Water Archives · Dennis Falaschi interview

Title

eng Dennis Falaschi interview

Description

eng General manager of the Panoche Water District on the west-side of the Valley, talking about how water districts work and how they cope with drainage issues on the west side.

Creator

eng Falaschi, Dennis

eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 3/14/2012

Format

eng Microsoft Word 2003 document, 12 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00016

extracted text

>> Tom Holyoke: Oh. Today we are interviewing Dennis Falaschi...
>> Dennis Falaschi: Um-hum.
>> Tom Holyoke: ...from the Panoche Water District. And let's just start off
with a little personal history, you know, where do you come from and how did you
become general manager of the water district?
>> Dennis Falaschi: You know, I come from a farming background. As a child I was
raised on a farm in basically the same area where I'm a manager now. It's about
20 miles to the north. I was raised in a small town of Dos Valles, and raised on
a grape farm, and did some work growing up in the dairy -- on the dairies and
doing dairy work. And eventually with that kind of a background and just the
desire to stay in that type of a business I educated myself towards trying to
get an engineering background, and ultimately that led to working for an
engineering company that did work for a water district, and became so familiar
with the water district that I was hired on as their assistant general manager
back in the '70s. And from that point then moved over and became general manager
of Panoche Water District in 1984.
>> Tom Holyoke: And what -- general manager of a water district; so what do you
sort of do on a day-to-day basis?
>> Dennis Falaschi: One thing about being a general manager of a water district
is that, you know, you have to make sure that you're not taking up most of your
time focused on any one thing, that the whole idea of being a general manager is
just that, you have to be able to go out and find competent people that you can
manage to take on certain tasks in the district. That being said, on a daily
basis the general manager needs to know not only what's going on today in their
maintenance of the district, but what's going on on the delivery of water to the
district customers, and then you also have to spend a lot of time on what's
going to happen in the future for the district as far as how are you going to be
able to supply your users today, tomorrow and in the future?
>> Tom Holyoke: What actually is a water district? What purpose do they serve?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Well, a water district's service is to provide irrigation
water -- in our case we're an agricultural water district, and it's to provide
irrigation water to farmers that are institutionally by boundaries part of the
water district. Each district in its formation is legally formed by boundaries,
and the water district then would provide water to the growers within those
boundaries.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. And where does your water district acquire the water?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Panoche Water District is what's known as a San Luis unit, a
contractor, which actually what that means is that we are a federal contractor
who we contract with the United States Bureau of Reclamation for a water supply
that is the delivered both through the California Aqueduct and the Delta-Mendota
Canal, which originates in the delta at the Jones Pumping Plant.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. So, you don't take water out of the San Luis Reservoir?
>> Dennis Falaschi: We do. The San Luis unit in fact takes all of their water,
unless it's direct delivered, out of the San Luis Reservoir. It can be delivered
through two different systems. The water can come out of the San Luis Reservoir,
and it can either be delivered through the California Aqueduct or the Delta-

Mendota Canal. Panoche Water District is located so that we can receive water
from the Delta-Mendota Canal at the northern end of the district, and we can
receive water from the California Aqueduct at the southern end of the district.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Do you then subcontract the water over to your growers?
You contract with the bureau for the water and then ->> Dennis Falaschi: That's correct, Tom. The water that -- Panoche Water
District is the contractor. Panoche Water District, once its contract is
fulfilled with the United States, Bureau of Reclamation, we own the water. The
water belongs to Panoche Water District. If you own land in the Panoche Water
District boundaries that is deemed irrigable, irrigable through reclamation law,
then you are provided a proportionate share of our contract supply. Let me give
you an example. The Panoche Water District is approximately 38,000 acres. And
our water supply contracted with the federal government is approximately 94,000
acre feet of water, annually. If we were to receive 100% of our water supply
then you as a farmer prorated would be entitled to about 2.4 acre foot per acre.
You do not own that water, but if you are deemed to have irrigable acres, and
you are current in all of your assessments and other charges to the district,
then you are eligible to receive two point acre foot of water per acre per year.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. The contract that the water district has with the Bureau
of Reclamation, what's the length of that contract, the duration of the
contract?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Well, you know, that's a real pointed question now because
we're in the process of ending a 40-year contract. And for the last several
years we've had what was called, "interim contracts." And we are in the process
now of operating under an interim contract currently that we are focused on
negotiating those contracts now with the United States for another 25 years.
>> Tom Holyoke: Is the fact that you're operating under an interim contract now,
is that -- is there a problem then that's prevented you from signing permanent
contracts or -- That's standard procedure or ->> Dennis Falaschi: No. It's not standard procedure, and it is problematic, but
I don't -- I guess we don't want to get bogged down in thinking that it's
problematic. It's more of an issue of negotiation as to how we can secure a
reasonable amount of time to receive our contract water, and that the United
States Bureau of Reclamation can fulfill that commitment. So, that being said,
we're in the interim process now to make sure that everything is
environmentally, environmentally and structurally sound to be able to provide us
with a long-term water supply.
>> Tom Holyoke: Panoche Water District, what are its boundaries more or less? I
mean, what part of the valley is it serving?
>> Dennis Falaschi: I like to consider the Panoche Water District being in the
best part of the valley. When I say, "the best," I'm talking about the most
fertile, fertile part of the valley. I mean, the soils in the Panoche Water
District are just -- they're the highest quality soil for farming I think that
you could find, not only in California, but in the world. We have a
Mediterranean climate, we have great soil, great climate. The issue that we have
is that we do have water shortages. Fortunately, in Panoche Water District, we
do have some reliability with groundwater pumping that we can supplement our
water supply with some fairly decent quality groundwater. So, where are we? We
are actually sandwiched in-between -- just would be north of the giant Westland

Water District, and would be -- our southern border butts up against that
Westland Water District, and our northern border kind of butts up against what's
called the Grassland Water District. So, we're kind of unique in that our water
district sits next to a very highly productive agricultural area, and then we
then would then border up against -- I don't want to call it a refuge area, but
a wildlife area basically.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. And do you know about when the water district was formed?
>> Dennis Falaschi: The water district, the water distric was formed back in
1946. Prior to that the water district was called an association, Farmers of -Panoche Farmers Association, which means they didn't have a contract with the
United States. They operated on surplus water from maybe neighboring districts,
and then they supplemented with well water. In 1946 they then became part of
what was called the Delta-Mendota Canal Service area. The Delta-Mendota Canal
was constructed and started delivering water around 1956, and then that's when
Panoche Water District acquired its first contract from the United States Bureau
of Reclamation.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Was there any particular reason -- and maybe it's just the
timing when the district was formed, but why the district contracts with the US
government for water as opposed to the state water project?
>> Dennis Falaschi: It's facilities, it's about the ability to deliver water, it
was -- it became part of what they called the Central Valley Project, which was
the federal government's desire to provide water to the Central Valley for the
enhancement of farms and agriculture. The state facilities came at a later date.
They were more like in the '70s, Tom. The federal government had a desire to
create jobs, expand agriculture, built the Central Valley Project, the first
part of it, which was the Delta-Mendota Canal. The Delta-Mendota Canal
originated around Tracy in the delta, and then conveyed water basically through
a contour concrete canal to what they call the Mendota Pool. Now, there's -- the
reason that they did that is a whole different subject than why we actually
receive water from the Delta-Mendota Canal. And I can address that, and it's
kind of interesting; if you want me to.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay, sure.
>> Dennis Falaschi: Well, first of all, it's called the Delta-Mendota Canal.
Now, this was built back in the '50s because, again, the federal government
wanted to expand agriculture. So, back in -- prior to the '50s the water that
serviced this portion of the agricultural land from Mendota to Gustine,
California, came from flying it down. So, what the United States decided to do
was they called it an exchange. We will build the Delta-Mendota Canal. We will
take water from the delta, deliver it to the Mendota Pool, and then that water
then will be delivered to the lands from Mendota to Gustine, and we will dam up
the San Joaquin River, we'll construct Friant Dam, and then that water can be
used to develop the east side, which is -- which would be Madera, Chowchilla,
Fresno and those areas. So, in a sense what they did was they built the DeltaMendota Canal, and the canal was then able to deliver water, again, to lands
that went from Mendota to Gustine, and then they built Friant Dam so that they
could hold that water back there instead of -- that water historically through
water rights had been used to irrigate the farmland from the Mendota to Gustine
area. So, that was called an exchange. As a matter of fact, the water agencies
that received the water from the Delta-Mendota Canal were called the exchange
contractors. But in any case, other lands like Panoche Water District became
part of what they call the service area of the Delta-Mendota Canal. And the

Delta-Mendota Canal was owned and operated by the federal government. Therefore,
that's why we have a federal contract instead of a state contract.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Within Panoche Water District, is there sort of a typical
crop that your growers are known for growing or grow an abundance of or is
highly buried or ->> Dennis Falaschi: Yes. Currently -- when I say currently I'd say over the past
six or seven years, we've seen a real transition in the crops sort of grown in
Panoche Water District. Panoche Water District historically had grown row crops,
cotton, tomatoes; those, you know, kind of a fiber, produce type of a crop. Over
the -- and I'm going to say over the last ten years we have evolved into a water
district that is now growing more permanent high-value crops. So, what you're
going to see in Panoche now is you're going to see a lot of vineyards, a lot of
wine grapes, you're going to see a lot of nuts, which would include almonds and
pistachios, and you're going to see other high-value crops like fresh market
tomatoes, cannery tomatoes, and high-value mixed melons, not necessarily the
cantaloupes, but the more exotic mixed melons that are high value on the market.
The Panoche Water District because of our current cost of water and chronic
deficit water supplies, has transisted into efficient irrigation and high-value
crops.
>> Tom Holyoke: Are the high-value crops then -- is it the matter of you need
less water for them or able to make enough profit off those kind of crops to
compensate for ->> Dennis Falaschi: It's kind of both, Tom. First of all, when you start out -you're starting out -- we have evolved into -- federal districts because of
issues in the delta and moving water north or south, have evolved ourselves into
what we call "a deficit water supply." We always seem to be short on a
[inaudible] basis. So, how do you compensate for that? You go out and rather -you go out and you invest in equipment that you could actually do irrigation
efficiency -- or higher efficiency with. You can get by with less water because
of how you're applying the water. And an example of that is drip irrigation,
versus furrow irrigation. Currently Panoche is about 70% drip irrigation, where
15 years ago it was 100% furrow irrigation. What do you get with the drip
irrigation? You get a much more efficient and uniform use of your water. In
other words, when I say uniform, that means that this system can put the water
exactly where you want it to go, versus flood irrigation and furrow, you know,
it covers a lot of space that you don't need. So, but in order for a grower to
be able to afford this type of a system, he has to grow a higher value crop. It
doesn't do you a lot of good to spend $1,000 an acre on drip irrigation and to
grow cotton. You know, your value is not going to be there for your irrigation
investment; whereas if you're growing a higher-value crop -- and they don't get
any higher than almonds or pistachios, and some of the fresh-market tomatoes,
you can -- and the vineyards, it's cost effective to do that.
>> Tom Holyoke: You've several times now mentioned a water deficit that to some
extent has driven some of these changes. Could you explain this water deficit?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Well, you know, how can I explain that to you, Tom, without
having my blood pressure go up? You know, here is -- when we talk about water
deficits, what we're talking about is the inability for the State of California
to assimilate -- in other words, let's look at it this way, back in 19 -- in the
'60s, let's say '63, that was the last major water project in the State of
California. That was the San Luis Reservoir dedicated by the then President John
F. Kennedy. We had maybe 12 million people in the State of California. Here we

are now, we have, what, about 32 million people in the State of California; not
one new water project. So, we're taking a source of water that is clearly -we're taking a plumbing system for our water that's clearly outdated to meet the
rest of the state's demands. And on top of that, we have become very, very
concerned with what we call "the Endangered Species Act." You know, nobody wants
to see, you know, our critters or birds or whatever disappear. The
transportation of our water from the northern part of the state through the
Central Valley Project to where we need to use the water has been deemed to
effect certain endangered species. And the one that we're currently dealing with
-- and I'm sure you've heard a lot about, is called the Delta Smelt. So, when we
talk about deficit supplies, it's basically centered right now on our inability
through our plumbing system to move water where we have it in surplus from the
north to the south, not only for agricultural use, but also for municipal
industrial use, which is in the southern part of the state, i.e. Metropolitan
Water District in Los Angeles.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. So, in other words we have -- there's two causes for this,
there's both the Endangered Species Act, which under this legislation like the
Central Valley Project Improvement Act, withholds -- it gives us a few hundred
thousand acre feet of water for environmental restoration and species
restoration. And then just a sheer problem that you can't bring enough water
anyway to your crops because of the lack of new water structures, water
projects. Am I understanding that right?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Your understanding is Tom, right on. There's a little
underestimating the amount of water held for restoration, as they call it,
that's more 800 to a million acre feet, which is significant. You are exactly
right, under reclamation law or what they call, the Reclamation Reform Act, we
as water users basically had taken from us for the restoration of certain
habitats about 800 to a million acre feet of water. That's water that was taken
right out of our contractual supplies. So, if you compound that now, not only
have we lost water through new regulations, we've also because of certain acts
like the Endangered Species Act, we've lost the ability to move water through
the delta. So, it's kind of a -- it's more than a double whammy, regulations
have taken -- it's like reaching into your pocket and taking out -- if you've
got $50 it's like taking out $20 and saying, "We're going to give it to this
over here," and then your ability to move water has also been affected. So, yes,
you know, we -- that's created a deficit water supply, and really, you know, I
think a lot of times ag is being misjudged because all you probably -- when you
hear is ag is trying to take water. Ag is trying to do this. That's not at all
what we're trying to do. What we're really trying to do is get back, no new
water; we just want to get back the water that was actually taken from us
through the regulatory process. And so how do we do that? It's like you
mentioned earlier, it's a lack of new projects that would increase the plumbing
system in the California to do that. One of the major ways that we could get
back to where we were is by constructing what we call, "off-stream storage."
Off-stream storage is a reservoir typical to the San Luis Reservoir. You know,
we had a great plan, we had what was called -- we have the San Luis Reservoir
and then we had another reservoir that was basically designed and on the
construction screen for the State of California when -- because of some
environmental concerns with endangered species we did not build that. It was
called, "Las Banos Grandes," and it would have been the same size and it would
have sat right next to the San Luis Reservoir. San Luis Reservoir is 2.2 million
acre feet. Los Banos Grandes would have been 2.2 million acre feet. So, we would
have doubled our storage south of the delta. It would have made a huge
difference in today's ability to provide water to agriculture. This was being

proposed, Tom, back in the late '70s and early '80s, and it just got pushed off
of the side during that time.
>> Tom Holyoke: Because primarily of environmental concerns? There were cost
concerns?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Well, you know, yes, a lot of it -- for one there was -- one
thing that set it back -- because there were some historic archaeological sites
like what they call, "the baths," in other words there were rock formations that
were used for baths by long ago travelers over the Pacheco Pass, whether it be
Indians, priests during the mission days, there were baths. And some of those
baths during the initial survey construction were destroyed. And that created a
pretty big public outcry. But then along came other issues like the endangered
creek sycamore tree, and some other issues for endangered species. And so we got
into a position that we needed to study how we were going to mitigate for those
environmental concerns, and then time mounted or costs mounted. And then the
State, who was going to probably -- the State I believe was going to own
probably 100% of the reservoir, got to a point where it just wasn't cost
effective at that time to build it. So, we missed a window of being able to put
in some additional off-stream storage. You know, you've got to admit, there are
some valid concerns about whether you want to put that storage in and not worry
about impacts that it would have created with some of these environmental
concerns, or you know, whether you really wanted to take the time and do it so
that it was satisfying to more than just the agricultural community.
>> Tom Holyoke: At this point now, given water concerns your district faces,
what kind of water storage projects or conveyance projects would be most useful
to you?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Well, you know, it's the big project. I mean, the project
that solves the water supply now -- for the future, is the peripheral canal. We
don't call it "the peripheral canal" anymore, we call it "Bob," because if
you're calling it "the peripheral canal" you get a lot of, you know...
>> Tom Holyoke: Bad memories of '82?
>> Dennis Falaschi: ...bad memories of '82. But no, what we're focusing on now
is we're calling it a conveyance facility through the delta, or under the delta.
As you know now, our main focus is on a tunnel. We think there'd be less
environmental impacts by a tunnel project, and that's what we're focused on and
that's what we're trying to fund -- raise funds to do. Your question was -- Tom,
and your question was is what projects, you know, are you focused on now to make
sure that you have an adequate water supply? That is the main one for the
future. The projects that we're focused on now for the short term is being able
to justify that we can move more water through the pumping facilities in the
delta that don't have an adverse effect on the environment. And we think there's
a lot of information and a lot of things that we can do that will allow for
that.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. In other words, I guess the concern is that the suction
from the pumping has been hurting the smelt populations up there; smelt being,
you know, I guess trained is the word on the suction pumps. And what you're
saying is that there's things that can be done to reduce damage to the smelt
population from the pumping or ->> Dennis Falaschi: Well, you're right, yes, Tom, you're right when you're
saying that most of the focus on the pumping has been on the Delta Mendota --

sorry on the delta smelt. And I guess the reason being is that a lot of our
biologists, or they call the smelt the indicator as to what's happening in the
rest of the delta. So, and what they can -- what we can focus on really is the
only thing that you can really focus on is you have to look -- you look at the
pumps, because you have real information there. And you have a switch you can
turn on and off. But what we're really not focusing on is do we take into
account the striped bass? The striped bass is a nonnative fish to California,
but as you know, the striped bass is just a ferocious critter eater. And they
can line up wherever they want to line up in the delta, and if in fact the smelt
are being drawn either through flows or to the pumps, the striped bass can just
gorge himself. We also know -- and there is becoming more and more information
available every day, good sound data, that there is a lot of effect on the delta
smelt through ammonia discharges from waste water treatment plants. I.E., when
you have a treatment plant for a city in a city that is in the general location
of the delta, you discharge your waste water, the ammonia has a terrible effect
on the delta smelt. But the problem is -- and I don't want to quote anybody on
this specifically, but the problem is is that even though we know there are
other impacts on the delta -- on the smelt, the only thing that we can really
control are the pumps. We can't go out and gather up all the striped bass. It's
difficult for us to stop the ammonia discharges, but we can go turn a switch off
on either the state pumping plant or the federal pumping plant, and therefore we
can say that, "Hey, you know, we're not taking -- we're not damaging this
endangered species."
>> Tom Holyoke: So that's why all the focus has been put on the pumping plants,
because it's the easy solution that's not ->> Dennis Falaschi: It's the easy -- yeah, Tom, it's the easy solution. And not
only that, but we do not -- when I say, "we," our community, our ag community
and others, other communities, let's take met [phonetic] for example, and even
some of the state contractors, we are not really satisfied with the scientific
data that's being used that are saying that the pumps are the sole reason for
the loss in the population of the smelt. We say yes, it does have an impact, but
is it -- by shutting us down are we going to recover the population of the
smelt? We don't think so. We think there's a lot of things that are going on.
First, we think there is a loss of food supply for the smelt. Asian clams that
drop off of shipping ships that come from overseas, they're ferocious eaters of
a lot of the feeding chain that the smelt used. There's a huge impact we think
from some of the fisheries like the striped bass and so on. So, you know, we are
very, very concerned about the scientific data that is saying that, "If you
don't pump, you don't have a problem."
>> Tom Holyoke: And building a tunnel under the delta, I guess the idea there is
to capture, you know, clean water out of Sacramento on the north side of the
delta and bring it around. And that partially solves I guess some of these
concerns because there would be less pumping then out of the delta itself?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Exactly; so what you're trying to do is you're not trying to
take water away from the delta, but you're trying to keep surplus water out of
the delta. In other words, the delta needs to stay whole. They need to have
their flows. They need to have -- the delta needs to have a continuance of their
existing water supply. And what the tunnel would do would be able to take -- we
have surplus water now that goes through the delta and out into the ocean. It's
-- well I'll just say it, what we deem to be wasted water, doesn't really do
anybody any good, because it's just going out to the ocean. What we're saying is
that you don't affect the delta, and what they already have. You don't need to
operate the pumps so that they're pulling water through the delta, which then

affects the smelt. The tunnel would circumvent the delta and bring the water in
to the pumping plants where they're not creating a reverse flow from the delta.
And the way, Tom, but really what the -- since we don't think it's going to be a
canal -- a peripheral canal, it's going to be more like a tunnel facility. This
-- you know, it's -- I think the perception is is that, "Well, you're going to
build this tunnel, and you're going to just take all this water from Northern
California and move it to the Central Valley and move it south." That is not and
certainly could not be the way it would be operated. There are many times in the
Sacramento River and other confluences that have surplus water that is made
available that can be transported. We have many times now through the delta
where we have thousands and thousands and thousands of acre feet of surplus
water, but we can't pump it because of the restrictions on the pumping plants
for the endangered species. That's what we're trying to elude.
>> Tom Holyoke: So, in other words, water districts and farmers north of the
delta would actually not see reductions to their water supplies or even farm
towns around the delta?
>> Dennis Falaschi: That's what the plan would be, Tom, but it's hard to get
people -- it's hard to get stakeholders buying, buying into that now; because
anytime you know that there is a facility that's going to divert that water, I
think your number one concern is going to be, "How is that going to affect me?
How can you guarantee me that I won't be a third party -- I won't have third
party impacts, or I won't have -- you know, how can I not be affected," and
that's the whole process now is that, you know, there has to be an understanding
that this project is not a project proposed to take your water away delta and
bring it to the Central Valley and the south of California. This project is only
to move surplus water to the Central Valley and Southern California. And that's,
you know, that's a hard, a hard sell. I mean, that's a hard sell. And it's not a
new problem for the State of California. How long -- what's the old saying, "If
you really want security, you keep moving further upstream," you know. So,
that's kind of where we're at now. We're at a -- you know, we're at a huge
turning point for the State of California. You know, short of a facility being
built, the State of California economically in my opinion is going to have -- is
going to be hugely impacted. If you can't continue to provide water to the
agricultural community, not just in the Central Valley, but as you move southern
end of the state, which would be beneficiaries of that water, what's going to
happen to the economy of the state when ag virtually is the number one driven
economy in the state now?
>> Tom Holyoke: So, 2012, any sense as to when or if the tunnel end of the delta
will be built? I mean, that relies on the State of California issuing bonds
which requires voter approval?
>> Dennis Falaschi: I think I'm feeling a lot -- I think we're feeling a lot
better now than we did probably under the last administration. I don't want to
be political here, but we do have a governor currently that supports this. He
supports the building of a facility. I don't really like to call it a canal
because I know -- that's why I said earlier we call it, "Bob." But we do think
that we have -- the governor has spent a lot of energy and dedicated a lot of
very good people to push this idea to build a conveyance system around the
delta. And you know I think our current governor it was his father that started
what we call, "the Central Valley Project." His dream was to move water so that
agriculture could become a driven economy in the state, and with the governor
that we have now I think he'd like to see that completed. So, you know, I just
had this discussion with one of my associates the other day, and it's when are
people like you, Tom, going to say, "You know, I'm really being affected because

the State doesn't have a real reliable water supply." I don't think you're there
yet. I mean, you know, the general public can still go out and wash their car,
they can still pretty much take a shower as long as they want to, they're not
really too concerned about food prices. I mean, they're pretty recent, I mean
decent. So, you know, the water -- unless it's a really, really dry year when
you're getting high water bills from your municipal deliverer, it's not really a
hot enough I think issue right now for the public to get real, to get real
energized to build this conveyance system.
>> Tom Holyoke: Oh, yes, and here in the City of Fresno we're just now entering
the world of water metering.
>> Dennis Falaschi: Right.
>> Tom Holyoke: That may be a wake-up call for some people.
>> Dennis Falaschi: Right; and so but I think that we lost a lot of traction
last year because we had one of the wettest years on record. And you know I -well I blame myself as much as anybody because when you're not worried about a
water supply you tend to take on other issues. But now here we are again this
year with probably the second driest rainfall year on record, and we're back
spending 90%, 5% of our time saying, "How are we going to get a water supply for
this year, and how are we going to sustain the long-term water supply?"
Unfortunately, the infrastructure and the plumbing system in our state is only
as good as the water year type we've had. So, what I mean by that is if we'd had
off-stream storage in place, for instance, Los Banos Grandes, last year we could
have been -- we could have filled that reservoir because of the amount of
rainfall we had, and surplus water coming through the delta, we could have been
sitting on another 2.2 million acre feet of water for this dry year. That's the
whole need for the off-stream storage.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Actually, to bounce back to a question I asked at the very
beginning in terms of what water management -- what a general management from
water district does on a day-to-day basis, given that these are your concerns it
would seem to be that you would spend an awful lot of time dealing with elected
officials and lawyers more than farmers and ->> Dennis Falaschi: Well...
>> Tom Holyoke: I don't know if that's true or not, but ->> Dennis Falaschi: ...you know, I'd rather think that we spend a lot more of
our time with consultants or individuals that can be very productive. It scares
me to think that I'm spending a lot of time with lawyers because although, you
know, let's face it, everybody needs lawyers, but when you are using them how
productive are you really being? You know, so we need them, we've got to have
them, but I like to think that I spend a lot of my time with forward thinkers,
people that can put things together and gather the necessary information we need
so that we can deem that it's a productive proposal. I think that's what we're
doing now with our group, we call it, the committee to build -- we have a
committee, that is basically led by Westland Water District, where we are trying
to justify building this conveyance facility. And I think that we have onboard
some really high-profile productive people to do that. Can people in politics
help? Tom, I'm not too sure in the State of California, because we're so -- you
know, I'm just not too sure. I think our differences in different political
areas create us a lot of problems with trying to build facilities; let's put it
that way.

>> Tom Holyoke: One different topic to turn to, assuming it's a genuine issue at
Panoche Water District. In this problem with water drainage, has that been -- I
know many of the west side farms and districts that had a problem with water
drainage. Has that with a problem with Panoche?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Yes. Well, again, I don't like to consider it a problem.
It's been a task that we're managing and I'm not being -- I'm not trying to be
sarcastic when I say this, but if we look at something like drainage as a
problem, it's going to be gloom and doom, Tom. So, we take drainage and we say,
"How do we turn that into a resource?" Okay? You've got something that's
problematic but does it really mean it's a problem. I mean, let's -- we look at
drainage -- first of all, there's two types of drainage. When you apply water to
your field, you can have runoff from the top of your field, that's what they
call, "surface water runoff," or "tail water." Okay. If you're a district like
us, you have a short water supply, right, and your water is very expensive. So,
believe me, any water that comes off of your field on the top, you're going to
pick it up and you're going to reuse it; because otherwise, that's purely a
waste, is what it is. So, when we talk about drainage, our drainage is never
from water that we apply on the surface, because it's all picked up reused,
reused, until it's not there any longer. What we do have, though, is what's
called -- in some areas of the district, it's called, "a shallow groundwater
table." And it's a water table that generally lurks about eight feet down from
the ground surface. And the reason that it lurks at that depth is because when
you get down three or four hundred feet further down, you have what's called, "a
hard Corcoran clay." Believe it or not, that corker and clay is just like this
floor that we're perched on here. And so the water that is leeched through the
soils over the years has hit that hard Corcoran clay and then it's gradually
just raised up because it's got nowhere to go. So, it works its way up to the
surface. If you did not do anything to deal with that water, Tom, it would
eventually come up and get into the root zones of the plants. And, you know,
what do you do when you have a houseplant in a pot that has no drain on it? The
house plant, it drowns. Okay. That's the same thing that would happen to crops
in the field. If you did not drain off that subsurface shell of water table -it's called a "perched water table." So, what we've done to deal with it is
we've gone in and we've put in what's called "subsurface tile lines." They're
called "tile lines" because they used to make them out of tile bite. Now they're
made out of the flexible tubing material that's perforated, encased in gravel.
What that does, Tom, is it takes the shallow water into this pipe, and it moves
it out of the field, into a pump sump and then it's pumped out. Now, you asked
me -- it's a drainage problem. Well, the only reason that it's a drainage
problem is because that water generally is high in naturally occurring salts and
heavy metals. One thing about your subsurface perched water, what is mined in
that tile line as far as water in itself is as pure as can be. There are no
manmade pesticides in that water, or any other toxic concentrations that enter
into that water, because of its filtering system. What you do get is you get
naturally occurring metals that really make that water unusable. What I'm
talking about is boron and salts; sodium. So, the water generally is not
suitable for use on most crops. And not -- it becomes a drainage problem, as you
called it, because you cannot transport that water anywhere out of the area
without some real regulatory issues. In other words, historically Panoche has
drained to the San Joaquin River. The San Joaquin River because of water quality
issues really doesn't want the drain water anymore because we're high in salts,
we're high in boron. They want to eliminate a salinity problem on the San
Joaquin River, a river that eventually ends up in the delta, and becomes part of
other people's water supply. So, simply what we've done is we've put in an
infrastructure to collect that water, instead of discharging it to the San

Joaquin River, we've gone out and we've purchased ground that did not have a
water supply, and was not being farmed outside of any water district. We didn't
buy land in Panoche or we bought land that was dry-farmed or did not have an
irrigation supply. And we then developed that land to grow very high-saline
crops, Jose tall wheatgrass and as exotic as pistachios. And we've been able to
discharge most of that problematic water, if we're going to call it that, onto
these re-use areas. And that basically has provided us with the drainage
service.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. And actually what kind of crops grow on that water, and
you had mentioned -- I think it was mentioned pistachios?
>> Dennis Falaschi: Yes. We have found this grass is the most amazing thing -it's the most amazing grass you can ever imagine. It's called, Jose tall
wheatgrass, and generally we found it in the Midwest, and it is unbelievable. It
will almost grow on seawater. And it has a resilience and a -- it just loves
saline water, and it grows, and it grows lush. I mean, we have, you know, we
have fields that are ten years old and they look better now than when we first
planted them on this saline water. Now, the good part -- one of the good parts
is is it takes a lot of water. We can displace and it will assimilate and use
five to six acre feet of water per acre. That's a lot of water, Tom. I mean, one
acre foot being 360,000 gallons, if you could put six or seven acre feet of
water, that's, what, three million acre feet -- I'm sorry, that's three million
gallons on one acre per year, and the grass drinks it. Okay. That's the good
news, but there's an even better news is that that grass can be harvested, cut,
baled -- it's cut and baled, and used in the dairy industry.
>> Tom Holyoke: Oh.
>> Dennis Falaschi: For -- and we have a great market for this grass, and
selling it to the dairy industry -- dairy industry likes it because it's high in
protein, and it becomes part of their feeding schedules. In other words, when
they put together their feeding schedules for the year -- and I don't want to
call it a schedule, but a feeding plan for the year, you know, they may use
alfalfa hay, they may use beat pulp. And then they're looking for something else
if they can call a filler that's not real expensive, but it's fairly high in
protein, our wheat grass fits. And so there are plants that you can use that
will thrive on the saline water. Another one is called a paspalum grass. It's a
form of a Bermuda grass, and it's very popular on golf courses. They use it a
lot in areas -- Hawaii, a lot of their golf courses are paspalum grass. They
have a water shortage, and they get a lot of salt that comes in off of the ocean
and the breezes, and this grass will -- is suitable for that type of -- so we
plant paspalum grass use our saline drainage water to irrigate it, and then
Bermuda grass is another grass that is very, very salt tolerant, and will
assimilate a lot of this water.
>> Tom Holyoke: Wonderful; that is the end of my questions. Is there anything
else that you feel we need to cover?
>> Dennis Falaschi: No. You know, I -- you know, I guess I would say that this
industry, this agricultural industry, is so interesting and so exciting that,
you know, it's worth every day to get up and go to work and do this. You know,
what I think is very misunderstood is who actually are we talking about when we
talk about the ag industry? I mean, you're talking about people that could be
doing a lot of other things, but they love to farm. And you'll find out that
most people in this Central Valley, in this area, it's a family. It's a family
business. In my district I -- the average time of owning land in my district is

about 40 years; 40
that are currently
to do this because
ag, but, you know,
very important and
so.

years. The problems that we see now is that the generation
farming are maybe running out of the next generation to want
of a lot of the issues that we're dealing with as it comes to
I guess I would just close by saying that this is a very,
productive industry, not only to the state but to the world

>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Thank you very much.

Item sets

Water Archives Set