WESTSIDE RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Draft Meeting Minutes
March 19th, 2009

The following is a summary of the Westside Resource Conservation District Board of Directors special meeting held on March 19th 2009, at the Westlands Water District Five Points office.

President Phil Erro convened the meeting at 10:14AM and a quorum was not present until Director Diener arrived at 10:20. In the interim, self-introductions were conducted and the agenda preliminarily reviewed. Upon attaining the quorum, the agenda was found adequate to conduct the meeting on a motion by Director Clausen, seconded by Director Brughelli and approved unanimously. A copy of the draft minutes of the February meeting were posted on the web site and transmitted to the Directors for review. President Erro noted the web-posting came later than anticipated and hoped they could be posted sooner in the future. On a motion by Director Blankenship seconded by Director Clausen the minutes were unanimously approved.

There were no public comments.

Under financial report, the Manager outlined the current financial condition of the District. There was cash available to address some payables. The payables, bank statements and most recent financial report from the accounting office were reviewed by Finance Committee Chair Director Clausen. Director Clausen reviewed the reports and proposed payables with the Board and recommended paying the bills that were presented at this time. Under a motion by Director Clausen, seconded by Director Brughelli the payables were approved unanimously.

Under the “President’s Corner” of the Director reports President Erro offered the following items. The “ForeverWater system is a distillation unit operating at the Red Rock Ranch as part of IFDM. The current unit is a small test system that will be followed by a larger unit that is under construction and will likely be ready in June 2009.  President Erro passed out a summary report on the 1,000 gallon per hour unit. The new larger unit will develop 20.6 acre-feet in a year. The water developed by the system will have a range of costs depending on the cost of electricity. The costs are from 15 to 25 watt-hours per gallon and 8 to 12 cents per kilowatt hour. The resulting estimated per acre-foot costs are from 391 to 978 dollars. Calcium reduction through ion exchange is an additional cost. The number of heating plates affects the capital and operating costs. The more plates the higher capital but lower operating costs. At some point too many plates can reduce efficiency. Input electricity costs can be managed by adding local sources. Currently Red Rock is using parabolic mirrors for winter thermal boost to the brine shrimp but could also use the heat for pre-heating the distiller. Red Rock is adding a wind turbine generator that is 140 feet in the air. For the sake of time, Director Erro said he would show anyone who was interested how the distiller/plates were put together at the end of the meeting. He had some of the construction materials such as the plates with him.

There were no other Director reports.
Under the Manager’s report the first item was a discussion of the process for handling grant applications proposed by individual operators. A Westlands grower proposed a USDA grant for growing jatropha and requested the District act as grant administrator. Other than DWR activities at Red Rock the District has little experience with individual grower grants and needed to establish a process that was equitable to all. The President suggested a small working group of himself, Director Brughelli and Director Clausen to develop a process. The resulting process should be posted to the web site for all to see and understand including what the requirements were and relevant details such as administrative costs and payment of invoices. The manager reported the Valley Clean Air Now application was turned down. The requirements were that outside consultants could not be paid by the grant and some work in the proposal could only be done by such consultants. Next, there was a joint meeting with H T Harvey Ecological Consultants and the Bureau of Reclamation staff regarding the use of the balance of funds in the Bureau habitat restoration grant. Inasmuch as there was no water to grow native plants this year the idea is to evaluate the current condition of several of the restored and some natural parcels to determine where they are in comparison to a benchmark of fully restored or natural alkali scrub habitat. The Bureau preliminarily concurred with the idea and will work on the agreement changes to move forward such a proposal. The next step will be a full grant application for habitat recovery funds to elevate federal and other volunteer lands to the highest condition possible.

Under correspondence and administration the County LAFCO sent a letter to the President outlining where we were with possible RCD consolidation. The Manager then outlined the major issues of importance in the Tranquillity area that could benefit from joining efforts of both Westside and Tranquillity. One key issue was the improvement of Mendota Pool as a water conservation and transportation facility. The Pool needs levee improvements and dredging. Since Westlands water is transported through Lateral’s 6 and 7 in wet years it would be very important to Westside growers to make sure the facility was properly configured and maintained. No other area-wide organizations besides Tranquillity and Westside RCDs cover the Pool.

Next the RCD partners made presentations. The partners included; Dan Schara, Westlands, Dave Durham, USDA-NRCS, Mike Westphal, USDI-BLM, Ken Johnson, CA-DWR and Westside RCD agronomy consultant, Clarence Finch. Dan, Dave and Mike submitted written reports which are attached and part of these minutes. They summarized the written comments at the meeting. Ken Johnson added comments on the ForeverWater project, the brine shrimp, the new mega-flora trees, the wind machine and finally the new task order on the UCLA reverse osmosis equipment at Panoche Water District. Director Diener added to the discussion on the wind machine and the need to keep working on drainage so Westlands can show they can manage the drainage program and secure an agreement with the US for the District water supply. Clarence Finch reported on and passed out pictures of the current condition of the Argentine mesquite trees.

There were no further reports and the meeting was adjourned unanimously at 12:10PM.

Sargeant J. Green, Secretary-Manager