Water Archives · Richard Schafer interview

Title

eng Richard Schafer interview

Description

eng Water engineer from Visalia. Talked about development of dams in the Sierra Nevada and irrigation systems on the Tule River.

Creator

eng Schafer, Richard

eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 5/8/2015

Format

eng Microsoft Word 2013 document, 12 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00011

extracted text

>> Thomas Holyoke: So, let's start off with a little bit about your early
history. Where are you from?
>> Richard Schafer: I was raised on a farm in the state of South Dakota and
when I became 18, I enlisted in the U.S. Army and I spent nearly 3 years in
the military in ‘44, ‘45, and ‘46 in the Pacific Theater in New GuineaPhilippines and Japan Occupation for 1 year.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where you attached to MacArthur's command?
>> Richard Schafer: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Richard Schafer: I came back from the military and was discharged out of
Fort Lewis Washington in November of 1946 and came back to South Dakota
where my parents lived and my father had a section of land that he was
farming in South Dakota. He asked me if I wanted to take over the farm. They
were ready to retire. Unfortunately, I said to him "I have no interest in
being a farmer. I'm going to college." And he said, "Would you work with me
for 1 year?" So, in 1947 I assisted him in his farming operations, but
during the winter of ‘46-‘47, I did spend a quarter at the Northern State
University in South Dakota and then in the fall of ‘47 I commenced my
engineering with the University of South Dakota, South Dakota School of
Mines and Technology, graduated in 1951. At that time, jobs were not
bountiful but I was hired by the E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company out of
Wilmington, Delaware as a construction engineer and I dearly loved working
for the DuPont Company. They were a wonderful company. I spent 8 years with
them. Moved 13 times. I was married, had 1 child and after the 13th move,
they wanted to send us to Orange, Texas I told the company I really didn't
have interest in going to Orange, Texas so departed in the interim, this is
1958. In the interim I communicated with the university and made numerous
contacts. Had 5 job offers in the Midwest and the West, one of which with
Boeing that I seriously considered in, of course, Seattle, Washington but I
took a position in Porterville with a firm called Althouse-Strauss an
engineering firm that had just acquired a contract with the Sausalito
Irrigation District to design the distribution system that they had
negotiated with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for Appeal 130 Law. A
gentleman by the name of Ernest Fortier convinced me that I should come to
California, become involved in water rights and water distribution as part
of the newly constructed Central Valley Project in the Friant-Kern Canal. I
interviewed with he and Mr. Strauss in Denver in 1958 and after evaluating
numerous offers I decided to come to Porterville, had no idea where it was,
what it was and as we drove in I was pleased to that they had paved streets.
It turned out to be a very good time to come to California. I spent many
years in design of construction of distribution systems both pipelines and
canals. After working with Mr. Fortier on the design and construction of the
Sausalito Irrigation District Distribution System, I took a position with
the Lower Tule River Irrigation District and Mr. Bill Alexander the manager
of that district at that time, indicated to me that they needed to design
and construct an entire canal system for the district which we embarked
upon, took several years. In the meantime, Success Reservoir was
constructed. Success Reservoir commenced construction in ‘59, was completed
in the summer of ‘61 and therein I began a career with the Tule River and
the operation of the Success Reservoir and the water rights on the Tule
River. The Lower Tule River Irrigation District was a major player in the
development of the Success Reservoir and the allocation of the water rights.

You see when a dam is constructed on a river, the water rights below that
structure, the dam, have to be allocated at the dam because historically
they were allocated based upon their pre-1914 rights which were diversions
that they had of course posted and filed with the county and yet when you
control the water of the stream at a dam you must determine the appropriate
allocation. It took us 6 years to develop a schedule where the inflow as
computed by the Corps of Engineers on a daily basis is allocated to all
water rights holders below the dam based on their historical versions, court
decrees, other agreements that had been of record and we developed a group
that we had what they called an Engineer's Committee. There were
representatives of all the different ditch companies and collectively we
prepared a schedule where every second foot of inflow to the reservoir was
allocated to a form of water rights holder below the dam and in accordance
with history and court judgments; the Tule River has 3 major judgments.
There was a 1910 what we call the Repairing Rights Decree and they allocated
a portion of the flow of the river for 22 days to those riparians as their
water right for the year and that was called the Riparian Agreement, 1910.
Then in 1916 there was a major water rights dispute and called Poplar v.
Howard. The court identified the water right of all of the historic
diverters above Success Reservoir, identified their second foot or miners
inch right as determined through the court process and ultimately a
judgement was rendered that identified every ditch, some 68 different water
rights holders that were identified as having a right on the Tule River and
then just to give you an example. In 1958 the state published a bulletin
that identified all the rights above Success Reservoir and they of course
used these judgments along with another judgement in 1933 that was against a
few of the parties above the dam so that this bulletin identified what the
water rights were of all the various parties about Success Reservoir and we
have used it and all of these 50 some years as a basis for the allocation or
for the determination of the various rights above the reservoir because what
they divert adversely affects what flows into the reservoir that we allocate
to the water rights holders at below the dam.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do their, do the water rights holders hire up from
Success Lake their water claims or water right claims have to be fulfilled
each year before you can then divert, or pull water in provided to people
below the dam?
>> Richard Schafer: Their right is first. In other words, their miner
rights, their miner's inches in many cases but small quantities, but what
they have a right except during the 22 day run of March 19th through April
10th when all the water has to go to the riparians under the 1910 decree.
But other than that, they have the right to divert their allocation under
the 1916 judgement continuously and it's usually in terms of a few second
feet or miner's inches, 50 miner's inches per second foot. So, yes they have
the right to divert before, it's sort of as the river, the flow of the river
moves downstream the diverters have the right to the water in accordance
with the historic judgments of the water rights on the river and the
residual that arrives in the reservoir we allocate. As the Water Master,
it's my responsibility to allocate, maintain storage records and release
water based upon the demands of the water rights holders subject to the
Corps of Engineers operating the dam for flood control purposes but that's
the purpose of the water master. I was appointed the water master by the
Tule River Association in 1962; the Tule River Association is made up all
the water rights holder's representatives at and below Success Reservoir and
they meet monthly. They've met monthly ever since formation in ‘61 and I
have served as Secretary of the Tule River Association and Water Master for

the Tule River 53 years and I continue today and plan to work another year
or more. So, that brings you to being the water master of the Tule River. I
also as a consulting civil engineer because the water master of the Tule
River is about 1 week of work per month. I work 40-45 hours per month for
the Tule River Association to perform the work that they require me to
allocate the inflow, maintain the storage records and allocate the
diversions in accordance with their demands. So, the rest of the time I
spend working with other public districts and representing them in their
issues on water rights and water operations. I represent a client on the
Kaweah River System, Lakeside Ditch Company and have represented them since
1961 and also as the Kaweah River water rights were constructed because
Terminus Dam created similar situation as Success did; the water rights had
to be determined at the dam on a schedule similar to the one for Porterville
or Success Dam was created and I represented the Lakeside Ditch Company in
the development of that schedule. I had the privilege of representing the
People's Ditch Company on Kings River. That commenced in 1961 also and they
were just finishing some adjustments to the Kings River schedule for the
allocation, the inflow to Pine Flat Reservoir. So, I’ve had the opportunity
to work on Kings River, Kaweah River, Tule River; I developed a schedule of
rights on Poso Creek in Kern County. I represent the Cawelo Water District
in Kern County. Kern County, the Kern River is a separate operation
completely and I've never been involved in the Kern River per se operations
but Poso Creek is a little channel that has about 30,000 acre foot average
annual discharge and I was given the responsibility to determine the water
rights on an allocation procedure for the flow of Poso Creek. So, that's
just a broad brush of my past 50 years. I think probably of all the various
work that I have performed, water rights may be at the top of the list. We
also have a surveying operation. I enjoy determining boundary lines based
upon issues, deeds, the history of the development of the land in terms of
the parcels that are currently owned and we have a survey crew that I
administer for determining boundaries and obviously we ended up in court a
few times with disputes over where the boundary is and so have spent quite a
bit of time directing a survey crew to establish boundaries for parcels.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Let's just jump back to your first job in Porterville,
the Sausalito Irrigation District it was?
>> Richard Schafer: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Was that involving hooking the district into the FriantKern Canal?
>> Richard Schafer: Yes, that's as you know the Friant-Kern Canal was
constructed in the early ‘50s and once the canal was constructed then they
negotiated CVP contracts for water with the public districts. Sausalito
Irrigation District was one of those districts and they had a contract for
water so they had to develop a distribution system to deliver the water to
the lands of Sausalito Irrigation District and this is 1958, the system was
designed in ‘59, constructed in 1960 and it is still functioning as designed
today. A lot of good asbestos event AC pipe that was the conduits selection
that was used for that district. Its flow coefficients are very good in AC
pipe but they have pumping plants, several distribution mines that commence
at the Friant-Kern Canal and then distribute to the lands of the district.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I've heard that in some parts of the valley there was
resistance or at least reluctance to hooks into the Federal Government's
water projects; people didn't necessarily want to sign long-term contracts

with the Bureau of Reclamation. Is there any concern or resistance in the
Sausalito Irrigation District in hooking into CVP?
>> Richard Schafer: No. Those that didn't wish they had. The contract
negotiations were typically based upon price. At that time, the Class I
Water which is the firm water supply under the contract they were paid 3
dollars an acre foot and the surplus water which is that water that's
available in excess of the 800,000 acre feet that the Bureau of Reclamation
contract from the Friant Project was a dollar-and-a-half an acre foot. I
have a client in Kings County that did not enter a contract because those
prices seemed too excessive to them in the 1950s. Unfortunate for them, they
did not have a contract therefore only have an opportunity occasionally to
buy what we call Section 215 CVP water from the Friant system which is the
surplus water that no other district that has a firm contract or a long-term
contract need.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How often does that kind of water exist?
>> Richard Schafer: Pardon?
>> Thomas Holyoke: How often does that kind of excess water exist?
>> Richard Schafer: Only in flood times. Only in flood times. We, when it's
flooding down the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam they want to find a
source to sell every bit of water they can and then we get into a capacity
limitation on the Friant-Kern Canal and the Madera Canal which goes north.
So, it's only very infrequently that we have water and I think as time goes
on it'll be less and less because of the demands of the environment.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In the 1950s Reclamation Law still had acreage
limitations.
>> Richard Schafer: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is that a concern at all to anyone in Sausalito
Irrigation District?
>> Richard Schafer: It had to be. You had to respect the 160 acre
limitation, but back in those days there were just a host of very small
farmers. Acreage limitation was not a serious issue except in certain areas
but not typically a problem for all the public districts that entered in
contracts to take water from the Friant-Kern. We didn't have large corporate
farmers at that time. There were just a lot of small farmers and the 160,000
acre limitation did not bother and, of course, then it ultimately became 960
with the ‘82 Act of Reclamation of Format of 1982. But I would say that
Central Valley Project was the life blood of the farming industry in this
area and not until last year did we not receive water from the Central
Valley Project and the politics of the allocation of the water intervened
with an appropriate allocation to the Central Valley units, in my opinion.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, on the Tule River Success Dam that's not a Bureau of
Reclamation Project that's an Army Corps Project.
>> Richard Schafer: Correct.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you, any insight into why the Army Corps built that
rather than the Bureau?

>> Richard Schafer: Well, it was constructed under the Flood Control Act of
1944 which specifically identifies the Corps of Engineers as the party
responsible for the design and construction of flood control reservoirs on
dams in the U.S.A. that's their mission. The Department of the Army Corps of
Engineers have always constructed all of the flood control reservoirs in the
country. And the Bureau of Reclamation acts as a contract party for the
Federal Government to administer contracts for repayment of operation and
maintenance costs of the reservoirs so they become involved only in terms of
the administration with the local parties under the contracts for operation
and maintenance. In Success, the parties that have storage space allocations
in Success Reservoir for the water rights are obligated to pay 9.5% of the
operation and maintenance of the dam. The balance is considered flood
control for the benefit of all the parties in the service area and Federal
Government pays for the Flood Control Benefit, but the Irrigation Storage
Benefit determined by the corps to be 9.5%. That is paid annually by the
water rights holders that have the storage space in the reservoir. It used
to be 500,000 a year, it was, that was the cost, total cost of operation and
maintenance the parties would pay 9.5% of 500,000. In recent years because
of the procedure in which the Corps of Engineers allocate the cost it has
doubled. We're over a million dollars a year now just in the last two years
because of administrative policy by the corps; they're allocating more costs
for their administration, their Sacramento District Office Administration to
the projects and as a result, the O&M cost doubled in the last two years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Before Success Dam was put in was the Tule River, how
appropriated was that in terms of water claims? On an average year was the
full river being used for irrigation or?
>> Richard Schafer: The water rights on the Tule River are totally
allocated. All the water rights are pre-1914, in other words, in the 1880s
the various parties made application under the Act of 1873 where you posted
and filed with the county your claim to a certain quantity of water at a
certain location for a service area. The Tule River was appropriated prior
to 1914 and actually the state determined after a hearing in ‘58 and a final
decree in ‘60, they determined that there was no unappropriated water on the
Tule River and it remains that way today. We've had a number of applications
through the years which have been denied by the state Division of Water
Rights, but the Tule River is a totally appropriated stream with all rights
prior to 1914. They denied, well I shouldn't say all the water rights, there
were a few post-1914 water rights holders that were allocated small portions
of water in the upper portion of the river above Success Dam and there were
a number of pending applications for allocation of water all of which were
denied in the 1916 decision.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are most of the claims for water on the Tule done through
the appropriation legal doctrine supposed to have riparian right to take
water, I guess you said that there were some riparians on the river too?
>> Richard Schafer: Well, of course there is a number of riparians but a
riparian has a very unique right. It's that land that is riparian to the
stream not the individual, it's the land and that land has that riparian
right no matter what time, it's from the date it was granted when it was
patented from the Federal Government that the riparian right becomes that of
the owner of the land and is never lost. It's just a matter of when that
land owner decides to put in facilities to take the water from the river for
the land and of course his right is limited to the smallest parcel that's

contiguous to the stream from the date of patent of current ownership but we
have very few riparians below the dam that take water because the
intermittent flow just does not justify the construction cost of a
distribution system. So, there's very few riparian, active riparians below
the dam. There are a few above the dam because the flow is continuous so
that several of the reaches but a year like, will be this one for example,
we'll be fortunate if there's flow in spring there which is several miles
upstream of the dam this year. They'll be no flow into the Success Reservoir
probably later in the month of the May until September.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is Success Reservoir dry at the moment?
>> Richard Schafer: No. We have about 10,000 acre feet of water.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What's the capacity of the reservoir?
>> Richard Schafer: Eighty-two thousand three hundred acre feed is the total
capacity of the reservoir and we have filled its build several times but
this year which is going to be the driest of record. We have records from
1904, so last year was the driest until this year and this year now is the
driest of record.
>> Thomas Holyoke: When Success Dam was proposed was it largely accepted by
users of the Tule River water? Was it controversial?
>> Richard Schafer: My recollection is that most of the parties were
interested in the flood control benefits of the reservoir. Porterville is
situated 6 miles below Success Dam and subject to flooding, of course in
1862 the whole area was flooded, that's a major flood but the cost was of
some concern. There were some parties that were concerned that even the ownin cost that we allocated for the storage benefits they had concerns about
whether they could repay those costs and it's my understanding that the
reservoir size was reduced from a 110,000 acre fee to 85,000 acre fee due to
costs and it would have been a blessing if they would have maintained the
110,000 acre fee.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, you become Water Master and I understand part of your
job then was to create water schedules respecting your various water rights.
How difficult was that?
>> Richard Schafer: It was a long-term project. We had to develop yield
studies, in other words, we picked a period of time for which there was
record of historic diversions on the river and then we developed the
schedule and we actually operated the river for those years based on the
inflow and our schedule to allocate the water right to all of the parties
trying to assimilate what they had historically diverted. That was our major
task. We recognized the rights based on the prior judgement but we also
determined the yield to each of the water right holders at and below the dam
to conform under the schedule with what they had historically diverted. It
was an unsurmountable task. It was all done by hand. We didn't have
computers in the ‘60s, early ‘60s so it was time consuming and we finally
decided that the only way to resolve this was to have a limit so we, every
unit has a monthly limit of entitlement in an addition to the scheduled
allocation for their rights and that is all round into our current program
where it's all computerized now, you take the inflow put it in the computer
and then allocates the water to all the water rights holders. If we'd had

that in 1960, we would have a much easier task and probably had been more
precise than all the schedule limitations we currently have.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Was it, is there difficulty in getting everyone in the
association to support the final schedule the people?
>> Richard Schafer: No it wasn't. It was very difficult. We spent many, many
hours in discussion, as I said it took 6 years to develop the schedule to
allocate the inflow to the water rights holders and below the dam.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did you have to spend time in court?
>> Richard Schafer: Fortunately, not. We finally were able to adjust the
satisfaction of all the parties and all the parties signed the allocation
agreement in 1966 and we have not had a lawsuit since, there has not been a
water right lawsuit among the parties that executed the agreement. The Water
Diversion and Storage Agreement is the title of the document and we, well,
I'm rather proud of the fact that there hasn't been a lawsuit amongst any of
those parties. Now, upstream there has been several little issues amongst
the water rights holders above the dam; party against party but not below
the dam.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Have you had to make any changes to the flow schedule in
the years since?
>> Richard Schafer: We've had to make a few interpretational changes to
satisfy the parties but we've worked through it and developed some minor
implementation changes but not the schedule itself just in how we operate
the various allocations.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are you working with individual farmers or are you
working with irrigation districts?
>> Richard Schafer: We work with the public districts and the mutual water
company representatives. It's generally the directors of the public
districts and the directors of the mutual water companies that are the
parties that we have to deal with and they are also the directors of the
Tule River Association. We have a director from Pioneer Water Company which
is a California corporation mutual water company. We have a director from
the Vandalia Water District which represents the Vandalia Ditch Company and
the Campbell-Moreland Ditch Company. We have two directors from Porterville
Irrigation District. Porterville Irrigation District represents the HubbsMiner Ditch Company, the Rhodes-Fine Ditch Company and the Porter Slough
Ditch Company all prior pre1914 water rights holders and then we have lower
Tule River Irrigation District which we have two directors from that agency.
They represent the Poplar Ditch Company, the Wood Central Ditch Company and
the flow that reaches a bridge called Oettle Bridge, O-E-T-T-L-E, which was
obviously an old wagon trail at one time. It's now road 192 into Tulare
County. That allocation is for the lower Tule River Irrigation District and
then at the boundary, the western boundary of the Lower Tule River
Irrigation District we have what we call the Down Street Kaweah Tule River
Association that is made up of water rights holders in Kings County that
have historic rights to the Tule River. And they're represented by one
director. So, we have 7 directors and they establish policy and procedure
and they are whom I work for. They give me direction and I communicate with
them every month.

>> Thomas Holyoke: Has, I guess the growing concern regarding the
environment and the way that's impacted water in California. Has that been a
problem at all for the Tule River and the people who get water at the Tule
River? I mean you're not part of the CVP so some of those problems haven’t
been of issue to you?
>> Richard Schafer: With respect to the operations of the Tule River,
storage and release at Success Dam I can't really say the environment has
created an issue where all pre-1914 rights the operation of the river and
the dam have not been subject to releases to satisfy fish. We have no
fishery below the dam, never had had because it's a femoral stream even
historically, so I really can't say with respect to the Tule River that
there is an environmental influence. Conversely, The Central Valley Project
is a totally different situation. The ‘92 Central Valley Improvement Act
that Congressman George Miller was the instigator of was the downfall of the
Central Valley Project. There were millions of acre feet of water
reallocated to the environment, to the fish, to the wildlife refuges by the
‘92 Act that devastated the rights on the Friant's system in terms of their
annual allocations.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Have you represented clients that have been hurt by
CVPIA?
>> Richard Schafer: Yes. Every CVP contractor has been hurt by the Central
Valley Improvement Act and the sad part about it is that under that act, the
congress directed the Bureau of Reclamation to identify in, you might
remember under 134-3408J of that act they directed the Bureau of Reclamation
to identify within 6 years, 6 years which would have been 1998 how they were
going to reinstate the 1,200,000 acre feet that they allocated to the
environment and to the wildlife refuges and within 15 years they were to
restore the water. Well, the Federal Government has never performed under
that act strictly because of the environmental influence and the other part
about it is the environmental influence of which George Miller represented,
that allocated the water to the Delta the million acre feet or 800,000 acre
feet under the act. That water was supposed to be totally restored to the
Central Valley Project contractors and today it's still has not been
restored. That's the reason why we have this drought issue. That's the
reason why we have the sustainable Groundwater Management Act and to
continue overdraft of groundwater because the water that should have been
coming in that was placed under contract, it's now being held in the Delta
not being given to the exchange contractors. The water from the San Joaquin
River is being delivered to the exchange contractors and the land owners who
have all these crops and operations developed on the premise that they would
receive CVP water are now pumping groundwater, consequently we have a
tremendous overdraft until the Federal Government and the State of
California decide that it's time to bring in supplemental water to the
Central Valley we are not going to have sufficient supply and it's just not;
the local streams do not support the demands of the agriculture and that's
the reason the Central Valley Project was developed. Unfortunately, I go
back to the original allocation of the Central Valley Project. The ‘92 Act
just devastated the whole program that was setup originally and, well, it
goes clear back to the ‘40s when the Department of War made the
determination of where the Central Valley Project would provide additional
supplemental water to the valley.

>> Thomas Holyoke: Have you been involved at all in any of the politics in
Washington or Sacramento about trying to make changes to CVPIA or the
Endangered Species Act, or?
>> Richard Schafer: I am not directly involved. I communicated on the
politics on Success Dam we've had a series of issues with respect to seismic
seepage and what they call overtopping. We needed additional flood control
storage in Success Reservoir, so probably in the late ‘70s we started the
discussion with the corps and the United States Congress on enlarging
Success Reservoir by raising the stowaway and we determined that we could
increase the storage 28,000 acre feet, end up with a 110,000 acre feet of
storage by raising the stowaway 10 feet. Well, the limitation of 10 feet is
so that we would not flood out the highway 190 bridge. Consequently, that
went on for many, many years feasibility studies under all the provisions of
the corps and in 2003, construction was commenced. We were performing
mitigation requirements. The final design of the raising of the stowaway the
actual, the weir they constructed, they planned an OG weir-type design to
raise the stowaway 10 feet and in order to make sure there was sufficient
capacity in the stowaway they were widening it as well. That design was
under development and the corps decided that there was a seismic problem.
They studied it for and have just completed 13 years of study, modified
their guidelines at least 3 or 4 times, have finally decided that the dam is
okay, that it's not subject to a major issue in case of earthquake. Because
we're 80 miles away from the earthquake and the horizontal acceleration.
They determined it was not adequate to create a situation where there would
be a failure of the dam. It may slump a little but not fail. And then they
spent considerable time and evaluating seepage, seepage through the dam; is
that a problem? Well, finally decided the seepage was not a problem.
Overtopping is still an issue. That means if the stowaway isn't quite wide
enough in a major storm activity and that is still an issue we're trying to
work through that. So, we now, we believe that we're about to proceed again
to develop the Success Reservoir Enlargement Project after 12 years of study
by the corps.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is this, if you're going to get any additional storage at
all it seems to require a couple of decades’ worth of study first.
>> Richard Schafer: Unfortunately, the corps’ guidelines dictate what they
do and some of us have had serious reservations about their guidelines but
they finally have decided that the dam is safe. So, we're about to get, in
fact, we have a meeting the 18th of this month with the commanding officer
of the District U.S. Army Corps of engineers, Colonel Farrell and his staff
to discuss how we can move now through the construction of the Success
Reservoir Enlargement Project after this hiatus of 12 years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I'm curious about one other thing. In 1977 we had a major
drought.
>> Richard Schafer: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And did dealing with that provide any guidance or help in
terms of the turning the deal over this drought now in the allocation of
water?
>> Richard Schafer: Well, ‘77 we still received some water from the Central
Valley Project which helped the land owners a lot but it was really ‘76-‘77
was a dry period but not like the ‘28 through ‘34 for example, that's the 7

year drought in which the yield of the Central Valley Project was determined
and this ‘13-‘14-‘15 is a dryer period than we had in ‘76-‘77 or back in the
‘28 through ‘34. We don't know how long this is going to last but it's a
sickly situation. I am not believer in global warming or climate change, I'm
of the opinion that this is a cyclic-type process that this world has gone
through since beginning of time. It just happens over and over just like
floods. Floods occur, there's a book out by a gentleman by the name of John
Austin called Floods and Droughts of the Central Valley and it's a very
fascinating book. He's done a tremendous amount of research and determined
that every 200 years we have a mega flood, an ark flood as he calls it, in
California and we have droughts intermittently and the East Coast schedule
of the droughts that have occurred in the 100 years and the 200 year flood
is about due, a mega flood; 1862 was the last one. Add 200 years to that and
that's when we should have another mega flood give or take 10 years but I am
a firm believer in cycles and the cyclic conditions of weather, storms,
temperatures, droughts, and floods and the idea of global warming and
climate change is all politics in my opinion.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, you need to get Success Dam raise then to capture
some of that flood water.
>> Richard Schafer: We do. We do.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And maybe the Temperance Flat Project done from the San
Joaquin for more storage for the Friant-Kern Canal.
>> Richard Schafer: By the way I hope that becomes a reality because they
certainly need more storage. The Friant Dam was never large enough, you
know, through my years I have learned that rule of thumbs are as good as
good hydrologists and design engineers. One of the rule of thumbs that I
have found, if you take the average annual flow of the river, if you have a
flood control reservoir equal to that capacity you will have a good flood
control size structure. In the case of the Tule River, the average annual
flow is about 138,000 a year now with a 112 years of record; the average
annual 138,000. If we had a 138,000 acre feet of storage in reservoir it
would handle the whole floods that we have had. The ‘60s, December ‘66 was a
major flood on the Tule River. The only one in my 50 years that have been of
any magnitude December of ‘66. But take Pine Flat for example, Pine Flat is
a million acre feet. The average annual flow of the Kings River Pine Flat is
about a 1,200,000 acre feet. Well, seldom do they have a flood control
problem on Kings River only in the huge years like ‘83 and others have there
been a problem on the Kings, but look at Friant Dam, a little over 500,000
acre feet and the San Joaquin River has an average annual runoff of
1,200,000 acre feet. Should be a million acre feet of storage there, so
that's the reason that Temperance Flat is so important because we lose so
much water the flood years that could have been stored had they sized the
storage on the San Joaquin river properly originally.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Have you been involved at all in any of the groundwater
quality issues and concerns in the valley?
>> Richard Schafer: The Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program with the Regional
Water Quality Control board initiated, I have been involved in it since
2003. I'll give you a little history. The Porter-Cologne Act adopted by the
state legislature in 1965, in anticipation of the Clean Water Act by the
Federal Government in 1972 created the State Water Resources Control Board
and the 9 regional boards. The purpose of identifying water rights and for

protection of water quality both surface and groundwater the Tule, I should
say the Tulare Lake basin is one of the is one of the basins within the
Central Valley region 5, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the
Central Valley region 5 has jurisdiction over the Tulare Lake basin; Tulare
Lake basin, San Joaquin basin, Sacramento basin are all a part of region 5
and in 2003 no longer was agriculture provided a waiver of discharge.
Nonpoint source discharge, so in 2003 a conditional waiver was adopted by
the regional board on surface water. So, we all had to develop monitoring
stations on the waterways within the various basins. I represent the Tule
basin. We developed a monitoring program for Deer Creek and Tule River and
White River which are in the Tule basin and for 10 years until 2013 we only
monitored surface water to determine whether agriculture, irrigated
agriculture, was impacting surface water quality. In 2013, the regional
board adopted a new order that included groundwater called the Irrigated
Lands Regulatory Program. I represent the Tule basin and coordinate the
implementation as a third party representing all the land owners in the Tule
basin for the Irrigated Lands Program. The Tule basin has about 600,000
acres in the Tulare Lake basin. Historically we were regulated by the Tulare
Lake basin Water Quality Control Plan which was adopted in 1975 until the
new order came in which overrode or became a part of, that order still, that
plan is still there but the irrigated lands is in addition to would be a
better way to say it, they, of the 600,000 acres at the Tule basin we have
360,000 acres of irrigated agriculture, so we now have a surface water
monitoring plan that has been submitted but not finally agreed upon by the
regional board. We have 9 monitoring stations that we are proposing. We're
negotiating now with the regional board the final location of those
monitoring stations and until the new plan is adopted we implement the old
plan but, of course, last year we didn't monitor, there was no water same
way this year. But, yes I'm very involved in the Irrigated Lands Regulatory
Program.
>> Thomas Holyoke: It gets down to a final question here; 2015 fourth year
of now very severe drought what do you think's going to be the impact on
this part of the valley?
>> Richard Schafer: The impact will be we will continue to overdraft the
groundwater basin and those land owners that do not have groundwater that
are unable to acquire the surface water, they're just going to go out of
business. That's, there is no other alternative. I have a deep concern that
the state has said we're going to restrict water allocations, we're going to
cause a reduction of water allocation to everyone that's how we're going to
get through this drought. Well, if the governor would have as much interest
in the development of new supplies as he is with the allocation and
reduction of the existing supplies we wouldn't have this problem. I have a
real beef with the state over the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1972 which
tied up all the North Coast streams and, in fact, in ‘72 we were still
looking at the Eel River Project which brought water in the Sacramento basin
and made it part of the Central Valley Project or it could have been or the
State Water Project. Well, the environmentalist convinced the legislature to
place all that North Coast into Wild and Scenic Rivers and approximately
one-third of the state's water supply flows to the ocean without use except
for a small portion in the various service areas of those rivers. Well, all
they have to do is get back into the position of deleting that restriction
and develop that water, instead we're going to restrict pumping of
groundwater that's where it's headed under the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act. We have no choice. If you're going to, it's the current law
passed by the legislature and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is

going to result in land going out of production because there is
insufficient water to be sustainable in the basin.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, anything else you'd like to add?
>> Richard Schafer: Well, I have a, I'm not an advocate for the allocation
of water to the environment beyond what is needed and the concept of more
flow out the Delta for the fish is a real problem for me because I am of the
opinion that the predators in the Delta are the cause of the loss of the
salmon industry mainly the imported bass and I'm real pleased, there was a,
there is a piece of legislature in the state legislature right now that is
going to require a detailed scientific determination of the predation of
fish in the Delta just causing flow to flow to the ocean to solve the
problem is a disgrace.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, realizing that there may be another reason for fish
to climb rather than this obsession with the pumps?
>> Richard Schafer: That's correct. Very good.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Anything else?
>> Richard Schafer: Well, not unless you have something you'd like to have
me respond to.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I'm done. Thank you very much sir.
>> Richard Schafer: Very good.

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