Dale Melville interview
Item
Title
eng
Dale Melville interview
Description
eng
Civil engineer working in water, developing many of the municipal water systems around the Valley and in the high desert. A specialist in waste water.
Creator
eng
Melville, Dale
eng
Holyoke, Thomas
Relation
eng
Water Archive Oral Histories
Coverage
eng
California State University, Fresno
Date
eng
7/7/2015
Format
eng
Microsoft Word 2003 document, 15 pages
Identifier
eng
SCMS_waoh_00034
extracted text
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: We're talking to Dale Melville. So let's
just start with a little bit of biographical history. Where are you from?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh, the west -- the west basically,
Seattle. Born in Seattle. Lived in Eugene, Oregon for a while and Salt
Lake City, in that area for a couple years. Grew up, junior high and high
school in the Bay area. Went to college at UC Davis, both undergrad and
graduate school. Undergraduate in mechanical engineering, graduate school
in civil environmental engineering. And moved down to this area, Reedley,
interestingly because my wife and I didn't want to work in the Bay area
or LA where most of the consulting jobs were in wastewater treatment,
which was what my masters was in. And so we moved down a farm that had
been in her family since 1917. And we've ended up buying-- buying the
ranch a while -- a few years later and have been living here ever since,
down near Reedley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Your wife, herself, grew up in the
Valley?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: She grew up in Sacramento. Yeah, born in
Visalia but grew up most of her life in Sacramento.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And when you were getting a graduate
degree out in the Bay area, you intended to become sort of a consulting
eng – I mean a civil engineer?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, well, yeah. Graduate I definitely
wanted to go into consulting and civil engineering.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Spend a life with wastewater?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what was your first job?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: First job in engineering was doing
actually some consulting for my graduate advisor, did some consulting for
him for a while and then went to work in Fresno for a firm called Braun,
Pasillas, and Wagner. At the time they were the largest civil engineering
firm in Fresno and they-- worked with them for about six years. And then
went on -- went on my own for a couple years. And, fortunately, got too
much work that -- more work than I felt I could handle, and at age 30 was
a little bit afraid of hiring that first employee and the
responsibilities that went with that so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: With the first firm you were at, what was
their name again?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner. They ended up
being known as BPW Engineers.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: BPW, and about what year did you go to
work for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: That was from '74 to 1980.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. What kind of projects were you
working on for them? What kind of projects were they involved with?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: A lot of – they, they did a lot of
municipal work, cities, small communities, up and down the valley. I,
with my wastewater background, did a lot of wastewater treatment
facilities, sewer projects, water projects and everywhere from oh, up in
the mountains down to the desert out in Boron so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of cities and towns were you -did you do work for?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see, it was Boron Community Services
District, Corcoran County area surrounding the city. We put sewers and
water in there. Similar in city of Hanford, Stratford. Boy, I'm trying to
remember. That's a long -- that was a long time ago. But, you know Orange
Cove, yeah.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These -- any particular cases where you
would've been putting in the first sewer system by any chance?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: One definitely comes to mind. A lot of
these were first sewer systems but Boron was a -- a community that was
all septic tank at, at the time. And they had some documented health
hazards out there and failing systems. So we ended up putting in sewers
as well as a treatment disposal facilities for that community. And it's
still operating today in pretty much the same way it was done in the late
'70s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, built to last. So you decide
to strike out on your own in 1980?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep, I was ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What sort of brought that along?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, it was a group of us that were the,
Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner, the owners were getting ready to retire and
wanted to sell their business. It was a group of us that were interested
in buying that business and we couldn't come to terms with them for what
they thought their business was worth, so pretty much all of us ended up
going our own directions and leaving that firm and either going to work
elsewhere or starting our own, own businesses. And as it turned out they
ended up selling the company to a family from, I think it was Puerto
Rico, and within one to two years afterwards the business was -- had gone
bankrupt so. I think we left at the right time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of client's did you have when
you first went out on your own?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: My first client was a community service
district down in Kern County, Golden Hills Community Services District
and started them and have been with them actually since 1979. And just
recently, a couple years ago, transferred them -- or passed them on to
another engineer in, at Provost and Pritchard so. It's -- I actually did
some work for them again this, this spring so that's my probably longest
serving client. Did a lot of my other work with four as a sub-consultant
to other engineers including Provost and Pritchard. Worked on wastewater
plant at Brighton Creek, or Brighton, let's see, yeah, Brighton Crest
Subdivision and also did some work for city of Kerman as a sub there and
various wastewater plants in the community.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Something that people who are watching
this might not know, and I'm a little weak on it myself, some of the
terms you use like a community service district. What-- what is that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a -- it's an urban area in a, in a
county that has not taken the steps to become incorporated as a city. So
a lot of areas around here are -- in the valley and elsewhere in the
state of farm it's a public entity. It’s, has their own governing board.
But they're within a county but not officially a city so. And they range
anywhere from, you know, populations may range from, you know, a few
hundred people to several thousand people.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And you were creating -– so this is sewer
systems too you were creating for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right. Yeah, yeah they have -- most of
them have the ability to do roads and lighting and water and sewer
systems. Most of them start off with water as a basic need. Some of them
still have the county operating the road systems.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we have a few topics here that
I think we kind of really wanted to hit and, Jim, stop me if I hit the
wrong one first. But should we start with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Sure.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge, water district or
irrigation district?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It’s a water district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: [Inaudible] Water district. What was your
involvement with them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, as a -- well Jim Provost was my
mentor. He was-- Jim was their district manager engineer from, I think it
was 1972 to 1993. And when I came to work for Provost and Pritchard in
1994 -- 1984, excuse me, Jim started having me assist him in -- with
Dudley Ridge Water District and kind of the operations and some of the
day-to-day water ordering and-- and more simple issues to begin with. And
over time he passed that district on to me in 1993 and I've been the
manager engineer since then. And it involves -- it's a agricultural
district, 100% agriculture. There's maybe 20 to 30 people that might live
in -- within the district, primarily those involved with the
agricultural-- agricultural products and farming operations there. And
kind of -- Dudley Ridge, it started off -- it was formed in January of
1963. And evolved -- and the purpose of, of the formation was as a state
water project was coming down the valley they wanted to become a state
contractor and get their water -- main water supply from the state
project. The-- the district has changed an awful lot since the 1968 when
the first state water project deliveries were made. It was primarily
furrow irrigation. You had a lot of row crops, cotton, tomatoes, melons,
and some permanent crops, primarily almonds and olives. And as the cost
of water went up and the reliability of that water started decreasing
there was a great move towards permanent crops. And today in the district
it's 100% permanent crops, olives -- olives have gone. It's primarily
almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, grapes, and some sun fruit. All -- the
entire system is in drip or microsystem irrigation, highly efficient. All
the canals are either the concrete lined or, or in pipeline as the main
distribution system. So it's an extremely efficient district in terms of
water conservation. And it's been an extremely say productive district.
It's got great lands out there and with the -- particularly the nut
crops, have been very profitable the last several years. And-- and it's
been doing well from a farming aspect. The biggest issue is always the
water.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: It occurs to me that several of these
interviews you've mentioned Dudley Ridge Water District, I'm not sure at
any point we were actually explained where it is. Where is it?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Out in the middle of nowhere is where some
people might think. But it's right along I5 in the California aqueduct,
just south of Kettleman City down to the Kings Kern County line. So it's
about a 40,000 acre district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, is it a district of large
landowners, small landowners?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: There's about 160 landowners but most of
those are absentee landowners and there's primarily about seven farming
operations, two large ones and a few small ones out there that farm the
irrigated land out there. The largest operations are wonderful orchards
which just recently named -- changed their name to that, better known
probably in the past anyway as Paramount Farming Company. And the other
is Sandridge Partners. A-- and both Paramount, excuse me, Wonderful and
Sandridge farm in multiple areas in the west side, some little bit on the
east side too, but pretty much from areas, Dudley Ridge south down to
into Kern County.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So you had mentioned that you were
involved with Dudley Ridge when water cutbacks began, or at least the
reliability of water supplies began to decrease. What was happening?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, hydrologic in some areas and
regulatory in other areas. The -- my probably first -- my first real
experience with cutbacks was in 1991 when we had a major drought and the
formation of very first state banking project -- banking program where
state contractors negotiated, and others, but primarily state
contractors, negotiated with DWR and districts -- water districts north
of the Delta and were able to purchase supplies to bring through the
Delta down to areas such as Dudley Ridge, as well as Metropolitan Water
District in southern California. Basically, LA, San Diego area. And that
was an interesting process because it was the first time the state had
been involved with that on a, this type of scale. And multiple sellers,
multiple buyers, and I was involved numerous meetings in Sacramento on
that development of that drought water bank, which was pretty exciting at
the time. Pretty desperate as we were trying to get -- we were faced in
Dudley Ridge and the agriculture with a zero water allocation at that
time and so whatever water we were able to secure for northern California
was all the water we were going to have that year.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Drought water bank, is that something
that there is a lot of experience with at the time? Was this a whole kind
of new idea?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It was a brand new idea at the time. Back
in the late '70s there was, you know, a major drought back then where
water supplies were cut back to agricultural and there was some
individual deals that went on between buyers and sellers. Jim Provost was
instrumental in bringing some water in to Dudley Ridge they had
transferred from southern California. But on a massive scale there really
weren't any-- any, I'll say major water transfers prior to 1991.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: SO when -- putting it together, a drought
water bank, I mean, is, you know, is that actually putting water into the
ground, recharge-- recharging the ground water?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You may be confusing that, Tom, with a
groundwater bank. This -- the drought water bank was specifically to get
-- bring surface water from those that had surplus supplies up in
northern California down to direct deliveries for irrigation and or
municipal needs south of the Delta.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So we are-- we are talking kind of
water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges are out there
for water transfers? You said this was kind of a new thing -- a new
thing. In fact, Jim here was telling me he was involved with one of the
very first water transfers with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you know much about that or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Maybe just what I've heard from Jim
because it was before I started working at Provost and Pritchard, and
actually before I was involved in agricultural -- actually I was still in
college [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a long, long time ago. But, yeah,
that was where Jim went down and negotiated with the assistant manager of
Metropolitan Water District and was able to secure some minimal amount of
water to keep permanent crops alive in Dudley Ridge in I think it was
1972, or '77, '78.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: '76.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: '76. Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges do you face
with water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, backing up a little bit on -- has to
do with water transfers is that after 1991 Dudley Ridge really realized
that we needed to increase our water portfolio, because we have no
groundwater in our district, which is very unusual. And so being solely
reliant on the state water project for its water supply, realized that we
needed to do a lot of water transfers, exchanges, groundwater banking
programs to give us more flexibility in years where we weren't getting a
adequate water supply in order to bring additional water in to the
district. And so the growers, as well as the district, have done lots of
things in that area including one, participating in the Kern Water Bank
back in 1995, where in wetter years we can deliver water into the Kern
Water Bank, and then dryer years pump it back up and get it delivered in
by exchange into the district. We developed a program with San Gabriel
Valley Municipal Water District down south of the Tehachapis and were
able to come up with an exchange program where in essence we could
deliver water to them in advance and be able to call that back when -- in
dryer years when we needed it. We have a groundwater banking program with
Cawelo Water District on the east side of Kern County, a small program
with Semi-Tropic Water District down in Kern County, and take advantage
as often as we can with dry year transfers, very similar to the -- what
the drought water bank did in 1991 with various districts up in northern
California. We have one -- couple multi-year agreements. One with Butte
County and one with Browns Valley Irrigation District, both of those up
in northern California area that helps provide a-- a base, base supplied
to us in different years when we need it.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is this just a matter of changing -legally changing the amount of water you can take out of the California
aqueduct or the San Luis Canal or however the water was getting there, or
is this require a much more complex conveyance infrastructure to move all
this water around?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, the physical movement is pretty
simple. It is through the existing facilities. Whether it be facilities
that Kern Water Bank did construct several facilities [inaudible] it
conveyed from their recharge areas back to the aqueducts, so they did put
some -- a major canal in there. But since the late '90s that's been
existing. The other programs that we are involved with all-- all utilize
existing facilities so. It's the negotiations and the arrangements and
the approvals and CEQA and other issues that make it -- these type of
programs a little more complicated.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does the water transfer have to -- has -does it have CEQA hurdles to cross?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yup, yes, it did. It does and it varies
depending on the-- on the specifics of the transfer. But most of them, in
fact all of them from northern California that come across the Delta, or
at least requiring negative declarations. A lot of the ones that are in
inner basins, so kind of in our local area, those just require a notice
of exemption ‘cause you're using existing facilities and existing
agreements to move that water. Dudley Ridge did do something rather
innovative that the Department of Water Resources is using as an example
for other districts to do regarding CEQA where agriculture and urban
districts are required to put together water management plans and renew
those every five years. And when Dudley Ridge did our first one, I think
it was back in 2005 and then updates since then, we've gone ahead and
done a CEQA document on our water management plan. And our water
management plan talks about the various ways that we can and have
exchanged and transferred water, and so when we do the CEQA document on
our water management plan, anything that is covered in that water
management plan has in essence gotten CEQA coverage. So when we do a
transfer that's compatible with that program we can just not have to do a
new document, we can sit back and rely on that CEQA document for
approvals.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These kinds of water transfers, do they
have a tendency at all to draw litigation?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Occasionally, particularly -- usually very
seldom within south of the Delta. I don't think I've ever had one that's
been litigated south of the Delta. North of the Delta there are, it's -there's a lot more sentiment and passion involved in water going north to
south and there are some entities that well have, have filed lawsuits,
usually people in northern California, special interest groups, or within
the Delta itself, some of the Delta water users so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Anything else from the -- involving
Dudley Ridge we need to pick up on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see if there's anything that just
jumps out, I think that-- pretty good on Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we're also-- talk a little bit
more broadly about state water project.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of involvement have you had -well, Dudley Ridge was connected to the state water project I gather, but
what other experiences with the SWP have you had?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, the -- most of the involvement has
been through Dudley Ridge. I have done a couple of projects for other
state water contractors, actually back in the 1995 and a couple years
after that. In 1994, '95 there was a Delta cord in a Monterey Amendment
that were -- came into play that re-shaped the way some of the contract
provisions dealt with agriculture and banking and transfers, some
financial issues. And through that process one of the things that allowed
was a different vehicle for allowing permanent transfers from -primarily from urban -- or from agricultural agencies to urban water
agencies. And one of the jobs I had with the consent of Dudley Ridge, and
some of our agricultural water clients, was to consult to the urban water
agencies on what the value of the water would be if they were to purchase
water. There was -- the Monterey Agreement allowed 130,000 acres -- acre
feet to be transferred from urban areas in Kern County to, excuse me,
agriculture areas in Kern County to urban areas. And with my knowledge of
what the agricultural economy was and markets were, I was able to provide
a report and advice to those urban agencies as to what reasonable prices
for-- for water were. They didn't really believe me. They thought that
they could get it for less than that. And, as it turned out, the first
deal that was struck was exactly the dollar amount that I'd thought that
they would need to pay so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is there a fair amount of municipalities
buying agricultural water going on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It it's happened sporadically since 1995.
The most recent one was a couple years ago but Kern County has sold about
100, well 130,000 acre feet Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District has
sold probably in the low tens of thousands, 10 to 20,000 acre feet. And
Dudley Ridge has sold probably in the order of about 20,000 acre feet,
majority of those in one-- one sale for Dudley Ridge. So it's supply and
demand. And some of the districts, such as Dudley Ridge, allow our
farmers to make some of those decisions. And as long as there's a first
right of refusal for others in the district to-- to secure that water.
They're -- they've allowed that water to be sold. I have to say that with
-- on the major sale that Dudley Ridge had to Mojave Water Agency, which
was a 14,000 acre foot of state project table A water. It was phased out
over a ten year period, and we're about in the middle of that 10 years
right now. But that -- the grower that sold that water, Sandridge
Partners, you know, a lot of people thought well, you're going to sell
this and I think they brought in some kind of like $70 million and
they're going to get out of farming, head to Hawaii, and that's the last
people will see of them. They -- to the contrary they realize that being
highly reliant on the state project was detrimental to their long-term
survival and took that money and invested it in other areas, other
districts, other areas that had groundwater supplies and other surface
supplies if they could transfer part of that water into Dudley Ridge. So
they've, in essence, made their own water portfolio much more resilient
to different types of water supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Lot of the water that is being
transferred, is that water that comes out of the state water project or
is this a lot of groundwater that's being moved around and transferred?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: All of the above plus other sources
outside the state water project, other surface supplies, actually from
northern California we've transferred water down into to Dudley Ridge.
We've moved groundwater supplies. We've brought water from banking
programs. We've purchased water from other state contractors, done
exchanges with other state contractors. So it's a real potpourri of water
that you're constantly looking for, trying to look where the -- you know,
where there's available water in any particular year, or multiple years
so.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: On a state water project, Monterey accord
and the establishment of the Kern Groundwater Bank, can you tell us the
history on that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I know you talked with Ernest Conant
earlier and he probably has a lot more of the details of that. But from
the Dudley Ridge perspective, yeah, Dudley Ridge gave up about a little - about 4,500 acre feet of our state contract in order to purchase a
share of what -- in what the state had been trying to do for about 10
years, which was develop a groundwater banking program in Kern County
that initially the plan was that it would be used by the state water
project to help in terms of increasing reliability, but after 10 years
the state was unable to put the program together and as part of the
Monterey Agreement, Dudley Ridge and Kern County Water Agency gave up a
total of 45,000 acre feet, 10% of Dudley Ridge's -- being Dudley Ridge's
contribution and purchased the land that the state had owned and trying
to put the banking facility together.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Why did the state fail?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I just assume probably not [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Fair enough.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Bad mouth anybody but it was, you know,
it's tough. It was a state agency coming in to a local area trying to
take control of-- of what a lot of people consider a local interest is a
difficult challenge. It's a lot easier when, you know, a local entity
takes control knowing that they're going to be using that water primarily
for their own -- within their own area so. But I did become one of the
founding members of the board of directors for the Kern Water -- Kern
County -- excuse me, Kern Water Bank Authority and did that for I think
it was over 10 years as we-- we brought that project and a lot of the
credit goes to Wonderful Orchards, or at the time Paramount Farming
Company. They really took a leadership position in getting done what the
state hadn't been able to do. And one of the major things was putting
together the environmental documents and clearance in order to get a 75
year habitat conservation plan in place with both the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game at the
time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So comment on the mechanics of this, say
Dudley Ridge's point of view. So they have to give up some of their
allocation of water from the state water project, and that water is put
into the Kern -- the Kern Water Bank and just, I suppose, to extend the
bank analogy, is this something like creating an account, a savings
account of water in the bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You're a water expert all ready, Tom.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Well.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, very similar. What we would do in
wetter years, take excess state project water that we have entitled, to
recharge it in the bank, and recharge it goes into large ponds and soaks
into the ground. We also purchase water from other areas when they're in
abundant supply, including flood flows off the Friant Kern Canal, flood
flows off the Kern River, as well as other districts that, for one reason
or another, have excess water in a year that are afraid that they're
going to lose that water if they don't put it to some beneficial use. So
that water goes into the -- into the ground. We've got, I think there's
close to 90 wells in the Kern Water Bank that has a -- that in dry years
those wells pump that water back into two canal systems, one the Kern
Water Bank which takes it back to the California aqueduct and also into
the Cross Valley Canal, which can either take the water to the-- the
California aqueduct or deliver it to various entities in Kern County that
take their deliveries off the Cross Valley Canal.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is the Metropolitan involved in the Kern
Water Bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: They are not. There's six-- six public
entities. You've got the Westside Mutual Water Company, you've got Dudley
Ridge Water District, Semi-Tropic Water Storage District, Wheeler Ridge
Maricopa Water Storage District, Tejon Water District, and Kern County
Water Agency Improvement District Number Four so. There's a -- and those
are the only entities that have ownership now. From time to time we can
make third-party deals with other entities that might wanna bank-- bank
water there. And we've done a few of those over the time -- over the
years.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So it's just public entities that are
involved? Because you had said Paramount Farmers earlier?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, yeah, in Westside Mutual Water
Company, I guess, it's a private company so, yeah, it's kind of semi
quasi-public entity but it's probably classified as a private entity.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. And how's the Kern Water Bank, I
mean has it been operated efficiently? Has it gone the way -- has the
plan worked out the way it's supposed to?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It probably could not have worked out too
much better. It -- shortly after we got the facilities in place we had
some wet years which filled the bank up almost to capacity. The capacity
is approximately a million and a half acre feet. So if you think of the
capacity, the full reservoir capacity of Pine Flat Dam plus Millerton
Lake. That's-- that’s the amount of water that the Kern Water Bank can
hold.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Now I assume that hydrologically,
geologically there's something, you know, really good about that
particular land that can sort of hold the ground -- that can take a lot
of water in and sort of hold it there?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Correct, yep, yeah. And it -- there's -down in Kern County area kind of at the bottom of the-- the, I'll say the
groundwater basin, so water doesn't flow out of there very readily.
There's some migration as the -- as the groundwater fills up in the basin
it migrates out to the side, but you don't have a lot of losses from the
basin to an outside area. So it's very efficiently operated. And I'd say
it's worked well. There is some litigation still pending on the Kern
Water Bank, the back when the original CEQA was done on that by the state
water contractors and DWR. It was litigated against. It took about
probably 15 years to do a second environmental document and that one's
more-- also recently been litigated and Kern Water Bank is one of the
issues that the litigants felt should be a statewide facility instead of
a facility utilized by a few districts so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: In other words, they're arguing that the
water in the Kern Water Bank should be more widely available throughout
the state?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yes, I think they'd like to see the whole
facility be-- be a statewide benefit instead of the six districts.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has Kern Water Bank proven beneficial for
Dudley Ridge Water District these last couple years since ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: You said ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Definitely.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge had no groundwater supply at
all. So they've -- so with no state water project allocation and no
groundwater.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, we're highly reliant on Kern Water
Bank as our main source and in the other banking and exchange programs
that we've developed. But the -- yeah, Kern Water Bank's been
instrumental. Last year we had a 5% supply from the state project, this
year a 20%. And so the bulk of that shortage has been made up by the-the water banks and other programs. The -- I should -- just to correct on
Dudley Ridge, I shouldn't say we have no groundwater, we have no usable
groundwater in the district. There's a very small amount of poor quality
water that isn't used by farmers even to the point of not taking it to
plan. We have one active well in the district that provides about an acre
foot a year to a home in the area and I think they primarily use it for -
- I think they have to treat it and use it mainly for washing down
things. But, so basically no groundwater.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What's wrong with the groundwater there?
Is it just trace elements or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, it's highly saline, and very little
of it to begin with so, there’s been numerous attempts back in the '70s
and even in the last couple of years to drill some wells and see if they
could find some usable water, either in shallower or deeper aquifer and
no one's been able to do it to have any satisfactory supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does Dudley Ridge have the same drainage
problem that other parts, say Westland Water District has?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You know, we-- we thought we were going
to. When I first came to work and Jim hired me at Provost and Pritchard,
the first job I did was going out to Dudley Ridge to look at the drainage
issue because we thought we were going to have to put in subsurface
drains throughout a large portion of the district. And in the 1980s, a
few years after we started that, when it kinda, master drainage plan is
when Paramount Farms came in and they converted all the what used to be
furrow irrigation to drip and microsystem, and it pretty much eliminated
the drainage problem. They very tightly control how much water is -- they
irrigate with and any of those topics of drainage have pretty much
disappeared with the use of the microsystem and drip irrigation
throughout the district. As well as lining con -- the canals and piping.
Used to be a lot of earthen canals. Those have all been piped and or
concrete lined.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Earthen canal you would lose water I
suppose, water just goes into the soil?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right, right, right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: I just want to question on Kern Water
Bank, you said how successful this is. Is this something that can be
easily replicated in other parts of California, or is the geology unique
to that area that makes it work?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well you have to have the right geology,
both for infiltration and in storage of the -- of the water. And it has
been replicated. Kern Water Bank was not the first water bank in the -in the state but it's-- it’s the largest one in the world. At Provost and
Pritchard we worked on several banking projects for Fresno Irrigation
District, Kings County Water District, Delano, Earlimart, numerous-numerous districts up and down the valley. But again, you have to have
the right geology and, and-- and to some degree the conveyance facilities
to and from to make it efficient. But, yeah, it's an area that has been
growing tremendously over the last 20 years and I think with -- as we
move ahead towards the -- having to develop groundwater sustainability
areas and groundwater management plans, sustainability plans, we're gonna
see groundwater banking play even a more major role in order to stabilize
the-- the groundwater in the valley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what other big topics are we
going to hit? There's –>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: [Inaudible], if we missed something?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, there's just a few-- few comments on
other things on a statewide level. We mentioned the Monterey Agreement
and the accord back in '94, '95. It seemed like about every 10 years
there's another program to try to help solve the-- the water issue in the
state. In the early -- I think it was the early part of the century, in
early 2000's, the -- it was called the CALFED program that was introduced
and worked on for -- oh, probably at least 10 years trying to quote “make
everyone better together”, both agriculture, urban, and environmental
water needs and-- and I don't know how many -- probably closer to
billions of dollars were spent on that. But not much came out of it. More
recently we've had the Delta vision and the governor’s rephrased it
earlier this year, calling it the California water fix, which involves a
lot of ecosystem restoration and proposing two tunnels to bypass the bay
or -- bypass the Delta to bring water more directly from northern
California, where the source is right now, down to the-- the pumping
facility state and federal pumping facilities and bypass the Delta, which
is -- has a lot of benefits in terms of improving water quality, being
able to direct water quality for fisheries. More specifically where
needed. It takes a big issue out of the -- in terms of the concerns over
the Delta levees themselves which seen numbers at 70% chance in the next
10 years or so that there'd be an earthquake that could disrupt the inDelta flow of the state water project and Central Valley project
deliveries.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Would we -- do you think we would have
been better off had we actually built the Peripheral Canal back in the
early 1980s? I mean, since the Twin Tunnels the governor has talked about
seems to do much of the same thing that the original Peripheral Canal
idea would have done?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, I think -- I think that would have
definitely improved the reliability of the water supply. Assuming
everything was going to work the way it was supposed to and, yeah, it -I think it would’ve given a lot more flexibility to increase reliability
for both urban and agricultural supplies. Another element in this, with
the state water project, I'm on the Board of Directors for an
organization called the State Water Project Contractors Authority. And
that was formed, oh boy, probably seven years ago at least. And the
concept of that back in the, oh probably the area – during the period
from 2005 to 2010 we were having a lot of concerns as to whether the
state was the most efficient way of operating the state project. Not
operating in terms of how much water goes into the project, but once it
gets into the-- the aqueduct whether or not there's another organization
could handle the operation and maintenance of the, the facilities
themselves. And this has been seen very similar to the -- what was done
on the Delta Mendota system on for the Central Valley project, and also
the Friant-- Friant system for the CVP also. Where local entities came in
and handled the, the management and operations of the system because the
-- in the federal case it was -- they were a little bit more amenable to
it and the state case they're not quite -- haven't been as amenable but
concerns were raised as the operational availability of the project start
dropping from low 90s down to the high 70% of when things were available.
First outages were occurring about 50% more than they were back in early
2000. And the state was having a heck of a time keeping employees -experienced employees, the average senior and supervisory position and
their operating and maintaining the facilities dropped from about 15
years to two years. And they-- the turnover was getting pretty bad to
where they weren’t being -- it was causing, causing those problems in the
state projects. So this SWPCA, the State Water Project Contractors
Authority was formed with the intent of -- at least the state water
contractor's intent was that we would be able to form an entity that
could take over those facilities. But politically that’s-- has not
happened and is probably unlikely to happen unless there's a
administration that's much more open to it than, than it is right now.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Was it just the state that was hostile to
it? Was the-- or southern water users, like Metropolitan, okay with that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, they were supportive of it. I think
the general feeling was that after a probably a two, three year
transition period they would be able to operate those facilities more
efficiently and less expensively, or even if it's at the same cost, at
least more reliable -- greater reliability than what the state had been
doing. To the state's benefit, they have in the last few years been able
to get some salary concessions, they've done a lot better job of being
able to keep qualified people on-- on staff and are improving the
reliability of the system. So hopefully if the need goes away that's the
best -- we've arrived at the right solution no matter how it was done,
so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has agricultural irrigation and water
districts in the Valley that rely on the state water project, and they
all -- they generally gotten along well with water users further south,
like the Metropolitan? Or has there been a tension between the two?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I think prior to the Monterey Agreement
and up through the conclusion of the Monterey Agreement there was -there was definitely tension. There were parts of the contract where
agricultural got the first cuts if there was a cut in deliveries and
urban agencies were-- were allowed to get their normal supply of water
and as the shift came to more permanent crops it became essential that
agricultural get a firm supply too. Because you -- trees just like people
need -- you know, you can't say well, I'm not going to water you this
year. We'll hold it off and pick up next year when it's -- we got a
better supply so. There was a lot of tension getting up to that point.
Once the Monterey Agreement, which had some good and bad elements, good
trade-offs for all entities, it's been a pretty positive situation and
every once in a great while there's a -- an issue that comes up that
sides get drawn between ag and urban, but it's-- it’s been-- been pretty
rare and generally pretty cordial arrangements between them. We look at
ourselves more as a -- in the same family now than we probably did back
in the '70s and '80s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Anything else?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Not that I can think of. I've enjoyed the
opportunity to talk with you and ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: We've enjoyed having you.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: So, thank you much.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Thank you.
just start with a little bit of biographical history. Where are you from?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh, the west -- the west basically,
Seattle. Born in Seattle. Lived in Eugene, Oregon for a while and Salt
Lake City, in that area for a couple years. Grew up, junior high and high
school in the Bay area. Went to college at UC Davis, both undergrad and
graduate school. Undergraduate in mechanical engineering, graduate school
in civil environmental engineering. And moved down to this area, Reedley,
interestingly because my wife and I didn't want to work in the Bay area
or LA where most of the consulting jobs were in wastewater treatment,
which was what my masters was in. And so we moved down a farm that had
been in her family since 1917. And we've ended up buying-- buying the
ranch a while -- a few years later and have been living here ever since,
down near Reedley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Your wife, herself, grew up in the
Valley?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: She grew up in Sacramento. Yeah, born in
Visalia but grew up most of her life in Sacramento.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And when you were getting a graduate
degree out in the Bay area, you intended to become sort of a consulting
eng – I mean a civil engineer?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, well, yeah. Graduate I definitely
wanted to go into consulting and civil engineering.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Spend a life with wastewater?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what was your first job?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: First job in engineering was doing
actually some consulting for my graduate advisor, did some consulting for
him for a while and then went to work in Fresno for a firm called Braun,
Pasillas, and Wagner. At the time they were the largest civil engineering
firm in Fresno and they-- worked with them for about six years. And then
went on -- went on my own for a couple years. And, fortunately, got too
much work that -- more work than I felt I could handle, and at age 30 was
a little bit afraid of hiring that first employee and the
responsibilities that went with that so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: With the first firm you were at, what was
their name again?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner. They ended up
being known as BPW Engineers.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: BPW, and about what year did you go to
work for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: That was from '74 to 1980.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. What kind of projects were you
working on for them? What kind of projects were they involved with?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: A lot of – they, they did a lot of
municipal work, cities, small communities, up and down the valley. I,
with my wastewater background, did a lot of wastewater treatment
facilities, sewer projects, water projects and everywhere from oh, up in
the mountains down to the desert out in Boron so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of cities and towns were you -did you do work for?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see, it was Boron Community Services
District, Corcoran County area surrounding the city. We put sewers and
water in there. Similar in city of Hanford, Stratford. Boy, I'm trying to
remember. That's a long -- that was a long time ago. But, you know Orange
Cove, yeah.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These -- any particular cases where you
would've been putting in the first sewer system by any chance?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: One definitely comes to mind. A lot of
these were first sewer systems but Boron was a -- a community that was
all septic tank at, at the time. And they had some documented health
hazards out there and failing systems. So we ended up putting in sewers
as well as a treatment disposal facilities for that community. And it's
still operating today in pretty much the same way it was done in the late
'70s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, built to last. So you decide
to strike out on your own in 1980?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep, I was ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What sort of brought that along?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, it was a group of us that were the,
Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner, the owners were getting ready to retire and
wanted to sell their business. It was a group of us that were interested
in buying that business and we couldn't come to terms with them for what
they thought their business was worth, so pretty much all of us ended up
going our own directions and leaving that firm and either going to work
elsewhere or starting our own, own businesses. And as it turned out they
ended up selling the company to a family from, I think it was Puerto
Rico, and within one to two years afterwards the business was -- had gone
bankrupt so. I think we left at the right time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of client's did you have when
you first went out on your own?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: My first client was a community service
district down in Kern County, Golden Hills Community Services District
and started them and have been with them actually since 1979. And just
recently, a couple years ago, transferred them -- or passed them on to
another engineer in, at Provost and Pritchard so. It's -- I actually did
some work for them again this, this spring so that's my probably longest
serving client. Did a lot of my other work with four as a sub-consultant
to other engineers including Provost and Pritchard. Worked on wastewater
plant at Brighton Creek, or Brighton, let's see, yeah, Brighton Crest
Subdivision and also did some work for city of Kerman as a sub there and
various wastewater plants in the community.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Something that people who are watching
this might not know, and I'm a little weak on it myself, some of the
terms you use like a community service district. What-- what is that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a -- it's an urban area in a, in a
county that has not taken the steps to become incorporated as a city. So
a lot of areas around here are -- in the valley and elsewhere in the
state of farm it's a public entity. It’s, has their own governing board.
But they're within a county but not officially a city so. And they range
anywhere from, you know, populations may range from, you know, a few
hundred people to several thousand people.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And you were creating -– so this is sewer
systems too you were creating for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right. Yeah, yeah they have -- most of
them have the ability to do roads and lighting and water and sewer
systems. Most of them start off with water as a basic need. Some of them
still have the county operating the road systems.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we have a few topics here that
I think we kind of really wanted to hit and, Jim, stop me if I hit the
wrong one first. But should we start with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Sure.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge, water district or
irrigation district?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It’s a water district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: [Inaudible] Water district. What was your
involvement with them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, as a -- well Jim Provost was my
mentor. He was-- Jim was their district manager engineer from, I think it
was 1972 to 1993. And when I came to work for Provost and Pritchard in
1994 -- 1984, excuse me, Jim started having me assist him in -- with
Dudley Ridge Water District and kind of the operations and some of the
day-to-day water ordering and-- and more simple issues to begin with. And
over time he passed that district on to me in 1993 and I've been the
manager engineer since then. And it involves -- it's a agricultural
district, 100% agriculture. There's maybe 20 to 30 people that might live
in -- within the district, primarily those involved with the
agricultural-- agricultural products and farming operations there. And
kind of -- Dudley Ridge, it started off -- it was formed in January of
1963. And evolved -- and the purpose of, of the formation was as a state
water project was coming down the valley they wanted to become a state
contractor and get their water -- main water supply from the state
project. The-- the district has changed an awful lot since the 1968 when
the first state water project deliveries were made. It was primarily
furrow irrigation. You had a lot of row crops, cotton, tomatoes, melons,
and some permanent crops, primarily almonds and olives. And as the cost
of water went up and the reliability of that water started decreasing
there was a great move towards permanent crops. And today in the district
it's 100% permanent crops, olives -- olives have gone. It's primarily
almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, grapes, and some sun fruit. All -- the
entire system is in drip or microsystem irrigation, highly efficient. All
the canals are either the concrete lined or, or in pipeline as the main
distribution system. So it's an extremely efficient district in terms of
water conservation. And it's been an extremely say productive district.
It's got great lands out there and with the -- particularly the nut
crops, have been very profitable the last several years. And-- and it's
been doing well from a farming aspect. The biggest issue is always the
water.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: It occurs to me that several of these
interviews you've mentioned Dudley Ridge Water District, I'm not sure at
any point we were actually explained where it is. Where is it?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Out in the middle of nowhere is where some
people might think. But it's right along I5 in the California aqueduct,
just south of Kettleman City down to the Kings Kern County line. So it's
about a 40,000 acre district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, is it a district of large
landowners, small landowners?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: There's about 160 landowners but most of
those are absentee landowners and there's primarily about seven farming
operations, two large ones and a few small ones out there that farm the
irrigated land out there. The largest operations are wonderful orchards
which just recently named -- changed their name to that, better known
probably in the past anyway as Paramount Farming Company. And the other
is Sandridge Partners. A-- and both Paramount, excuse me, Wonderful and
Sandridge farm in multiple areas in the west side, some little bit on the
east side too, but pretty much from areas, Dudley Ridge south down to
into Kern County.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So you had mentioned that you were
involved with Dudley Ridge when water cutbacks began, or at least the
reliability of water supplies began to decrease. What was happening?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, hydrologic in some areas and
regulatory in other areas. The -- my probably first -- my first real
experience with cutbacks was in 1991 when we had a major drought and the
formation of very first state banking project -- banking program where
state contractors negotiated, and others, but primarily state
contractors, negotiated with DWR and districts -- water districts north
of the Delta and were able to purchase supplies to bring through the
Delta down to areas such as Dudley Ridge, as well as Metropolitan Water
District in southern California. Basically, LA, San Diego area. And that
was an interesting process because it was the first time the state had
been involved with that on a, this type of scale. And multiple sellers,
multiple buyers, and I was involved numerous meetings in Sacramento on
that development of that drought water bank, which was pretty exciting at
the time. Pretty desperate as we were trying to get -- we were faced in
Dudley Ridge and the agriculture with a zero water allocation at that
time and so whatever water we were able to secure for northern California
was all the water we were going to have that year.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Drought water bank, is that something
that there is a lot of experience with at the time? Was this a whole kind
of new idea?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It was a brand new idea at the time. Back
in the late '70s there was, you know, a major drought back then where
water supplies were cut back to agricultural and there was some
individual deals that went on between buyers and sellers. Jim Provost was
instrumental in bringing some water in to Dudley Ridge they had
transferred from southern California. But on a massive scale there really
weren't any-- any, I'll say major water transfers prior to 1991.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: SO when -- putting it together, a drought
water bank, I mean, is, you know, is that actually putting water into the
ground, recharge-- recharging the ground water?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You may be confusing that, Tom, with a
groundwater bank. This -- the drought water bank was specifically to get
-- bring surface water from those that had surplus supplies up in
northern California down to direct deliveries for irrigation and or
municipal needs south of the Delta.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So we are-- we are talking kind of
water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges are out there
for water transfers? You said this was kind of a new thing -- a new
thing. In fact, Jim here was telling me he was involved with one of the
very first water transfers with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you know much about that or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Maybe just what I've heard from Jim
because it was before I started working at Provost and Pritchard, and
actually before I was involved in agricultural -- actually I was still in
college [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a long, long time ago. But, yeah,
that was where Jim went down and negotiated with the assistant manager of
Metropolitan Water District and was able to secure some minimal amount of
water to keep permanent crops alive in Dudley Ridge in I think it was
1972, or '77, '78.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: '76.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: '76. Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges do you face
with water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, backing up a little bit on -- has to
do with water transfers is that after 1991 Dudley Ridge really realized
that we needed to increase our water portfolio, because we have no
groundwater in our district, which is very unusual. And so being solely
reliant on the state water project for its water supply, realized that we
needed to do a lot of water transfers, exchanges, groundwater banking
programs to give us more flexibility in years where we weren't getting a
adequate water supply in order to bring additional water in to the
district. And so the growers, as well as the district, have done lots of
things in that area including one, participating in the Kern Water Bank
back in 1995, where in wetter years we can deliver water into the Kern
Water Bank, and then dryer years pump it back up and get it delivered in
by exchange into the district. We developed a program with San Gabriel
Valley Municipal Water District down south of the Tehachapis and were
able to come up with an exchange program where in essence we could
deliver water to them in advance and be able to call that back when -- in
dryer years when we needed it. We have a groundwater banking program with
Cawelo Water District on the east side of Kern County, a small program
with Semi-Tropic Water District down in Kern County, and take advantage
as often as we can with dry year transfers, very similar to the -- what
the drought water bank did in 1991 with various districts up in northern
California. We have one -- couple multi-year agreements. One with Butte
County and one with Browns Valley Irrigation District, both of those up
in northern California area that helps provide a-- a base, base supplied
to us in different years when we need it.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is this just a matter of changing -legally changing the amount of water you can take out of the California
aqueduct or the San Luis Canal or however the water was getting there, or
is this require a much more complex conveyance infrastructure to move all
this water around?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, the physical movement is pretty
simple. It is through the existing facilities. Whether it be facilities
that Kern Water Bank did construct several facilities [inaudible] it
conveyed from their recharge areas back to the aqueducts, so they did put
some -- a major canal in there. But since the late '90s that's been
existing. The other programs that we are involved with all-- all utilize
existing facilities so. It's the negotiations and the arrangements and
the approvals and CEQA and other issues that make it -- these type of
programs a little more complicated.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does the water transfer have to -- has -does it have CEQA hurdles to cross?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yup, yes, it did. It does and it varies
depending on the-- on the specifics of the transfer. But most of them, in
fact all of them from northern California that come across the Delta, or
at least requiring negative declarations. A lot of the ones that are in
inner basins, so kind of in our local area, those just require a notice
of exemption ‘cause you're using existing facilities and existing
agreements to move that water. Dudley Ridge did do something rather
innovative that the Department of Water Resources is using as an example
for other districts to do regarding CEQA where agriculture and urban
districts are required to put together water management plans and renew
those every five years. And when Dudley Ridge did our first one, I think
it was back in 2005 and then updates since then, we've gone ahead and
done a CEQA document on our water management plan. And our water
management plan talks about the various ways that we can and have
exchanged and transferred water, and so when we do the CEQA document on
our water management plan, anything that is covered in that water
management plan has in essence gotten CEQA coverage. So when we do a
transfer that's compatible with that program we can just not have to do a
new document, we can sit back and rely on that CEQA document for
approvals.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These kinds of water transfers, do they
have a tendency at all to draw litigation?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Occasionally, particularly -- usually very
seldom within south of the Delta. I don't think I've ever had one that's
been litigated south of the Delta. North of the Delta there are, it's -there's a lot more sentiment and passion involved in water going north to
south and there are some entities that well have, have filed lawsuits,
usually people in northern California, special interest groups, or within
the Delta itself, some of the Delta water users so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Anything else from the -- involving
Dudley Ridge we need to pick up on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see if there's anything that just
jumps out, I think that-- pretty good on Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we're also-- talk a little bit
more broadly about state water project.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of involvement have you had -well, Dudley Ridge was connected to the state water project I gather, but
what other experiences with the SWP have you had?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, the -- most of the involvement has
been through Dudley Ridge. I have done a couple of projects for other
state water contractors, actually back in the 1995 and a couple years
after that. In 1994, '95 there was a Delta cord in a Monterey Amendment
that were -- came into play that re-shaped the way some of the contract
provisions dealt with agriculture and banking and transfers, some
financial issues. And through that process one of the things that allowed
was a different vehicle for allowing permanent transfers from -primarily from urban -- or from agricultural agencies to urban water
agencies. And one of the jobs I had with the consent of Dudley Ridge, and
some of our agricultural water clients, was to consult to the urban water
agencies on what the value of the water would be if they were to purchase
water. There was -- the Monterey Agreement allowed 130,000 acres -- acre
feet to be transferred from urban areas in Kern County to, excuse me,
agriculture areas in Kern County to urban areas. And with my knowledge of
what the agricultural economy was and markets were, I was able to provide
a report and advice to those urban agencies as to what reasonable prices
for-- for water were. They didn't really believe me. They thought that
they could get it for less than that. And, as it turned out, the first
deal that was struck was exactly the dollar amount that I'd thought that
they would need to pay so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is there a fair amount of municipalities
buying agricultural water going on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It it's happened sporadically since 1995.
The most recent one was a couple years ago but Kern County has sold about
100, well 130,000 acre feet Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District has
sold probably in the low tens of thousands, 10 to 20,000 acre feet. And
Dudley Ridge has sold probably in the order of about 20,000 acre feet,
majority of those in one-- one sale for Dudley Ridge. So it's supply and
demand. And some of the districts, such as Dudley Ridge, allow our
farmers to make some of those decisions. And as long as there's a first
right of refusal for others in the district to-- to secure that water.
They're -- they've allowed that water to be sold. I have to say that with
-- on the major sale that Dudley Ridge had to Mojave Water Agency, which
was a 14,000 acre foot of state project table A water. It was phased out
over a ten year period, and we're about in the middle of that 10 years
right now. But that -- the grower that sold that water, Sandridge
Partners, you know, a lot of people thought well, you're going to sell
this and I think they brought in some kind of like $70 million and
they're going to get out of farming, head to Hawaii, and that's the last
people will see of them. They -- to the contrary they realize that being
highly reliant on the state project was detrimental to their long-term
survival and took that money and invested it in other areas, other
districts, other areas that had groundwater supplies and other surface
supplies if they could transfer part of that water into Dudley Ridge. So
they've, in essence, made their own water portfolio much more resilient
to different types of water supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Lot of the water that is being
transferred, is that water that comes out of the state water project or
is this a lot of groundwater that's being moved around and transferred?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: All of the above plus other sources
outside the state water project, other surface supplies, actually from
northern California we've transferred water down into to Dudley Ridge.
We've moved groundwater supplies. We've brought water from banking
programs. We've purchased water from other state contractors, done
exchanges with other state contractors. So it's a real potpourri of water
that you're constantly looking for, trying to look where the -- you know,
where there's available water in any particular year, or multiple years
so.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: On a state water project, Monterey accord
and the establishment of the Kern Groundwater Bank, can you tell us the
history on that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I know you talked with Ernest Conant
earlier and he probably has a lot more of the details of that. But from
the Dudley Ridge perspective, yeah, Dudley Ridge gave up about a little - about 4,500 acre feet of our state contract in order to purchase a
share of what -- in what the state had been trying to do for about 10
years, which was develop a groundwater banking program in Kern County
that initially the plan was that it would be used by the state water
project to help in terms of increasing reliability, but after 10 years
the state was unable to put the program together and as part of the
Monterey Agreement, Dudley Ridge and Kern County Water Agency gave up a
total of 45,000 acre feet, 10% of Dudley Ridge's -- being Dudley Ridge's
contribution and purchased the land that the state had owned and trying
to put the banking facility together.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Why did the state fail?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I just assume probably not [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Fair enough.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Bad mouth anybody but it was, you know,
it's tough. It was a state agency coming in to a local area trying to
take control of-- of what a lot of people consider a local interest is a
difficult challenge. It's a lot easier when, you know, a local entity
takes control knowing that they're going to be using that water primarily
for their own -- within their own area so. But I did become one of the
founding members of the board of directors for the Kern Water -- Kern
County -- excuse me, Kern Water Bank Authority and did that for I think
it was over 10 years as we-- we brought that project and a lot of the
credit goes to Wonderful Orchards, or at the time Paramount Farming
Company. They really took a leadership position in getting done what the
state hadn't been able to do. And one of the major things was putting
together the environmental documents and clearance in order to get a 75
year habitat conservation plan in place with both the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game at the
time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So comment on the mechanics of this, say
Dudley Ridge's point of view. So they have to give up some of their
allocation of water from the state water project, and that water is put
into the Kern -- the Kern Water Bank and just, I suppose, to extend the
bank analogy, is this something like creating an account, a savings
account of water in the bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You're a water expert all ready, Tom.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Well.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, very similar. What we would do in
wetter years, take excess state project water that we have entitled, to
recharge it in the bank, and recharge it goes into large ponds and soaks
into the ground. We also purchase water from other areas when they're in
abundant supply, including flood flows off the Friant Kern Canal, flood
flows off the Kern River, as well as other districts that, for one reason
or another, have excess water in a year that are afraid that they're
going to lose that water if they don't put it to some beneficial use. So
that water goes into the -- into the ground. We've got, I think there's
close to 90 wells in the Kern Water Bank that has a -- that in dry years
those wells pump that water back into two canal systems, one the Kern
Water Bank which takes it back to the California aqueduct and also into
the Cross Valley Canal, which can either take the water to the-- the
California aqueduct or deliver it to various entities in Kern County that
take their deliveries off the Cross Valley Canal.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is the Metropolitan involved in the Kern
Water Bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: They are not. There's six-- six public
entities. You've got the Westside Mutual Water Company, you've got Dudley
Ridge Water District, Semi-Tropic Water Storage District, Wheeler Ridge
Maricopa Water Storage District, Tejon Water District, and Kern County
Water Agency Improvement District Number Four so. There's a -- and those
are the only entities that have ownership now. From time to time we can
make third-party deals with other entities that might wanna bank-- bank
water there. And we've done a few of those over the time -- over the
years.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So it's just public entities that are
involved? Because you had said Paramount Farmers earlier?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, yeah, in Westside Mutual Water
Company, I guess, it's a private company so, yeah, it's kind of semi
quasi-public entity but it's probably classified as a private entity.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. And how's the Kern Water Bank, I
mean has it been operated efficiently? Has it gone the way -- has the
plan worked out the way it's supposed to?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It probably could not have worked out too
much better. It -- shortly after we got the facilities in place we had
some wet years which filled the bank up almost to capacity. The capacity
is approximately a million and a half acre feet. So if you think of the
capacity, the full reservoir capacity of Pine Flat Dam plus Millerton
Lake. That's-- that’s the amount of water that the Kern Water Bank can
hold.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Now I assume that hydrologically,
geologically there's something, you know, really good about that
particular land that can sort of hold the ground -- that can take a lot
of water in and sort of hold it there?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Correct, yep, yeah. And it -- there's -down in Kern County area kind of at the bottom of the-- the, I'll say the
groundwater basin, so water doesn't flow out of there very readily.
There's some migration as the -- as the groundwater fills up in the basin
it migrates out to the side, but you don't have a lot of losses from the
basin to an outside area. So it's very efficiently operated. And I'd say
it's worked well. There is some litigation still pending on the Kern
Water Bank, the back when the original CEQA was done on that by the state
water contractors and DWR. It was litigated against. It took about
probably 15 years to do a second environmental document and that one's
more-- also recently been litigated and Kern Water Bank is one of the
issues that the litigants felt should be a statewide facility instead of
a facility utilized by a few districts so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: In other words, they're arguing that the
water in the Kern Water Bank should be more widely available throughout
the state?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yes, I think they'd like to see the whole
facility be-- be a statewide benefit instead of the six districts.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has Kern Water Bank proven beneficial for
Dudley Ridge Water District these last couple years since ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: You said ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Definitely.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge had no groundwater supply at
all. So they've -- so with no state water project allocation and no
groundwater.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, we're highly reliant on Kern Water
Bank as our main source and in the other banking and exchange programs
that we've developed. But the -- yeah, Kern Water Bank's been
instrumental. Last year we had a 5% supply from the state project, this
year a 20%. And so the bulk of that shortage has been made up by the-the water banks and other programs. The -- I should -- just to correct on
Dudley Ridge, I shouldn't say we have no groundwater, we have no usable
groundwater in the district. There's a very small amount of poor quality
water that isn't used by farmers even to the point of not taking it to
plan. We have one active well in the district that provides about an acre
foot a year to a home in the area and I think they primarily use it for -
- I think they have to treat it and use it mainly for washing down
things. But, so basically no groundwater.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What's wrong with the groundwater there?
Is it just trace elements or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, it's highly saline, and very little
of it to begin with so, there’s been numerous attempts back in the '70s
and even in the last couple of years to drill some wells and see if they
could find some usable water, either in shallower or deeper aquifer and
no one's been able to do it to have any satisfactory supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does Dudley Ridge have the same drainage
problem that other parts, say Westland Water District has?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You know, we-- we thought we were going
to. When I first came to work and Jim hired me at Provost and Pritchard,
the first job I did was going out to Dudley Ridge to look at the drainage
issue because we thought we were going to have to put in subsurface
drains throughout a large portion of the district. And in the 1980s, a
few years after we started that, when it kinda, master drainage plan is
when Paramount Farms came in and they converted all the what used to be
furrow irrigation to drip and microsystem, and it pretty much eliminated
the drainage problem. They very tightly control how much water is -- they
irrigate with and any of those topics of drainage have pretty much
disappeared with the use of the microsystem and drip irrigation
throughout the district. As well as lining con -- the canals and piping.
Used to be a lot of earthen canals. Those have all been piped and or
concrete lined.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Earthen canal you would lose water I
suppose, water just goes into the soil?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right, right, right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: I just want to question on Kern Water
Bank, you said how successful this is. Is this something that can be
easily replicated in other parts of California, or is the geology unique
to that area that makes it work?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well you have to have the right geology,
both for infiltration and in storage of the -- of the water. And it has
been replicated. Kern Water Bank was not the first water bank in the -in the state but it's-- it’s the largest one in the world. At Provost and
Pritchard we worked on several banking projects for Fresno Irrigation
District, Kings County Water District, Delano, Earlimart, numerous-numerous districts up and down the valley. But again, you have to have
the right geology and, and-- and to some degree the conveyance facilities
to and from to make it efficient. But, yeah, it's an area that has been
growing tremendously over the last 20 years and I think with -- as we
move ahead towards the -- having to develop groundwater sustainability
areas and groundwater management plans, sustainability plans, we're gonna
see groundwater banking play even a more major role in order to stabilize
the-- the groundwater in the valley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what other big topics are we
going to hit? There's –>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: [Inaudible], if we missed something?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, there's just a few-- few comments on
other things on a statewide level. We mentioned the Monterey Agreement
and the accord back in '94, '95. It seemed like about every 10 years
there's another program to try to help solve the-- the water issue in the
state. In the early -- I think it was the early part of the century, in
early 2000's, the -- it was called the CALFED program that was introduced
and worked on for -- oh, probably at least 10 years trying to quote “make
everyone better together”, both agriculture, urban, and environmental
water needs and-- and I don't know how many -- probably closer to
billions of dollars were spent on that. But not much came out of it. More
recently we've had the Delta vision and the governor’s rephrased it
earlier this year, calling it the California water fix, which involves a
lot of ecosystem restoration and proposing two tunnels to bypass the bay
or -- bypass the Delta to bring water more directly from northern
California, where the source is right now, down to the-- the pumping
facility state and federal pumping facilities and bypass the Delta, which
is -- has a lot of benefits in terms of improving water quality, being
able to direct water quality for fisheries. More specifically where
needed. It takes a big issue out of the -- in terms of the concerns over
the Delta levees themselves which seen numbers at 70% chance in the next
10 years or so that there'd be an earthquake that could disrupt the inDelta flow of the state water project and Central Valley project
deliveries.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Would we -- do you think we would have
been better off had we actually built the Peripheral Canal back in the
early 1980s? I mean, since the Twin Tunnels the governor has talked about
seems to do much of the same thing that the original Peripheral Canal
idea would have done?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, I think -- I think that would have
definitely improved the reliability of the water supply. Assuming
everything was going to work the way it was supposed to and, yeah, it -I think it would’ve given a lot more flexibility to increase reliability
for both urban and agricultural supplies. Another element in this, with
the state water project, I'm on the Board of Directors for an
organization called the State Water Project Contractors Authority. And
that was formed, oh boy, probably seven years ago at least. And the
concept of that back in the, oh probably the area – during the period
from 2005 to 2010 we were having a lot of concerns as to whether the
state was the most efficient way of operating the state project. Not
operating in terms of how much water goes into the project, but once it
gets into the-- the aqueduct whether or not there's another organization
could handle the operation and maintenance of the, the facilities
themselves. And this has been seen very similar to the -- what was done
on the Delta Mendota system on for the Central Valley project, and also
the Friant-- Friant system for the CVP also. Where local entities came in
and handled the, the management and operations of the system because the
-- in the federal case it was -- they were a little bit more amenable to
it and the state case they're not quite -- haven't been as amenable but
concerns were raised as the operational availability of the project start
dropping from low 90s down to the high 70% of when things were available.
First outages were occurring about 50% more than they were back in early
2000. And the state was having a heck of a time keeping employees -experienced employees, the average senior and supervisory position and
their operating and maintaining the facilities dropped from about 15
years to two years. And they-- the turnover was getting pretty bad to
where they weren’t being -- it was causing, causing those problems in the
state projects. So this SWPCA, the State Water Project Contractors
Authority was formed with the intent of -- at least the state water
contractor's intent was that we would be able to form an entity that
could take over those facilities. But politically that’s-- has not
happened and is probably unlikely to happen unless there's a
administration that's much more open to it than, than it is right now.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Was it just the state that was hostile to
it? Was the-- or southern water users, like Metropolitan, okay with that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, they were supportive of it. I think
the general feeling was that after a probably a two, three year
transition period they would be able to operate those facilities more
efficiently and less expensively, or even if it's at the same cost, at
least more reliable -- greater reliability than what the state had been
doing. To the state's benefit, they have in the last few years been able
to get some salary concessions, they've done a lot better job of being
able to keep qualified people on-- on staff and are improving the
reliability of the system. So hopefully if the need goes away that's the
best -- we've arrived at the right solution no matter how it was done,
so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has agricultural irrigation and water
districts in the Valley that rely on the state water project, and they
all -- they generally gotten along well with water users further south,
like the Metropolitan? Or has there been a tension between the two?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I think prior to the Monterey Agreement
and up through the conclusion of the Monterey Agreement there was -there was definitely tension. There were parts of the contract where
agricultural got the first cuts if there was a cut in deliveries and
urban agencies were-- were allowed to get their normal supply of water
and as the shift came to more permanent crops it became essential that
agricultural get a firm supply too. Because you -- trees just like people
need -- you know, you can't say well, I'm not going to water you this
year. We'll hold it off and pick up next year when it's -- we got a
better supply so. There was a lot of tension getting up to that point.
Once the Monterey Agreement, which had some good and bad elements, good
trade-offs for all entities, it's been a pretty positive situation and
every once in a great while there's a -- an issue that comes up that
sides get drawn between ag and urban, but it's-- it’s been-- been pretty
rare and generally pretty cordial arrangements between them. We look at
ourselves more as a -- in the same family now than we probably did back
in the '70s and '80s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Anything else?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Not that I can think of. I've enjoyed the
opportunity to talk with you and ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: We've enjoyed having you.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: So, thank you much.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Thank you.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: We're talking to Dale Melville. So let's
just start with a little bit of biographical history. Where are you from?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh, the west -- the west basically,
Seattle. Born in Seattle. Lived in Eugene, Oregon for a while and Salt
Lake City, in that area for a couple years. Grew up, junior high and high
school in the Bay area. Went to college at UC Davis, both undergrad and
graduate school. Undergraduate in mechanical engineering, graduate school
in civil environmental engineering. And moved down to this area, Reedley,
interestingly because my wife and I didn't want to work in the Bay area
or LA where most of the consulting jobs were in wastewater treatment,
which was what my masters was in. And so we moved down a farm that had
been in her family since 1917. And we've ended up buying-- buying the
ranch a while -- a few years later and have been living here ever since,
down near Reedley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Your wife, herself, grew up in the
Valley?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: She grew up in Sacramento. Yeah, born in
Visalia but grew up most of her life in Sacramento.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And when you were getting a graduate
degree out in the Bay area, you intended to become sort of a consulting
eng – I mean a civil engineer?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, well, yeah. Graduate I definitely
wanted to go into consulting and civil engineering.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Spend a life with wastewater?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what was your first job?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: First job in engineering was doing
actually some consulting for my graduate advisor, did some consulting for
him for a while and then went to work in Fresno for a firm called Braun,
Pasillas, and Wagner. At the time they were the largest civil engineering
firm in Fresno and they-- worked with them for about six years. And then
went on -- went on my own for a couple years. And, fortunately, got too
much work that -- more work than I felt I could handle, and at age 30 was
a little bit afraid of hiring that first employee and the
responsibilities that went with that so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: With the first firm you were at, what was
their name again?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner. They ended up
being known as BPW Engineers.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: BPW, and about what year did you go to
work for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: That was from '74 to 1980.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. What kind of projects were you
working on for them? What kind of projects were they involved with?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: A lot of – they, they did a lot of
municipal work, cities, small communities, up and down the valley. I,
with my wastewater background, did a lot of wastewater treatment
facilities, sewer projects, water projects and everywhere from oh, up in
the mountains down to the desert out in Boron so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of cities and towns were you -did you do work for?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see, it was Boron Community Services
District, Corcoran County area surrounding the city. We put sewers and
water in there. Similar in city of Hanford, Stratford. Boy, I'm trying to
remember. That's a long -- that was a long time ago. But, you know Orange
Cove, yeah.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These -- any particular cases where you
would've been putting in the first sewer system by any chance?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: One definitely comes to mind. A lot of
these were first sewer systems but Boron was a -- a community that was
all septic tank at, at the time. And they had some documented health
hazards out there and failing systems. So we ended up putting in sewers
as well as a treatment disposal facilities for that community. And it's
still operating today in pretty much the same way it was done in the late
'70s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, built to last. So you decide
to strike out on your own in 1980?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep, I was ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What sort of brought that along?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, it was a group of us that were the,
Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner, the owners were getting ready to retire and
wanted to sell their business. It was a group of us that were interested
in buying that business and we couldn't come to terms with them for what
they thought their business was worth, so pretty much all of us ended up
going our own directions and leaving that firm and either going to work
elsewhere or starting our own, own businesses. And as it turned out they
ended up selling the company to a family from, I think it was Puerto
Rico, and within one to two years afterwards the business was -- had gone
bankrupt so. I think we left at the right time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of client's did you have when
you first went out on your own?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: My first client was a community service
district down in Kern County, Golden Hills Community Services District
and started them and have been with them actually since 1979. And just
recently, a couple years ago, transferred them -- or passed them on to
another engineer in, at Provost and Pritchard so. It's -- I actually did
some work for them again this, this spring so that's my probably longest
serving client. Did a lot of my other work with four as a sub-consultant
to other engineers including Provost and Pritchard. Worked on wastewater
plant at Brighton Creek, or Brighton, let's see, yeah, Brighton Crest
Subdivision and also did some work for city of Kerman as a sub there and
various wastewater plants in the community.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Something that people who are watching
this might not know, and I'm a little weak on it myself, some of the
terms you use like a community service district. What-- what is that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a -- it's an urban area in a, in a
county that has not taken the steps to become incorporated as a city. So
a lot of areas around here are -- in the valley and elsewhere in the
state of farm it's a public entity. It’s, has their own governing board.
But they're within a county but not officially a city so. And they range
anywhere from, you know, populations may range from, you know, a few
hundred people to several thousand people.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And you were creating -– so this is sewer
systems too you were creating for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right. Yeah, yeah they have -- most of
them have the ability to do roads and lighting and water and sewer
systems. Most of them start off with water as a basic need. Some of them
still have the county operating the road systems.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we have a few topics here that
I think we kind of really wanted to hit and, Jim, stop me if I hit the
wrong one first. But should we start with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Sure.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge, water district or
irrigation district?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It’s a water district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: [Inaudible] Water district. What was your
involvement with them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, as a -- well Jim Provost was my
mentor. He was-- Jim was their district manager engineer from, I think it
was 1972 to 1993. And when I came to work for Provost and Pritchard in
1994 -- 1984, excuse me, Jim started having me assist him in -- with
Dudley Ridge Water District and kind of the operations and some of the
day-to-day water ordering and-- and more simple issues to begin with. And
over time he passed that district on to me in 1993 and I've been the
manager engineer since then. And it involves -- it's a agricultural
district, 100% agriculture. There's maybe 20 to 30 people that might live
in -- within the district, primarily those involved with the
agricultural-- agricultural products and farming operations there. And
kind of -- Dudley Ridge, it started off -- it was formed in January of
1963. And evolved -- and the purpose of, of the formation was as a state
water project was coming down the valley they wanted to become a state
contractor and get their water -- main water supply from the state
project. The-- the district has changed an awful lot since the 1968 when
the first state water project deliveries were made. It was primarily
furrow irrigation. You had a lot of row crops, cotton, tomatoes, melons,
and some permanent crops, primarily almonds and olives. And as the cost
of water went up and the reliability of that water started decreasing
there was a great move towards permanent crops. And today in the district
it's 100% permanent crops, olives -- olives have gone. It's primarily
almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, grapes, and some sun fruit. All -- the
entire system is in drip or microsystem irrigation, highly efficient. All
the canals are either the concrete lined or, or in pipeline as the main
distribution system. So it's an extremely efficient district in terms of
water conservation. And it's been an extremely say productive district.
It's got great lands out there and with the -- particularly the nut
crops, have been very profitable the last several years. And-- and it's
been doing well from a farming aspect. The biggest issue is always the
water.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: It occurs to me that several of these
interviews you've mentioned Dudley Ridge Water District, I'm not sure at
any point we were actually explained where it is. Where is it?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Out in the middle of nowhere is where some
people might think. But it's right along I5 in the California aqueduct,
just south of Kettleman City down to the Kings Kern County line. So it's
about a 40,000 acre district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, is it a district of large
landowners, small landowners?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: There's about 160 landowners but most of
those are absentee landowners and there's primarily about seven farming
operations, two large ones and a few small ones out there that farm the
irrigated land out there. The largest operations are wonderful orchards
which just recently named -- changed their name to that, better known
probably in the past anyway as Paramount Farming Company. And the other
is Sandridge Partners. A-- and both Paramount, excuse me, Wonderful and
Sandridge farm in multiple areas in the west side, some little bit on the
east side too, but pretty much from areas, Dudley Ridge south down to
into Kern County.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So you had mentioned that you were
involved with Dudley Ridge when water cutbacks began, or at least the
reliability of water supplies began to decrease. What was happening?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, hydrologic in some areas and
regulatory in other areas. The -- my probably first -- my first real
experience with cutbacks was in 1991 when we had a major drought and the
formation of very first state banking project -- banking program where
state contractors negotiated, and others, but primarily state
contractors, negotiated with DWR and districts -- water districts north
of the Delta and were able to purchase supplies to bring through the
Delta down to areas such as Dudley Ridge, as well as Metropolitan Water
District in southern California. Basically, LA, San Diego area. And that
was an interesting process because it was the first time the state had
been involved with that on a, this type of scale. And multiple sellers,
multiple buyers, and I was involved numerous meetings in Sacramento on
that development of that drought water bank, which was pretty exciting at
the time. Pretty desperate as we were trying to get -- we were faced in
Dudley Ridge and the agriculture with a zero water allocation at that
time and so whatever water we were able to secure for northern California
was all the water we were going to have that year.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Drought water bank, is that something
that there is a lot of experience with at the time? Was this a whole kind
of new idea?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It was a brand new idea at the time. Back
in the late '70s there was, you know, a major drought back then where
water supplies were cut back to agricultural and there was some
individual deals that went on between buyers and sellers. Jim Provost was
instrumental in bringing some water in to Dudley Ridge they had
transferred from southern California. But on a massive scale there really
weren't any-- any, I'll say major water transfers prior to 1991.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: SO when -- putting it together, a drought
water bank, I mean, is, you know, is that actually putting water into the
ground, recharge-- recharging the ground water?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You may be confusing that, Tom, with a
groundwater bank. This -- the drought water bank was specifically to get
-- bring surface water from those that had surplus supplies up in
northern California down to direct deliveries for irrigation and or
municipal needs south of the Delta.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So we are-- we are talking kind of
water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges are out there
for water transfers? You said this was kind of a new thing -- a new
thing. In fact, Jim here was telling me he was involved with one of the
very first water transfers with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you know much about that or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Maybe just what I've heard from Jim
because it was before I started working at Provost and Pritchard, and
actually before I was involved in agricultural -- actually I was still in
college [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a long, long time ago. But, yeah,
that was where Jim went down and negotiated with the assistant manager of
Metropolitan Water District and was able to secure some minimal amount of
water to keep permanent crops alive in Dudley Ridge in I think it was
1972, or '77, '78.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: '76.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: '76. Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges do you face
with water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, backing up a little bit on -- has to
do with water transfers is that after 1991 Dudley Ridge really realized
that we needed to increase our water portfolio, because we have no
groundwater in our district, which is very unusual. And so being solely
reliant on the state water project for its water supply, realized that we
needed to do a lot of water transfers, exchanges, groundwater banking
programs to give us more flexibility in years where we weren't getting a
adequate water supply in order to bring additional water in to the
district. And so the growers, as well as the district, have done lots of
things in that area including one, participating in the Kern Water Bank
back in 1995, where in wetter years we can deliver water into the Kern
Water Bank, and then dryer years pump it back up and get it delivered in
by exchange into the district. We developed a program with San Gabriel
Valley Municipal Water District down south of the Tehachapis and were
able to come up with an exchange program where in essence we could
deliver water to them in advance and be able to call that back when -- in
dryer years when we needed it. We have a groundwater banking program with
Cawelo Water District on the east side of Kern County, a small program
with Semi-Tropic Water District down in Kern County, and take advantage
as often as we can with dry year transfers, very similar to the -- what
the drought water bank did in 1991 with various districts up in northern
California. We have one -- couple multi-year agreements. One with Butte
County and one with Browns Valley Irrigation District, both of those up
in northern California area that helps provide a-- a base, base supplied
to us in different years when we need it.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is this just a matter of changing -legally changing the amount of water you can take out of the California
aqueduct or the San Luis Canal or however the water was getting there, or
is this require a much more complex conveyance infrastructure to move all
this water around?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, the physical movement is pretty
simple. It is through the existing facilities. Whether it be facilities
that Kern Water Bank did construct several facilities [inaudible] it
conveyed from their recharge areas back to the aqueducts, so they did put
some -- a major canal in there. But since the late '90s that's been
existing. The other programs that we are involved with all-- all utilize
existing facilities so. It's the negotiations and the arrangements and
the approvals and CEQA and other issues that make it -- these type of
programs a little more complicated.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does the water transfer have to -- has -does it have CEQA hurdles to cross?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yup, yes, it did. It does and it varies
depending on the-- on the specifics of the transfer. But most of them, in
fact all of them from northern California that come across the Delta, or
at least requiring negative declarations. A lot of the ones that are in
inner basins, so kind of in our local area, those just require a notice
of exemption ‘cause you're using existing facilities and existing
agreements to move that water. Dudley Ridge did do something rather
innovative that the Department of Water Resources is using as an example
for other districts to do regarding CEQA where agriculture and urban
districts are required to put together water management plans and renew
those every five years. And when Dudley Ridge did our first one, I think
it was back in 2005 and then updates since then, we've gone ahead and
done a CEQA document on our water management plan. And our water
management plan talks about the various ways that we can and have
exchanged and transferred water, and so when we do the CEQA document on
our water management plan, anything that is covered in that water
management plan has in essence gotten CEQA coverage. So when we do a
transfer that's compatible with that program we can just not have to do a
new document, we can sit back and rely on that CEQA document for
approvals.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These kinds of water transfers, do they
have a tendency at all to draw litigation?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Occasionally, particularly -- usually very
seldom within south of the Delta. I don't think I've ever had one that's
been litigated south of the Delta. North of the Delta there are, it's -there's a lot more sentiment and passion involved in water going north to
south and there are some entities that well have, have filed lawsuits,
usually people in northern California, special interest groups, or within
the Delta itself, some of the Delta water users so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Anything else from the -- involving
Dudley Ridge we need to pick up on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see if there's anything that just
jumps out, I think that-- pretty good on Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we're also-- talk a little bit
more broadly about state water project.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of involvement have you had -well, Dudley Ridge was connected to the state water project I gather, but
what other experiences with the SWP have you had?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, the -- most of the involvement has
been through Dudley Ridge. I have done a couple of projects for other
state water contractors, actually back in the 1995 and a couple years
after that. In 1994, '95 there was a Delta cord in a Monterey Amendment
that were -- came into play that re-shaped the way some of the contract
provisions dealt with agriculture and banking and transfers, some
financial issues. And through that process one of the things that allowed
was a different vehicle for allowing permanent transfers from -primarily from urban -- or from agricultural agencies to urban water
agencies. And one of the jobs I had with the consent of Dudley Ridge, and
some of our agricultural water clients, was to consult to the urban water
agencies on what the value of the water would be if they were to purchase
water. There was -- the Monterey Agreement allowed 130,000 acres -- acre
feet to be transferred from urban areas in Kern County to, excuse me,
agriculture areas in Kern County to urban areas. And with my knowledge of
what the agricultural economy was and markets were, I was able to provide
a report and advice to those urban agencies as to what reasonable prices
for-- for water were. They didn't really believe me. They thought that
they could get it for less than that. And, as it turned out, the first
deal that was struck was exactly the dollar amount that I'd thought that
they would need to pay so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is there a fair amount of municipalities
buying agricultural water going on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It it's happened sporadically since 1995.
The most recent one was a couple years ago but Kern County has sold about
100, well 130,000 acre feet Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District has
sold probably in the low tens of thousands, 10 to 20,000 acre feet. And
Dudley Ridge has sold probably in the order of about 20,000 acre feet,
majority of those in one-- one sale for Dudley Ridge. So it's supply and
demand. And some of the districts, such as Dudley Ridge, allow our
farmers to make some of those decisions. And as long as there's a first
right of refusal for others in the district to-- to secure that water.
They're -- they've allowed that water to be sold. I have to say that with
-- on the major sale that Dudley Ridge had to Mojave Water Agency, which
was a 14,000 acre foot of state project table A water. It was phased out
over a ten year period, and we're about in the middle of that 10 years
right now. But that -- the grower that sold that water, Sandridge
Partners, you know, a lot of people thought well, you're going to sell
this and I think they brought in some kind of like $70 million and
they're going to get out of farming, head to Hawaii, and that's the last
people will see of them. They -- to the contrary they realize that being
highly reliant on the state project was detrimental to their long-term
survival and took that money and invested it in other areas, other
districts, other areas that had groundwater supplies and other surface
supplies if they could transfer part of that water into Dudley Ridge. So
they've, in essence, made their own water portfolio much more resilient
to different types of water supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Lot of the water that is being
transferred, is that water that comes out of the state water project or
is this a lot of groundwater that's being moved around and transferred?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: All of the above plus other sources
outside the state water project, other surface supplies, actually from
northern California we've transferred water down into to Dudley Ridge.
We've moved groundwater supplies. We've brought water from banking
programs. We've purchased water from other state contractors, done
exchanges with other state contractors. So it's a real potpourri of water
that you're constantly looking for, trying to look where the -- you know,
where there's available water in any particular year, or multiple years
so.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: On a state water project, Monterey accord
and the establishment of the Kern Groundwater Bank, can you tell us the
history on that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I know you talked with Ernest Conant
earlier and he probably has a lot more of the details of that. But from
the Dudley Ridge perspective, yeah, Dudley Ridge gave up about a little - about 4,500 acre feet of our state contract in order to purchase a
share of what -- in what the state had been trying to do for about 10
years, which was develop a groundwater banking program in Kern County
that initially the plan was that it would be used by the state water
project to help in terms of increasing reliability, but after 10 years
the state was unable to put the program together and as part of the
Monterey Agreement, Dudley Ridge and Kern County Water Agency gave up a
total of 45,000 acre feet, 10% of Dudley Ridge's -- being Dudley Ridge's
contribution and purchased the land that the state had owned and trying
to put the banking facility together.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Why did the state fail?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I just assume probably not [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Fair enough.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Bad mouth anybody but it was, you know,
it's tough. It was a state agency coming in to a local area trying to
take control of-- of what a lot of people consider a local interest is a
difficult challenge. It's a lot easier when, you know, a local entity
takes control knowing that they're going to be using that water primarily
for their own -- within their own area so. But I did become one of the
founding members of the board of directors for the Kern Water -- Kern
County -- excuse me, Kern Water Bank Authority and did that for I think
it was over 10 years as we-- we brought that project and a lot of the
credit goes to Wonderful Orchards, or at the time Paramount Farming
Company. They really took a leadership position in getting done what the
state hadn't been able to do. And one of the major things was putting
together the environmental documents and clearance in order to get a 75
year habitat conservation plan in place with both the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game at the
time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So comment on the mechanics of this, say
Dudley Ridge's point of view. So they have to give up some of their
allocation of water from the state water project, and that water is put
into the Kern -- the Kern Water Bank and just, I suppose, to extend the
bank analogy, is this something like creating an account, a savings
account of water in the bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You're a water expert all ready, Tom.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Well.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, very similar. What we would do in
wetter years, take excess state project water that we have entitled, to
recharge it in the bank, and recharge it goes into large ponds and soaks
into the ground. We also purchase water from other areas when they're in
abundant supply, including flood flows off the Friant Kern Canal, flood
flows off the Kern River, as well as other districts that, for one reason
or another, have excess water in a year that are afraid that they're
going to lose that water if they don't put it to some beneficial use. So
that water goes into the -- into the ground. We've got, I think there's
close to 90 wells in the Kern Water Bank that has a -- that in dry years
those wells pump that water back into two canal systems, one the Kern
Water Bank which takes it back to the California aqueduct and also into
the Cross Valley Canal, which can either take the water to the-- the
California aqueduct or deliver it to various entities in Kern County that
take their deliveries off the Cross Valley Canal.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is the Metropolitan involved in the Kern
Water Bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: They are not. There's six-- six public
entities. You've got the Westside Mutual Water Company, you've got Dudley
Ridge Water District, Semi-Tropic Water Storage District, Wheeler Ridge
Maricopa Water Storage District, Tejon Water District, and Kern County
Water Agency Improvement District Number Four so. There's a -- and those
are the only entities that have ownership now. From time to time we can
make third-party deals with other entities that might wanna bank-- bank
water there. And we've done a few of those over the time -- over the
years.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So it's just public entities that are
involved? Because you had said Paramount Farmers earlier?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, yeah, in Westside Mutual Water
Company, I guess, it's a private company so, yeah, it's kind of semi
quasi-public entity but it's probably classified as a private entity.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. And how's the Kern Water Bank, I
mean has it been operated efficiently? Has it gone the way -- has the
plan worked out the way it's supposed to?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It probably could not have worked out too
much better. It -- shortly after we got the facilities in place we had
some wet years which filled the bank up almost to capacity. The capacity
is approximately a million and a half acre feet. So if you think of the
capacity, the full reservoir capacity of Pine Flat Dam plus Millerton
Lake. That's-- that’s the amount of water that the Kern Water Bank can
hold.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Now I assume that hydrologically,
geologically there's something, you know, really good about that
particular land that can sort of hold the ground -- that can take a lot
of water in and sort of hold it there?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Correct, yep, yeah. And it -- there's -down in Kern County area kind of at the bottom of the-- the, I'll say the
groundwater basin, so water doesn't flow out of there very readily.
There's some migration as the -- as the groundwater fills up in the basin
it migrates out to the side, but you don't have a lot of losses from the
basin to an outside area. So it's very efficiently operated. And I'd say
it's worked well. There is some litigation still pending on the Kern
Water Bank, the back when the original CEQA was done on that by the state
water contractors and DWR. It was litigated against. It took about
probably 15 years to do a second environmental document and that one's
more-- also recently been litigated and Kern Water Bank is one of the
issues that the litigants felt should be a statewide facility instead of
a facility utilized by a few districts so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: In other words, they're arguing that the
water in the Kern Water Bank should be more widely available throughout
the state?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yes, I think they'd like to see the whole
facility be-- be a statewide benefit instead of the six districts.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has Kern Water Bank proven beneficial for
Dudley Ridge Water District these last couple years since ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: You said ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Definitely.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge had no groundwater supply at
all. So they've -- so with no state water project allocation and no
groundwater.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, we're highly reliant on Kern Water
Bank as our main source and in the other banking and exchange programs
that we've developed. But the -- yeah, Kern Water Bank's been
instrumental. Last year we had a 5% supply from the state project, this
year a 20%. And so the bulk of that shortage has been made up by the-the water banks and other programs. The -- I should -- just to correct on
Dudley Ridge, I shouldn't say we have no groundwater, we have no usable
groundwater in the district. There's a very small amount of poor quality
water that isn't used by farmers even to the point of not taking it to
plan. We have one active well in the district that provides about an acre
foot a year to a home in the area and I think they primarily use it for -
- I think they have to treat it and use it mainly for washing down
things. But, so basically no groundwater.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What's wrong with the groundwater there?
Is it just trace elements or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, it's highly saline, and very little
of it to begin with so, there’s been numerous attempts back in the '70s
and even in the last couple of years to drill some wells and see if they
could find some usable water, either in shallower or deeper aquifer and
no one's been able to do it to have any satisfactory supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does Dudley Ridge have the same drainage
problem that other parts, say Westland Water District has?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You know, we-- we thought we were going
to. When I first came to work and Jim hired me at Provost and Pritchard,
the first job I did was going out to Dudley Ridge to look at the drainage
issue because we thought we were going to have to put in subsurface
drains throughout a large portion of the district. And in the 1980s, a
few years after we started that, when it kinda, master drainage plan is
when Paramount Farms came in and they converted all the what used to be
furrow irrigation to drip and microsystem, and it pretty much eliminated
the drainage problem. They very tightly control how much water is -- they
irrigate with and any of those topics of drainage have pretty much
disappeared with the use of the microsystem and drip irrigation
throughout the district. As well as lining con -- the canals and piping.
Used to be a lot of earthen canals. Those have all been piped and or
concrete lined.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Earthen canal you would lose water I
suppose, water just goes into the soil?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right, right, right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: I just want to question on Kern Water
Bank, you said how successful this is. Is this something that can be
easily replicated in other parts of California, or is the geology unique
to that area that makes it work?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well you have to have the right geology,
both for infiltration and in storage of the -- of the water. And it has
been replicated. Kern Water Bank was not the first water bank in the -in the state but it's-- it’s the largest one in the world. At Provost and
Pritchard we worked on several banking projects for Fresno Irrigation
District, Kings County Water District, Delano, Earlimart, numerous-numerous districts up and down the valley. But again, you have to have
the right geology and, and-- and to some degree the conveyance facilities
to and from to make it efficient. But, yeah, it's an area that has been
growing tremendously over the last 20 years and I think with -- as we
move ahead towards the -- having to develop groundwater sustainability
areas and groundwater management plans, sustainability plans, we're gonna
see groundwater banking play even a more major role in order to stabilize
the-- the groundwater in the valley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what other big topics are we
going to hit? There's –>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: [Inaudible], if we missed something?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, there's just a few-- few comments on
other things on a statewide level. We mentioned the Monterey Agreement
and the accord back in '94, '95. It seemed like about every 10 years
there's another program to try to help solve the-- the water issue in the
state. In the early -- I think it was the early part of the century, in
early 2000's, the -- it was called the CALFED program that was introduced
and worked on for -- oh, probably at least 10 years trying to quote “make
everyone better together”, both agriculture, urban, and environmental
water needs and-- and I don't know how many -- probably closer to
billions of dollars were spent on that. But not much came out of it. More
recently we've had the Delta vision and the governor’s rephrased it
earlier this year, calling it the California water fix, which involves a
lot of ecosystem restoration and proposing two tunnels to bypass the bay
or -- bypass the Delta to bring water more directly from northern
California, where the source is right now, down to the-- the pumping
facility state and federal pumping facilities and bypass the Delta, which
is -- has a lot of benefits in terms of improving water quality, being
able to direct water quality for fisheries. More specifically where
needed. It takes a big issue out of the -- in terms of the concerns over
the Delta levees themselves which seen numbers at 70% chance in the next
10 years or so that there'd be an earthquake that could disrupt the inDelta flow of the state water project and Central Valley project
deliveries.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Would we -- do you think we would have
been better off had we actually built the Peripheral Canal back in the
early 1980s? I mean, since the Twin Tunnels the governor has talked about
seems to do much of the same thing that the original Peripheral Canal
idea would have done?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, I think -- I think that would have
definitely improved the reliability of the water supply. Assuming
everything was going to work the way it was supposed to and, yeah, it -I think it would’ve given a lot more flexibility to increase reliability
for both urban and agricultural supplies. Another element in this, with
the state water project, I'm on the Board of Directors for an
organization called the State Water Project Contractors Authority. And
that was formed, oh boy, probably seven years ago at least. And the
concept of that back in the, oh probably the area – during the period
from 2005 to 2010 we were having a lot of concerns as to whether the
state was the most efficient way of operating the state project. Not
operating in terms of how much water goes into the project, but once it
gets into the-- the aqueduct whether or not there's another organization
could handle the operation and maintenance of the, the facilities
themselves. And this has been seen very similar to the -- what was done
on the Delta Mendota system on for the Central Valley project, and also
the Friant-- Friant system for the CVP also. Where local entities came in
and handled the, the management and operations of the system because the
-- in the federal case it was -- they were a little bit more amenable to
it and the state case they're not quite -- haven't been as amenable but
concerns were raised as the operational availability of the project start
dropping from low 90s down to the high 70% of when things were available.
First outages were occurring about 50% more than they were back in early
2000. And the state was having a heck of a time keeping employees -experienced employees, the average senior and supervisory position and
their operating and maintaining the facilities dropped from about 15
years to two years. And they-- the turnover was getting pretty bad to
where they weren’t being -- it was causing, causing those problems in the
state projects. So this SWPCA, the State Water Project Contractors
Authority was formed with the intent of -- at least the state water
contractor's intent was that we would be able to form an entity that
could take over those facilities. But politically that’s-- has not
happened and is probably unlikely to happen unless there's a
administration that's much more open to it than, than it is right now.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Was it just the state that was hostile to
it? Was the-- or southern water users, like Metropolitan, okay with that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, they were supportive of it. I think
the general feeling was that after a probably a two, three year
transition period they would be able to operate those facilities more
efficiently and less expensively, or even if it's at the same cost, at
least more reliable -- greater reliability than what the state had been
doing. To the state's benefit, they have in the last few years been able
to get some salary concessions, they've done a lot better job of being
able to keep qualified people on-- on staff and are improving the
reliability of the system. So hopefully if the need goes away that's the
best -- we've arrived at the right solution no matter how it was done,
so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has agricultural irrigation and water
districts in the Valley that rely on the state water project, and they
all -- they generally gotten along well with water users further south,
like the Metropolitan? Or has there been a tension between the two?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I think prior to the Monterey Agreement
and up through the conclusion of the Monterey Agreement there was -there was definitely tension. There were parts of the contract where
agricultural got the first cuts if there was a cut in deliveries and
urban agencies were-- were allowed to get their normal supply of water
and as the shift came to more permanent crops it became essential that
agricultural get a firm supply too. Because you -- trees just like people
need -- you know, you can't say well, I'm not going to water you this
year. We'll hold it off and pick up next year when it's -- we got a
better supply so. There was a lot of tension getting up to that point.
Once the Monterey Agreement, which had some good and bad elements, good
trade-offs for all entities, it's been a pretty positive situation and
every once in a great while there's a -- an issue that comes up that
sides get drawn between ag and urban, but it's-- it’s been-- been pretty
rare and generally pretty cordial arrangements between them. We look at
ourselves more as a -- in the same family now than we probably did back
in the '70s and '80s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Anything else?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Not that I can think of. I've enjoyed the
opportunity to talk with you and ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: We've enjoyed having you.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: So, thank you much.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Thank you.
just start with a little bit of biographical history. Where are you from?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh, the west -- the west basically,
Seattle. Born in Seattle. Lived in Eugene, Oregon for a while and Salt
Lake City, in that area for a couple years. Grew up, junior high and high
school in the Bay area. Went to college at UC Davis, both undergrad and
graduate school. Undergraduate in mechanical engineering, graduate school
in civil environmental engineering. And moved down to this area, Reedley,
interestingly because my wife and I didn't want to work in the Bay area
or LA where most of the consulting jobs were in wastewater treatment,
which was what my masters was in. And so we moved down a farm that had
been in her family since 1917. And we've ended up buying-- buying the
ranch a while -- a few years later and have been living here ever since,
down near Reedley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Your wife, herself, grew up in the
Valley?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: She grew up in Sacramento. Yeah, born in
Visalia but grew up most of her life in Sacramento.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And when you were getting a graduate
degree out in the Bay area, you intended to become sort of a consulting
eng – I mean a civil engineer?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, well, yeah. Graduate I definitely
wanted to go into consulting and civil engineering.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Spend a life with wastewater?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what was your first job?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: First job in engineering was doing
actually some consulting for my graduate advisor, did some consulting for
him for a while and then went to work in Fresno for a firm called Braun,
Pasillas, and Wagner. At the time they were the largest civil engineering
firm in Fresno and they-- worked with them for about six years. And then
went on -- went on my own for a couple years. And, fortunately, got too
much work that -- more work than I felt I could handle, and at age 30 was
a little bit afraid of hiring that first employee and the
responsibilities that went with that so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: With the first firm you were at, what was
their name again?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner. They ended up
being known as BPW Engineers.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: BPW, and about what year did you go to
work for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: That was from '74 to 1980.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. What kind of projects were you
working on for them? What kind of projects were they involved with?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: A lot of – they, they did a lot of
municipal work, cities, small communities, up and down the valley. I,
with my wastewater background, did a lot of wastewater treatment
facilities, sewer projects, water projects and everywhere from oh, up in
the mountains down to the desert out in Boron so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of cities and towns were you -did you do work for?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see, it was Boron Community Services
District, Corcoran County area surrounding the city. We put sewers and
water in there. Similar in city of Hanford, Stratford. Boy, I'm trying to
remember. That's a long -- that was a long time ago. But, you know Orange
Cove, yeah.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These -- any particular cases where you
would've been putting in the first sewer system by any chance?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: One definitely comes to mind. A lot of
these were first sewer systems but Boron was a -- a community that was
all septic tank at, at the time. And they had some documented health
hazards out there and failing systems. So we ended up putting in sewers
as well as a treatment disposal facilities for that community. And it's
still operating today in pretty much the same way it was done in the late
'70s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well, built to last. So you decide
to strike out on your own in 1980?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, yep, I was ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What sort of brought that along?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, it was a group of us that were the,
Braun, Pasillas, and Wagner, the owners were getting ready to retire and
wanted to sell their business. It was a group of us that were interested
in buying that business and we couldn't come to terms with them for what
they thought their business was worth, so pretty much all of us ended up
going our own directions and leaving that firm and either going to work
elsewhere or starting our own, own businesses. And as it turned out they
ended up selling the company to a family from, I think it was Puerto
Rico, and within one to two years afterwards the business was -- had gone
bankrupt so. I think we left at the right time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of client's did you have when
you first went out on your own?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: My first client was a community service
district down in Kern County, Golden Hills Community Services District
and started them and have been with them actually since 1979. And just
recently, a couple years ago, transferred them -- or passed them on to
another engineer in, at Provost and Pritchard so. It's -- I actually did
some work for them again this, this spring so that's my probably longest
serving client. Did a lot of my other work with four as a sub-consultant
to other engineers including Provost and Pritchard. Worked on wastewater
plant at Brighton Creek, or Brighton, let's see, yeah, Brighton Crest
Subdivision and also did some work for city of Kerman as a sub there and
various wastewater plants in the community.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Something that people who are watching
this might not know, and I'm a little weak on it myself, some of the
terms you use like a community service district. What-- what is that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a -- it's an urban area in a, in a
county that has not taken the steps to become incorporated as a city. So
a lot of areas around here are -- in the valley and elsewhere in the
state of farm it's a public entity. It’s, has their own governing board.
But they're within a county but not officially a city so. And they range
anywhere from, you know, populations may range from, you know, a few
hundred people to several thousand people.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: And you were creating -– so this is sewer
systems too you were creating for them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right. Yeah, yeah they have -- most of
them have the ability to do roads and lighting and water and sewer
systems. Most of them start off with water as a basic need. Some of them
still have the county operating the road systems.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we have a few topics here that
I think we kind of really wanted to hit and, Jim, stop me if I hit the
wrong one first. But should we start with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Sure.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge, water district or
irrigation district?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It’s a water district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: [Inaudible] Water district. What was your
involvement with them?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, as a -- well Jim Provost was my
mentor. He was-- Jim was their district manager engineer from, I think it
was 1972 to 1993. And when I came to work for Provost and Pritchard in
1994 -- 1984, excuse me, Jim started having me assist him in -- with
Dudley Ridge Water District and kind of the operations and some of the
day-to-day water ordering and-- and more simple issues to begin with. And
over time he passed that district on to me in 1993 and I've been the
manager engineer since then. And it involves -- it's a agricultural
district, 100% agriculture. There's maybe 20 to 30 people that might live
in -- within the district, primarily those involved with the
agricultural-- agricultural products and farming operations there. And
kind of -- Dudley Ridge, it started off -- it was formed in January of
1963. And evolved -- and the purpose of, of the formation was as a state
water project was coming down the valley they wanted to become a state
contractor and get their water -- main water supply from the state
project. The-- the district has changed an awful lot since the 1968 when
the first state water project deliveries were made. It was primarily
furrow irrigation. You had a lot of row crops, cotton, tomatoes, melons,
and some permanent crops, primarily almonds and olives. And as the cost
of water went up and the reliability of that water started decreasing
there was a great move towards permanent crops. And today in the district
it's 100% permanent crops, olives -- olives have gone. It's primarily
almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, grapes, and some sun fruit. All -- the
entire system is in drip or microsystem irrigation, highly efficient. All
the canals are either the concrete lined or, or in pipeline as the main
distribution system. So it's an extremely efficient district in terms of
water conservation. And it's been an extremely say productive district.
It's got great lands out there and with the -- particularly the nut
crops, have been very profitable the last several years. And-- and it's
been doing well from a farming aspect. The biggest issue is always the
water.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: It occurs to me that several of these
interviews you've mentioned Dudley Ridge Water District, I'm not sure at
any point we were actually explained where it is. Where is it?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Out in the middle of nowhere is where some
people might think. But it's right along I5 in the California aqueduct,
just south of Kettleman City down to the Kings Kern County line. So it's
about a 40,000 acre district.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay, is it a district of large
landowners, small landowners?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: There's about 160 landowners but most of
those are absentee landowners and there's primarily about seven farming
operations, two large ones and a few small ones out there that farm the
irrigated land out there. The largest operations are wonderful orchards
which just recently named -- changed their name to that, better known
probably in the past anyway as Paramount Farming Company. And the other
is Sandridge Partners. A-- and both Paramount, excuse me, Wonderful and
Sandridge farm in multiple areas in the west side, some little bit on the
east side too, but pretty much from areas, Dudley Ridge south down to
into Kern County.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So you had mentioned that you were
involved with Dudley Ridge when water cutbacks began, or at least the
reliability of water supplies began to decrease. What was happening?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, hydrologic in some areas and
regulatory in other areas. The -- my probably first -- my first real
experience with cutbacks was in 1991 when we had a major drought and the
formation of very first state banking project -- banking program where
state contractors negotiated, and others, but primarily state
contractors, negotiated with DWR and districts -- water districts north
of the Delta and were able to purchase supplies to bring through the
Delta down to areas such as Dudley Ridge, as well as Metropolitan Water
District in southern California. Basically, LA, San Diego area. And that
was an interesting process because it was the first time the state had
been involved with that on a, this type of scale. And multiple sellers,
multiple buyers, and I was involved numerous meetings in Sacramento on
that development of that drought water bank, which was pretty exciting at
the time. Pretty desperate as we were trying to get -- we were faced in
Dudley Ridge and the agriculture with a zero water allocation at that
time and so whatever water we were able to secure for northern California
was all the water we were going to have that year.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Drought water bank, is that something
that there is a lot of experience with at the time? Was this a whole kind
of new idea?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It was a brand new idea at the time. Back
in the late '70s there was, you know, a major drought back then where
water supplies were cut back to agricultural and there was some
individual deals that went on between buyers and sellers. Jim Provost was
instrumental in bringing some water in to Dudley Ridge they had
transferred from southern California. But on a massive scale there really
weren't any-- any, I'll say major water transfers prior to 1991.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: SO when -- putting it together, a drought
water bank, I mean, is, you know, is that actually putting water into the
ground, recharge-- recharging the ground water?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You may be confusing that, Tom, with a
groundwater bank. This -- the drought water bank was specifically to get
-- bring surface water from those that had surplus supplies up in
northern California down to direct deliveries for irrigation and or
municipal needs south of the Delta.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So we are-- we are talking kind of
water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges are out there
for water transfers? You said this was kind of a new thing -- a new
thing. In fact, Jim here was telling me he was involved with one of the
very first water transfers with Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Actually, do you know much about that or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Maybe just what I've heard from Jim
because it was before I started working at Provost and Pritchard, and
actually before I was involved in agricultural -- actually I was still in
college [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It's a long, long time ago. But, yeah,
that was where Jim went down and negotiated with the assistant manager of
Metropolitan Water District and was able to secure some minimal amount of
water to keep permanent crops alive in Dudley Ridge in I think it was
1972, or '77, '78.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: '76.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: '76. Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So what kind of challenges do you face
with water transfers?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, backing up a little bit on -- has to
do with water transfers is that after 1991 Dudley Ridge really realized
that we needed to increase our water portfolio, because we have no
groundwater in our district, which is very unusual. And so being solely
reliant on the state water project for its water supply, realized that we
needed to do a lot of water transfers, exchanges, groundwater banking
programs to give us more flexibility in years where we weren't getting a
adequate water supply in order to bring additional water in to the
district. And so the growers, as well as the district, have done lots of
things in that area including one, participating in the Kern Water Bank
back in 1995, where in wetter years we can deliver water into the Kern
Water Bank, and then dryer years pump it back up and get it delivered in
by exchange into the district. We developed a program with San Gabriel
Valley Municipal Water District down south of the Tehachapis and were
able to come up with an exchange program where in essence we could
deliver water to them in advance and be able to call that back when -- in
dryer years when we needed it. We have a groundwater banking program with
Cawelo Water District on the east side of Kern County, a small program
with Semi-Tropic Water District down in Kern County, and take advantage
as often as we can with dry year transfers, very similar to the -- what
the drought water bank did in 1991 with various districts up in northern
California. We have one -- couple multi-year agreements. One with Butte
County and one with Browns Valley Irrigation District, both of those up
in northern California area that helps provide a-- a base, base supplied
to us in different years when we need it.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is this just a matter of changing -legally changing the amount of water you can take out of the California
aqueduct or the San Luis Canal or however the water was getting there, or
is this require a much more complex conveyance infrastructure to move all
this water around?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, the physical movement is pretty
simple. It is through the existing facilities. Whether it be facilities
that Kern Water Bank did construct several facilities [inaudible] it
conveyed from their recharge areas back to the aqueducts, so they did put
some -- a major canal in there. But since the late '90s that's been
existing. The other programs that we are involved with all-- all utilize
existing facilities so. It's the negotiations and the arrangements and
the approvals and CEQA and other issues that make it -- these type of
programs a little more complicated.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does the water transfer have to -- has -does it have CEQA hurdles to cross?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yup, yes, it did. It does and it varies
depending on the-- on the specifics of the transfer. But most of them, in
fact all of them from northern California that come across the Delta, or
at least requiring negative declarations. A lot of the ones that are in
inner basins, so kind of in our local area, those just require a notice
of exemption ‘cause you're using existing facilities and existing
agreements to move that water. Dudley Ridge did do something rather
innovative that the Department of Water Resources is using as an example
for other districts to do regarding CEQA where agriculture and urban
districts are required to put together water management plans and renew
those every five years. And when Dudley Ridge did our first one, I think
it was back in 2005 and then updates since then, we've gone ahead and
done a CEQA document on our water management plan. And our water
management plan talks about the various ways that we can and have
exchanged and transferred water, and so when we do the CEQA document on
our water management plan, anything that is covered in that water
management plan has in essence gotten CEQA coverage. So when we do a
transfer that's compatible with that program we can just not have to do a
new document, we can sit back and rely on that CEQA document for
approvals.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: These kinds of water transfers, do they
have a tendency at all to draw litigation?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Occasionally, particularly -- usually very
seldom within south of the Delta. I don't think I've ever had one that's
been litigated south of the Delta. North of the Delta there are, it's -there's a lot more sentiment and passion involved in water going north to
south and there are some entities that well have, have filed lawsuits,
usually people in northern California, special interest groups, or within
the Delta itself, some of the Delta water users so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Anything else from the -- involving
Dudley Ridge we need to pick up on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Let's see if there's anything that just
jumps out, I think that-- pretty good on Dudley Ridge.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well we're also-- talk a little bit
more broadly about state water project.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Okay.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What kind of involvement have you had -well, Dudley Ridge was connected to the state water project I gather, but
what other experiences with the SWP have you had?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, the -- most of the involvement has
been through Dudley Ridge. I have done a couple of projects for other
state water contractors, actually back in the 1995 and a couple years
after that. In 1994, '95 there was a Delta cord in a Monterey Amendment
that were -- came into play that re-shaped the way some of the contract
provisions dealt with agriculture and banking and transfers, some
financial issues. And through that process one of the things that allowed
was a different vehicle for allowing permanent transfers from -primarily from urban -- or from agricultural agencies to urban water
agencies. And one of the jobs I had with the consent of Dudley Ridge, and
some of our agricultural water clients, was to consult to the urban water
agencies on what the value of the water would be if they were to purchase
water. There was -- the Monterey Agreement allowed 130,000 acres -- acre
feet to be transferred from urban areas in Kern County to, excuse me,
agriculture areas in Kern County to urban areas. And with my knowledge of
what the agricultural economy was and markets were, I was able to provide
a report and advice to those urban agencies as to what reasonable prices
for-- for water were. They didn't really believe me. They thought that
they could get it for less than that. And, as it turned out, the first
deal that was struck was exactly the dollar amount that I'd thought that
they would need to pay so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is there a fair amount of municipalities
buying agricultural water going on?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It it's happened sporadically since 1995.
The most recent one was a couple years ago but Kern County has sold about
100, well 130,000 acre feet Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District has
sold probably in the low tens of thousands, 10 to 20,000 acre feet. And
Dudley Ridge has sold probably in the order of about 20,000 acre feet,
majority of those in one-- one sale for Dudley Ridge. So it's supply and
demand. And some of the districts, such as Dudley Ridge, allow our
farmers to make some of those decisions. And as long as there's a first
right of refusal for others in the district to-- to secure that water.
They're -- they've allowed that water to be sold. I have to say that with
-- on the major sale that Dudley Ridge had to Mojave Water Agency, which
was a 14,000 acre foot of state project table A water. It was phased out
over a ten year period, and we're about in the middle of that 10 years
right now. But that -- the grower that sold that water, Sandridge
Partners, you know, a lot of people thought well, you're going to sell
this and I think they brought in some kind of like $70 million and
they're going to get out of farming, head to Hawaii, and that's the last
people will see of them. They -- to the contrary they realize that being
highly reliant on the state project was detrimental to their long-term
survival and took that money and invested it in other areas, other
districts, other areas that had groundwater supplies and other surface
supplies if they could transfer part of that water into Dudley Ridge. So
they've, in essence, made their own water portfolio much more resilient
to different types of water supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Lot of the water that is being
transferred, is that water that comes out of the state water project or
is this a lot of groundwater that's being moved around and transferred?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: All of the above plus other sources
outside the state water project, other surface supplies, actually from
northern California we've transferred water down into to Dudley Ridge.
We've moved groundwater supplies. We've brought water from banking
programs. We've purchased water from other state contractors, done
exchanges with other state contractors. So it's a real potpourri of water
that you're constantly looking for, trying to look where the -- you know,
where there's available water in any particular year, or multiple years
so.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: On a state water project, Monterey accord
and the establishment of the Kern Groundwater Bank, can you tell us the
history on that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I know you talked with Ernest Conant
earlier and he probably has a lot more of the details of that. But from
the Dudley Ridge perspective, yeah, Dudley Ridge gave up about a little - about 4,500 acre feet of our state contract in order to purchase a
share of what -- in what the state had been trying to do for about 10
years, which was develop a groundwater banking program in Kern County
that initially the plan was that it would be used by the state water
project to help in terms of increasing reliability, but after 10 years
the state was unable to put the program together and as part of the
Monterey Agreement, Dudley Ridge and Kern County Water Agency gave up a
total of 45,000 acre feet, 10% of Dudley Ridge's -- being Dudley Ridge's
contribution and purchased the land that the state had owned and trying
to put the banking facility together.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Why did the state fail?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I just assume probably not [laughter].
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Fair enough.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Bad mouth anybody but it was, you know,
it's tough. It was a state agency coming in to a local area trying to
take control of-- of what a lot of people consider a local interest is a
difficult challenge. It's a lot easier when, you know, a local entity
takes control knowing that they're going to be using that water primarily
for their own -- within their own area so. But I did become one of the
founding members of the board of directors for the Kern Water -- Kern
County -- excuse me, Kern Water Bank Authority and did that for I think
it was over 10 years as we-- we brought that project and a lot of the
credit goes to Wonderful Orchards, or at the time Paramount Farming
Company. They really took a leadership position in getting done what the
state hadn't been able to do. And one of the major things was putting
together the environmental documents and clearance in order to get a 75
year habitat conservation plan in place with both the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game at the
time.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So comment on the mechanics of this, say
Dudley Ridge's point of view. So they have to give up some of their
allocation of water from the state water project, and that water is put
into the Kern -- the Kern Water Bank and just, I suppose, to extend the
bank analogy, is this something like creating an account, a savings
account of water in the bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You're a water expert all ready, Tom.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Well.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, very similar. What we would do in
wetter years, take excess state project water that we have entitled, to
recharge it in the bank, and recharge it goes into large ponds and soaks
into the ground. We also purchase water from other areas when they're in
abundant supply, including flood flows off the Friant Kern Canal, flood
flows off the Kern River, as well as other districts that, for one reason
or another, have excess water in a year that are afraid that they're
going to lose that water if they don't put it to some beneficial use. So
that water goes into the -- into the ground. We've got, I think there's
close to 90 wells in the Kern Water Bank that has a -- that in dry years
those wells pump that water back into two canal systems, one the Kern
Water Bank which takes it back to the California aqueduct and also into
the Cross Valley Canal, which can either take the water to the-- the
California aqueduct or deliver it to various entities in Kern County that
take their deliveries off the Cross Valley Canal.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Is the Metropolitan involved in the Kern
Water Bank?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: They are not. There's six-- six public
entities. You've got the Westside Mutual Water Company, you've got Dudley
Ridge Water District, Semi-Tropic Water Storage District, Wheeler Ridge
Maricopa Water Storage District, Tejon Water District, and Kern County
Water Agency Improvement District Number Four so. There's a -- and those
are the only entities that have ownership now. From time to time we can
make third-party deals with other entities that might wanna bank-- bank
water there. And we've done a few of those over the time -- over the
years.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: So it's just public entities that are
involved? Because you had said Paramount Farmers earlier?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, yeah, in Westside Mutual Water
Company, I guess, it's a private company so, yeah, it's kind of semi
quasi-public entity but it's probably classified as a private entity.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. And how's the Kern Water Bank, I
mean has it been operated efficiently? Has it gone the way -- has the
plan worked out the way it's supposed to?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: It probably could not have worked out too
much better. It -- shortly after we got the facilities in place we had
some wet years which filled the bank up almost to capacity. The capacity
is approximately a million and a half acre feet. So if you think of the
capacity, the full reservoir capacity of Pine Flat Dam plus Millerton
Lake. That's-- that’s the amount of water that the Kern Water Bank can
hold.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Now I assume that hydrologically,
geologically there's something, you know, really good about that
particular land that can sort of hold the ground -- that can take a lot
of water in and sort of hold it there?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Correct, yep, yeah. And it -- there's -down in Kern County area kind of at the bottom of the-- the, I'll say the
groundwater basin, so water doesn't flow out of there very readily.
There's some migration as the -- as the groundwater fills up in the basin
it migrates out to the side, but you don't have a lot of losses from the
basin to an outside area. So it's very efficiently operated. And I'd say
it's worked well. There is some litigation still pending on the Kern
Water Bank, the back when the original CEQA was done on that by the state
water contractors and DWR. It was litigated against. It took about
probably 15 years to do a second environmental document and that one's
more-- also recently been litigated and Kern Water Bank is one of the
issues that the litigants felt should be a statewide facility instead of
a facility utilized by a few districts so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: In other words, they're arguing that the
water in the Kern Water Bank should be more widely available throughout
the state?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yes, I think they'd like to see the whole
facility be-- be a statewide benefit instead of the six districts.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has Kern Water Bank proven beneficial for
Dudley Ridge Water District these last couple years since ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Oh.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: You said ->> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Definitely.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Dudley Ridge had no groundwater supply at
all. So they've -- so with no state water project allocation and no
groundwater.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, we're highly reliant on Kern Water
Bank as our main source and in the other banking and exchange programs
that we've developed. But the -- yeah, Kern Water Bank's been
instrumental. Last year we had a 5% supply from the state project, this
year a 20%. And so the bulk of that shortage has been made up by the-the water banks and other programs. The -- I should -- just to correct on
Dudley Ridge, I shouldn't say we have no groundwater, we have no usable
groundwater in the district. There's a very small amount of poor quality
water that isn't used by farmers even to the point of not taking it to
plan. We have one active well in the district that provides about an acre
foot a year to a home in the area and I think they primarily use it for -
- I think they have to treat it and use it mainly for washing down
things. But, so basically no groundwater.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: What's wrong with the groundwater there?
Is it just trace elements or?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, it's highly saline, and very little
of it to begin with so, there’s been numerous attempts back in the '70s
and even in the last couple of years to drill some wells and see if they
could find some usable water, either in shallower or deeper aquifer and
no one's been able to do it to have any satisfactory supplies.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Does Dudley Ridge have the same drainage
problem that other parts, say Westland Water District has?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: You know, we-- we thought we were going
to. When I first came to work and Jim hired me at Provost and Pritchard,
the first job I did was going out to Dudley Ridge to look at the drainage
issue because we thought we were going to have to put in subsurface
drains throughout a large portion of the district. And in the 1980s, a
few years after we started that, when it kinda, master drainage plan is
when Paramount Farms came in and they converted all the what used to be
furrow irrigation to drip and microsystem, and it pretty much eliminated
the drainage problem. They very tightly control how much water is -- they
irrigate with and any of those topics of drainage have pretty much
disappeared with the use of the microsystem and drip irrigation
throughout the district. As well as lining con -- the canals and piping.
Used to be a lot of earthen canals. Those have all been piped and or
concrete lined.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Earthen canal you would lose water I
suppose, water just goes into the soil?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Right, right, right.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: I just want to question on Kern Water
Bank, you said how successful this is. Is this something that can be
easily replicated in other parts of California, or is the geology unique
to that area that makes it work?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well you have to have the right geology,
both for infiltration and in storage of the -- of the water. And it has
been replicated. Kern Water Bank was not the first water bank in the -in the state but it's-- it’s the largest one in the world. At Provost and
Pritchard we worked on several banking projects for Fresno Irrigation
District, Kings County Water District, Delano, Earlimart, numerous-numerous districts up and down the valley. But again, you have to have
the right geology and, and-- and to some degree the conveyance facilities
to and from to make it efficient. But, yeah, it's an area that has been
growing tremendously over the last 20 years and I think with -- as we
move ahead towards the -- having to develop groundwater sustainability
areas and groundwater management plans, sustainability plans, we're gonna
see groundwater banking play even a more major role in order to stabilize
the-- the groundwater in the valley.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So what other big topics are we
going to hit? There's –>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: [Inaudible], if we missed something?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Well, there's just a few-- few comments on
other things on a statewide level. We mentioned the Monterey Agreement
and the accord back in '94, '95. It seemed like about every 10 years
there's another program to try to help solve the-- the water issue in the
state. In the early -- I think it was the early part of the century, in
early 2000's, the -- it was called the CALFED program that was introduced
and worked on for -- oh, probably at least 10 years trying to quote “make
everyone better together”, both agriculture, urban, and environmental
water needs and-- and I don't know how many -- probably closer to
billions of dollars were spent on that. But not much came out of it. More
recently we've had the Delta vision and the governor’s rephrased it
earlier this year, calling it the California water fix, which involves a
lot of ecosystem restoration and proposing two tunnels to bypass the bay
or -- bypass the Delta to bring water more directly from northern
California, where the source is right now, down to the-- the pumping
facility state and federal pumping facilities and bypass the Delta, which
is -- has a lot of benefits in terms of improving water quality, being
able to direct water quality for fisheries. More specifically where
needed. It takes a big issue out of the -- in terms of the concerns over
the Delta levees themselves which seen numbers at 70% chance in the next
10 years or so that there'd be an earthquake that could disrupt the inDelta flow of the state water project and Central Valley project
deliveries.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Would we -- do you think we would have
been better off had we actually built the Peripheral Canal back in the
early 1980s? I mean, since the Twin Tunnels the governor has talked about
seems to do much of the same thing that the original Peripheral Canal
idea would have done?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yep, I think -- I think that would have
definitely improved the reliability of the water supply. Assuming
everything was going to work the way it was supposed to and, yeah, it -I think it would’ve given a lot more flexibility to increase reliability
for both urban and agricultural supplies. Another element in this, with
the state water project, I'm on the Board of Directors for an
organization called the State Water Project Contractors Authority. And
that was formed, oh boy, probably seven years ago at least. And the
concept of that back in the, oh probably the area – during the period
from 2005 to 2010 we were having a lot of concerns as to whether the
state was the most efficient way of operating the state project. Not
operating in terms of how much water goes into the project, but once it
gets into the-- the aqueduct whether or not there's another organization
could handle the operation and maintenance of the, the facilities
themselves. And this has been seen very similar to the -- what was done
on the Delta Mendota system on for the Central Valley project, and also
the Friant-- Friant system for the CVP also. Where local entities came in
and handled the, the management and operations of the system because the
-- in the federal case it was -- they were a little bit more amenable to
it and the state case they're not quite -- haven't been as amenable but
concerns were raised as the operational availability of the project start
dropping from low 90s down to the high 70% of when things were available.
First outages were occurring about 50% more than they were back in early
2000. And the state was having a heck of a time keeping employees -experienced employees, the average senior and supervisory position and
their operating and maintaining the facilities dropped from about 15
years to two years. And they-- the turnover was getting pretty bad to
where they weren’t being -- it was causing, causing those problems in the
state projects. So this SWPCA, the State Water Project Contractors
Authority was formed with the intent of -- at least the state water
contractor's intent was that we would be able to form an entity that
could take over those facilities. But politically that’s-- has not
happened and is probably unlikely to happen unless there's a
administration that's much more open to it than, than it is right now.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Was it just the state that was hostile to
it? Was the-- or southern water users, like Metropolitan, okay with that?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Yeah, they were supportive of it. I think
the general feeling was that after a probably a two, three year
transition period they would be able to operate those facilities more
efficiently and less expensively, or even if it's at the same cost, at
least more reliable -- greater reliability than what the state had been
doing. To the state's benefit, they have in the last few years been able
to get some salary concessions, they've done a lot better job of being
able to keep qualified people on-- on staff and are improving the
reliability of the system. So hopefully if the need goes away that's the
best -- we've arrived at the right solution no matter how it was done,
so.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Has agricultural irrigation and water
districts in the Valley that rely on the state water project, and they
all -- they generally gotten along well with water users further south,
like the Metropolitan? Or has there been a tension between the two?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: I think prior to the Monterey Agreement
and up through the conclusion of the Monterey Agreement there was -there was definitely tension. There were parts of the contract where
agricultural got the first cuts if there was a cut in deliveries and
urban agencies were-- were allowed to get their normal supply of water
and as the shift came to more permanent crops it became essential that
agricultural get a firm supply too. Because you -- trees just like people
need -- you know, you can't say well, I'm not going to water you this
year. We'll hold it off and pick up next year when it's -- we got a
better supply so. There was a lot of tension getting up to that point.
Once the Monterey Agreement, which had some good and bad elements, good
trade-offs for all entities, it's been a pretty positive situation and
every once in a great while there's a -- an issue that comes up that
sides get drawn between ag and urban, but it's-- it’s been-- been pretty
rare and generally pretty cordial arrangements between them. We look at
ourselves more as a -- in the same family now than we probably did back
in the '70s and '80s.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Anything else?
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: Not that I can think of. I've enjoyed the
opportunity to talk with you and ->> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: We've enjoyed having you.
>> Interviewee: Dale Melville: So, thank you much.
>> Interviewer: Thomas Holyoke: Thank you.
>> Interviewer: Jim Provost: Thank you.