Water Archives · Jim Provost interview

Title

eng Jim Provost interview

Description

eng Water engineer and founding partner of Provost and Pritchard. Talked about the history of Valley irrigation systems.

Creator

eng Provost, Jim

eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 6/10/2014

Format

eng Microsoft Word 2013 document, 19 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00039

extracted text

>> Thomas Holyoke: So, we are interviewing Jim Provost today. Why don't
we just start with a little bit of biographical information about who are
you and where you come from and how did you get into Water?
>> Jim Provost: OK, thank you. I was born here in Fresno, 1937, first
three years I lived on a West Side then I moved in to Fresno, went to all
Fresno schools, College Elementary Training which doesn't exist anymore
at Fresno State and then on through Fresno State itself. I owe a lot to
the Engineering Department at Fresno State. I was in my last semester
when my dad died and I wanted to drop out. And I forgot now who are the
chair of the engineering department was but he pulled me into his room
when I've given notes, I was dropping out and educated me as to why I
should finish and I did. So, that was good. Then I got--as soon as I
graduated I went to worked for Westlands Water District and when I got my
license I left almost the next month and went into practice from myself
working with mostly West Side farmers and I went from there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What kind of work were you doing for Westlands in your
first job?
>> Jim Provost: At Westlands I was Westlands' seventh employee. I was
hired by gentleman named Ralph Brody who was an attorney and manager of
the district. And when I was at Westlands I wanted more. The interesting
with things I worked on was the design of the pumping facilities to pump
water out of the Mendota Pool up to the alignment of the Central Valley
Projects west side canal and what that was all about is delivering water
to the bureau for shallow subsidence. There had been deep subsidence
already in that area as much as that like near Huron area around 20 feet
or so ground fallen was compacted. And the shallow subsidence was due to
irrigation. And then only about a quarter of the land was being irrigated
at that time from deep wells. So, I--working on that was interesting
thing for guy trying to design pumps and pump stations or pipelines.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, about what year is this that you went to work to-at Westlands?
>> Jim Provost: 1962.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, so Westlands was fairly new at that time.
>> Jim Provost: That's correct. Yeah, they had just finished
consolidating with West Plains Water District which was a district that
was on the uphill side of the alignment of the canal and Westlands was on
a downhill side but the Westlands--Ralph Brody for Westlands had managed
to get a contract with the bureau for water supply and West Plains was
having trouble getting a contract. So, it made sense to join the guys
with the contract. So, Brody for about two years or three years was in
Washington a lot trying to get a contract increase for the district and
he did. And it's --yeah, one thing I always thought was interesting
especially bringing back today in that contract, in developing the
contract Watermouths, the bureau had analyzed the status of the
groundwater and they determine that in Westlands which is 500,000 or so
acre foot--acres excuse me, the overgrowth was about 200,000 acre foot a
year. So, when they wrote the contract they required Westlands to use

their groundwater to the extent of up to 200,000 acre feet and the rest
of the million acre foot plus was for bringing everything in full
production. Before the water was delivered Westlands farmers typically
farmed about a quarter of their land to cotton and half of the area would
be in the grain crops and in the quarter of the land be fallow. And so,
there was a lot of land--and the grain crops were only taken one acre
foot per acre while the cotton would take up to four. So, they're in the
follow [inaudible]. So, there's big change with our water supplies to the
amount of land farmed, irrigated farming. And that--in my opinion led to
an increased overgraph 'cause the--whenever there was a shortage of the
water supply which would happen more often then the farmers would have to
use their groundwater. So, they ended up pumping more than 200,000 acre
foot of water and of course years like this year it's a 100 percent.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You know, Ralph Brody is sort of a person who's
figured large and a lot of valleys' history and stuff. Obviously, it's
someone we're not able to interview, anything else you can tell us about-to remembering what kind of a man he was?
>> Jim Provost: He—well as I said he was an attorney. In his early years
he worked for the state of California and he was involved of writing the
Clean Water Act of the state of California, and he is primary author of
that act. So, then--and then later in his career--then after that he went
as a private practice with the father-in-law of Jim Daniel, I know you
probably heard of also. And then he--after his private practice there
which was two or three years he got the job as manager of Westlands. And
as manager of Westlands he had to spend a bit half of his time in
Washington D.C. working the bureau, but he quite a guy. He helped me
train. He gave me some good education. In my--in earlier of my career he-I remember one situation where the--there's a hearing in front of the
congress, one of the congregational committees on Water and he was not
able to attend it and he had me attend it and give his speech. And I did
that and that was a--nothing no original words in my mind, it's just
reading the speech, but the--and he gave me a strict instructions when
they asked me a questions referred to this other gentleman who worked for
the bureau. So, that was one thing and it'd opened my eyes to politics.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you remember what the hearing was on and what the
speech was?
>> Jim Provost: Yeah. It was hearing on--it was on the [inaudible] of the
drain. The--it was back then it was proposed that the--that a--that all
the drainage will go to the wildlife areas and then piped to the delta.
And that was being proposed by delta interest, water district's interest
in the delta. And so they're debating pros and cons of it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. So, that was your first job and then you said
after that you went into private practice yourself.
>> Jim Provost: Right. Then I got my license in within a few months so I
went out on my own by myself and I was principally designing--at that
point of time the DMC--not the DMC but the State Water Project Bureau of
Reclamation canal have been built and--but there is no facilities you
could water out. And the bureau wants to control the canal through Fresno

County in Westlands or down through Tucson County from--through other way
[inaudible] really. And they allowed farmers individually through
Westlands to take water out of the canal. And so, I--since I'd already
worked in Westlands I--and--so, I knew a lot of farmer and they--and I-they'll--many of them hired me to design facilities to take the water out
and I came up with the idea of building inverted siphons they are called
of 24 to 36 inch steel pipe and then lay them over the top of the canal
and then use a vacuum pump to--that was used in the oil fields driven by
a rendered truck pulling vacuum out of the pipes again full of water.
Once it’s full of water it’d just fill up for free to the land. And so, I
designed a lot of those. And then some [inaudible] Nile pumps, Peerless
Pump hired me to investigate the variance of the pump shaft because I'd
never had pumps on the slant before and they were worried about that
wearing out and that's one of my--well things I did and on from there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: As most of your career have been and working with West
Side farmers as opposed to East Side or->> Jim Provost: West Side to start with, yeah. And then, then that
changed about year and a half or so after starting, I had the opportunity
to buy a small firm who also was in--there was in the water on the Kings
River. And that gentleman left to go overseas to work for private company
and he had his business started and he gave me the opportunity to buy it.
And that's when the firm approval [inaudible] was started 'cause I wasn't
interested in survey, land survey, and my partner was and he had
surveyed. So I--but what I got out of it was for us as an individual was
the--his clients on the Kings River which were Fresno Canal Company,
Lagoon Irrigation District and Riverdale Irrigation District. So that's
started my involvement on the Kings River in about 1968.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Any sort of thoughts about what--maybe some of the big
differences between West side agriculture and Eastside agriculture?
>> Jim Provost: Good question. It is interesting to see how boards of
directors of districts operate and they—it’s a substantial difference
between big districts to little districts. Now on east side there are
some big districts not many but most of them are small. And the boards of
directors of districts in my observation, number one they only attend the
meeting once a month. And so, how much can you--and the meetings last
typically two to four hours and sometimes they'd push it. But the, you
know, human can't carry, you know, that long that much information to
make decisions. So it--how they run is what the culture of the individual
happens to be. So in the east side there's mostly small farmers on the
boards of directors, in the big districts, there's just all the West side
and some the east side have major farmers as well on the board. And the
difference in the two is how they think. And the--you got an agenda for a
board meeting and on the agenda is buying a truck. On the big districts
that isn't even talked about and the little districts they spend an hour
talking about it. They want to know what kind of truck what--everything
about it, above my head, lost me. And that's, you know, that's just way
it is, and then the way things are run. The agriculture in the early days
and it was its all permanent crops on the east side and raw crops on the
West side. And the--that is changed because of the cost of doing business
principally. And the revenues--cotton was main stay. Cotton is king in

California for a long time, over the foreign markets and the ability to
make money on permanent crops from India, for example came out really
strong at cotton. Lot of cotton was growing in Australia and that just
took California if you already have a long staple cotton which is called
for--it's been high demand for clothing. And that was--they just started
learning how to grow that kind of cotton in other countries and they just
put us out of business on cotton and still a little bit today but not
much. When everything went to permanent crops because you can make more
money per acre and cost of doing business in California on any studies
keeps going up and pretty steep. So the evolution of agriculture is the
biggest thing as well in the east side, almost from day one like here
locally they're planting grapes. I mean they went to permanent crops
really quick on the east side and that's--it's always been that way not
much grow crops on east side.
>> Thomas Holyoke: One more quick question about the west side, when you
were first working at Westlands in '60s that's still been when people
like Russell Giffen and Jack O'Neill were still farming out there in the
states.
>> Jim Provost: That correct yeah. They were both on the board of
Westlands.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Any particular memories about those two gentlemen?
>> Jim Provost: Yeah, well I knew them both pretty well. They knew me and
I knew them. They definitely my friends they certainly helped
[inaudible]. Russell indirectly helped me a lot. Directly he-philosophically he and Jack Wolf worked for Russell back then and Jack
more than Russell, but Russell followed him. He didn't really care for
wasting money on engineers. And Russell he made a big mistake on that one
but he never didn't really learn from it. Back in when the land was
developed it wasn't--Southern Pacific owned every other section. Southern
Pacific always did revenue leases were they get a percentage of the crop
in farming the land and they had a lot of land, 100,000 acres. They-Russell had a lease on. Russell was farming a 100,000 acres plus. And
lot--so a lot of it was Pacific land. And for some magic reason all
Southern Pacific sections got smaller. The roads got moved and now
instead of 648 they're more like 540 acres. It was--they were paying
based on revenue. Well, Russell in doing that and at Southern--excuse me.
The railroad had a guy very involved in the valley and Ned Smith was his
name, and he probably knew more about the West side, their land on the
WEST side and did all the leases and did everything. But anyway, Ned told
me that after Russell sold they discovered that all these--their sections
were smaller and they quickly got that changed. The--but the biggest
thing Russell did that was by mistake was he put down a deep well. He
thought on his section and he put on the railroad section. Because the
private lines were shrunk and he lost the well, they wouldn't cooperate
and they said no. Thanks for giving us a well. So that's the story on
Russell. And Mr. O'Neill I don't have any really good stories. He was
certainly formed a lot of land near five points. And that's where he
started as a feedlot business there. And I did work on feedlot. I
designed one of the new feedlots but I worked for his son Ed and not
Jack. Jack O'Neill was a Vice-President at Producers Cotton Oil Company.

My dad was the Vice-President of the Producers Cotton Oil Company. They
had two Vice Presidents. They died within seven days of each other and so
I know Jack pretty well from that memory. And I still see his son once in
a while.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK then back over to the east side. So you started
working with a lot of irrigation districts that pulling water over the
Kings River you'd said.
>> Jim Provost: Yes Sir.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the Kings River. What do we know about the Kings
River sort of before we started engineering it? And it comes down to the
high Sierra where does it go--did it go?
>> Jim Provost: Tulare Lake. When man got here and we looked at the San
Joaquin Valley, a horrendous amount of it was marsh the whole valley all
the way up to the Delta. And the--I can't remember, the Indian casino out
of Hanford, starts with T, Tachi?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh Tachi Palace, yeah.
>> Jim Provost: Tachi Palace, that location was on the shore of Tulare
Lake. That's a long, long way. The--and it was on the--a lot marsh land
in that area. The lake could store 4 or 5 million acres foot of water,
bigger than any reservoir. And it overflowed on a regular basis and flew
down into what's called the Fresno swamp. And then from the Fresno swamp
to Tulare, to Mendota area and joined a bigger swamps that were
continuous. Swamp being land, it's all [inaudible] and a lot meandering
creeks in it. And but on the Kings River and Fresno swamp which goes from
like a Riverdale to James the--are Tranquility in that area, would be
from 20 miles wide to five miles wide. And the river, Kings River and
flowing, well first let me back up on a higher up on the Kings River.
There wasn't marsh per se there was--because the channel if you go down
99 across the Kings River today everything upstream is sort of in the
canyon, except right at the very beginning there are some flat land,
where the river where the river fans out. The--and that fanned out area
that's where the area that was first farmed and that was probably around
1870, 1875 in there. So, before that though it was just pretty, pretty
nice land to see, 'cause the river had some velocities and there was a
marshy. The--getting down though like I said once you get out of the King
which was were 99 as you start--the water starts spraying out right
there. And it spreads out an awful lot. There it would be impossible to
cross any of that land. When the earlier explorers--I forgot his name
gave in his report trying to cross the San Joaquin marshes--I mean San
Joaquin Kings River connection by marsh trying to go crossing that area,
found that it was a high water time and the water was flowing from the
San Joaquin River to the Kings and to Tulare Lake. The water is going
backwards of what we think today. And so, this King River never ever
really drained into the--there was no meandering slough or anything
connected from the Kings River to the San Joaquin River. The overflow-there were some marsh landing, it was pretty flat that the water could
flow either way through, but not through any defined channel. There were
some channels but they weren't connected.

>> Thomas Holyoke: And essentially, the two rivers are in separate basins
like->> Jim Provost: Yeah. Right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, you'd mentioned that some of the first farming
we're aware of that used Kings River water was around the 1870s or so.
So, what do you know about the development of the Kings River?
>> Jim Provost: That's a big question. The evolution of the river--let
me--excuse me, let me glands down with my notes [inaudible].
>> Thomas Holyoke: Whatever pieces you want to take it in.
>> Jim Provost: The development of King River I just--I can't remember
some of these things. So, from my notes I'm reading in the evolution of
water 18--by 1894 there was 44 litigations going on, on who has Kings
River or portions of the Kings River. On the Kings River in the marshy
area where Riverdale is, there is a land ownership called Laguna de Tache
grant. And it covers 43,000 acres of land. And the evolution of our water
rise and who gets water starts with the grant. The grant was grazed by
cattle and most land in fact was grazed by cattle. That's how the water
was usually, they flood, grain would grow and they put cattle on it. The
grant ownership changed a few times and in the point of time of a major
litigation at Kern County dealing with Miller and Lux, that litigation
found--it was [inaudible] the US Supreme Court and established for the
first time the priority of water rise as to riparian land and nonriparian land. And that litigation gave riparian land the highest right
and that water had to pass by the riparian land. Well, pass--[inaudible]
divert all the water and that was the extent of the perfection of water
rise, so it's pretty loose as to what--I mean, what about the guys
upstream? Well, it wasn't addressed. So, the guys, the owner of the
Laguna grant then sued the early--actually there weren't any districts
back then. District go out and pass all canal companies. And Fresno Canal
Company consolidate a canal company and now to add some canal companies,
we're all diverting water and the owners of the grant decided that was
going to end. So, they put them all in litigation one at a time and they
won everyone one of them, because a summary lawsuit had been and the
judge ordered that the diversions from the river upstream had to seize.
The upstream owners did not seize. And--however and the reason--the main
reason they didn't seize because the owner of the grant turn around and
what the water stock of the canal company upstream. So, the same guy was
in control or family, or people who controlled. So, what happened then is
that the guys--there's no more litigation because the guys did own by the
same people. So the guys upstream start--continue their diversions and
developed another kind of water right, called it appropriative water
right against the eyes of the Riparian water. Same peoples and that's
what they wanted because the land upstream was farmed to crops like
grapes and other permanent crops and high value crops. Well, the grant
was just cattle land. So, that's how the water rights of the upstream
guys got perfected all for that original litigation sort of different.
And the--but the people on the river were always fighting about how much
water in the river when I get mine? You know, that's goes on and on,

fighting, fighting, fighting. Let me, these guys have my notes on those
kinds of subjects oh well. The piece on a river didn't even have a chance
starting until about 1917 when a group of men on the river organized and
say, "Hey, we got to end this litigation, we got to resolve this issue,
let's ask the State of California to provide a water master at the Kings
River. So, they interviewed employees of the state then the Department of
Water works or some similarly. And they hired a guy named Charles Kaupke
as the--they actually they hired the state to send Charles Kaupke to the
river to take water measurements and tell everybody what he thinks, this
is how it should be divided according to what litigation he saw. And he-after about four years he--everybody liked him so well they hired him as
an employee and he was the first Kings River water master and stayed on
for a good 50 years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What does a water master do?
>> Jim Provost: He--water master divides the water up or sees that it’s
divided up the way the water holders think it should be. There's a step
to get there which I'll tell you about in a minute but the--so his job is
just to divert the water. When they hired him as the water master they
had to have an organization to pay his way and they formed the Kings
River Water Association back in 1921. The--and the membership and what
they did change over the years. There was a district called Foothill
Irrigation District was a member, founding member and it was up in the
Foothills here in Fresno County and yet it was never able to get water
out of the river so they dropped out. But the--there's a lot of
agreements, evolutional agreements, and evolutional water rights are
substantial on the river. The beginning, the very first water schedule
was done at the time before the associate was formed, before Kaupke came
on board by the owners of the grant and the owners of the upper district
and they agreed to the flows of the first 2,000 cfs. The flows at the
river can easily go to 10,000 cfs. So, they divided pretty close on the
first 2,000 and for all practical purposes that stayed till the day it's
more refined. And back then there was one schedule, fixed for all year,
today there is one schedule for each month recognizing that flow--water
flows diversion and they have the low flow guys and the high flow guys.
High flow guys are basing at the end of the river like at the end is
Tulare lake basin or out at San Joaquin. So, they get the higher flows
because the upstream guys are diverting river, diverting the water. The-but the--so the evolution of the schedule was slow and tedious that the
one I told you about was then followed with Kaupke being hired. At that
time the different canal companies asked the state to give a one year
water schedule for Kaupke to follow, up to flow of about 10,000 cfs. And
all the enters is submitted. There was a hearing by the state. All that
enters on the river and discovering 1.2 million acres now were given to
the state and the state came up with a water schedule, who gets water,
what flows, and they--but they only made one schedule, it was good every
month. Well, what happens--and that was approved to hearing--there was
protest, there were threats, there are people on the river said, "We'll
let this for one year then we're out." And--you know, somehow Kaupke
managed order everybody together say, "Hey, give us another chance or
we'll get there." And the--what really triggered a lot of the change to
go into the month was the upper districts would be on schedule is called
for water in like January, February, March when they weren't diverting it

because they don't, you know, farming is not really going on, water needs
rains taking care of stuff. But the guys at the end of the river were
using the irrigate grain and they wanted the water. So, they still got it
'cause the guys weren't thinking about it, but they wanted to be quote
"on schedule", they wanted to have a schedule saying, "They get the
water," instead of just getting as we called it refused water. So, they
then on their own they spent probably couple of years negotiating monthly
schedules for the entire river and I got done for the--by 1927.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The--by the time we're getting into the 1920s, I mean
earlier you talked about the people who own the [inaudible] grant and the
various canal companies operating on different points in the river,
private companies. But 1920 are we still mostly dealing with private
owners or we have irrigation districts by this point or.
>> Jim Provost: No it's not private owners. So the first irrigation
district formed in California is Alta Irrigation District.
>> Thomas Holyoke: On the Kings River?
>> Jim Provost: Yeah, on the Kings River and that's very first one, but
the—-it was moved very slowly converting. Some didn't convert like
Crescent canal actually went out and formed the Crescent Irrigation
District because--and then they never used it. So, it then was--they kept
the canal company, that's what they wanted. Usually, the irrigation
districts were formed by the canal company owners to sell out, OK? So,
they went--they formed an irrigation districts, sold bonds and bought the
guy out. And the Fresno was one of the leaders on that one and
consolidate it both for these two big upper districts which were
basically controlled by one person. And, his name is L.A. Nares, L.A.
Nares is quite a remarkable person on the Kings River. He controlled over
half the land on the Kings River either directly or indirectly. He can
grow Fresno canal service area, the consolidated service area, the grant
service area, the Norfolk, half the Norfolk service area. Yeah, he was
Mr. Powerful, but he is the one who was responsible for getting that very
first schedule of 2000. Quite a guy.
>> Thomas Holyoke: But now--OK, basically how did this gentleman get
being so much control?
>> Jim Provost: He--in the beginning of Fresno Canal Company was created
and was one of the first to start diverting water and they--in order to
complete their distribution system they sold about a million dollars in
bonds for constructing, this is a canal company not a district, and they-the bonds were held by a London insurance company mostly, bank was
involve with it and mostly insurance company. Guy named Church who was
the developer of the Fresno Irrigation District area got in financial
troubles later and because of the economy and I forget what years, but
the economy turn really bad. And a lot of farm--the farmers couldn't pay
their bills. And so, the canal company didn't have any money and the
cotton canal company was not able to make its bond payments to bond
holders. So, the bond holders hired an English gentleman named L.A Nares
and send him over here to solve their problem. Well, he was quick on
figuring out how to solve his--probably make his fortune by helping the

insurance company. So, he got the insurance companies paid off by more
refinancing and then he--basically he was a subdivider and he subdivided
a lot. He own the land subdivided a lot of it and sold it off. Those
areas where he didn't own the land like Fresno consolidated, he sold--he
formed irrigation districts who bought the stock and became the partner
and he made money that way. He was very successful in knowing how to make
money. But he was successful in bringing the first good water schedules
of the Kings River too.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. So, how do we get them from the development of the
association, the first water schedule, how do we get from that to say the
building of Pine Flat Dam?
>> Jim Provost: Oh, my Lord. Pine Flat Dam, that's an unbelievable
history. Let me--I see--I look at a note on that. It's first [inaudible]
in 1880, where to put Pine Flat Dam, yeah, these [inaudible] were so
different. In 1900, the very first study was done. In 1960, the first
costs, was made, 9, 500,000 dollar. And in 1959, another study was done
given, it was up to 41 million dollars. And that was the actual cost of
which irrigation had to pay 37 percent of that cost. The--it took like 75
years from when it was conceived to when it was built. So, you think
things were slow today, they’ve always been slow. And what's interesting
to me is the scenario and I don't know a lot about, you know, I was too
young to remember it. Back in, you know, the '50s especially right after-the period of time after World War II for 15 years probably, the Bureau
of Reclamation and the core of engineers were at severe competition, who
got to build what dam? And they really did not like each other, probably
[inaudible]. And they competed to who's going to get the dams and that's
what slowed--that's what the big thing has slowed the progress. The--on
the Kings River it mattered by everybody like Tulare lake basin in
Norfolk area, they did not want reclamation law in the river, because at
that time 168 acre limitation that was in place. Yeah, they want to core,
they want a flood control. All the studies done on sizing and dam,
looking the dam showed that 600,000 acre feet was needed for reregulation
of water to move it from May to June type of thing. And the 400,000 acre
foot was needed for flood control and so you add that up, that was a
million acre foot and that's--and those studies added up that's the size
of the dam. The--but to get it authorized different study--both agencies
were doing their studies on feasibility, both on--got to end in--made it
hard the core, provides no irrigation benefits while the bureau does. And
the lobbyist, it's actually I worked with people trying to get the
project built, they managed to--there's a broad basis of all across
United States get a law put into place for the core of engineers to build
a substantial amount of flood control reservoirs in United States. And
all the reservoirs in San Joaquin Valley were listed. You know, we got,
you know, all the rivers, Kern, Tulare, Kaweah, Kings, and more. So, they
are already authorized under this blanket bill. And so that's we got it
going, but the bureau wouldn't give up. And what happened is the dam got
built under the--by the core. But President Truman instructed the Bureau
of Reclamation to negotiate for a repayment contract on the water for use
for irrigation. And that's what happened. And the--And it was very
difficult, such things that are in our agreements today started then.
There is a revision today that they uses the Kings River cannot take any
of their water outside the boundaries of the Kings River service area,

OK? The--When the bureau was trying to get it, they made it quite clear.
They wanted Pine Flat to be part of the Central Valley Project and water
would be taken out of the service area. And that was a real big deal then
and still is today, is that no water should go outside the Kings River
service area. And then it's so tightly written today that it's hard to
even do exchanges and get it out. You know, bringing like amount of water
and some other source and pipe [inaudible] out. It's very tightly
written, no Kings River water shall leave the Kings River service area.
That will get changed in time because there are modern facilities allow
for exchanges->> Thomas Holyoke: Isn't there actually some kind of like bypass canal
between the Kings River and Mendota Pool or something like that today?
>> Jim Provost: I don't think that kind of thing will happen, but the
quite--and the facilities are already in place to move water around, big
regiment through Fresno Irrigation District. They take water out of the
Friant-Kern Canal and see if Fresno does, and they have Kings River water
so they can exchange water to [inaudible] water. So it's there but
they're not supposed to do it, and they I’ve been losing some of my
thoughts in here.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, just to kind of to jump back then to building of
Pine Flat Dam. So, the residents there want to be--prefer the army corps
to go do it because they could avoid the restrictions of reclamation
involved in the army corps because I believe as supposed to largely to
flood control projects.
>> Jim Provost: Right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do the Kings River have a flooding problem?
>> Jim Provost: Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, the analyses are correct,
[inaudible] for flooding. The biggest flooding--the largest financial
impact is that Tulare Lake basin, there is also flooding elsewhere and
anytime it will blow 99 expose to flooding. The core of engineers did
bail, let part of the pipeline. They built levies out on the direction of
flow to the Mendota Pool are all built to stop her from flooding. And
they have broken and they have flooded out large areas of land. But
before the project, I mean, that whole North Fork area was flooded too, a
lot of areas flooded. The--But the biggest movement for flood control is
of course Tulare Lake basin because that's--the natural flow of the river
was there. And they accomplished that, they build on other rivers.
There's four rivers that drain and sort of like flooded, so it's not
just--Kings is the biggest, but you got to watch out the other ones too,
and the core build dams in all those rivers. And so, there is--and
they're all based on economics and I guess they all worked. The Tulare
Lake basin pipeline--Tulare Lake basin, there was a lot of inter player.
The Tulare Lake basin was very aggressive on water and everything they
did it was before the days of the Boswells. Boswells are thought of, you
know, the current pioneer out there, but it was really before their day.
There were several major landowners. And they--although the Boswells are
there at that time, Pine Flat was built. But the Boswells got in-actually, they were dragged in it. They were dragged in the litigation

and they set themselves up for ligation. Both things happen. They build a
major canal from the North Fork to Tulare Lake basin to divert North Fork
flows, normal flows, not during flood times to Tulare Lake basin. And
the--that was put in core by the end of the North Fork of the Kings River
goes--you know, flow goes into Mendota Pool and that's where Miller and
Lux farmed. And they had about 400,000 acres of farm in there. They sued
the Boswells to stop the diversion of water into that bypass canal which
is still there today, by the way, it's called Crescent Bypass. It's still
there. And the Miller and Lux won that case. And that was a disaster to
the Kings River. The Kings River was not a part to the lawsuit but the
Judge gave or awarded Miller and Lux the high flows of the Kings River
and some of the flows clear down to 2,000 CFS, you know, small increments
of flow saying historically that's way the water went west to Mendota
Pool. Well, lord that hit almost every district on the Kings River
parties to the litigation but president had been set. And so, that was
not a very comfortable time. And because of that lawsuit going on, Tulare
Lake basin asked not to be on the Kings River schedule because they
didn't want that--what happened to happen. It happened anyway but they
asked not to be a part of it. So, all along there was void of water left
in this Kings River schedule. This is a 1930 schedule time I think. The-And actually they just guessed wrong, they should have said everybody
that's the whole thing because they awarded Miller and Lux. Well, on a-which is big deal today, is San Joaquin River and Miller and Lux in a
exchange contract because all of that worth--they come into play right
here, is that the bureau had bought not only the San Joaquin River rights
for Friant, they bought along with the Miller and Lux holding of that
litigation. So now the bureau had legal right to water off the Kings
River out of Pine Flat or wherever it is. And so, when Pine Flat was to
be repaid for by the water users, they asked to buy from the bureau the
award from that litigation. And they did, and they sold it for 750,000
dollars. The Kings River bought back the water that the judge had rolled
to the exchange contractor in Miller and Lux originally. So that's part
of the interesting history of something we're seeing today because now we
got the San Joaquin guys calling down the old Miller and Lux water to be
delivered to them. And that's the way it is, you know. They--But the
Kings River got out of that or else they’d be in that same mess today.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, the army corps builds Pine Flat Dam. Now, the army
corps doesn't operate Pine Flat Dam.
>> Jim Provost: Yes, they do.
>> Thomas Holyoke: They do?
>> Jim Provost: They operate it. And they repay--the Kings River had to
pay at 37 percent of the dam cost. They pay 30 percent of the operating
cost of the bureau. But the bureau--the Kings River orders water out of
Pine Flat. So that's what they did.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, one more thing I'm getting confused. The bureau
has some operation responsibility?
>> Jim Provost: All right. They may--Thanks for asking that question.
Earlier, I commented that the bureau and the core were in competing the

president. Then President instructed the bureau to write a contract for
the water supply. And they did. And it was very--it took about four years
or five years to write. And in that contract, the bureau agreed to
adjudicate, the question is does reclamation water--apply to the water or
not? Reclamation law said. And then the 160 acre limit. And so, that was
tried between Kings River enters a lot of other enters on the other
smaller rivers like Kern, Tule, Kaweah, and with a major litigation and
the bureau won. And they went up to clear to the US Supreme Court. And
they won. So reclamation law now applied on the Kings River and the
bureau was involved as your question asked, as far as collecting money.
You know, maybe not in operating but in collecting money and enforcing
the reclamation law. Well, the Tulare Lake basin folks especially did a
remarkable job. They weren't happy with that result, obviously. And so,
they got the law changed and that was very, very smart, they--so logical.
They--What happened on the Kings River was the government--the way law
ended up, the adjudication ended up was that on a flood control project,
the Bureau of Reclamation can be involved and can make reclamation law
apply. So, when they were writing the--when the reclamation law was being
rewritten in Congress in the '70s, the J.G. Boswell Company and the
[inaudible] Company where the principal farmers down there. And they had
Sandbar [assumed spelling] was [inaudible] which is a name you know. And
Sandbar, a guy from Boswell, when the reclamation law has been negotiated
and talked about or being written during that time, they went to the 17
Western States, which is the area of the Bureau of Reclamation and they
first studied all of this of course ahead of time, there are a lot of
core dams. So they went to the--they let the House and Senate Reps for
each of those states and say "Hey, this bill is going through now."
Here's what happened in California. We found that a core of engineers
then can have reclamation law attach to it and acreage limitation
applied. Do you want that to happen in your state? And so, with that to
me it's pretty logical and simple. No, we don't want that. So they
amended and put amendment on the reclamation act stating the core of
engineers project are exempt from reclamation law, and that's how they
solved their problem of acreage limitation on the Kings River. Ain't that
amazing?
[ Laughter ]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Wow.
>> Jim Provost: Yeah. It was an old issue of, you know, nobody would
wanted it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So, in the current operations of the Kings, Kings
River, trying to make sure I can understand all of this. Where does the
river association and the water master now figure into all this? I mean,
contracts assigned with the bureau of the irrigation water. The army
corporate the dam.
>> Jim Provost: Well, the bureau contract went away as a result of that
[inaudible].
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh.

>> Jim Provost: Yeah, so it's gone.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, oh, oh.
>> Jim Provost: Yeah, so it took them out.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK.
>> Jim Provost: And at that time, before they took it out, they were just
collecting the money for repayment and reclamation law was in [inaudible]
until this was all resolved. And then when they lost before the
legislation, just nothing was done because of very short period of time
in two years, nothing happened. All the upper districts don't care about
it. They don't mind reclamation law. The west Fresno Irrigation District
Center reclamation law anyway. And so they didn't care, so not much
really has happened.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. So, operations in the Kings River are still then
entirely guided by these water schedules->> Jim Provost: Yeah. 100 percent by the water schedules and they--and
the Kings River Water Association has two primary functions. And that,
one is to protect the water rights of the Kings River members, and two,
to divert the water from the river as requested--and from the dam as
requested by the members. And so that's what they do and don't take much
of a staff. They have like three guys that physically run the river and,
you know, the water master.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So earlier, you were talking about in the 1920s all
these ligation that have been going on over water rights and the portion
of water that was, I guess to an extent, settled by developing of the
water schedules. So after the building of Pine Flat Dam kind of moving
into the second half of the 20th century, is most of that taken care off
or--I mean, let's put it another way. Is everyone to the last several
decades been largely satisfied with the allocation of water off the
Kings?
>> Jim Provost: The Kings River schedules themselves are all--everybody
is pleased with and they learned to live with them and that's--there's no
issue there today. The issues today dealing with riparian water rights,
which are people who own land along a river, who have a right in that.
But the first--that was the old Miller and Lux lawsuit in Kern County
salvaging riparian water rights. Lot of things to changed, like in the-since that day, for example, the biggest changes put in the California
Constitution that the water must be beneficially used. Before that was in
there the riparian river law was the water had to flow passed your land
nothing about use. That's a big change that happened. The issues are with
people claiming riparian rights, are doing something about them. The
evolution is interesting. The--When I first thought I wonder why--we have
an area called Centerville Bottoms on the Kings River. And another area
called Clark's Fork Reclamation District on the Kings River. Centerville
Bottoms is the area right below the dam and crosses 180 Bridge and down
almost to Sanger. The--And that's Centerville Bottoms. It's all flat
land, obviously has a water rise, threads of canals or natural channels

through all that land fans out and goes back together. The--You know, you
wonder why they're not on schedule, the--you know, sort of recognize.
Well, the reason is historically the Kings River was a gaining river and
that inflow from the groundwater. All occurred down in--actually clear
out to, not Riverdale but Laton, up in Fresno County, go clear down to
Laton, that's quite a ways out, that the river float into the Kings River
so there was no river losses except for riparian pumpers on the river.
And so, channel losses were not a big consideration. You got passed those
points, well then now you're out in areas where they don't have main
right anyway. They have--high flow [inaudible]. So, there really was no
issues at all until agricultural use got more intense. Today, only--not
today, when I started the Kings Rivers which is, you know, the '60s or
say the '70s, the river was a gaining river still to the Highway 99. It
was gaining. Today is losing river, to most of that. So, the river loses
carried loses are higher today than they historically were and that
schedule didn't recognize that. When Pine Flat was built, that was a big
issue in cost. It took many years to resolve how the carriage water and
the riparian water needed would be--where's that coming from. Here's a
schedule. They're not on the schedule. Well, the Kings River did two
things. One of them early enough they can be put on the schedule and one
not early enough. The one that was early enough was Clark's Fork
Reclamation District area, which is only 4,000 acres of land, but it has
100 percent pumps out the Kings River. They're all riparian pumps. Kings
River didn't like that, so they sort of--people forced that area to form
that reclamation district and they want to put--they forced them to take
the water instead of the farmers taking the water, based upon, hey, this
is good for you to do because now you can store your water in Pine Flat.
If you're not a member of association, you can't. So, yeah, that's good.
So, they then [inaudible] were got allocated a water supply. It's very
good from Pine Flat, you know, from whatever they needed. And then, the
Clark's Fork was also the position to be a member of the Kings River
Water Association. OK. Now, on the upper hand, in Centerville Bottoms,
about the time Pine Flat was constructed they--but the water schedules
are all done, the idea of that area forming a district and having--being
able to store water was sold and [inaudible] upon. And so they formed the
Kings River Water District. So, that's another pumping agent, but they
are too late to be on the schedule. And so they still have to be
addressed, it's just that your--that it was accomplished on the Kings
River operating size, they don't have to deal with individually pumpers
or they can deal with the district and that's better for them anyway. And
the--until today, they had to address how--where in the schedule do these
people get water. Well, after a lot of conversations that took like three
or four years, they developed a concept of operating pool. And an
operating pool is funded with water by end storage, by everybody else on
the river. So, everybody else on the river gives a percentage of their
water supply of that year and percentage of their storage of that year
to, I'll say the Kings River Water Association, to manage those water
users in the water supply. And so that's how it works but it was very
hard to get to that point. Especially when things changed, when they-like I said, most of our history is that was a gaining river clear out to
Laton, you know. Now, it's losing river, and so that they have to make up
for that water. There was a lot of litigation on and sort of that the
pumpers--pumpers are still a problem today, a lot less of a problem but
still a problem. There are pumpers--in my career I have had to be

involved as an expert maybe 10 times on pumpers in the Kings River, new
pumpers coming on the Kings River saying they have a riparian right to
water and invariably they have some right but not for all their land. The
only land [inaudible] lands that are contiguous to the river and having
that way forever and never changed. Today, they're used to be, you know,
I don't know, couple hundred thousand acres of riparian land. And today,
there's probably 20 to 30,000 acres. So, it's a big difference, but they
still has a--there still are issues there because people who don't--who
believe they have riparian right put in a pump and have taken a thread
number, do something to, hey, here is the proof that you're not all
riparian. A big deal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does the flow of the Kings River been affected by a
large scale drilling of wells in that area down there? I don't know if
draining the aquifer around on the river?
>> Jim Provost: Well, you know, like I said it was a gaining river. And
so now it's losing river and that's talking about clear up here
Centerville Bottoms I mean right, you know, two to five miles below the
dam as it used to be flooding and now is losing, not much but some, well,
you're down in 99 and it's all of those all the time. When they--they did
I think extensive pump survey when the dam was built, that covered a
whole river and they want to know everybody it was pumping from the river
and within 200 feet of the river and that last statement was because of
your question. What's the impact on the river from people pumping within
200 feet from the river or 100 feet from the river, what's the impact
they have on the river. Do they getting water out of the river or they
getting their groundwater and the ground--you know, what's happening?
There were 154 pumps in the survey, that's how big the system is. And a
lot of the--when they found out that once the river got below, I don't
know, five miles below 99, that river was losing river, it wasn't getting
any water from the groundwater. Today, it's all the way up. So, back in
the early days, it's sort of interesting before on like turn of the
century type, the river is a gaining river, [inaudible] water was not
controlled out of the river, whatever they could take and result that
most people over-irrigate it like crazy. Fresno was one of the classic
examples of heritage being--habits and heritage being passed through from
generation to generation. They are--Fresno was developed early and so was
consolidated and all the upper district real early on in our history and
they only had water [inaudible] when they have it. So, you got up then
and that was before the evapotranspiration of crops are taking place in
May, nothing is going on, really. And in April, May, well, water is
running high. And what happen, everybody is irrigating like crazy in
April and May. They didn't understand evapotranspiration at all. They
didn't know anything about it. They thought the normal water use was two
acre foot per acre in contrast of four. And so, they were way off but
though the--even though, but they still took--they [inaudible] too but
they knew that take four and five 'cause it's available, let's recharge
the ground. But they actually in some areas of Tulare County and Fresno
County, they actually put land out of production for a short while
because the groundwater came up so high that they couldn't grow crops on
it because of this over-irrigation. In the 1980s I did a study for Fresno
Irrigation District and as to their need for storage, use of storage, and
how could they get increase their--you know, the usable water they have,

by far the best water schedule on a river, you know, years like this
they're the one district that has a lot of water and then they have
probably three quarters of the flow of the river this year.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Fresno Irrigation District does?
>> Jim Provost: Because they're the first to develop, first on the river,
really. They--I forgot what I was going to say. My mind drifted there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What's interesting here, in 2014, a year about major
drought in FID doesn't seem to be having any problems.
>> Jim Provost: No. No, they're very fortunate.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Does--Any other big issues on the Kings River going on
right now or in recent history that are going on?
>> Jim Provost: No, you know, the one thing I just finished up on dealing
with water rights, water agenda. The big picture there before 1914 and
after 1914. In December 1914, California passed its very significant law
creating such thing as water rights and, you know, the--and at that
point, the significant thing is not what the right is, it just what the
right isn't. At that point in time, in December 1914, all water not being
consumed for beneficial use is property of the State of California and
does not belong to any individual. Pre 1914 water rights, the state has
zero control of except for beneficial use, under our constitution whereas
we put the beneficial use. But you don't have--one does not have to get
permission of the state to transfer the water or they have to--you know,
that's a big deal. The--And then after 1914, and if you have a water
right then, you get into something like, now with transfer why do you
keep something of beneficial use. And the--They're under the law, there
are specific beneficial uses, there's consumptive use and nonconsumptive, non-consumptive like producing energy or providing water for
fish, those are in the legislation, the law. Then there's consumptive use
and they name them. And for example, irrigation, municipal, industrial,
and that things of that nature and they're all laid out. Well, in the
state controls you have to get the state permission to do any of those
things before 1914. You don't have to get the state permission. And on
anything, just has to be beneficial use. After 1914, the law does not
provide for groundwater recharge and/or groundwater banking. You can get
permit for storing in the underground but it's not--that won't work
because the law wasn't made--brought enough to make it work. So, that's a
big deal today, is to what you're going to do for groundwater recharge.
That is an unauthorized fact even though we do it here all the time in
Fresno, flood control districts basins are all in Fresno, are all
recharge basins. That's all against the law. The state will ignore that
unless there is public financing involved. And this is voluntary, I mean
they just--you know, they just common sense type of thing. But if there's
public funding involved from the state, public from the state, they do
get involved and they have stopped projects in our area, geographical
area from being constructed using state money, grant money to build a
recharge basin because they are not authorized under the law to do. There
is no beneficial use to groundwater storage or banking. And so, that--if
you have a pre '14 water right, the state can't say that because we can

do--one can do--if they have pre '14 water right you can do anything you
want with it so it isn't, you know, bad type of thing or that hurts
somebody. The--For example, hurt somebody, you cannot move water upstream
pre '14 without compensating for the people that you just--that the water
isn't passing by, OK. But that's usually pretty simple to do and it's not
money, it's providing, you know, lost water [inaudible] carriage water.
So, having the pre '14 water right is a big deal today more so than it
ever has been because of the state making it that way. And so, in the
Kings River Water Rights, the association does have a permit, have
actually six permits from the State of California covering all the water
of the Kings River for storage and for irrigation and in one small
situation for domestic use. City of Fresno is taking Kings River water
today and going through a water treatment plant, that's against the law
because the water right how the wording is. So, to solve that problem,
well, that's--we really believe on the river that most of our water is
pre '14 water anyway and then that's all legal. So, just finished giving
those data big report proving the extent of pre '14 water rights, which
flows up to 10,000 CFS, were being diverted before and put the beneficial
years by 1.7 million acre foot of water years but the beneficial year is
before 1914 and try to prove it. Some of these areas--in some of the
areas, upper river is easier to prove lower river is harder to prove,
mainly because Kopke didn't get in on the river. And until after then, he
took a lot of measurements but there aren't many measurements before 1914
except on the upper river. So, still, those are the size and numbers and
half a million acre feet make all the problems go away. So that report
was given to the state almost a year ago or nine months ago, that drought
hit in the state. We had a lot of communication. They seem to be--they're
going to come back with a counter--different opinion which we expected.
And right now, we're just waiting to this current drought gets over
because they don't have time to work on it or too busy working on the
delta issues which are very critical today. And so, I don't know how
they're going to accept that but they will accept something and so we're
going to have--on the Kings River have identified pre '14 water right,
which is a big deal.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I understand that a lot of the pre 1914 water rights
are not well quantified around the state.
>> Jim Provost: That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, because of water
measurements. You have to show three things on the pre 14 water right
that you have the capacities to divert--that you did divert and how much
you diverted and how much was used for irrigation, and show all the
approval of that stuff. Well, the key one there is all the canals on the
Kings River we know everything about, they were all built before 1900. We
know everything about them before 1900. And their total capacity is right
at 10,000 CFS. And so, that's pretty easy to show. We have the ability to
do it. Now, did you do it? Prove it. Well, they don't--common sense is
not allowed. I mean, why would somebody spend a lot of money to build a
canal and not use it, you know? Yeah. But, hey, that's the way it is. And
so--but the proof on the upper river is the high flow guys, what we call
them, you know, after you leap across 99 it's really hard to do because
not many measurements were taken. So you'll try to use deductive
reasoning to convince the state, that's the area that the state is going

to disagree with some of the assumptions, probably. That's OK. The upper
river carries the day.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. Anything else you'd like to talk about.
>> Jim Provost: Excuse me. Oh, yes, [inaudible] on the Kings River.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Before then--time wise?
>> Unidentified Speaker: About 11 minutes [inaudible].
>> Jim Provost: Good.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Jim Provost: No, that's about plenty. [inaudible] on the Kings River.
There are several but the history of fish on the Kings River, I've always
thought was interesting. I'll have to read my notes 'cause I want to be
exact. The first evidence of fishery issues on the Kings River is 1899,
not current at all, where a fish ladder was required on one of the river-one of the rivers on the Kings River near Laton, so way downstream. Then
in 1918, the whoever the predecessor of the Department of Fish and Game
was, forced Crescent Canal to enter a fishery contract with them or when
the river shut down and they quit diverting from the river that they had
to take the fish out of the Crescent Canal and put back into the river.
And that was a contract entered into and lasted for three years, and I
don't know what happened. But way back then we're trying to save fish.
Way out that’d be all the warm water fish, you know, about there. So,
whatever is then what happened in the history of water, well, [inaudible]
in 1936 crescent [inaudible] they had to put in fish ladder there. And
you think, well, this got to be for migrating fish. We don't have any
evidence other than a stray steelhead I think got into the river one time
during a high flood year. But other than that, water just doesn't go to
Mendota Pool, it's all used. So, I don't know. But all of a sudden,
pipeline got built in 1962 because the agreements how to operate the
river, internal on the river, what happened below Pine Flat there's two
creeks that come in. There's Mill Creek [assumed spelling] And Hughes
Creek [assumed spelling]. And they're not--you know, they operate just on
rainwater. They're not--no storage, but enough water was in those two
creeks to supply the irrigation demands for, you know, a period of week
or two weeks, a short period of time. So during that time, the water mass
of the Kings River shut off the releases from Pine Flat. It was a total
fish kill between the dam and the point where Fresno County Bridge is
across the river. Not the one right below the dam but the next one down
where the storage used to be. OK. That's a whole section that dried up.
Front page of the Fresno Bee were photographs of dead fish on the
beaches. Things changed. And the continuous there were agreements
resolved that integral fishing game and the Kings River to provide
[inaudible] like a 56 second feet but it was very confusing how you
measure that and much dispute how you measure it because it wasn't direct
measurement. It was a mathematical thing and the fishery folks didn't
like it and they complained about it and complained about it and
certainly ignored them. Well, that was a mistake because it drug out for
a long time in 1998, they fought--the fishery folks filed a public trust

doctrine complaint on the Kings River, which is the disaster city for
agriculture. And it goes with the Kings River revise, at that time,
expect minimum--you were exposed to minimum [inaudible] being in the
neighbor of 250-350 CFS year round every day and in storage limits, you
can't drain the lake anymore. They're going to keep it up and maybe
measures might lose 300,000 acre foot of water, whatever the court judge
decides. So, boy, you don't think people want to work and try avoid court
and thank gosh the local fishing folks want to avoid court too. It's very
expensive. And so they did develop in 1999, the first fishery contract on
the Kings River, where hundred thousand acre foot of storage is the
minimum pool under the contract and the minimum release under a dry year
is a 100 CFS, and in a wet year go up to 250 CFS. And in a lot of studies
done, by yours truly on that subject, what's going to--I mean, how much-how do you do it and how do you provide for the water without taking too
much and so fishery pools were established to provide water on paper,
says here is how you--here's [inaudible] the water is coming out
[inaudible] approved. So that's all operating today and everything is
quite on the river. The only thing hydrology today, I mean this drought
right now, they're just going to be a disaster on the Kings River. But
there's good communicators, monthly meetings between Department of Water
Resources, Fishery enters and the Kings River Water Association--and the
Kings River Conservation District enters the picture. The water in the
lake is warm and that will kill fish, trout, cold-water fish. So where
they allowed--everybody is allowed, you know, the [inaudible]
practitioner to go below hundred thousand miles now to 85,000 or so. Then
it's not good for even them, we expect fish kills on the Kings River this
year.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Even apart from the issue of the fish is how bad of a
toll is the drought going to take on irrigators off the Kings River this
year?
>> Jim Provost: Well, we've had it before and basically it's just done
for the last three years, we call it the upper river. People below--from
Laton on out, Tulare Lake basin, North Fork or Kings River have been
having water for three years. So, yeah, it hits hard. But Fresno, it's
not hard to hit at all but the neighbors [inaudible] consolidated they're
not running water. So it's bad but, you know, we're not as bad as State
Water Project or, you know, the Flat [inaudible], they’re really hurting.
So no, we're not that bad.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. Anything else?
>> Jim Provost: No sir.
>> Thomas Holyoke: All right. Thank you very much sir, wonderful.
>> Jim Provost: It's been fun.

Item sets

Water Archives Set