IWV Water District board meets Nov. 12

Nov. 9--The Indian Wells Valley Water District will meet on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 6 p.m. at its board room, 500 W. Ridgecrest Blvd.

Among the items the board will discuss are a request to rename an investment account with Kern County, updates on the district's bulk station upgrades compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and updates on IWV Groundwater Authority meetings.

The request to rename the investment account to a capital facility fees is due to no longer needing a reserve account following the retirement of a Prop. 55 loan.

"Staff would like to rename the fund to Capital Facility Fees to be used to more clearly track our receipt and use of the Capital Facility Fees we collect," the staff report states. "Staff is requesting Board approval to rename the investment fund, as required by the County."

In regard to the bulk water station, district staff have continued to evaluate the site following a complaint by Ridgecrest bulk water hauler Ryan Smith at a September board meeting. Smith noted that the upgraded station cannot be properly accessed by him due to being in a wheelchair.

Smith noted that it's also difficult to park his customized pickup and water trailer to get anywhere near the load up at the station.

Other customers have noted difficulties in accessing the water station's kiosk screen and pad, noting it's too high off the ground for shorter people.

A consultant's evaluation of the site yielded multiple recommendations, according to the staff report.

"Staff will now work on an estimate for the recommended changes to the site along with another option of moving the bulk water station to the District yard," the report states.

IWVGA discussion

The board will also discuss the results from Thursday's joint meeting of the IWVGA technical and policy advisory committees, as well as the Nov. 21 IWVGA board meeting.

The water district is one of five voting member agencies on the Groundwater Authority and currently serves as its lead agency. The others are Kern County, San Bernardino County, Inyo County and the City of Ridgecrest.

The joint committees' meeting on Thursday was held to discuss the IWVGA's draft groundwater sustainability plan, which will dictate how the critically overdrafted basin will be managed in the coming decades. The massive document contained details about projects, preliminary costs for those projects and other matters.

The draft GSP was released to PAC and TAC members earlier this week and published on the IWVGA website for public review. All told, the cost to management execute projects for the basin could reach $200 million or more, based on preliminary numbers.

Those costs include more than $9 million in management costs, $1.7 million in shallow well mitigation, as much as $19 million in dust mitigations and $23 million for pumping optimization projects.

Stetson Engineers, the firm acting as the IWVGA's water resources master, told committee members during the questions period that the numbers will be refined as the plan nears completion. In addition, costs are dependent on whether some projects will actually be implemented.

Committee members Judie and Don Decker (PAC and TAC respectively) noted that the report's language needs to be cleared up prior to being released for the public review period.

Others questioned the allocation principles for groundwater management after the plan is submitted for review to the Department of Water Resources at the end of January and implemented.

During public comment, agricultural business owners -- which the GSP will affect the hardest -- were also critical, including Meadowbrook Dairy'sAnita Imsand.

Imsand said that the maps and data in the plan indicate that two IWVWD wells should be relocated to North Brown Road to spread out groundwater pumping of the basin; Imsand noted her concerns that it would those wells would be Meadowbrook's.

She was also critical of that many members were treating the potential impact on agriculture too lightly.

Jeff Helsley of Stetson Engineers said that the wells were used as general location indicators only and that "intent was not to take over Meadowbrook's wells." The intent instead was to drill new wells.

Don Decker complimented Stetson on getting the draft out ahead of the joint PAC/TAC meeting but said it still needs to be more detailed.

"We all sense that it is more than an outline of the plan and some areas are considerable detail," Decker said at Thursday's joint committee meeting. "I think the implementation plan is going to contain a lot of the hard thinking required to bring out the allocation numbers and pumping costs. I think the basic structure is there ... a lot of us felt a little disturbed there isn't a lot more detail but that we understand the limitations of stetson's timing."

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