do. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: So it's not likely that anyone's going to built in the near
future -- [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's not gonna happen. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Along that same line the peripheral canal was a way of taking
the water that goes into the Delta and feeding it you know if you had the
tributaries and all in here the water would get blocked up in the sewage. The
tides would push the salt back into the sloughs and then it would -- in order to
get that salt water out they just have to use it. Well with the peripheral canal
around the edge, you'd be able to drop some water out of the peripheral canal in
the sloughs and scour those sloughs out and you know manage the situation but we
didn't get a peripheral canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are you still hoping for one?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's the real solution. I think it's probably the
only solution to our problem in the Delta. It's a management tool and you just
need something to be able to manage that water and the way we're doing it is
just wasting an awful lot of water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain a bit about generally how the peripheral canal is
supposed to work, where it's supposed to start from and then where it's supposed
to end up at and the purpose of this was, or is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, as you know, the water goes through the Delta and is
taken when the flows are high enough is pulled over by Tracy, which is the south
end of the Delta and pumped as is the San Luis pumps, the Clifton Court pumps
are the same way, the federal/state pumps. And what the peripheral canal was
going to do was going to start up in the north Delta where the Sacramento feeds
in and divert part of that water around the Delta, just kind of loop it around
and feed it into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy. What this would do would
enable number one to keep better water; you wouldn't get it adulterated in the
Delta and ->> Thomas Holyoke: Adulterated with saltwater?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Saltwater, you know the tidal actually. So you wouldn't get
that you know the salt being introduced to the water. You'd have the pure water
coming out of the Sacramento and going around. And as I said earlier, you'd be
adding water that got pushed up into these areas, these fingerlets that go up
above the delta could be washed out. They'd be flushed just by turning the valve
or whatever, so you could manage your water. This is one of the things I think
that was really a mistake when the selenium thing came on it was the bureau had
flood waters occurring and they had a problem in Kesterson and with salts and so
forth and rather than flushing that flood water which would have helped take the
pressure off the flooding, they kept the water out. They created more of a flood
problem and didn't use that extra water to flush those salts out of Kesterson
and they were allowed to build up and had the deformities with the ducks and so
forth.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did reclamation know that was going to be a problem and why
would they not do it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think [Laughter] I don't know. I don't know why they would
[Laughter] but I think its because of regulations; there are just so many
regulations that even if they've got tools to come out of things, they don't -they don't dare, is that a proper way to put it, [Laughter] because of the
regulations and because everybody is looking over their shoulder trying to --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Back to the 1980s quick, when the peripheral canal idea died
its first death, what happened to it? I mean I know it ->> Jack Threlkeld: Well, it was a referendum and I think Boswell Company didn't
want it to happen, and pumped some money into it to defeat it and it got
defeated.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why would J.D. Boswell?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I'm not sure that they can tell you right now. I'm sure
they had a reason. [Laughter] I don't know. I can't speak for that, but it was - it was -- it was defeated. I think that maybe they tipped the scales by trying
to defeat it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think that there's a really good chance that it's
going to come back? I mean people are talking -- I guess now it's a peripheral
tunnel. I mean it's going to go under the Delta rather than around the Delta I
heard. But do you think it's a realistic chance that it could be built in the
next few years? I think people are talking about it again.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well it's one of the things that the water bond, the state
water bond is -- one of the options that they could do with that 12 billion or
whatever it is. But yea, I've always felt that it should have been built and I
felt that it -- you know everybody kind of come to their senses and would build
it eventually. I'm not in the majority there at all. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does it help having Jerry Brown back? He championed it the
first time and ->> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know.
>> Thomas Holyoke. Okay. [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: He's surprising me. He's doing [Laughter] a lot of things
that seem good, that is good I think. That I think is good.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In 1992 we had the passage of a piece of federal legislation,
Central Valley Project Improvement Act, created -- I guess this is sort of the
landmark piece of legislation that really brought environmental policy deeply
into California's water wars. Did the enactment of that legislation have a major
effect on the exchange contractors, the time or now I mean?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well of course indirectly it did. It took -- it didn't take
any of the exchange contractors water, because as I said they've got the
enabling water but it took a lot of water from the Delta and from the CVP,
federal land owners. It took 800,000 just on general principles. It was just a - if you need it's there, you can take it. It took water on the Trinity River
and it took for fish and wildlife for the refuges and the fish and wildlife and
reallocated a bunch of that water and it took it away from west side agriculture
and well in the state too I guess. I think it affected both. I'm not sure about
that. CVP is a federal -- I shouldn't get into that because I don't know.
[Laughter] Anyway that was one of the main things; they'd -- they took some
water. The other thing they did was they changed the contract term from 40 years
renewable contracts for the federal water users from 40 years to 25 years. And
the thing they did that helped us was they authorized the bureau to approve
inter-district water sales, inner district water transfers. And so that was
really the backbone of our water transfer system which has been very good you
know for the last 20 years or whatever it's been.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What does that mean, water transfer system can you explain
that a bit.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Somebody has water that they've conserved, the simplest way
could be that they fallowed a piece of land maybe for some reason and they have
the water free for a year. Other things that the exchange contractors are doing
is they're putting in conservation lining canals, putting in reservoirs so they
can manage the water and coming up with surplus or extra water that can be
transferred and they've been transferring water for the last five years or so.
To Westlands Water District and the other districts in the federal area, San
Luis federal area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is this the sale of the water or is this simply ->> Jack Threlkeld: It's the sale of the -- yea the sale of the yield of water
that year. It's a not a sale of water rights or anything. They're not getting
into that. They're not getting into -- and that would have been a real problem.
People have trouble going there. But to sell off part of whatever water they
have because they’ve -- well for instance the exchange contractors are taking
this water. They're selling it. They're using the money they get from those
sales to build infrastructure that will conserve water. So, it's good all the
way around.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Some have pointed to passage of CVPIA adds, big watershed
moment, this transition from I guess a culture of water extraction to a culture
of water conservation, it's when the environmental interests all of a sudden
became involved and a lot of this fighting began between environmental
organizations, farmers, is that how you remember it that there was sort of a big
dramatic moment of change or that there's a lot of fighting and confrontation
now that did not use to exist?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think -- yeah, I think that the environmental
movement, the ESA challenges, the Endangered Species Act challenges, that's all
created a war zone if you will. There's you know, there’s a lot of pros and
cons. One area says that you know the scientific documentation is not proper
being misused and they're in court all the time to try to prove whether an
environmental study was factual or not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did a lot of this hostility exist prior to the 1990s?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No prior to the 1990s it seems to me it was the 160 acre
limitation. There was a challenge you know of water being given, subsidizing
farmers and so forth that maybe was unjust but the reclamation act had given a
bunch of contracts, given federal water to various farmers for a period of 10
years and then they were supposed to sell the land into 160 acre plots and that
was basically what was happening before that. We had some Kings River and Kern
water, Kern River water rights you know, fights and the ->> Thomas Holyoke: Was the acreage ->> Jack Threlkeld: Kings River never got into the reclamation law. The Kings
River wasn't under reclamation law; the Friant was.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The Kings River was done by the Army Corps right?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: They built them.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The limitation, the 160 acre limitation, was that as big a
deal for the exchange contractor farmers as it was for some of Westlands?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No, reclamation law doesn't apply to the exchange
contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: So hey have nothing to do with that. And they have been very
careful to keep that. [Laughter] Make sure it doesn't happen.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, coming back now to the San Joaquin River, also part of
the large area of conflict I guess between farmers and environmentalists if you
want to put it that way, the fights in court over the San Joaquin River and the
restoration of salmon, which has led to the settlement a few years back, were
the exchange contractors involved with those very long series of cases?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big one we were in -- well we weren't involved with
any of the challenges, like the NRDC case against Friant the exchange
contractors were not involved. They did get involved and tried to influence and
they had some influence on the legislation but not on the court case at all.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Are the exchanged contractors by and large satisfied by
the way the settlement came out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I don't know that they [Laughter] –>> Thomas Holyoke: I mean they –
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think anytime you start reshuffling the deck and reappropriating water, and it's in a political way, nobody can be comfortable with
it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the settlement have a direct effect on the exchange
contractors of river water rights?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big problem, of course, is that they're re-watering
the river. And the river is involved in our main stem water; it's our main
source of water. So we're getting into -- if they do get the fish back into it
we're talking about fish racks, fish screens, maintenance of fish screens, pump
takes, you know whether there's pump kills, all of these things and one of the
things-- or the main thing that the exchange contractor has been having or
trying to do is get whatever legislation came out of that to mitigate these
damages; seepage along the liver. But here again you get -- you know the water
is going to seep out. It's going to leech salts. It's going to raise the water
table, force the salts to the surface and ruin farmland. One of the things that
the farmers can say well it's great as long as you mitigate but the bureau does
not have a great record of mitigating. They say they will but they don't. Right
now some of that land is -- some of the farmers are putting in tile lines to
intercept the water coming out of the river and the bureau is refusing to pay
for it. We didn't wait while their process went through. The farmer didn't wait
until the process went through.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So let me make sure I understand this. The concern there is
that once more water is put back into the river, a lot of that water is going to
then flow into the farms, the ground of the farms along the river, so there's
going to be a lot more water in the soil, which can cause damage to some types
of crops.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well in the past historically when water flows down you know
periodically, it flowed down in flood years and didn't so much in non-flood
years. The water would flood and it would overflow and it would put some good
soil on top and put some water on there and would flush out some salts, some
drainage water and so forth. So it would probably do as much good as it did
harm. Now, the water is going to be going down every year. It's going to be
subbing through the levies or under the levies, out into the farmland and the
farmland is going to become alkaline and not farmable. Now the whole point is,
of this agreement and the legislation was that they were supposed to mitigate
these problems. Well, here they're just getting started the first year or two
and they're not mitigating the problem.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How do you mitigate the problem? You said ->> Jack Threlkeld: If you can ->> Thomas Holyoke: Tile line
>> Jack Threlkeld: You can pay for a tile line. You can pay for a -- you can put
in some facilities, which they have, one of the farmers put in a tile line. He's
got -- it's obviously being influenced by the river and he's getting flooded out
and that presumably the bureau would step forward and pay some of those bills or
subsidize that as their contract said they would, and they're not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the bureau is setting itself up for lawsuits?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Oh yea, they're in court constantly. And it's one of the
reasons they're so -- you know so gun shy because they're being sued all the
time. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, let's see so just a few more items here actually. We're
-- I have just been reading through some of the material on the exchange
contractors there's references to some things like the Central Valley Regional
Water Quality Control Board and some issues I'd seen in your material about
water quality, I guess we covered some of that with the salts and the boron.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well not really. That's a recent phenomenon.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The Clean Water Act I guess is what is dictating that and the
water control board; State Water Control Board is managing it. The entity that
San Joaquin River, what is the name, the SWC, the SWJRC, anyway it is a -- when
the Water Quality Control Board said you had to meet certain criteria to drain
water, they were -- and they flexed their muscles and said we're going to do
this by a date certain there was a way that people could satisfy the bureau that
you could either -- the bureau would -- not the bureau but the Water Quality
Control Board would go to the smallest piece of ground and would provide a drain
place where they could monitor the drainage off that piece of ground. And you
got into all of the problems like well what if you have you know flood waters or
what if you have runoff from heavy rainstorms, how does this affect the farmers?
Does the farmer get penalized because there's some water coming over his ground
and going through his checkout? They formed-- we formed an area that covered all
of the exchange contractors and all of the area and had people sign up and we
got the signatures of all these people so that we had an outlet for that big
area so that the whole area was being monitored by the Water Quality Control
Board not specific plots and so we thought there was some -- and this is a
management area. It's a waste water management. I can't remember the name of
what they call that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] It’s okay. In Oakland the purpose of this is to
monitor water quality and be able to take some water quality and take some kind
of action if it turns out that water is no longer meeting the standards of the
Clean Water Act or ->> Jack Threlkeld: Oh there would be penalties and -- I'm not conversant with
all those penalties but they would come down on a farmer for not -- and they're
looking at all sorts of things. They're looking at insecticides and selenium,
boron the whole works.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So this is really kind of a proactive way of dealing with it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, but they got everybody's attention and they got this
thing put through fairly quickly in a matter of a year or two. And it was -- and
I think it has worked basically. I haven't head of any real major problem, major
difficulties on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay,
in this -- at least here
of building a new dam on
exchange contractors are
solution to the need for
the last couple little things here. Do you think pushes
in the Fresno area on the San Joaquin River is the idea
the river up in Temperance Flat. Is that something that
concerned with or do you think that's a promising
more water storage?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think
that would produce about a
is that it's probably only
a real productive area and
already, so to that extent
but we do need more water.
it's good. I think we need on-stream storage. I think
million acre feat. The problem -- the concern I have
going to fill once every 10 years. You know it isn't
most of the production is being handled by Friant
there’s maybe better places in the state to put dams
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there any interest in doing water banking around here? Is
it imposed in the new reservoir?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There are places where you can do water banking and I think
incentives for water banking are good, you get into the problems of depleting
the water, you know the ground water. You can also get into -- by over-pumping
an area you can bring water, salt water into that aquifer and spoil the aquifer.
So, there are some problems with it. But I think where it's feasible and safe
that's one way, one of the tools we need to have.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do farmers and water district managers feel that they're
being terribly overregulated having to tangle with regulations, I mean we’ve had
the federal government and the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior
Department, the EPA and it's a large state regulatory apparatus. I mean, do you
ever get the feeling that there's too many regulations, too many laws to cope
with when it comes to water and its usage? [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I got to the stage at the end of my career I was
spending 100 percent of my time on water because the exchange contractors are
largely a defense against the over regulation and you know the threats wherever
they come from with their water. We got involved with -- after they built the
cords with vamp where we align ourselves with other tributaries on the San
Joaquin to provide water and the bureau paid for the water. It was one of the
first real transfers the bureau paid the seven districts. It was the four
tributaries of the San Joaquin that was Tuolumne, the Merced, San Joaquin,
Oakdale Irrigation District and Stanislaus. And the exchange contractors came
into that also and so did Friant. Friant did with money rather than water. And
eventually San Francisco, the city and county of San Francisco joined that
group. But anyway that was water that was provided under different year types
for a fee that the bureau paid. Well, last year was the last year of that and
this year is the first extension and next year it sounds like they're going to
have a real tough time. They don't have any money and they're -- you know
they're probably not gonna go on with it but there was a very successful program
that would put a charge of water down the San Joaquin and when the smelts were
migrating to the ocean and the idea was that they would take them out into the
Delta into the north Delta and get them outside the suck of the pumps to where
they would get on out into the ocean. So, there was a situation where you had
regulations and people, they were all trying to meet with ESA and a lot of these
tributary groups had their FIRC problems, their electrical contracts that were
dictating that they do these things for the ESA. Your initial question, are
there too many regulations and are they -- is there mismanagement, yea I think
so. A lot of times if we just let the guy out there with his shovel take care of
it, it works. That's an oversimplification but I think that the cure for a lot
of our problems in this state is -- are fairly simple management, being able to
use tools, being able to you know do things that aren't quite 100 percent when
it's necessary. And I think we're getting to the point where we -- or have
gotten to the point where if you can't do it 100 percent you're very vulnerable
and therefore it's not -- nothing's getting done and that's a tough road to be
going down.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, what do you think the future is going to hold for water
and farming in the valley or California? Where do you see it going?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I think [Laughter] I don't think we can continue to
take the water from agriculture and then give it you know waste it, which is
what a lot of what is occurring. We’re flushing great amounts of water out the
Delta and for -- and you know we all want to save the salmon and the split tale
and all these problems, we don't want to be messing up the environment. Farmers
for instance are probably the best environmentalists there are because they are
working with the environment on a daily basis and if they make a mistake it's
costly. But, you need more water supply. We need to have some more tools like
the peripheral canal that will keep us from wasting the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think Californians understand that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Do Californians understand that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yea.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know. [Laughter] It's common sense. It's -- I'm -I'm amazed that most people don't understand that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well most Californians including many of them who would have
to vote on the water bond, live down in Los Angeles, San Francisco, you know not
that familiar with water and agriculture. They don't come out here that often.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, so how do we get the message to them? [Laughter] How do
we convince them that -- well I think one of the alternatives is going to be
that the coastal urban areas are going to be desalinizing their own water.
That's very, very expensive, but if you're only talking about your quarter acre
or whatever, the water for that, then it's not too bad a cost. So I think that's
maybe, if we keep ignoring the practical way of water we're going to end up
forcing all the urban areas along the coast and they've got an unending water
supply. All they have to do is clean it up. [Laughter] Get their reverse osmosis
going. They can take the salt and shovel it back into the ocean. [Laughter] So I
think the answer is that's what's going to happen and it's going to be very
costly to the urban areas. And I'm afraid agriculture and the fish are going to
lose some water in the meantime.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, I'm out of questions. Anything else, anything dramatic
I missed? Anything you want to add?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think so. I think we pretty well covered it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's an interesting situation and I hope we can -- in the
future we can cure the problem. Most of these entities we've been talking about
are formed because there's a certain synergy in people getting together and
defending themselves on common problems. So you're -- you know probably three
quarters or more of those entities we talked about were formed to defend against
whatever comes down the pike to threaten water, water supplies and agriculture.
And, that's specifically with the exchange contractors. They got together and
formed the water authority to make sure that they protected themselves against - rather than doing it -- we found we were doing it individually. Each entity
had its own legal staff and it's own experts and paying for it individually. And
then we decided it's better to form the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors
Water Authority for the very purpose of telling people what the exchange
contractors were all about, what we needed whether -- you know just collectively
higher the attorneys and provide the whatever it is –- the -- and you know
trying to influence legislatures. And you can't just ignore that because all of
the people that are on the other side of whatever issue you're talking about are
out there after their legislators to do what they feel is right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you feel your legislators understand?
>> Jack Threlkeld: They don't -- I don't always agree with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: That's inevitable.
>> Jack Threlkeld: They have many different ways that they feel that they -that this thing should go. So I don't know. I think things like this help;
getting the word out and trying to do what's right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I hope it is. I thank you for the --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Opportunity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you very much.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
>> Thomas Holyoke: June 10, 2011 interviewing Mr. Jack Threlkeld. Let's just
start with a little bit of personal history. Where are you from? How did you end
up here?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well I was born in San Francisco in 1935 and raised in
Fresno. My family had farming interests in cotton and barley in Tulare Lake and
I went to school at Menlo Park and UC Davis for two years. And then after five
years in the family farming business I went to work for Miller and Lux in Los
Banos. Subsequently when they dissolved with their successor interest Bowles
Farming Company, besides being General Manager of Farming I was-- took care of
their water interests and therefore was on the boards of the San Luis Canal
Company and the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where were your own family farms at?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Tulare Lake; that's Corcoran, actually where I got to know
Miller and Lux was through Buena Vista Lake. We leased Buena Vista Lake when
Miller and Lux got that back from their lawsuits in the 50s. [Laughter] So
that's where that came from and then->> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops did your family grow again?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Cotton and barley, mainly I think some seed alfalfa, but
mainly cotton and barley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You say Miller and Lux, now that's an important part of
California, more important history in general, but California water history in
particular. Could you just talk a little bit about Henry Miller and the kind of
business he had, what he grew and some of his importance in the history of
water.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well Henry Miller came to the country in the 1850s, late
1850s I guess from Germany. He's a butcher and in supplying meat for his butcher
shop he got into the cattle business and eventually started growing -- in South
San Francisco he had pastures. He eventually got over-- got down to the Gilroy
area and then branched over into the valley and the stories have it that he at
one point he was -- had over a million acres of farmland in California, Oregon,
Nevada and Idaho I guess. He was really a conservationist I guess. He would put
up, he'd flood lands, grow grass, put up hay and when there were drought periods
he would first be in a position to buy the cattle and then to -- because he had
the feed and then to buy the land because with no cattle the land wasn't worth
anything so he -- and he had a real passion for getting all the land he could.
He just -- Lux spent all his time trying to cover the drafts and Henry Miller
was out buying land. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who was Lux?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Lux was a San Francisco banker I believe. Well I guess he was
a butcher originally and he had some land that was strategically located just
south of San Francisco where they could hold the cattle as they were taking it
to the final stages of you know, going to slaughter.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I guess one of the things Henry Miller is known for is
having developed-- I don't know-- well maybe developed is the word but developed
some of the earliest of the valley's water infrastructure. Do you know where he
drew a lot of his water out of? Was it the San Joaquin or--
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well either the San Joaquin River or the Kings River, Kern
River and some of the northern rivers also. So there were some San Francisco
interests that took some-- built some irrigation facilities. This San Joaquin
River and Kings River Canal Companies, they built facilities and had subdivided
land so that they could give into the jewels to come and buy it. Henry Miller
bought into this canal company structure so that number one he could control and
make sure that the water was handled properly and also get water for his own
land and be there if he needed to pick up the pieces because he didn't feel the
thing was going to be a financial success. So as I understand it, he would try
to get people water and he would control the canal company and make sure it was
operated properly. And if and when land came up for sale he was there to take
it. So he ended up owning, or operating not owning, but operating the four canal
companies that made up the exchange contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually I think I knew that. All four of the -- I guess it's
districts now and exchange contractors had their origin with Henry Miller?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well yes, they're all originally Henry Miller Canal Companies
and in the 50s I guess, late-- early ’50s the biggest canal company, which was
the one I talked about the San Joaquin River and Kings River Canal Company, that
one was taken over by the individuals in the district informed the CCID, the
Central California Irrigation District. That was the basic canal company that he
had and he made sure that he appropriated water for that canal company,
documented it and so forth and when he felt satisfied with the documentation on
that canal company, then he started documenting the water used for the company
owned lands and so forth, which was mainly the San Luis Canal Company. And the
two other canal companies which were both mutuals, San Luis Canal Company is a
mutual water company and as was Firebaugh Canal Company and Columbia Canal
Company. And since the Firebaugh Canal Company has become a water district and
San Luis Canal Company stayed a canal company, a mutual canal company, but they
also formed a reclamation district. So they're -- all of their facilities and
their operation is all done with the reclamation district whereas the water
rights and the business and everything is handled by the mutuals.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually if you would just explain a little bit about this
notion of water rights because he also mentioned documenting the water usage,
sort of just take a second to explain why that's important.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well you need to prove and verify your history of water
rights and Henry Miller was very careful about this. He had two water rights
basically, one is riparian and one is appropriative. Riparian is next to the
river; it is overflow. It's water that gets to a piece of ground by contiguous
connection to the river whereas appropriative rights are water that you document
by your use. You can pump it or pipeline it or however you get it to the
property it would be appropriative and here especially you need to document it
and verify it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Most of the water that Henry Miller used was done under the
appropriative rights doctrine.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He was more in favor I think, from what I've read, in the
riparian part.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He felt this was a sure thing, but in a lawsuit in Kern
County, with Kern County he was-- the state appellate court I think it was,
overturned him and they found in favor of the appropriative rights on the Kern
River. So he lost the riparian rights and I think that's when he started really
get appropriate -- you know building the appropriative record. Some years later
I think, 10 or 15 years later, at least the early 1900s, they revisited that and
the state Supreme Court found in his favor, so it was a situation that the
riparians kind of won that round. And as I understand it he went to a guy's name
I believe was Hagan, and they worked out a deal between them. To where they said
“I'll take so much riparian or you give me so much riparian and you can take so
much appropriative.” So they ->> Thomas Holyoke: The canal companies that Henry Miller and the infrastructure
he would have been creating in the 19th century, does any of that still exist in
the original ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yea there's -- some of the canals are still you know still on
the same right of ways and Mendota Dam is in the area. So that's where the
exchange contractors water is delivered is to the Mendota Dam on the San Joaquin
River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Mendota Dam was originally a Henry Miller creation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Hmm, okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's been rebuilt since -- [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just explain briefly what an irrigation district is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: An irrigation district is an entity-- it's a public entity;
they're all public entities. Well I shouldn't say that. The irrigation district
is a public entity and the voting is by the residents of the area. So regardless
of whether they have water, or farming interests or what not, if they live
within the district they vote for directors. A -- that's a California irrigation
district. A water district is slightly different in that it is -- I think the
voting is by the people, the ownership of the district. In other words it'd be
one vote, one acre or something like that. A mutual canal company is put
together with a -- that's a corporation under the railroad act. And it's -- well
San Luis Canal company, our mutual is one acre, one vote and it's the landowners
who have land within the canal company service area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What do irrigation districts do for fun? What's the purpose?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they manage the water, protect the water rights, deliver
the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What's their function in getting the water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they
supplied. I mean if they had
outlet or in this case in an
method -- you want me to get
would get it from whatever, wherever they were
a well it would be a well. If they had a river
exchange contract, if you had quite a different
into that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well just a second.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So an irrigation district as I understand it gets its water
by -- it's a contract with the bureau of reclamation or the city?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they got their water originally by their riparian and
appropriative rights on the San Joaquin River; you're talking about those
entities.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay so then they have the right then to ->> Jack Threlkeld: They have the basic water rights on the San -- well on the -go ahead. [Laughter] They have the water rights and that's were they got ’em and
then-- I think we're gonna get into what they did with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: One quick question. You mentioned something called a
reclamation district. I'm not familiar with that. I mean I've heard of them but
what is a reclamation district?
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's a public entity. It can be set up under various rules.
It is a residence, at least the -- it's a residential district. In other words
the voters are residents of the area delineated by the district. But they're all
sorts of them as far as you know you can pick and choose as to how you want your
particular entity constructed.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what then is the exchange contractor? That's not a
district. Is that something else?
>> Jack Threlkeld: The exchange contractors are CCID, San Luis Canal Company,
Fire Canal Water District, and Columbia Canal Company, those are the four Henry
Miller water entities and they -- Miller and Lux for years managed all those
districts. And then in various times the people in the district, the voters and
so forth took over some of the districts themselves. These water right holders
were approached by the Bureau ->> Thomas Holyoke: Of Reclamation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Of Reclamation, the United States Bureau of Reclamation to
provide the water for the Friant Dam Project. And in 1939 I believe it was they
signed the exchange contractor, therefore where the exchange contractors come
because of that contract. That contract took the water rights in the San Joaquin
River that belonged to Miller and Lux and the bureau became the custodian of
those rights and that water and kept it behind Friant Dam for use on the east
side of the valley. And the water was exchanged; thus the exchange contract
terminology, was exchanged for water that was accumulated in shafts, behind
shafts of the dam on the Sacramento River, came down the shafts of Sacramento
and was pumped into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy and delivered to the
exchange contractors in Mendota, the Mendota pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the exchange contractors they gave up the old rights that
they had. [Inaudible] That's not right.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure of the legal terminology here but they did not
give up the rights. They gave up the custodial -- the management of those rights
to the bureau under the exchange contract.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So they're -- they're San Joaquin River water was going to be
sent by the Bureau of Reclamation then to other areas and then the exchange
contractors get delta water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why did they agree to do that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, one of the problems with the San Joaquin River Water
was that it all came down in the spring. Flood water, snow melt etcetera, so
that by July, August, September there was very little water. All of the farming
was done with the water that came down in various amounts depending on the year.
They -- so it was the timing of water. They now get it on a schedule that covers
eleven months. They get more water because of the salinity. So they get a
greater amount of water at a more timely -- more timely. That's the basic thing.
It's more reliable. The trigger for the -- there's also two amounts of water,
two criteria for the water. It's based on inflow to Shasta. So the natural
inflow to Shasta, if its four million acre feet then the exchange contractors
get 100 percent of their water, which is like 840,000 acre feet. And they're
first in line. There's nobody else in the CVP that comes before them because it
is their water that enabled the CVP. So they get that water and if you're
triggering a critical year or a year where there's less water, this is done by
subtracting the difference between whatever the inflow is and the four million.
And that will accumulate until it reaches 800,000 or the inflow gets down to 3
million two hundred thousand. When that happens it triggers a dry year scenario
and the exchange contractors would get 75 percent of their water at that point.
And then of course it takes a four million acre foot year before the thing would
reach that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Has this happened?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes it's happened I believe three years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Now I understand there are scenarios in which exchange
contractors can reclaim their San Joaquin water. I mean it's still theirs. Take
San Joaquin water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure that's right terminology but I think what you're
driving at is that if the bureau was unable to deliver the water for some
reason. They had the canal blowout or something that they were unable -- the
exchange contractor would have the right to re -- go back on the river. They'd
be able to go back on river flows and this has never happened, other than flood
years. The technicality there would be I guess that when there was flood water
and the bureau wasn't willing to use that as documented flows, or water to make
it documented flows the exchange contractors could take it without going against
them.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: But that was just a couple of times.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is -- I only ask because sometimes it seems to come up,
especially in some of the drought years we've had recently as to whether the
exchange contractors may assert their river rights and that seems to be
sometimes a wild card I hear in the planning for the use of San Joaquin river
water as in the last few years there has been less of it. But have the exchange
contractors ever seriously discussed a certain -- returning to river water even
just temporarily because of cutbacks from delta pumping or just a sheer lack of
water in the delta?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think I'm right on this. They only did it as planning
for something that might happen in that particular year. You know they saw a
disaster coming and we're talking strategy so to speak, how they would act. I
don't think it's ever happened.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Let's see, I personally am ready to move on from the
exchange contractors in and of themselves. Have I missed anything crucial?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think -- well one of the things on the -- back to the
exchange contractor and the river water, the bureau bought up all of the
remaining rights, riparian rights on the San Joaquin River at the time of the
exchange contract with the exception of I think one downstream riparian holder
or small holder. They also bought the Kings River riparian water rights from
Miller and Lux; I think that was for a million dollars. [Laughter] So that was a
pretty good deal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah, especially in 1939. That's a serious chunk of money.
[Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: That was a way I guess -- I think that was a good thing to do
that they got all of the other riparian owners that would be involved with the
exception of Miller and Lux that they took them out of the equation and also the
Kings River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor's water from the delta comes down the
Delta Mendota Canal?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: There is a connection however between San Luis reservoir and
the Delta Mendota Canal. So the bureau has the ability to store water in San
Luis reservoir and supply to the exchange contractors from San Luis reservoir.
And there was a lawsuit on that because at one point the U.S. side federal
landowners thought because the San Luis Act provided the San Luis Dam to them,
they were the only one that could use it but the [Laughter] but it's the bureau
and the court rule, but the bureau's prerogative, responsibility to deliver the
water to the exchange contractors and they could use any of the tools they had
to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just one question to clarify something; the districts that
make up the exchange contractors, they primarily serve farmers around the
Mendota, Los Banos-- that's the service area?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea the service area runs from Mendota to Gustine Newman area
on the north.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops are being grown there usually?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There's alfalfa, cotton, grains, various tree crops, a lot of
almonds, tomatoes, some of the vegetable crops. So a variety -- it's alkalized
soil for the most part. So it has to be crops that will stand some alkalinity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain that a bit more, alkalized soil.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well alkali is the -- on the pH scale, and I'm not a chemist
[Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Neither am I.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The pH 7.6 is neutral and the alkalized soils are the saltier
soils and higher sodium soils and they would have a lower pH and to counter that
you would use acids and gypsum and various things that convert the soil, convert
the alkaline to be where you could leech it out. And so when we talked earlier
about having more water and the exchange getting more water and that was because
you needed a leeching coefficient and needed extra water to leech the salt out
of the soils and you have to have drainage for that salty water or it just
continues to compound in the soil.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor -- is that area then -- it's getting
caught up in some of the same problems that I guess the Westlands Water District
has with a lot of salinity and selenium in the soils and then inability to
drink-- they have had a history of trouble with drainage. Did exchange
contractors have that same trouble being able to build a drainage infrastructure
to get the water out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well this has been the theme that the exchange contractors
have argued forever, that we need a drain. We need to be able to get rid of this
water. You know you need to put water in. You need to put extra water in and you
take the runoff and you need to have a place for that go or you're just looking
at a Salton Sea kind of a situation where salt would build up and eventually
everything dies. When you talk about selenium and boron and some of the other
things, yes the exchange contractors have about 10 percent I'd say of the soil
on the west side and the south of Los Banos. It has some selenium and needs to
be gotten rid of. Firebaugh Canal Company has some selenium problems.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How are they handling those problems now?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they're trying to manage it now. They've put holding
ponds and settling ponds in on the west side. They're pumping with tile drains
and they're trying to segregate the water from where they pump it in a drain
with levels and trying to segregate the water that doesn't have selenium and put
it through an existing drain. Of course, the selenium has such a low tolerance
that there's not much you can do so you're looking at a reverse osmosis or some
sort of a cleansing process that you could get the selenium out of the water and
if they're able to do that, are they able to -- how do they get rid of the
selenium. Is there some water left that is still -- you're still unable to drain
through the river system?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do they need to have an actual drainage canal built, I mean
for a long time ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yes the San Luis Act provided for a drainage facility, a
drainage canal and that was one of the things the exchange contract insisted on
and congress put it in the act. However, they never appropriated the money for
it. So they've never followed through but on various of the things that they've
done they never followed through with what they're free to do. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: So it's not likely that anyone's going to built in the near
future -- [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's not gonna happen. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Along that same line the peripheral canal was a way of taking
the water that goes into the Delta and feeding it you know if you had the
tributaries and all in here the water would get blocked up in the sewage. The
tides would push the salt back into the sloughs and then it would -- in order to
get that salt water out they just have to use it. Well with the peripheral canal
around the edge, you'd be able to drop some water out of the peripheral canal in
the sloughs and scour those sloughs out and you know manage the situation but we
didn't get a peripheral canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are you still hoping for one?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's the real solution. I think it's probably the
only solution to our problem in the Delta. It's a management tool and you just
need something to be able to manage that water and the way we're doing it is
just wasting an awful lot of water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain a bit about generally how the peripheral canal is
supposed to work, where it's supposed to start from and then where it's supposed
to end up at and the purpose of this was, or is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, as you know, the water goes through the Delta and is
taken when the flows are high enough is pulled over by Tracy, which is the south
end of the Delta and pumped as is the San Luis pumps, the Clifton Court pumps
are the same way, the federal/state pumps. And what the peripheral canal was
going to do was going to start up in the north Delta where the Sacramento feeds
in and divert part of that water around the Delta, just kind of loop it around
and feed it into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy. What this would do would
enable number one to keep better water; you wouldn't get it adulterated in the
Delta and ->> Thomas Holyoke: Adulterated with saltwater?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Saltwater, you know the tidal actually. So you wouldn't get
that you know the salt being introduced to the water. You'd have the pure water
coming out of the Sacramento and going around. And as I said earlier, you'd be
adding water that got pushed up into these areas, these fingerlets that go up
above the delta could be washed out. They'd be flushed just by turning the valve
or whatever, so you could manage your water. This is one of the things I think
that was really a mistake when the selenium thing came on it was the bureau had
flood waters occurring and they had a problem in Kesterson and with salts and so
forth and rather than flushing that flood water which would have helped take the
pressure off the flooding, they kept the water out. They created more of a flood
problem and didn't use that extra water to flush those salts out of Kesterson
and they were allowed to build up and had the deformities with the ducks and so
forth.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did reclamation know that was going to be a problem and why
would they not do it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think [Laughter] I don't know. I don't know why they would
[Laughter] but I think its because of regulations; there are just so many
regulations that even if they've got tools to come out of things, they don't -they don't dare, is that a proper way to put it, [Laughter] because of the
regulations and because everybody is looking over their shoulder trying to --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Back to the 1980s quick, when the peripheral canal idea died
its first death, what happened to it? I mean I know it ->> Jack Threlkeld: Well, it was a referendum and I think Boswell Company didn't
want it to happen, and pumped some money into it to defeat it and it got
defeated.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why would J.D. Boswell?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I'm not sure that they can tell you right now. I'm sure
they had a reason. [Laughter] I don't know. I can't speak for that, but it was - it was -- it was defeated. I think that maybe they tipped the scales by trying
to defeat it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think that there's a really good chance that it's
going to come back? I mean people are talking -- I guess now it's a peripheral
tunnel. I mean it's going to go under the Delta rather than around the Delta I
heard. But do you think it's a realistic chance that it could be built in the
next few years? I think people are talking about it again.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well it's one of the things that the water bond, the state
water bond is -- one of the options that they could do with that 12 billion or
whatever it is. But yea, I've always felt that it should have been built and I
felt that it -- you know everybody kind of come to their senses and would build
it eventually. I'm not in the majority there at all. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does it help having Jerry Brown back? He championed it the
first time and ->> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know.
>> Thomas Holyoke. Okay. [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: He's surprising me. He's doing [Laughter] a lot of things
that seem good, that is good I think. That I think is good.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In 1992 we had the passage of a piece of federal legislation,
Central Valley Project Improvement Act, created -- I guess this is sort of the
landmark piece of legislation that really brought environmental policy deeply
into California's water wars. Did the enactment of that legislation have a major
effect on the exchange contractors, the time or now I mean?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well of course indirectly it did. It took -- it didn't take
any of the exchange contractors water, because as I said they've got the
enabling water but it took a lot of water from the Delta and from the CVP,
federal land owners. It took 800,000 just on general principles. It was just a - if you need it's there, you can take it. It took water on the Trinity River
and it took for fish and wildlife for the refuges and the fish and wildlife and
reallocated a bunch of that water and it took it away from west side agriculture
and well in the state too I guess. I think it affected both. I'm not sure about
that. CVP is a federal -- I shouldn't get into that because I don't know.
[Laughter] Anyway that was one of the main things; they'd -- they took some
water. The other thing they did was they changed the contract term from 40 years
renewable contracts for the federal water users from 40 years to 25 years. And
the thing they did that helped us was they authorized the bureau to approve
inter-district water sales, inner district water transfers. And so that was
really the backbone of our water transfer system which has been very good you
know for the last 20 years or whatever it's been.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What does that mean, water transfer system can you explain
that a bit.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Somebody has water that they've conserved, the simplest way
could be that they fallowed a piece of land maybe for some reason and they have
the water free for a year. Other things that the exchange contractors are doing
is they're putting in conservation lining canals, putting in reservoirs so they
can manage the water and coming up with surplus or extra water that can be
transferred and they've been transferring water for the last five years or so.
To Westlands Water District and the other districts in the federal area, San
Luis federal area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is this the sale of the water or is this simply ->> Jack Threlkeld: It's the sale of the -- yea the sale of the yield of water
that year. It's a not a sale of water rights or anything. They're not getting
into that. They're not getting into -- and that would have been a real problem.
People have trouble going there. But to sell off part of whatever water they
have because they’ve -- well for instance the exchange contractors are taking
this water. They're selling it. They're using the money they get from those
sales to build infrastructure that will conserve water. So, it's good all the
way around.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Some have pointed to passage of CVPIA adds, big watershed
moment, this transition from I guess a culture of water extraction to a culture
of water conservation, it's when the environmental interests all of a sudden
became involved and a lot of this fighting began between environmental
organizations, farmers, is that how you remember it that there was sort of a big
dramatic moment of change or that there's a lot of fighting and confrontation
now that did not use to exist?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think -- yeah, I think that the environmental
movement, the ESA challenges, the Endangered Species Act challenges, that's all
created a war zone if you will. There's you know, there’s a lot of pros and
cons. One area says that you know the scientific documentation is not proper
being misused and they're in court all the time to try to prove whether an
environmental study was factual or not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did a lot of this hostility exist prior to the 1990s?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No prior to the 1990s it seems to me it was the 160 acre
limitation. There was a challenge you know of water being given, subsidizing
farmers and so forth that maybe was unjust but the reclamation act had given a
bunch of contracts, given federal water to various farmers for a period of 10
years and then they were supposed to sell the land into 160 acre plots and that
was basically what was happening before that. We had some Kings River and Kern
water, Kern River water rights you know, fights and the ->> Thomas Holyoke: Was the acreage ->> Jack Threlkeld: Kings River never got into the reclamation law. The Kings
River wasn't under reclamation law; the Friant was.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The Kings River was done by the Army Corps right?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: They built them.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The limitation, the 160 acre limitation, was that as big a
deal for the exchange contractor farmers as it was for some of Westlands?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No, reclamation law doesn't apply to the exchange
contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: So hey have nothing to do with that. And they have been very
careful to keep that. [Laughter] Make sure it doesn't happen.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, coming back now to the San Joaquin River, also part of
the large area of conflict I guess between farmers and environmentalists if you
want to put it that way, the fights in court over the San Joaquin River and the
restoration of salmon, which has led to the settlement a few years back, were
the exchange contractors involved with those very long series of cases?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big one we were in -- well we weren't involved with
any of the challenges, like the NRDC case against Friant the exchange
contractors were not involved. They did get involved and tried to influence and
they had some influence on the legislation but not on the court case at all.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Are the exchanged contractors by and large satisfied by
the way the settlement came out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I don't know that they [Laughter] –>> Thomas Holyoke: I mean they –
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think anytime you start reshuffling the deck and reappropriating water, and it's in a political way, nobody can be comfortable with
it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the settlement have a direct effect on the exchange
contractors of river water rights?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big problem, of course, is that they're re-watering
the river. And the river is involved in our main stem water; it's our main
source of water. So we're getting into -- if they do get the fish back into it
we're talking about fish racks, fish screens, maintenance of fish screens, pump
takes, you know whether there's pump kills, all of these things and one of the
things-- or the main thing that the exchange contractor has been having or
trying to do is get whatever legislation came out of that to mitigate these
damages; seepage along the liver. But here again you get -- you know the water
is going to seep out. It's going to leech salts. It's going to raise the water
table, force the salts to the surface and ruin farmland. One of the things that
the farmers can say well it's great as long as you mitigate but the bureau does
not have a great record of mitigating. They say they will but they don't. Right
now some of that land is -- some of the farmers are putting in tile lines to
intercept the water coming out of the river and the bureau is refusing to pay
for it. We didn't wait while their process went through. The farmer didn't wait
until the process went through.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So let me make sure I understand this. The concern there is
that once more water is put back into the river, a lot of that water is going to
then flow into the farms, the ground of the farms along the river, so there's
going to be a lot more water in the soil, which can cause damage to some types
of crops.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well in the past historically when water flows down you know
periodically, it flowed down in flood years and didn't so much in non-flood
years. The water would flood and it would overflow and it would put some good
soil on top and put some water on there and would flush out some salts, some
drainage water and so forth. So it would probably do as much good as it did
harm. Now, the water is going to be going down every year. It's going to be
subbing through the levies or under the levies, out into the farmland and the
farmland is going to become alkaline and not farmable. Now the whole point is,
of this agreement and the legislation was that they were supposed to mitigate
these problems. Well, here they're just getting started the first year or two
and they're not mitigating the problem.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How do you mitigate the problem? You said ->> Jack Threlkeld: If you can ->> Thomas Holyoke: Tile line
>> Jack Threlkeld: You can pay for a tile line. You can pay for a -- you can put
in some facilities, which they have, one of the farmers put in a tile line. He's
got -- it's obviously being influenced by the river and he's getting flooded out
and that presumably the bureau would step forward and pay some of those bills or
subsidize that as their contract said they would, and they're not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the bureau is setting itself up for lawsuits?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Oh yea, they're in court constantly. And it's one of the
reasons they're so -- you know so gun shy because they're being sued all the
time. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, let's see so just a few more items here actually. We're
-- I have just been reading through some of the material on the exchange
contractors there's references to some things like the Central Valley Regional
Water Quality Control Board and some issues I'd seen in your material about
water quality, I guess we covered some of that with the salts and the boron.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well not really. That's a recent phenomenon.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The Clean Water Act I guess is what is dictating that and the
water control board; State Water Control Board is managing it. The entity that
San Joaquin River, what is the name, the SWC, the SWJRC, anyway it is a -- when
the Water Quality Control Board said you had to meet certain criteria to drain
water, they were -- and they flexed their muscles and said we're going to do
this by a date certain there was a way that people could satisfy the bureau that
you could either -- the bureau would -- not the bureau but the Water Quality
Control Board would go to the smallest piece of ground and would provide a drain
place where they could monitor the drainage off that piece of ground. And you
got into all of the problems like well what if you have you know flood waters or
what if you have runoff from heavy rainstorms, how does this affect the farmers?
Does the farmer get penalized because there's some water coming over his ground
and going through his checkout? They formed-- we formed an area that covered all
of the exchange contractors and all of the area and had people sign up and we
got the signatures of all these people so that we had an outlet for that big
area so that the whole area was being monitored by the Water Quality Control
Board not specific plots and so we thought there was some -- and this is a
management area. It's a waste water management. I can't remember the name of
what they call that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] It’s okay. In Oakland the purpose of this is to
monitor water quality and be able to take some water quality and take some kind
of action if it turns out that water is no longer meeting the standards of the
Clean Water Act or ->> Jack Threlkeld: Oh there would be penalties and -- I'm not conversant with
all those penalties but they would come down on a farmer for not -- and they're
looking at all sorts of things. They're looking at insecticides and selenium,
boron the whole works.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So this is really kind of a proactive way of dealing with it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, but they got everybody's attention and they got this
thing put through fairly quickly in a matter of a year or two. And it was -- and
I think it has worked basically. I haven't head of any real major problem, major
difficulties on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay,
in this -- at least here
of building a new dam on
exchange contractors are
solution to the need for
the last couple little things here. Do you think pushes
in the Fresno area on the San Joaquin River is the idea
the river up in Temperance Flat. Is that something that
concerned with or do you think that's a promising
more water storage?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think
that would produce about a
is that it's probably only
a real productive area and
already, so to that extent
but we do need more water.
it's good. I think we need on-stream storage. I think
million acre feat. The problem -- the concern I have
going to fill once every 10 years. You know it isn't
most of the production is being handled by Friant
there’s maybe better places in the state to put dams
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there any interest in doing water banking around here? Is
it imposed in the new reservoir?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There are places where you can do water banking and I think
incentives for water banking are good, you get into the problems of depleting
the water, you know the ground water. You can also get into -- by over-pumping
an area you can bring water, salt water into that aquifer and spoil the aquifer.
So, there are some problems with it. But I think where it's feasible and safe
that's one way, one of the tools we need to have.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do farmers and water district managers feel that they're
being terribly overregulated having to tangle with regulations, I mean we’ve had
the federal government and the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior
Department, the EPA and it's a large state regulatory apparatus. I mean, do you
ever get the feeling that there's too many regulations, too many laws to cope
with when it comes to water and its usage? [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I got to the stage at the end of my career I was
spending 100 percent of my time on water because the exchange contractors are
largely a defense against the over regulation and you know the threats wherever
they come from with their water. We got involved with -- after they built the
cords with vamp where we align ourselves with other tributaries on the San
Joaquin to provide water and the bureau paid for the water. It was one of the
first real transfers the bureau paid the seven districts. It was the four
tributaries of the San Joaquin that was Tuolumne, the Merced, San Joaquin,
Oakdale Irrigation District and Stanislaus. And the exchange contractors came
into that also and so did Friant. Friant did with money rather than water. And
eventually San Francisco, the city and county of San Francisco joined that
group. But anyway that was water that was provided under different year types
for a fee that the bureau paid. Well, last year was the last year of that and
this year is the first extension and next year it sounds like they're going to
have a real tough time. They don't have any money and they're -- you know
they're probably not gonna go on with it but there was a very successful program
that would put a charge of water down the San Joaquin and when the smelts were
migrating to the ocean and the idea was that they would take them out into the
Delta into the north Delta and get them outside the suck of the pumps to where
they would get on out into the ocean. So, there was a situation where you had
regulations and people, they were all trying to meet with ESA and a lot of these
tributary groups had their FIRC problems, their electrical contracts that were
dictating that they do these things for the ESA. Your initial question, are
there too many regulations and are they -- is there mismanagement, yea I think
so. A lot of times if we just let the guy out there with his shovel take care of
it, it works. That's an oversimplification but I think that the cure for a lot
of our problems in this state is -- are fairly simple management, being able to
use tools, being able to you know do things that aren't quite 100 percent when
it's necessary. And I think we're getting to the point where we -- or have
gotten to the point where if you can't do it 100 percent you're very vulnerable
and therefore it's not -- nothing's getting done and that's a tough road to be
going down.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, what do you think the future is going to hold for water
and farming in the valley or California? Where do you see it going?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I think [Laughter] I don't think we can continue to
take the water from agriculture and then give it you know waste it, which is
what a lot of what is occurring. We’re flushing great amounts of water out the
Delta and for -- and you know we all want to save the salmon and the split tale
and all these problems, we don't want to be messing up the environment. Farmers
for instance are probably the best environmentalists there are because they are
working with the environment on a daily basis and if they make a mistake it's
costly. But, you need more water supply. We need to have some more tools like
the peripheral canal that will keep us from wasting the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think Californians understand that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Do Californians understand that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yea.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know. [Laughter] It's common sense. It's -- I'm -I'm amazed that most people don't understand that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well most Californians including many of them who would have
to vote on the water bond, live down in Los Angeles, San Francisco, you know not
that familiar with water and agriculture. They don't come out here that often.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, so how do we get the message to them? [Laughter] How do
we convince them that -- well I think one of the alternatives is going to be
that the coastal urban areas are going to be desalinizing their own water.
That's very, very expensive, but if you're only talking about your quarter acre
or whatever, the water for that, then it's not too bad a cost. So I think that's
maybe, if we keep ignoring the practical way of water we're going to end up
forcing all the urban areas along the coast and they've got an unending water
supply. All they have to do is clean it up. [Laughter] Get their reverse osmosis
going. They can take the salt and shovel it back into the ocean. [Laughter] So I
think the answer is that's what's going to happen and it's going to be very
costly to the urban areas. And I'm afraid agriculture and the fish are going to
lose some water in the meantime.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, I'm out of questions. Anything else, anything dramatic
I missed? Anything you want to add?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think so. I think we pretty well covered it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's an interesting situation and I hope we can -- in the
future we can cure the problem. Most of these entities we've been talking about
are formed because there's a certain synergy in people getting together and
defending themselves on common problems. So you're -- you know probably three
quarters or more of those entities we talked about were formed to defend against
whatever comes down the pike to threaten water, water supplies and agriculture.
And, that's specifically with the exchange contractors. They got together and
formed the water authority to make sure that they protected themselves against - rather than doing it -- we found we were doing it individually. Each entity
had its own legal staff and it's own experts and paying for it individually. And
then we decided it's better to form the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors
Water Authority for the very purpose of telling people what the exchange
contractors were all about, what we needed whether -- you know just collectively
higher the attorneys and provide the whatever it is –- the -- and you know
trying to influence legislatures. And you can't just ignore that because all of
the people that are on the other side of whatever issue you're talking about are
out there after their legislators to do what they feel is right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you feel your legislators understand?
>> Jack Threlkeld: They don't -- I don't always agree with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: That's inevitable.
>> Jack Threlkeld: They have many different ways that they feel that they -that this thing should go. So I don't know. I think things like this help;
getting the word out and trying to do what's right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I hope it is. I thank you for the --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Opportunity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you very much.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
start with a little bit of personal history. Where are you from? How did you end
up here?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well I was born in San Francisco in 1935 and raised in
Fresno. My family had farming interests in cotton and barley in Tulare Lake and
I went to school at Menlo Park and UC Davis for two years. And then after five
years in the family farming business I went to work for Miller and Lux in Los
Banos. Subsequently when they dissolved with their successor interest Bowles
Farming Company, besides being General Manager of Farming I was-- took care of
their water interests and therefore was on the boards of the San Luis Canal
Company and the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where were your own family farms at?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Tulare Lake; that's Corcoran, actually where I got to know
Miller and Lux was through Buena Vista Lake. We leased Buena Vista Lake when
Miller and Lux got that back from their lawsuits in the 50s. [Laughter] So
that's where that came from and then->> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops did your family grow again?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Cotton and barley, mainly I think some seed alfalfa, but
mainly cotton and barley.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You say Miller and Lux, now that's an important part of
California, more important history in general, but California water history in
particular. Could you just talk a little bit about Henry Miller and the kind of
business he had, what he grew and some of his importance in the history of
water.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay well Henry Miller came to the country in the 1850s, late
1850s I guess from Germany. He's a butcher and in supplying meat for his butcher
shop he got into the cattle business and eventually started growing -- in South
San Francisco he had pastures. He eventually got over-- got down to the Gilroy
area and then branched over into the valley and the stories have it that he at
one point he was -- had over a million acres of farmland in California, Oregon,
Nevada and Idaho I guess. He was really a conservationist I guess. He would put
up, he'd flood lands, grow grass, put up hay and when there were drought periods
he would first be in a position to buy the cattle and then to -- because he had
the feed and then to buy the land because with no cattle the land wasn't worth
anything so he -- and he had a real passion for getting all the land he could.
He just -- Lux spent all his time trying to cover the drafts and Henry Miller
was out buying land. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who was Lux?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Lux was a San Francisco banker I believe. Well I guess he was
a butcher originally and he had some land that was strategically located just
south of San Francisco where they could hold the cattle as they were taking it
to the final stages of you know, going to slaughter.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So I guess one of the things Henry Miller is known for is
having developed-- I don't know-- well maybe developed is the word but developed
some of the earliest of the valley's water infrastructure. Do you know where he
drew a lot of his water out of? Was it the San Joaquin or--
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well either the San Joaquin River or the Kings River, Kern
River and some of the northern rivers also. So there were some San Francisco
interests that took some-- built some irrigation facilities. This San Joaquin
River and Kings River Canal Companies, they built facilities and had subdivided
land so that they could give into the jewels to come and buy it. Henry Miller
bought into this canal company structure so that number one he could control and
make sure that the water was handled properly and also get water for his own
land and be there if he needed to pick up the pieces because he didn't feel the
thing was going to be a financial success. So as I understand it, he would try
to get people water and he would control the canal company and make sure it was
operated properly. And if and when land came up for sale he was there to take
it. So he ended up owning, or operating not owning, but operating the four canal
companies that made up the exchange contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually I think I knew that. All four of the -- I guess it's
districts now and exchange contractors had their origin with Henry Miller?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well yes, they're all originally Henry Miller Canal Companies
and in the 50s I guess, late-- early ’50s the biggest canal company, which was
the one I talked about the San Joaquin River and Kings River Canal Company, that
one was taken over by the individuals in the district informed the CCID, the
Central California Irrigation District. That was the basic canal company that he
had and he made sure that he appropriated water for that canal company,
documented it and so forth and when he felt satisfied with the documentation on
that canal company, then he started documenting the water used for the company
owned lands and so forth, which was mainly the San Luis Canal Company. And the
two other canal companies which were both mutuals, San Luis Canal Company is a
mutual water company and as was Firebaugh Canal Company and Columbia Canal
Company. And since the Firebaugh Canal Company has become a water district and
San Luis Canal Company stayed a canal company, a mutual canal company, but they
also formed a reclamation district. So they're -- all of their facilities and
their operation is all done with the reclamation district whereas the water
rights and the business and everything is handled by the mutuals.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Actually if you would just explain a little bit about this
notion of water rights because he also mentioned documenting the water usage,
sort of just take a second to explain why that's important.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well you need to prove and verify your history of water
rights and Henry Miller was very careful about this. He had two water rights
basically, one is riparian and one is appropriative. Riparian is next to the
river; it is overflow. It's water that gets to a piece of ground by contiguous
connection to the river whereas appropriative rights are water that you document
by your use. You can pump it or pipeline it or however you get it to the
property it would be appropriative and here especially you need to document it
and verify it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Most of the water that Henry Miller used was done under the
appropriative rights doctrine.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He was more in favor I think, from what I've read, in the
riparian part.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: He felt this was a sure thing, but in a lawsuit in Kern
County, with Kern County he was-- the state appellate court I think it was,
overturned him and they found in favor of the appropriative rights on the Kern
River. So he lost the riparian rights and I think that's when he started really
get appropriate -- you know building the appropriative record. Some years later
I think, 10 or 15 years later, at least the early 1900s, they revisited that and
the state Supreme Court found in his favor, so it was a situation that the
riparians kind of won that round. And as I understand it he went to a guy's name
I believe was Hagan, and they worked out a deal between them. To where they said
“I'll take so much riparian or you give me so much riparian and you can take so
much appropriative.” So they ->> Thomas Holyoke: The canal companies that Henry Miller and the infrastructure
he would have been creating in the 19th century, does any of that still exist in
the original ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yea there's -- some of the canals are still you know still on
the same right of ways and Mendota Dam is in the area. So that's where the
exchange contractors water is delivered is to the Mendota Dam on the San Joaquin
River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Mendota Dam was originally a Henry Miller creation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Hmm, okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's been rebuilt since -- [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just explain briefly what an irrigation district is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: An irrigation district is an entity-- it's a public entity;
they're all public entities. Well I shouldn't say that. The irrigation district
is a public entity and the voting is by the residents of the area. So regardless
of whether they have water, or farming interests or what not, if they live
within the district they vote for directors. A -- that's a California irrigation
district. A water district is slightly different in that it is -- I think the
voting is by the people, the ownership of the district. In other words it'd be
one vote, one acre or something like that. A mutual canal company is put
together with a -- that's a corporation under the railroad act. And it's -- well
San Luis Canal company, our mutual is one acre, one vote and it's the landowners
who have land within the canal company service area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What do irrigation districts do for fun? What's the purpose?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they manage the water, protect the water rights, deliver
the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What's their function in getting the water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they
supplied. I mean if they had
outlet or in this case in an
method -- you want me to get
would get it from whatever, wherever they were
a well it would be a well. If they had a river
exchange contract, if you had quite a different
into that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well just a second.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Okay.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So an irrigation district as I understand it gets its water
by -- it's a contract with the bureau of reclamation or the city?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they got their water originally by their riparian and
appropriative rights on the San Joaquin River; you're talking about those
entities.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay so then they have the right then to ->> Jack Threlkeld: They have the basic water rights on the San -- well on the -go ahead. [Laughter] They have the water rights and that's were they got ’em and
then-- I think we're gonna get into what they did with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: One quick question. You mentioned something called a
reclamation district. I'm not familiar with that. I mean I've heard of them but
what is a reclamation district?
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's a public entity. It can be set up under various rules.
It is a residence, at least the -- it's a residential district. In other words
the voters are residents of the area delineated by the district. But they're all
sorts of them as far as you know you can pick and choose as to how you want your
particular entity constructed.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what then is the exchange contractor? That's not a
district. Is that something else?
>> Jack Threlkeld: The exchange contractors are CCID, San Luis Canal Company,
Fire Canal Water District, and Columbia Canal Company, those are the four Henry
Miller water entities and they -- Miller and Lux for years managed all those
districts. And then in various times the people in the district, the voters and
so forth took over some of the districts themselves. These water right holders
were approached by the Bureau ->> Thomas Holyoke: Of Reclamation?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Of Reclamation, the United States Bureau of Reclamation to
provide the water for the Friant Dam Project. And in 1939 I believe it was they
signed the exchange contractor, therefore where the exchange contractors come
because of that contract. That contract took the water rights in the San Joaquin
River that belonged to Miller and Lux and the bureau became the custodian of
those rights and that water and kept it behind Friant Dam for use on the east
side of the valley. And the water was exchanged; thus the exchange contract
terminology, was exchanged for water that was accumulated in shafts, behind
shafts of the dam on the Sacramento River, came down the shafts of Sacramento
and was pumped into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy and delivered to the
exchange contractors in Mendota, the Mendota pool.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the exchange contractors they gave up the old rights that
they had. [Inaudible] That's not right.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure of the legal terminology here but they did not
give up the rights. They gave up the custodial -- the management of those rights
to the bureau under the exchange contract.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So they're -- they're San Joaquin River water was going to be
sent by the Bureau of Reclamation then to other areas and then the exchange
contractors get delta water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why did they agree to do that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, one of the problems with the San Joaquin River Water
was that it all came down in the spring. Flood water, snow melt etcetera, so
that by July, August, September there was very little water. All of the farming
was done with the water that came down in various amounts depending on the year.
They -- so it was the timing of water. They now get it on a schedule that covers
eleven months. They get more water because of the salinity. So they get a
greater amount of water at a more timely -- more timely. That's the basic thing.
It's more reliable. The trigger for the -- there's also two amounts of water,
two criteria for the water. It's based on inflow to Shasta. So the natural
inflow to Shasta, if its four million acre feet then the exchange contractors
get 100 percent of their water, which is like 840,000 acre feet. And they're
first in line. There's nobody else in the CVP that comes before them because it
is their water that enabled the CVP. So they get that water and if you're
triggering a critical year or a year where there's less water, this is done by
subtracting the difference between whatever the inflow is and the four million.
And that will accumulate until it reaches 800,000 or the inflow gets down to 3
million two hundred thousand. When that happens it triggers a dry year scenario
and the exchange contractors would get 75 percent of their water at that point.
And then of course it takes a four million acre foot year before the thing would
reach that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Has this happened?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes it's happened I believe three years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Now I understand there are scenarios in which exchange
contractors can reclaim their San Joaquin water. I mean it's still theirs. Take
San Joaquin water?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I'm not sure that's right terminology but I think what you're
driving at is that if the bureau was unable to deliver the water for some
reason. They had the canal blowout or something that they were unable -- the
exchange contractor would have the right to re -- go back on the river. They'd
be able to go back on river flows and this has never happened, other than flood
years. The technicality there would be I guess that when there was flood water
and the bureau wasn't willing to use that as documented flows, or water to make
it documented flows the exchange contractors could take it without going against
them.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: But that was just a couple of times.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is -- I only ask because sometimes it seems to come up,
especially in some of the drought years we've had recently as to whether the
exchange contractors may assert their river rights and that seems to be
sometimes a wild card I hear in the planning for the use of San Joaquin river
water as in the last few years there has been less of it. But have the exchange
contractors ever seriously discussed a certain -- returning to river water even
just temporarily because of cutbacks from delta pumping or just a sheer lack of
water in the delta?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think I'm right on this. They only did it as planning
for something that might happen in that particular year. You know they saw a
disaster coming and we're talking strategy so to speak, how they would act. I
don't think it's ever happened.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Let's see, I personally am ready to move on from the
exchange contractors in and of themselves. Have I missed anything crucial?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think -- well one of the things on the -- back to the
exchange contractor and the river water, the bureau bought up all of the
remaining rights, riparian rights on the San Joaquin River at the time of the
exchange contract with the exception of I think one downstream riparian holder
or small holder. They also bought the Kings River riparian water rights from
Miller and Lux; I think that was for a million dollars. [Laughter] So that was a
pretty good deal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah, especially in 1939. That's a serious chunk of money.
[Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: That was a way I guess -- I think that was a good thing to do
that they got all of the other riparian owners that would be involved with the
exception of Miller and Lux that they took them out of the equation and also the
Kings River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor's water from the delta comes down the
Delta Mendota Canal?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: There is a connection however between San Luis reservoir and
the Delta Mendota Canal. So the bureau has the ability to store water in San
Luis reservoir and supply to the exchange contractors from San Luis reservoir.
And there was a lawsuit on that because at one point the U.S. side federal
landowners thought because the San Luis Act provided the San Luis Dam to them,
they were the only one that could use it but the [Laughter] but it's the bureau
and the court rule, but the bureau's prerogative, responsibility to deliver the
water to the exchange contractors and they could use any of the tools they had
to do that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just one question to clarify something; the districts that
make up the exchange contractors, they primarily serve farmers around the
Mendota, Los Banos-- that's the service area?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea the service area runs from Mendota to Gustine Newman area
on the north.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of crops are being grown there usually?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There's alfalfa, cotton, grains, various tree crops, a lot of
almonds, tomatoes, some of the vegetable crops. So a variety -- it's alkalized
soil for the most part. So it has to be crops that will stand some alkalinity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain that a bit more, alkalized soil.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well alkali is the -- on the pH scale, and I'm not a chemist
[Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Neither am I.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The pH 7.6 is neutral and the alkalized soils are the saltier
soils and higher sodium soils and they would have a lower pH and to counter that
you would use acids and gypsum and various things that convert the soil, convert
the alkaline to be where you could leech it out. And so when we talked earlier
about having more water and the exchange getting more water and that was because
you needed a leeching coefficient and needed extra water to leech the salt out
of the soils and you have to have drainage for that salty water or it just
continues to compound in the soil.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The exchange contractor -- is that area then -- it's getting
caught up in some of the same problems that I guess the Westlands Water District
has with a lot of salinity and selenium in the soils and then inability to
drink-- they have had a history of trouble with drainage. Did exchange
contractors have that same trouble being able to build a drainage infrastructure
to get the water out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well this has been the theme that the exchange contractors
have argued forever, that we need a drain. We need to be able to get rid of this
water. You know you need to put water in. You need to put extra water in and you
take the runoff and you need to have a place for that go or you're just looking
at a Salton Sea kind of a situation where salt would build up and eventually
everything dies. When you talk about selenium and boron and some of the other
things, yes the exchange contractors have about 10 percent I'd say of the soil
on the west side and the south of Los Banos. It has some selenium and needs to
be gotten rid of. Firebaugh Canal Company has some selenium problems.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How are they handling those problems now?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well they're trying to manage it now. They've put holding
ponds and settling ponds in on the west side. They're pumping with tile drains
and they're trying to segregate the water from where they pump it in a drain
with levels and trying to segregate the water that doesn't have selenium and put
it through an existing drain. Of course, the selenium has such a low tolerance
that there's not much you can do so you're looking at a reverse osmosis or some
sort of a cleansing process that you could get the selenium out of the water and
if they're able to do that, are they able to -- how do they get rid of the
selenium. Is there some water left that is still -- you're still unable to drain
through the river system?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do they need to have an actual drainage canal built, I mean
for a long time ->> Jack Threlkeld: Yes the San Luis Act provided for a drainage facility, a
drainage canal and that was one of the things the exchange contract insisted on
and congress put it in the act. However, they never appropriated the money for
it. So they've never followed through but on various of the things that they've
done they never followed through with what they're free to do. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: So it's not likely that anyone's going to built in the near
future -- [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's not gonna happen. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Along that same line the peripheral canal was a way of taking
the water that goes into the Delta and feeding it you know if you had the
tributaries and all in here the water would get blocked up in the sewage. The
tides would push the salt back into the sloughs and then it would -- in order to
get that salt water out they just have to use it. Well with the peripheral canal
around the edge, you'd be able to drop some water out of the peripheral canal in
the sloughs and scour those sloughs out and you know manage the situation but we
didn't get a peripheral canal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are you still hoping for one?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think it's the real solution. I think it's probably the
only solution to our problem in the Delta. It's a management tool and you just
need something to be able to manage that water and the way we're doing it is
just wasting an awful lot of water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Explain a bit about generally how the peripheral canal is
supposed to work, where it's supposed to start from and then where it's supposed
to end up at and the purpose of this was, or is.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, as you know, the water goes through the Delta and is
taken when the flows are high enough is pulled over by Tracy, which is the south
end of the Delta and pumped as is the San Luis pumps, the Clifton Court pumps
are the same way, the federal/state pumps. And what the peripheral canal was
going to do was going to start up in the north Delta where the Sacramento feeds
in and divert part of that water around the Delta, just kind of loop it around
and feed it into the Delta Mendota Canal at Tracy. What this would do would
enable number one to keep better water; you wouldn't get it adulterated in the
Delta and ->> Thomas Holyoke: Adulterated with saltwater?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Saltwater, you know the tidal actually. So you wouldn't get
that you know the salt being introduced to the water. You'd have the pure water
coming out of the Sacramento and going around. And as I said earlier, you'd be
adding water that got pushed up into these areas, these fingerlets that go up
above the delta could be washed out. They'd be flushed just by turning the valve
or whatever, so you could manage your water. This is one of the things I think
that was really a mistake when the selenium thing came on it was the bureau had
flood waters occurring and they had a problem in Kesterson and with salts and so
forth and rather than flushing that flood water which would have helped take the
pressure off the flooding, they kept the water out. They created more of a flood
problem and didn't use that extra water to flush those salts out of Kesterson
and they were allowed to build up and had the deformities with the ducks and so
forth.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did reclamation know that was going to be a problem and why
would they not do it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think [Laughter] I don't know. I don't know why they would
[Laughter] but I think its because of regulations; there are just so many
regulations that even if they've got tools to come out of things, they don't -they don't dare, is that a proper way to put it, [Laughter] because of the
regulations and because everybody is looking over their shoulder trying to --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Back to the 1980s quick, when the peripheral canal idea died
its first death, what happened to it? I mean I know it ->> Jack Threlkeld: Well, it was a referendum and I think Boswell Company didn't
want it to happen, and pumped some money into it to defeat it and it got
defeated.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Why would J.D. Boswell?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I'm not sure that they can tell you right now. I'm sure
they had a reason. [Laughter] I don't know. I can't speak for that, but it was - it was -- it was defeated. I think that maybe they tipped the scales by trying
to defeat it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think that there's a really good chance that it's
going to come back? I mean people are talking -- I guess now it's a peripheral
tunnel. I mean it's going to go under the Delta rather than around the Delta I
heard. But do you think it's a realistic chance that it could be built in the
next few years? I think people are talking about it again.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well it's one of the things that the water bond, the state
water bond is -- one of the options that they could do with that 12 billion or
whatever it is. But yea, I've always felt that it should have been built and I
felt that it -- you know everybody kind of come to their senses and would build
it eventually. I'm not in the majority there at all. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does it help having Jerry Brown back? He championed it the
first time and ->> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know.
>> Thomas Holyoke. Okay. [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: He's surprising me. He's doing [Laughter] a lot of things
that seem good, that is good I think. That I think is good.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In 1992 we had the passage of a piece of federal legislation,
Central Valley Project Improvement Act, created -- I guess this is sort of the
landmark piece of legislation that really brought environmental policy deeply
into California's water wars. Did the enactment of that legislation have a major
effect on the exchange contractors, the time or now I mean?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well of course indirectly it did. It took -- it didn't take
any of the exchange contractors water, because as I said they've got the
enabling water but it took a lot of water from the Delta and from the CVP,
federal land owners. It took 800,000 just on general principles. It was just a - if you need it's there, you can take it. It took water on the Trinity River
and it took for fish and wildlife for the refuges and the fish and wildlife and
reallocated a bunch of that water and it took it away from west side agriculture
and well in the state too I guess. I think it affected both. I'm not sure about
that. CVP is a federal -- I shouldn't get into that because I don't know.
[Laughter] Anyway that was one of the main things; they'd -- they took some
water. The other thing they did was they changed the contract term from 40 years
renewable contracts for the federal water users from 40 years to 25 years. And
the thing they did that helped us was they authorized the bureau to approve
inter-district water sales, inner district water transfers. And so that was
really the backbone of our water transfer system which has been very good you
know for the last 20 years or whatever it's been.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What does that mean, water transfer system can you explain
that a bit.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Somebody has water that they've conserved, the simplest way
could be that they fallowed a piece of land maybe for some reason and they have
the water free for a year. Other things that the exchange contractors are doing
is they're putting in conservation lining canals, putting in reservoirs so they
can manage the water and coming up with surplus or extra water that can be
transferred and they've been transferring water for the last five years or so.
To Westlands Water District and the other districts in the federal area, San
Luis federal area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is this the sale of the water or is this simply ->> Jack Threlkeld: It's the sale of the -- yea the sale of the yield of water
that year. It's a not a sale of water rights or anything. They're not getting
into that. They're not getting into -- and that would have been a real problem.
People have trouble going there. But to sell off part of whatever water they
have because they’ve -- well for instance the exchange contractors are taking
this water. They're selling it. They're using the money they get from those
sales to build infrastructure that will conserve water. So, it's good all the
way around.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Some have pointed to passage of CVPIA adds, big watershed
moment, this transition from I guess a culture of water extraction to a culture
of water conservation, it's when the environmental interests all of a sudden
became involved and a lot of this fighting began between environmental
organizations, farmers, is that how you remember it that there was sort of a big
dramatic moment of change or that there's a lot of fighting and confrontation
now that did not use to exist?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I think -- yeah, I think that the environmental
movement, the ESA challenges, the Endangered Species Act challenges, that's all
created a war zone if you will. There's you know, there’s a lot of pros and
cons. One area says that you know the scientific documentation is not proper
being misused and they're in court all the time to try to prove whether an
environmental study was factual or not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did a lot of this hostility exist prior to the 1990s?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No prior to the 1990s it seems to me it was the 160 acre
limitation. There was a challenge you know of water being given, subsidizing
farmers and so forth that maybe was unjust but the reclamation act had given a
bunch of contracts, given federal water to various farmers for a period of 10
years and then they were supposed to sell the land into 160 acre plots and that
was basically what was happening before that. We had some Kings River and Kern
water, Kern River water rights you know, fights and the ->> Thomas Holyoke: Was the acreage ->> Jack Threlkeld: Kings River never got into the reclamation law. The Kings
River wasn't under reclamation law; the Friant was.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The Kings River was done by the Army Corps right?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: They built them.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The limitation, the 160 acre limitation, was that as big a
deal for the exchange contractor farmers as it was for some of Westlands?
>> Jack Threlkeld: No, reclamation law doesn't apply to the exchange
contractors.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: So hey have nothing to do with that. And they have been very
careful to keep that. [Laughter] Make sure it doesn't happen.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, coming back now to the San Joaquin River, also part of
the large area of conflict I guess between farmers and environmentalists if you
want to put it that way, the fights in court over the San Joaquin River and the
restoration of salmon, which has led to the settlement a few years back, were
the exchange contractors involved with those very long series of cases?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big one we were in -- well we weren't involved with
any of the challenges, like the NRDC case against Friant the exchange
contractors were not involved. They did get involved and tried to influence and
they had some influence on the legislation but not on the court case at all.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Are the exchanged contractors by and large satisfied by
the way the settlement came out?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I don't know that they [Laughter] –>> Thomas Holyoke: I mean they –
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think anytime you start reshuffling the deck and reappropriating water, and it's in a political way, nobody can be comfortable with
it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the settlement have a direct effect on the exchange
contractors of river water rights?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well the big problem, of course, is that they're re-watering
the river. And the river is involved in our main stem water; it's our main
source of water. So we're getting into -- if they do get the fish back into it
we're talking about fish racks, fish screens, maintenance of fish screens, pump
takes, you know whether there's pump kills, all of these things and one of the
things-- or the main thing that the exchange contractor has been having or
trying to do is get whatever legislation came out of that to mitigate these
damages; seepage along the liver. But here again you get -- you know the water
is going to seep out. It's going to leech salts. It's going to raise the water
table, force the salts to the surface and ruin farmland. One of the things that
the farmers can say well it's great as long as you mitigate but the bureau does
not have a great record of mitigating. They say they will but they don't. Right
now some of that land is -- some of the farmers are putting in tile lines to
intercept the water coming out of the river and the bureau is refusing to pay
for it. We didn't wait while their process went through. The farmer didn't wait
until the process went through.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So let me make sure I understand this. The concern there is
that once more water is put back into the river, a lot of that water is going to
then flow into the farms, the ground of the farms along the river, so there's
going to be a lot more water in the soil, which can cause damage to some types
of crops.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well in the past historically when water flows down you know
periodically, it flowed down in flood years and didn't so much in non-flood
years. The water would flood and it would overflow and it would put some good
soil on top and put some water on there and would flush out some salts, some
drainage water and so forth. So it would probably do as much good as it did
harm. Now, the water is going to be going down every year. It's going to be
subbing through the levies or under the levies, out into the farmland and the
farmland is going to become alkaline and not farmable. Now the whole point is,
of this agreement and the legislation was that they were supposed to mitigate
these problems. Well, here they're just getting started the first year or two
and they're not mitigating the problem.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How do you mitigate the problem? You said ->> Jack Threlkeld: If you can ->> Thomas Holyoke: Tile line
>> Jack Threlkeld: You can pay for a tile line. You can pay for a -- you can put
in some facilities, which they have, one of the farmers put in a tile line. He's
got -- it's obviously being influenced by the river and he's getting flooded out
and that presumably the bureau would step forward and pay some of those bills or
subsidize that as their contract said they would, and they're not.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the bureau is setting itself up for lawsuits?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Oh yea, they're in court constantly. And it's one of the
reasons they're so -- you know so gun shy because they're being sued all the
time. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, let's see so just a few more items here actually. We're
-- I have just been reading through some of the material on the exchange
contractors there's references to some things like the Central Valley Regional
Water Quality Control Board and some issues I'd seen in your material about
water quality, I guess we covered some of that with the salts and the boron.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well not really. That's a recent phenomenon.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: The Clean Water Act I guess is what is dictating that and the
water control board; State Water Control Board is managing it. The entity that
San Joaquin River, what is the name, the SWC, the SWJRC, anyway it is a -- when
the Water Quality Control Board said you had to meet certain criteria to drain
water, they were -- and they flexed their muscles and said we're going to do
this by a date certain there was a way that people could satisfy the bureau that
you could either -- the bureau would -- not the bureau but the Water Quality
Control Board would go to the smallest piece of ground and would provide a drain
place where they could monitor the drainage off that piece of ground. And you
got into all of the problems like well what if you have you know flood waters or
what if you have runoff from heavy rainstorms, how does this affect the farmers?
Does the farmer get penalized because there's some water coming over his ground
and going through his checkout? They formed-- we formed an area that covered all
of the exchange contractors and all of the area and had people sign up and we
got the signatures of all these people so that we had an outlet for that big
area so that the whole area was being monitored by the Water Quality Control
Board not specific plots and so we thought there was some -- and this is a
management area. It's a waste water management. I can't remember the name of
what they call that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] It’s okay. In Oakland the purpose of this is to
monitor water quality and be able to take some water quality and take some kind
of action if it turns out that water is no longer meeting the standards of the
Clean Water Act or ->> Jack Threlkeld: Oh there would be penalties and -- I'm not conversant with
all those penalties but they would come down on a farmer for not -- and they're
looking at all sorts of things. They're looking at insecticides and selenium,
boron the whole works.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So this is really kind of a proactive way of dealing with it?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, but they got everybody's attention and they got this
thing put through fairly quickly in a matter of a year or two. And it was -- and
I think it has worked basically. I haven't head of any real major problem, major
difficulties on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay,
in this -- at least here
of building a new dam on
exchange contractors are
solution to the need for
the last couple little things here. Do you think pushes
in the Fresno area on the San Joaquin River is the idea
the river up in Temperance Flat. Is that something that
concerned with or do you think that's a promising
more water storage?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I think
that would produce about a
is that it's probably only
a real productive area and
already, so to that extent
but we do need more water.
it's good. I think we need on-stream storage. I think
million acre feat. The problem -- the concern I have
going to fill once every 10 years. You know it isn't
most of the production is being handled by Friant
there’s maybe better places in the state to put dams
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is there any interest in doing water banking around here? Is
it imposed in the new reservoir?
>> Jack Threlkeld: There are places where you can do water banking and I think
incentives for water banking are good, you get into the problems of depleting
the water, you know the ground water. You can also get into -- by over-pumping
an area you can bring water, salt water into that aquifer and spoil the aquifer.
So, there are some problems with it. But I think where it's feasible and safe
that's one way, one of the tools we need to have.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do farmers and water district managers feel that they're
being terribly overregulated having to tangle with regulations, I mean we’ve had
the federal government and the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior
Department, the EPA and it's a large state regulatory apparatus. I mean, do you
ever get the feeling that there's too many regulations, too many laws to cope
with when it comes to water and its usage? [Laughter]
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well I got to the stage at the end of my career I was
spending 100 percent of my time on water because the exchange contractors are
largely a defense against the over regulation and you know the threats wherever
they come from with their water. We got involved with -- after they built the
cords with vamp where we align ourselves with other tributaries on the San
Joaquin to provide water and the bureau paid for the water. It was one of the
first real transfers the bureau paid the seven districts. It was the four
tributaries of the San Joaquin that was Tuolumne, the Merced, San Joaquin,
Oakdale Irrigation District and Stanislaus. And the exchange contractors came
into that also and so did Friant. Friant did with money rather than water. And
eventually San Francisco, the city and county of San Francisco joined that
group. But anyway that was water that was provided under different year types
for a fee that the bureau paid. Well, last year was the last year of that and
this year is the first extension and next year it sounds like they're going to
have a real tough time. They don't have any money and they're -- you know
they're probably not gonna go on with it but there was a very successful program
that would put a charge of water down the San Joaquin and when the smelts were
migrating to the ocean and the idea was that they would take them out into the
Delta into the north Delta and get them outside the suck of the pumps to where
they would get on out into the ocean. So, there was a situation where you had
regulations and people, they were all trying to meet with ESA and a lot of these
tributary groups had their FIRC problems, their electrical contracts that were
dictating that they do these things for the ESA. Your initial question, are
there too many regulations and are they -- is there mismanagement, yea I think
so. A lot of times if we just let the guy out there with his shovel take care of
it, it works. That's an oversimplification but I think that the cure for a lot
of our problems in this state is -- are fairly simple management, being able to
use tools, being able to you know do things that aren't quite 100 percent when
it's necessary. And I think we're getting to the point where we -- or have
gotten to the point where if you can't do it 100 percent you're very vulnerable
and therefore it's not -- nothing's getting done and that's a tough road to be
going down.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, what do you think the future is going to hold for water
and farming in the valley or California? Where do you see it going?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Well, I think [Laughter] I don't think we can continue to
take the water from agriculture and then give it you know waste it, which is
what a lot of what is occurring. We’re flushing great amounts of water out the
Delta and for -- and you know we all want to save the salmon and the split tale
and all these problems, we don't want to be messing up the environment. Farmers
for instance are probably the best environmentalists there are because they are
working with the environment on a daily basis and if they make a mistake it's
costly. But, you need more water supply. We need to have some more tools like
the peripheral canal that will keep us from wasting the water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think Californians understand that?
>> Jack Threlkeld: Do Californians understand that?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yea.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't know. [Laughter] It's common sense. It's -- I'm -I'm amazed that most people don't understand that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well most Californians including many of them who would have
to vote on the water bond, live down in Los Angeles, San Francisco, you know not
that familiar with water and agriculture. They don't come out here that often.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Yea, so how do we get the message to them? [Laughter] How do
we convince them that -- well I think one of the alternatives is going to be
that the coastal urban areas are going to be desalinizing their own water.
That's very, very expensive, but if you're only talking about your quarter acre
or whatever, the water for that, then it's not too bad a cost. So I think that's
maybe, if we keep ignoring the practical way of water we're going to end up
forcing all the urban areas along the coast and they've got an unending water
supply. All they have to do is clean it up. [Laughter] Get their reverse osmosis
going. They can take the salt and shovel it back into the ocean. [Laughter] So I
think the answer is that's what's going to happen and it's going to be very
costly to the urban areas. And I'm afraid agriculture and the fish are going to
lose some water in the meantime.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, I'm out of questions. Anything else, anything dramatic
I missed? Anything you want to add?
>> Jack Threlkeld: I don't think so. I think we pretty well covered it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: It's an interesting situation and I hope we can -- in the
future we can cure the problem. Most of these entities we've been talking about
are formed because there's a certain synergy in people getting together and
defending themselves on common problems. So you're -- you know probably three
quarters or more of those entities we talked about were formed to defend against
whatever comes down the pike to threaten water, water supplies and agriculture.
And, that's specifically with the exchange contractors. They got together and
formed the water authority to make sure that they protected themselves against - rather than doing it -- we found we were doing it individually. Each entity
had its own legal staff and it's own experts and paying for it individually. And
then we decided it's better to form the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors
Water Authority for the very purpose of telling people what the exchange
contractors were all about, what we needed whether -- you know just collectively
higher the attorneys and provide the whatever it is –- the -- and you know
trying to influence legislatures. And you can't just ignore that because all of
the people that are on the other side of whatever issue you're talking about are
out there after their legislators to do what they feel is right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you feel your legislators understand?
>> Jack Threlkeld: They don't -- I don't always agree with them. [Laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: That's inevitable.
>> Jack Threlkeld: They have many different ways that they feel that they -that this thing should go. So I don't know. I think things like this help;
getting the word out and trying to do what's right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Threlkeld: I hope it is. I thank you for the --
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Jack Threlkeld: Opportunity.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Thank you very much.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====