Water Archives · Lance Johnson interview

Title

eng Lance Johnson interview

Description

eng Former water engineer working for many irrigation districts in the Valley. Talks about changes in water management and the need for more water storage.

Creator

eng Johnson, Lance

eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 2/29/2016

Format

eng Microsoft Word document, 23 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00048

extracted text

>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, we're talking to Lance Johnson today. So let's
just start at the beginning. Where are you from?
>> Lance Johnson: Born and raised in Fresno. My family farmed figs out on
the northwest side of town back when there was fig trees out there. Third
generation. Fifth generation in the Val—the Val—the Valley. And so we
farmed figs, and I worked around the farm as a kid.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Back—Farms back out in that area, was it just
well water that you used?
>> Lance Johnson: No, we got water from Fresno ID. We did have a well on
one ranch. Because there were -- during the drought, and I don't remember
what year that was. But I recall my dad drilled a well out there. I want
to say 1954.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So was agriculture then something that you always
wanted to get into and work with?
>> Lance Johnson: I was always involved in AG. When I got done with high
school, I had studied architectural drawing for years. And so my first
college stint, if you will, was as an architecture major at University of
Arizona in Tucson. I got two years into that and decided I didn't want to
spend the rest of my life as an architect. So, quit school -- well, I was
still going to school at a JC, and I just took primarily stuff I liked.
Geology and History and Construction. Decided to go back to school,
married with two kids. And decided to go into agricultural engineering.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, so where did you finish your university education
at?
>> Lance Johnson: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. At the time, and I don't know
if it's still true, but they had the only ECPD-accredited agricultural
engineering program in the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: ECPD is ->> Lance Johnson: Engineering Council on Professional Development. So we
go through all of the coursework of civil engineers, but with an
agricultural twist on it. And most agricultural engineers are registered
as civil engineers, or both AG and CE.
>> Thomas Holyoke: It mentions here on your resume that you took all the
classes twice?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes. When I got to Cal Poly, the irrigation instructor
was a gentleman named John Merriam. And in my second year, John announced
he was going to be retiring. But he was like the godfather of irrigation.
And so I packed all of his classes in -- which was Wells and Pumps and
Irrigation and Drainage and Hydraulics and Irrigation Canal Design -- the

whole thing before he retired. And I thought I was done with that. So then
a new instructor got there who was Charles Burt. Charles and I are the
same age, as it turns out. And he was going to teach John's classes. But
from a newer perspective. More emphasis on drip and sprinklers. And so I
arranged to just sit in the class and take all of Charlie's classes also.
So I got the old school perspective from John Merriam. And then I got the
newer perspective from Charles Burt. Charles is still there, by the way.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So in the end, whose classes proved to be more useful
to you?
>> Lance Johnson: They both were. They both were. In no small part because
there's a lot of, shall I say, "old school" on-farm irrigation systems and
canal systems that really fit in with what John taught. And then the onfarm stuff was the newer drip and micro sprinkler. And drip at the time
was just in its infancy, that Charles taught. And so I got the best of
both worlds.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So you get your degree at Cal Poly. And where do
you go to work at afterwards?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, my first job I -- when I got done with school, I
had quite a number of job offers out there. Including one in Hawaii, and
just spread all over. But I decided to take a job with Glenn-Colusa
Irrigation Di—District up in Willows in the northern part of the state.
And I went to work there as an assistant engineer. They didn't have a
chief engineer at the time. So I started out there. Didn't like it. So we
stayed for six months. My wife was going to school at Chico at the time,
and commuting like 75 miles each way to school. And I quit.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What didn't you like about it? If you're okay with
saying.
>> Lance Johnson: Their construction practices weren't safe. They had a
long string of issues with Cal OSHA citations and shutting jobs down. And
so I just, you know, decided I didn't want to be there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Again, on your resume here you have -- I noticed
something about learning about "department efficient game rotating screen
design debacle."
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Sounds interesting.
>> Lance Johnson: Glenn-Colusa ID has one of the largest diversion pumping
plants on the Sacramento River. It's on the west side of the river just
across from Hannibal City. And the Department of Fish and Game came
through and installed some rotating drum screens. And I don't remember all
the details because I wasn't into fish stuff yet. But it didn't work.

>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: So as I recall, they pulled the drum screens back out.
They tried it for about two years, and it failed, so they pulled those
out.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, so you leave Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District.
And where do you go next?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, when I was going to school, my wife and I had
bought our first home in Los Osos, because it cost less than paying rent
in San Luis. And so we had put our house up for sale when I went to work
for Glenn-Colusa ID. And that was during the Carter recession years when
real estate first trust deed rates were like 19%. Couldn't sell the house.
And so we just moved back into the house, and I was going to put more care
and thought into my next job. And so I took my next job with Boyle
Engineering. Which at the time, their corporate headquarters were in
Newport Beach. And they were expanding nationwide. They had started an
agricultural services division a couple years before. And they'd opened an
AG services division office in Fresno, right down on Shaw and Wishon. And
so that's where I went to work for them.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, and what sort of work were you doing for this
engineering firm?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, a couple -- actually a number of different things.
Half of my time for the first 3-1/2 years that I was three was, they were
involved doing the expert witness work in the re-adjudication of Native
American water rights on the lower Colorado River. And so we were doing
all the work for three of the tribes. And I spent every other week for 31/2 years down in the area of Needles, Lake Havasu, and Parker. Doing soil
surveys, and facility designs and plans, and running test plots on trees
and vines. And collecting climatic information down there. So, spent a lot
of time down there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: This was all to help Native American tribes quantify
their water rights on the Colorado?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, this was the re-adjudication of the 1964 Decree by
the U.S. Supreme Court. And it was being heard by a special master named
Tuttle. And the hearings on the case spanned, I don't know, year, year and
a half. And they'd hold a hearing for about two weeks. And he'd shut down,
then he'd respond to things that came up. And then they'd reconvene
someplace else, so just kind of bounced around the U.S. And my gut feeling
was that Judge Tuttle said okay, the hearing this time is going to be in
Denver. And then it was in Atlanta. And then it was someplace else. And I
think he went where he liked the weather. But in the end, we won the
battle, if you will. And that we won on the technical merits of the case.
But the final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court was to let the '64 Decree

stand unchanged.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, what was the '64 Decree?
>> Lance Johnson: The '64 Decree, California v. Arizona, divvied up the
Colorado River water rights. And what this part we were doing was the
shares that went to five Native American tribes that were all downstream
of David Dam, which is just upstream from Needles, clear down to Blythe.
So we took care of the upper three. And another consultant took care of
the lower two.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. But in the end, did these tribes end up getting
any water out of all this?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, no, they already had some. It was only to
determine whether or not their shares, their water rights should be
increased. And it was largely revolving around the technical issue of
changes in irrigation practices and cropping that had occurred since the
'64 Decree came into being.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Let's see, what else do you have on here from
that time?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, during the rest of the time, we did a lot of work.
We did a lot of work on effluent land application for irrigation. Ag use,
parched greenbelts, golf courses and stuff like that. All around the
Western U.S. and the Sunbelt. Carson City, Nevada, City of Porterville,
City of Arvin, Napa, Bellingham, Washington. We did some stuff around the
outskirts of Scottsdale. And then the big one we did was the conserve
project for Orlando, Florida. And that actually won -- the award was made
in 1989, years after I left. But that won the – Grand –- Engineering —- I
can't remember the name of the group. Engineering Council of something,
Grand Conceptor Award for project of the decade.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You were doing irrigation system design?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, well, I did wells, pumps, pipelines, canals, onfarm irrigation, drainage systems -- stuff along that line. And then I
also, during my Westlands years designed and supervised the installation
of a number of the on-farm drains in Westlands. And then just some fairly
routine on-farm irrigation design work.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And it also says on here that you were starting to
learn a lot about Spanish land grants?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. We were doing a number of projects where there was

-- let's call them "agricultural development master plans." And so we'd go
in and evaluate the topography, the soils, the climate, the water
supplies. And we'd come up with a plan. Okay, you could -- we recommend,
do all the economic analysis. And, you know, you plant these, these, and
these crops here, here, and there. And you get the water from over here.
And ran into where we were doing that on a number of Spanish land grants,
one of which was just outside of Madera. But it's really interesting from
the standpoint that we used to work a lot with the old printed copy, U.S.
Geological Survey Quad Maps. And the first time I ran into some land grant
land, the section lines just came up and they just stopped. And there was
this big hole in the map.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: And it'll say, "El Rancho" whatever. And that let you
know that it was a Spanish land grant, lands that were still held by the
original family. And they're scattered all over up and down the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So you mean these are lands -- they're a hole in the
map because the U.S. Geological Survey wasn't allowed to survey them?
>> Lance Johnson: That's correct. That's correct. They were only allowed
to survey up to the boundaries of the land grant. And so there's this
giant hole in the map.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Interesting. Alright, any other big
memorable events from the time here with Boyle Engineering?
>> Lance Johnson: Mm, memorable events. No, I think that's about it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Then what was your—what was your next job after
that?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, due to some family health problems, I quit Boyle
to take care of my mom, who'd had a debilitating stroke. And then she
passed away, made me executor for her estate, which I wouldn't -- is not a
job I'd pass off to my worst friend. So I took care of that for two years.
And during those years because I could dictate my own schedule, I was
doing consulting work, wells, pumps, irrigation. Both in-state as well as
Texas and here and there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: This reference you have on here, "prehistoric well
drilling methods and equipment used in West Texas UT politics"? I think
you need to explain that.
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, that was -- a friend of mine, a guy that I'd known
for a lot of years here, great guy. He had gone to work for a part—a firm
that was growing wine grapes in a partnership with some wine makers from
France. And they were out in the middle of nowhere in Texas. And he got
there and just having all sorts of problems with wells and pumps and

irrigation. So he hired me to come out there to try to sort things out.
Figure out what was wrong and what they needed to do, and so on and so
forth. And so we were riding around the ranch out there. And I was trying
to figure out why these wells were producing so much sand that they would
eat pumps up in a matter of a few weeks. And so we drive out to this spot
and here's this hobby horse cable tool well-drilling rig that was used to
drill all these wells on the ranch. And there was, I don't know, 20 or 25
wells. But that's the way they drilled wells in West Texas. A big wooden
beam across the top. And counter weights. And the thing went back and
forth like this. So that I—I—that was pretty arcane to me. So in the end,
I made a recommendation to them. And we brought a, shall I say, a modern
drill rig in from Colorado. And we drilled new well, got four times the
yield with no sand. And the original development of the vineyard operation
out there had been done by an AG department at University of Texas. And I
wrote this report that was highly critical of their irrigation system
design and how they drilled and equipped their wells. And it was not well
received. That didn't do much good to help them pay for the cost of the
new wells and pumps, but that was—
>> Thomas Holyoke: So you were able to get properly functioning wells? And
then was the vineyard working after then?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I didn't know they grew wine in West Texas.
>> Lance Johnson: It's really interesting to all my dear friends in Texas.
They make wine back there and the Frenchmen who were there that built the
winery, those Texans love their Texas wine. With all due respect, folks,
out here we wouldn't put your Texas wine in a screw cap. But they love
their Texas wine.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So you tried the wine?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. [Laughter].
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, enough said. Okay, then. According to your bio
here, in '86 you went to Westlands.
>> Lance Johnson: Yes. I decided I needed to get back to a regular job.
And Westlands was advertising for a senior engineer. And I went to work
for them in March of '86. Went through quite an interview process. They
liked the fact that I had expertise on drainage, wells, pumps, canals,
pipelines, stuff along that line. And I remember well the first day that I
went to work -- and they're still in the same place on Shields. And so I
come down Shields and I'm getting ready to turn into the parking lot. And
there's protes -— protestors carrying signs because that was the day they
were starting to plug the drainage collector system.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, because of the Kesterson mess?

>> Lance Johnson: Pardon?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Because of the Kesterson mess?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes, sir. TV crews were there. And I think I figured out
right out of the chute that means I'm going to have a target painted on my
back. But uh, so my job as senior engineer was to run the daily function
of the engineering department. Provide the liaison from the engineering
department with the operations and maintenance department. And to manage
major projects, the first of which was to plug the -- go supervise the
plugging of the drain's collector system. Plans on that were already done.
And they had got contracts out and stuff.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who was General Manager of Westlands at the time? Who
hired you?
>> Lance Johnson: Jerry Butcher.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. What kind of a guy was he? I don't know much
about him.
>> Lance Johnson: I like Jerry. He came himself from an engine—engineering
background. He'd worked before up on the Klamath Project. Fairly quiet,
didn't really say a whole lot. You know, he'd come pick your brain, see
what you thought. And decide what to do from there. And so that was the
way that went. I—plugging the drainage collector system was one of the
more difficult jobs -- or assignments that I even had there. Because I
knew the impact that it was going to have on the growers out there, many
of whom I'd gotten to know while designing drains for their farms. And so
it became my mission, if you will, to try to do what I could to help them
deal with it. And we had this court order deadline, it was in late June,
in which we had to get done plugging the collectors system. And there was
110 plugs to be installed. And we got done about a week before the
deadline hit.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the drain collector system, that was owned and
operated by Westlands rather than the Bureau of Reclamation?
>> Lance Johnson: It was built by the Bureau, operated by Westlands. And
it ranged in size from 12-inch pipe up to 96-inch, I think.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. So at this point in time, was the entire drain
being plugged up and no longer used?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. Now, the way it was designed to plug it, we always
held out a fervent -- maybe it was hope or belief -- that we were going to
find a solution. So the way the plugging was done, it was done in such a
way that we could go back in and undo it and restore it. And so we were
responsible, the drains—the on-- the drain's collector system flowed down

into the San Luis drain. And then from there it flowed to Kesterson. But
our mandate was that we had to get the drainage flows shut off at a point
just a couple miles north of Mend—Mendota called Bass Avenue. And there
was a check structure there. And no water could go past there. Period. And
so we got it done.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So at that point, growers are still having a problem,
they need to drain the water off their lands. What were they -— What were
they doing?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, no they weren't. And that—that was the problem. So
Westlands had an excellent award-winning water conservation program. And
so we were—the water conservation staff was working doubly hard to make
sure that there wasn't excess water being applied that would leach down
below the root zone and contribute to the shallow groundwater problem. And
trying to get them to be more careful in their irrigation practices. One
of the things that I did is, it's very important that when you're managing
your irrigation to deal with a shallow groundwater problem is that you
have as close to real-time information as you can get on what the shallow
groundwater conditions are under your field that you're going to irrigate.
And so at first they had embarked on preparing monthly maps of what the
shallow groundwater conditions were out there in that entire 42,000-acre
chunk of land. And there were 7,000 observation wells out there. Which
were being read at the least monthly. And so—and some were being read even
weekly. And so the field staff would collect the data from the observation
wells, and that would come into the engineering department. And we'd
prepare maps of how deep the shallow groundwater was. But the fact of the
matter was, with 7,000 observation wells, and by the time you reduce the
data down so you can get it onto a map, it was at least six weeks old by
the time we got it into the grower's hands. And so I thought, there's got
to be a better way to do this. And over a course of a number of months, I
come in with this idea for a floating groundwater depth gauge. And it's
really, it's one of those things you look back and you say, gee, why
didn't somebody think about this before? But basically what it was is you
had like a two-inch observation well that was put down in the ground. And
then there was another piece of P—PVC pipe that would float up and down
with colored bars on what the water depth was. And you could see it,
bingo, just like that. And growers loved it. And I had to get the first
batch -- which I made at home in my garage -- installed rather
clandestinely, if you will. Because there were some senior level folks who
thought it was a waste of time.
>>Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: And so I had gotten—gotten to know some folks with the
maintenance department quite well. And I got them to sort of sneak out and
stick in the first batch of 20. And then we wound up with a lot of them
out there. And kind of amazing part is, it was -- this won in 1988 or 9 an
award from the American Waterworks Association. And it got published all
across the U.S. And so we started getting this barrage of requests for the

drawings for it. You know, and they did a one-page long write-up to
announce the reward, and sent a guy out and took pictures and stuff. So we
started getting requests from all across the U.S. for drawings on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A little bit of fame?
>> Lance Johnson: Pardon?
>> Thomas Holyoke: A little bit of fame for you.
>> Lance Johnson: It's too bad I didn't copyright a name for it. But—but,
so we got--and it still is written about from time to time. But some years
-- probably just in the last ten years I learned that they're now in use
all over the world.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Really? Okay, you've made a contribution!
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Again looking back at your resume, it looks like
you sort of changed responsibilities around 1990 over at Westlands?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, I had been assigned -- or I asked for the
assignment -- to take on what was called the "intertie Project." Which was
a pumping plant. There is surplus permitted capacity at the CVP Delta
Export pumps. And we were trying to utilize that. Because one of the
problems the CVP placed is when the San Felipe Unit came online, the CVP
exports contracts were over-obligated for what the facility could pump.
And so I brainstormed with some Bureau guys. And we came up with this idea
for this pumping plant to connect the Delta Mendota Canal with the
California Aqueduct at a point where they are 450 feet apart. And 50—53
feet apart, elevation-wise. And that was called the intertie. And that's
when I got involved in fish issues. And I was getting more and more
involved with fish issues and water quality issues, and central valley
project water supply issues. And so I became the new senior resources
engineer to deal with all of that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, I'm kind of curious. The intertie between the
California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal, it's an intertie then
between a federal project and a state project. Is that an easy thing? It
seems to me like legally that would create all kinds of issues. You know,
connecting two projects of different systems.
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, that's the easy part.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, it was? Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: And let me characterize it like this. In 2000 -— In the
spring of 2011 -- or maybe it was '10, Dan would know -- my wife and I
were invited -- now recall, I first went to work on the intertie in1989.

And we finally gave up trying to get it built in 1991, I think. It finally
did get built, and I was invited to the groundbreaking ceremony for it in
2010. There were fishery issues was the main problem.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Because this -- was this going to increase pumping in
some way?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, it would have allowed about 150,000 acre feet per
year more water to be pumped through the federal export fac -— facility.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So is this ->> Lance Johnson: Completely within existing permits. But the winter run
salmon numbers were starting to decline. And to provide the water to the
intertie was going to put a further drain on Shasta Reservoir. And so
that's where the issue came up.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So was this the first time in your career, then, that
you really ran into an issue with fish and, you know, endangered species
and all these issues?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, yeah. That was the very first time.
>> Thomas Holyoke: In fact, as much as I understand, this is really kind
of a pivotal moment in California water history.
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, it was. It began when the state water resources
control board imposed a Sacramento River temperature requirement during
the months that the winter run were going to spawn. And that was 50—56
degrees at Red Bluff Diversion Dam, which is quite a number of miles
downstream from Shasta. So we went through quite an exercise of trying to
figure out ways to control the temperature. And it wasn't just that year.
If you were pumping with an intertie, which was designed to operate during
the fall and early winter months, you could only do that if you could
ensure there was going to be enough water in Shasta to maintain 56 degrees
at Red Bluff the following year. And so that's also when I got involved in
CVP modeling work.
>> Thomas Holyoke: It's interesting. Was it typical for staff at an
irrigation or a water district to work that closely with Bureau staff? I
assume you must have been working very closely with Bureau staff.
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, yes, yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: If you're working in Shasta and the Red Bluff Diversion
Dam.

>> Lance Johnson: Up until that point in time, I don't know. But
Westlands, I don't remember what the term for it is, and I should but I
can't right now. Was the cooperator in the project. Yes, it was a federal
project. Yes, it was subject to NEPA requirements. But we were doing the
work, and Bureau had to sign off on it. And they had to assist in various
parts of the work that we were doing. But from a practical standpoint, we
were doing 99% of the work on the job.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So right after, I guess, the intertie project for the
first time is shut down in '91. And then the very next year we get the
Central Valley Project Improvement Act. How did that sit?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, boy. I—I was involved in -- well, it actually—
actually took two or three years before Congress passed it and put it on
the President's desk. And in the run-up to that, we were always trying to
evaluate what the impacts of what was proposed would be. And so again
here, I'd been involved in doing this work with the Bureau and had a
better grasp, I guess, on CVP operational issues and contract issues and
stuff. And so we were evaluating what the impacts of CVPIA would be at
each iteration of it. And then it got signed into law. And then we were
trying to figure out how to deal with it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did your predictions of CVPIA impacts match the reality
that came about?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. In fact they did. So much so that I had -- in
fact, I've still got the spreadsheet. I prepared a spreadsheet impact
analysis on what the water allocations would be historically. And what
they would be under CVPIA. And on one of the five year types, I was off by
5%. And that was -- you know, until we got hit with more stuff, winter run
salmon and delta smelt. But it was right on. And I'll tell you, I recall
well people told me I was nuts, it couldn't possibly be that bad.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did you predict any of the zero allocations?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. Yes, I did.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The enactment of CVPIA, the growing issues in the early
'90s with the concern about fish, did this cause any kind of big change—
what’s the right term— in thinking or attitude at Westlands? I mean, were
they adjusting to the—adjust easily to the new reality?
>> Lance Johnson: [Sighs.] Well, we didn't have a choice.
>> Thomas Holyoke: True.
>> Lance Johnson: But to say it was stressful would be an understatement.
Between winter run salmon, delta smelts, CVPIA, Cal Fed, Bay Delta Accord,
there was -- for years there was just this kind of tsunami tidal wave of

getting hit with more and more of these environmental regulations. And it
was really -- it wore people out, ate us up. It was hard on staff. It was
hard on the Board. In 1995, it was a wet year. And we actually got back to
a fairly normal supply for the first time since '87. And a lot of folks
were pretty much used up. A lot of the longstanding members of the Board
were just worn out, tired. Senior staff were worn out, tired. Anybody who
could retire did. And the rest of us just marshalled on.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So it sounds like there was the feeling there that this
was never going to get any better?
>> Lance Johnson: Probably.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Let's understand, what one of the outcomes of CVPIA in
'94 was the creation of the Bay Delta Accords?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. We signed the Bay Delta Accord itself December
4th. And that called for the creation of the CALFED Bay Delta Program. And
now I remember the negotiations on the Accord well, because myself and a
co-worker were doing the technical analyses, the modeling studies to
assess what the water cost was going to be of the Accord.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What other people and organizations were involved with
the Accord?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, it was all of the Central Valley Project, Delta
Export contractors, as well as all the state water project contractors. So
basically everything from Tracy to San Diego, down the west side over on
the central coast, and up in the Bay area.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Were the environmental organizations party to the
accord?
>> Lance Johnson: No.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: Now, fundamentally, here we'd been hit with CVPIA,
winter run salmon, and Delta smelt impacts. And there was more talk about
layering on even more fishery restrictions. And so what the Accord did is,
between the state water project and the CVP, the contractors gave up
another million acre-feet of water to form the CALFED Bay Delta Program.
Which at the time was supposed to be a ten-year program to fix all this
stuff. In hopes that we could then see our water supply start to get
improved.
>> Thomas Holyoke: When —D- id you have a lot of optimism when the CALFED
process was starting?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes.

>> Thomas Holyoke: You thought it could be done?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes, yes. There was a saying when CALFED was formed, and
I don't remember who came up with the saying. But it was, "We all get
better together." [Laughing]. Didn't come out that way, but that's a whole
story in itself.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You had mentioned you'd served on quite a number of
CALFED committees.
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, yes. Well, it's interesting because the CALFED Bay
deal altered -- here you may recall I said the Accord was signed on
December 4th. And there had actually been some stirrings on the part of
the state DWR and the Bureau to expect there's going to be a settlement
and we are going to want this CALFED program formed. And so they actually
started -- CALFED was formed first of the year of 1996. And, boy, it came
on fast and furious at the outset. That was going on at the very same time
of the implementation of CVPIA. And there were implementation committees
for CVPIA that dealt with water transfers and water management and water
conservation. And in many ways, there were a lot of parallels with things
that were opening up through CALFED. And so in a lot of respects, the two
processes at first were overlapping. And between the two, there was a
hundred and five or ten committees. And myself and three other folks at
Westlands, we're now representing basically the entire CVP export plans.
Between the CVPIA and CALFED, we were sitting on all of those one hundred
and five or ten different committees and work groups. And so most of us
were in Sacramento five nights a week. Who else was on these committees?
Was it largely government personnel?
>> Lance Johnson: Pardon?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who else was on these committees? Was it government
personnel?
>> Lance Johnson: [inaudible] Yeah. They would draw in for a particular
committee or a work group if it was an urban water conservation emphasis,
they would draw in selected -- there'd be somebody there from Met, maybe
San Diego and Santa Clara. To deal specifically with that. But the bulk of
the committee itself was made up of staff from DWRM Bureau.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Was there -— was it a group that was pretty —- were
these people that were pretty easy to work with? Was it an enjoyable time?
>> Lance Johnson: For the most part, yeah. There was on every one of these
committees and work groups, there was always at least one, occasionally
two, members of the environmental community there as well. Before we
began, as you may recall, I brought up Spreck Rosekrans. That's where I
met Spreck, was in the agricultural water conservation work group for
CALFED.

>> Thomas Holyoke: And which organization did he represent?
>> Lance Johnson: I don't remember. Save the Bay, EDF, you know.
>> Thomas Holyoke: One of those?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Were government agencies like U.S. Fish and Wildlife
and Department of Fish and Game also involved in this?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes. Fish and Game, Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries
were some of the groups; the Army Corps of Engineers was there if we got
into flood control.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. And was Fish and Game and Fish and Wildlife easy
to work with? I've always heard they're maybe more sympathetic to the
environmentalists in their fish issues.
>> Lance Johnson: Well, in my experience -- and I had gotten to know quite
a few of the folks with the Department of Fish and Game and NOAA Fisheries
on salmon issues during my work on the intertie. I could always find a way
to work through a problem with the Fish—Fish and Game, but one exception.
With Fish and Game and the NOAA folks.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What was the one exception?
>> Lance Johnson: I'm not going to go into that.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, okay. So what happened at CALFED? I mean, most
people seem to consider it a failure.
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah, it was. They -- what they produced was strictly
environmental benefits. And they had some serious debacles too. What was
that called? Oh, well. But they had essentially nothing to show from a
water supply benefit standpoint to the state and federal water projects.
But they were spending tens of millions of dollars a year on these
environmental projects. And it went nowhere.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A few of the other things I see listed on here, and
some are small but I'm curious. What is this about U.S. Navy airplanes
crashing?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, that's just –well—well—Westlands is so big you get
drawn into all kinds of stuff. Some you don't expect to. A lot you don't
expect to. So this FA-18 all loaded up with bombs going to the Nevada
practice range took off from the LNAS-Lemoore. Both engines quit. He
didn't have enough air speed or enough altitude to get back to base. So he
just sort of aimed it out into what looked like wide open territory and

punched out. It was in May, came down right on top of a -- I think it was
a 60-inch pipeline that went all the way back up to the California
aqueduct and served about 35,000 acres of land. Blew a hole in the ground
about the size of this room. –But so I got to deal with the Navy on that
one. Okay, you guys can't go out there right now, we got 30,000 acres of
crops out here that are about ready to burn up. And we can't get on site
because of all of the top-secret kind of equipment they're trying to make
sure was gathered up, and no unexploded or —- or -— ordinance and such.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, let's see what other issues here, I'm kind of
curious. You've got a lot of stuff on here.
>> Lance Johnson: Life was never dull at Westlands.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, I'm sure that was actually true. Just one thing
here at the end of this list. "Feasibility study of the San Joaquin River
area of origin water right appropriation." Just curious what you mean by
this?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, Friant Dam makes flood releases from time to time.
And the area of origin statutes are such that Westlands could claim the
right to divert those flood flows down at Mendota Pool. And so I got
assigned the task to look into it by the Board. And myself and a coworker
did a flood control study about how much water was being released from
Friant on flood flows. How much was—could be used during the food events
by the exchange contractors who divert water from the pool. And what would
be left that we might file an area of origin claim on. And that was when
the old -- what we came to call the old Board -- which was, Jack Stone was
the President of the Board. And Price Giffen, and Jack Woolf was there at
the time. And the Board instruction was to investigate this, see how much
water was involved. And so I came back to the Board and I says, yeah, you
can do it. You should be able to appropriate these amounts of flood flows.
Friant Dam releases greater than X, and here you can get that much of it.
And I said, I don't think you want to do it because you're going to start
World War III with the Eastside Friant contractors. And so the old Board
said, no, we don't want to start a war. And then 1990 -- late '95 we had
some big changes in the Board. And what we called the New Board decided to
pull the trigger on that. And pretty much started World War III.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The Eastside contractors were trying to keep a hold of
that water for themselves?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. And—and—and when it goes into flood release, they
can't use it. But the politics of it and some of the other intertwining
aspects of it caused a battle. And in fact if you look at a Friant Water
Authority Board agenda, you'll see things come up from time to time still
about it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: How would you characterize relations between Westside
growers and Eastside growers?

>> Lance Johnson: Well, since I've worked on both sides now, well it's
strange. I lived and farmed on the East side, and did my work on the West
side. But it's probably better now than it was in the past because there's
a better understanding on the East side. You know, the last few years is
the first time the East side has ever had zero supply as a result of
things going on up in the delta, because the interconnection through the
exchange contract. And I recall for years and years and years there was
very few even water managers on the East side. And Board members and
farmers especially who understood how they were linked to the delta and
why the delta was important to them. And I tried to do what I could to
educate them. And I just got blank stares and they didn't want to hear
about it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You said they'd never lost water to the exchange
contractors up until last year. Last year must have been quite the
shocker.
>> Lance Johnson: Last two years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Last two years?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. In fact, after all the time I'd spent trying to
educate them on this, and it finally hit home, I wrote a letter to the
Fresno Bee and I finally said, do you get it now, folks?
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Well, any other dramatic interesting
stories? Or even just interesting stories in your time at Westlands?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, the Georgiana Slough Project, which I ran in 1993
and '94 and I helped DWR with in '95, that was where we were testing
what's called a hydro-acoustic barrier using underwater sound to keep the
salmon in the main stem of the Sacramento River so they don't go down
Georgiana Slough, the export pumps. And boy, we had some big media events
on that one. Around one in '93, we went from a concept to being online
with 32 or three permits in hand in about five months. And long story made
short, it works.
>> Thomas Holyoke: It does? Okay.
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. It's got some caveats. The Georgiana Slough hydroacoustic barrier's about 75% effective up to a flow threshold upstream.
[ Silence ]
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just one little thing on your memorable events. It's
"evolution of in-house CVP modeling beer and pizza bets with SPR?"
>> Lance Johnson: Yes.

>> Thomas Holyoke: There might be a story there.
>> Lance Johnson: Well, in 1990, we were getting more and more -- or the
growers were getting more and more into -- the term for it is rescheduling
water. And that is, you save water over, you pump a little extra ground
water and you save your surface water and carry it over into the next
year. And you can do that so long as if you have -- the term we use for it
is, it floats on top of the new year contrast point [assumed]. And so it's
really important to know if and when San Luis reservoir is going to fill,
because then you lose that water you'd saved from the year before. It's
called "rescheduled water." And so my boss half the time did not think
that folks in management needed a computer. Of course, PC's were in their
infancy. So I started -- we would get a daily fax report, one page, from
Bureau. It's the Bureau's daily water supply report. And it just gives you
a one-day snapshot of, here's how much water's stored here, here, and
there. Here's what the reservoir releases are, and such like that. And so
I started making margin notes and predicting when San Luis would fill,
just extrapolating the numbers out. And then I'd route that around to the
office. And so finally the general manager, Jerry Butcher, decided that
this was extremely important that our growers know if and when San Luis is
going to fill. And so, trying to shorten this up, got together with one of
our engineering staff, Tom Boardman, who was our—our computer guy. And we
started to construct a model of CVP-Delta export operations. We call it
CVP-XO. And it evolved to where we could predict the following year's
water allocations, reservoir low points, and so on and so forth. And for
years the fact that we built this spreadsheet and were able to do this -well, I knew the system, Tom knew the computer programming. We got
together like this and we got it done. So at first the fact that we had
this model was being poo-poohed. And then we started to tell Bureau, no,
you can allocate another 5% because San Luis Reservoir low point is going
to be this. And if it gives another 5% it's going to be here. And so the
Bureau operation staff up in Sacramento, we started making bets with them
on what low point was going to be, what the allocation could be. And when
San Luis was going to fill. And the deal was, the loser buys beer and
pizza next time we get together. And Bureau lost three times in a row and
then they quit playing.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] It's interesting. But you're also double
checking Bureau prediction figures and everything, too.
>> Lance Johnson: Exactly. Exactly.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Interesting. Okay, so why did you end up leaving
Westlands? Just time to move on, or ->> Lance Johnson: Burnout, I think. A lot of stress. There had been some
major changes on the Board, became— employee morale was in the tank. And
so in the course of a three-year period all but two, maybe three of the
entire manage—manage—management staff quit.

>> Thomas Holyoke: And so you went ahead and left and formed the Water
Group?
>> Lance Johnson: The Water Group, yes. What the Water Group was is, we
were a water brokerage firm. Co-founded that with a gentleman named John
Briner [assumed]. And John was a -- he did irrigation consultant work for
growers on the West side, a lot of them. And I'd known John, met John
through the drought years and helped him deal with some stuff. And got the
idea to form this water brokerage firm. And so that's what we did. And did
that for nine years. John died in a plane crash and I just couldn't do it
all myself.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So you were essentially helping negotiate water
transfers around the valley?
>> Lance Johnson: No—yeah, that. But what I would do is, John dealt with
the sales side on the individual growers who were the buyers. And I would
deal with the selling agencies. I'd go meet with the board, write the
contract, give them the check. And the agencies selling water to us from a
bureau paper trail standpoint, it would be a transfer from like BantaCarbona Irrigation District to Westlands. But the water was going into our
personal account. And we had that -- boy, that's a story in itself. I—I
remember well we were about three years into it, and so we had an account
that we acquired by -- we leased a, I think it was a six-acre piece of
ground right down by the San Luis drain. It had to have a met—met—
Westlands meter on it so we could get an account. So here we've got this
little meter out there and a six-acre piece of bare ground. And we ran
93,000-acre feet of water through that one account. In one year. But no,
we'd buy it and sell it. Eastside, Westside, North to South, South to
North, all up and down the state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Huge demand for it?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, still is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: No doubt.
>> Lance Johnson: And I recall back in those years I prepared -- every
water transfer we did, I had a spreadsheet where I'd go through and
calculate what the final total delivered cost of the water was going to be
to the farmer who was buying it. And that spreadsheet, depended upon where
the water was coming from and where it was going to, had 55 lines of input
on it. And we guaranteed the total delivered cost. And if I got it wrong,
we ate it. And you may re—re—recall the mod—mod—modeling I talked about.
The fellow who was doing the modeling for -- you know, I helped Tom build
the model and reviewed it with him and stuff, but he left and he went to
work for San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority. In fact, Tom's still
there. But I had so much trust in the modeling work that Tom was doing
that I'd make multi-million dollar bets buying up water based upon the
work that Tom did each month and San Luis and Delta-Mendota posted on

their web—web—web site.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Alright, so then you lose your partner, you end the
business. And I guess in the final stages of your career you're starting
to run your own water districts?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: San Benito and Madera?
>> Lance Johnson: Yeah. San Benito, their GM, John Gregg, was retiring.
Well, in between, I -- when I closed the Water Group down, trying to
decide what I was going to do, I was offered a job with URS Corporation.
Big multi-national, huge outfit as a project manager for them. And I just
didn't like the big corporate structure, you know? That's not my kind of a
work environment. And so San Benito was looking for a new general manager
and they offered me the job. They got in touch and asked me to go to work
for them. And ->> Thomas Holyoke: If you don't mind my asking, where is San Benito? Not,
not 100—where is San Benito, county?
>> Lance Johnson: Hollister.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, okay.
>> Lance Johnson: Yes, San Benito County Water District actually goes back
a long time, clear back into the late 1800's time frame. But they're
responsible -- first off, they are a central valley project contractor by
way of the San Felipe Project. And they're also responsible for everything
related to water in San Benito County. So they have imported CDP water,
local water, pre-14 water, flood control, everything. And so they got -you know, they're relatively small, but they've got a lot going on.
>> Thomas Holyoke: You didn't stay there particularly long?
>> Lance Johnson: No, it—it was -- well, first off it was -- for years and
years and years during CALFED and CVPIA and the other stuff days, I was in
Sacramento five nights a week, basically every week. And I thought I could
do it again. But at that point in time, you know, we had kids still at
home, stuff. And so things changed. But then there were certain members of
the Board that were -- there was one member of the Board, he'd spend his
mornings seated in my office drinking coffee. And interrupt county
politics. And I just, you know, life's too short. [laughter]
>> Thomas Holyoke: So then moved on over to the Madera Irrigation
District.
>> Lance Johnson: Yes. Madera offered me a job and I thought, gee, I can
get back home. And Madera has been—was actually formed in 1920. They're a

CVP-Friant contractor, they've got pre-1914 water. And they also get water
from Hidden Dam. But it was a difficult outfit to work—to work with.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Did you have to deal with a lot of the fallout of the
San Joaquin River Restoration Program?
>> Lance Johnson: Well, the fallout, yeah. From a water supply standpoint.
I remember -- I've got to tell you this -- I was over at San Benito when
the news came out publicly that Friant had entered into the settlement to
solve the San Joaquin River Restoration lawsuit. And a central part of
that was they were going to recapture water and recirculate it all the way
back around Kern County. And at that time most of the Friant agencies and
managers had very little grasp on Delta operations and river operations
and stuff. So I remember, I sent them an email and said, don't hold your
breath.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So that whole water recycling thing was impractical?
>> Lance Johnson: On a large scale, yeah. Yeah. You know, it sounds great.
But when you start trying to recycle 100,000-plus acre feet of water all
the way back down to Kern County and back up, the list of problems and
things you run into is about as thick as the L.A. phone book.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, and as I understand, not a drop of water has been
recycled yet. [Laughter]
>> Lance Johnson: There has been some.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, there has been?
>> Lance Johnson: You know, but they haven't restored the salmon yet
either.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you think the river restoration's really going to
end up being a success at this point?
>> Lance Johnson: No. In fact, last October or November there was an
editorial in the Modesto Bee about salmon restoration on the San Joaquin.
Now they were talking about it downstream, the confluence of the Merced
and all the tributaries going into it. So I wrote a quasi-rebuttal op-ed,
linked it back to Friant Dam, which they didn't understand at all. They
don’t—they didn't understand the history of the San Joaquin River upstream
of the Merced. And so I -- our fig farm where—where I grew up was a mile
from the San Joaquin, and as a kid I had this kind of Huck Finn existence
down along the river. And then as an engineer, studied that, lived up in
the mountains so I know the history of the upper San Joaquin, the Big
Creek Project and such. And then doing that, San Joaquin River water
rights appropriate work for Westlands, studied all of that. Knew the
exchange contractor history well. And then with my fish background -- no,
I don't think it's ever going to work.

>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, so anything else dramatic from the time at
Madera?
>> Lance Johnson: Just trying to educate the Board first and the growers
second on the connection between Friant and the exchange contractors.
Tried to get them -- as you know, we now have groundwater pumping
regulations that are coming down the pike. Tried to start getting them
thinking about that, doing more groundwater recharge. Madera had what was
defined before I got there as one of the most antiquated delivery systems
in the state. Folks there now are starting to work on that, trying to
improve things. But it was quite a little chore. Because they existed in
their own little world, and didn't have a lot of contact with the, you
know.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is that typical, you feel, with a lot of people in
irrigation districts? Sort of inwardly focused rather than ->> Lance Johnson: [Sigh] Depends on where you are. Some yes, some no. Some
are quite proactive. Some like Madera weren't; they're getting more so,
and I tip my hat to them for—for what they're accomplishing now. But -because there's been a change on the Board there. Prior—prior—prior to
that change, it was going nowhere.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So now you're in retirement. And you've been a somewhat
prolific writer. Op-ed pieces, letters to the editor -- I've seen quite a
bit of that in the Fresno Bee. Is that something you enjoy?
>> Lance Johnson: Yes, that's pretty much the way I occupy my time. You
know, it's strange. For so many, many years I would start every day by -see what the reservoir storages are, what the river flows are, how the
pumps are doing. Old habit; that's what I still do. I hit the 'net, and
instead of years ago waiting for the daily facts to come in, you check
things on the 'net and you can find out what's going on real time. And so
that. And I write, and I write not just the Fresno Bee, but Modesto Bee,
Sac Bee, San Jose Mercury News. Just, you know, all over. When something
related to water comes up, most particularly where you have a grossly
uninformed public saying things that are factually incorrect, I try to set
the record straight.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you find that this is a problem around here? That so
many people in the Valley don't know what's going on? Or don't understand?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, yes. You know, that I think is one of the great
failings of the water industry -- and they're paying a price for it -- is
they didn't really take the time to educate the public on where their
water comes from, what it takes to get it to them. What it takes to grow
their crops, grows what they eat—grow what they eat. And I -- during the
years that I did work, in my spare time over and above my usually 55 or 60
hours a week, I—I would meet with these small groups. It might be a grange

hall or a Chamber of Commerce group, or a church group, or a women's
birthday club, something like that. And I'd talk to them about water in
California. And I'd -- they're all over. And there's such a need for it
because the general public has -- well, they may have improved a little
bit during the drought -- but from what I read, there's still a long ways
to go. They don't have an understanding at all about how the water works
in this state.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future,
here in 2016?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, for supply for this year, the West side will be zero
again. Friant's going to probably be zero. Exchange contractors are likely
going to take supply cuts as well. And we're going to continue to have
urban water rationing. Particularly in those cities that are reliant on
the central valley project and the state project as well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Are we getting any of our problems solved? Or are
things just getting worse?
>> Lance Johnson: I don't know if they're getting any worse. But they're
not getting any -- they're not improving, let me put it that way. And it's
frustrating. Because I—I-- and here's where I part company with many of my
colleagues in the water industry, is on the political side of things. The
politicians out there, I just hear the same thing over and over and over
and over again. New legislation. Well, we supported this -- which I don't
believe in many instances. But nothing's changing. I mean, the good news
is, we got the intertie built during a short stint last year; for about
five days it actually ran.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Then what happened to it?
>> Lance Johnson: Oh, it got run down to San Luis and stored down there.
So there was a little extra water that got moved when it otherwise would
not have been moved. And the state water project, one of the things we
designed into the intertie -- of course the final design that got built
was not the one that I designed back in '89 -- the two facilities look
quite differently. But the intertie does more than just pump water from
the Delta-Mendota Canal up to the California Aqueduct. It also allows
gravity flow of water from the California Aqueduct back down to the DMC.
And DWR this past year had need to make use of that. Because they had some
emergency repairs to do on the California Aqueduct upstream of O'Neill
Forebay. And the only way to do it was to shut the state water project
pumps off. And they were going to be off for a period of time. And that's
all -- would otherwise have been water being lost to the state project.
And so instead they were gravity flowing down. Never been able to do that
before.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the Delta-Mendota Canal was carrying state water?

>> Lance Johnson: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, is there anything big we've missed?
>> Lance Johnson: No, I don't think so. It's been an interesting career,
done a lot of things that I certainly didn't expect when I got done with
school. I thought I'd be designing irrigation and drainage systems and
that was about it. And then just sort of branched out and got involved in
a lot of stuff.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Well, thank you very much.
>> Lance Johnson: Thank you.

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