WESTSIDE RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Meeting Minutes
May 21st, 2009

The following is a summary of the Westside Resource Conservation District Board of Directors special meeting held on May 21st, 2009, at the Westlands Water District Five Points office.

President Phil Erro convened the meeting at 10:10AM. A quorum was present and a sign-up sheet circulated. The draft minutes of the April meeting was posted on the Westside RCD web site and e-mailed to the Directors prior to May 21st. On a motion by Director Diener, seconded by Director Blankenship, both the agenda and minutes were unanimously approved by the Directors.

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 officer, Mike Cuttone, were reviewed by Director Brughelli. Director Brughelli then summarized the reports and proposed payables with the Board and recommended paying the bills that were presented at this time. Under a motion by Director Brughelli, seconded by Director Blankenship the payables were approved unanimously.

Under a “special report” agenda item, President Erro introduced Larry King of PG&E who stood in for Bob Riding. Then President Erro opened the discussion of the item with a background on the energy management program the District was co-sponsoring. The agenda item was a prelude to a co-hosted luncheon to be held at Harris Ranch Restaurant on June 4th.  President Erro specifically introduced the concept of energy audits as the start to energy conservation followed by energy saving practices and equipment. The pay back on energy conservation is as little as two years. Example practices may include rebates for converting spray irrigation large water nozzles to smaller nozzles or conversion to drip irrigation. The proposed meeting would explain all the concepts to 20 to 25 large energy users such as ag product processors on the Westside. Larry King then gave a summary of the energy management process recommended by PG&E. The first is to get on top of billing. Often energy equipment is not on the right rate or if equipment can be put on time-of-use, large savings can be obtained. The second is get an audit of equipment or facility use to find conservation and rebates to reduce the use by the equipment. The third is to develop energy production such as solar but recognize that such equipment has the longest pay back and could be over-sized and wasted if you don’t go through one and two first. Whether you are a PG&E customer or WAPA power makes a difference. Rebates come from the Public Purpose Fund. If you do not have that on your bill you are not eligible for rebates from PG&E. The demand response program is also a tremendous cost saving program. Some agricultural users cannot shut off on demand because they need water pumped 24/7, but produce coolers and others can shed loads and save $40,000 or more per year. One important aspect of getting rebates is measurement, you can’t get a rebate on new equipment unless you have the data to show the improvement from the preceding activity. When asked about such testing, Larry mentioned that the Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT) at Fresno State does the before and after for many water pumping units. Farmers can contact Bill Green or John Weddington at CIT. Rick Blankenship offered that you have to be careful about when you test. If you use the original test of a well and it is high, you can’t get a rebate because the new test will only mirror that original test. A well that suddenly isn’t performing needs to be re-tested at the new lower efficiency before the repairs or new equipment can be added to get back up to the higher efficiency and resulting cost-share. By co-hosting the June 4th energy meeting, the Westside RCD was committing to an expenditure. At the request of President Erro, a motion was made to authorize an expenditure of approximately $300.00 by Director Finster, seconded by Director Blankenship and unanimously approved.

Under the “President’s Corner” of the Director reports President Erro offered the following items. The gasification of almond prunings energy project co-application with West Hills College was turned down. A new grant opportunity for upland habitat restoration will be discussed by Manager Green. The Nature Conservancy is taking a more active role in San Joaquin Valley ag land conservation and strategic buffers. Pablo Garza of the Conservancy may appear before Westside to discuss the matter. Mike Westphal of the Bureau of Land Management would like to work with range land landowners and operators to establish frog habitat in ponds. He proposes a new “cooperative agreement” with Westside to accomplish this goal. Several US Interior officials including the new Reclamation Commissioner, Mike Connor, visited Red Rock to discuss Westlands drainage management. Director Diener will discuss this further. Finally, the revised “grant administration policy” was re-sent for review and approval of the Board. Director Diener moved and Director Blankenship seconded the motion to adopt the new policy. The motion was unanimously approved on a voice count.

Under Director reports, Director Diener re-counted the visit by the Commissioner. The drought conditions and drainage issue on the Westside will likely be the recipient of “stimulus” funds.  The goal is to improve the water supply and get to implementation of drainage management. Another technology that has come to the forefront is the “New Sky” process. After the “Forever Water” distiller concentrates wastes into a brine, the New Sky system can take water over 200,000 mg/l salt and take out the scaling agents, mostly calcium and magnesium.

Under the Manager reports, the proposed application for upland habitat restoration was discussed. HT Harvey, in conjunction with the USBR and Westside RCD will apply for habitat restoration funds to continue the work established at the Tranquillity sites. President Erro suggested that some of the remaining “cooperative agreement” funds of $3,000 to $5,000 might be used for the son-in-law of farmer Robert Jones to prepare a mobile home site next to the   Bureau of Reclamation nursery so that he could live there to protect and secure the nursery from vandalism. Evidently some destruction of the facilities and habitat has already occurred. Manager Green has to send a re-direction of funds request to the Bureau any way and that could be added to the request. The concept is to add a house trailer nearby the sites so that a closer eye can be kept on the activities. The “farm and ranch cleanup” grant request by Westlands was turned down by the Integrated Waste Management Board. A discussion then ensued about how to access that grant since other Directors found that significant trash problems were occurring at various sites, especially in stream channels. The next grant cycle closes July 15th, 2009 and can be found on the Integrated Waste Management Board web site. The Fresno County Clerk’s office had requested the original Form 700 Statement of Economic Interests (Fair Political Practices Commission) information from the Directors. (Since then the County re-canted, as the District is multi-County and responsible for maintaining their own forms with copies to the Counties). The manager also mentioned that Tranquillity RCD was prepared to commence consolidation now that they had a full complement of Directors but that Westside currently did not have enough officially appointed Directors to take similar action. He will check with the County but currently it appeared only four Directors were officially appointed by the Board of Supervisors. The next meeting will be June 18th and it will include a full “partners” discussion.

There were no further reports and the meeting was adjourned unanimously at 12:00PM.

Sargeant J. Green, Secretary-Manager