WESTSIDE RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Meeting Minutes
August 20th, 2009

Call to Order:

The meeting was called to order by President Phil Erro at 10:15 AM. The following persons were in attendance.

Board of Directors in attendance;  President Erro, Jorgen Clausen, John Diener and  Craig Finster.

Others in attendance;  Sarge Green, Secretary-Manager and Ken Johnson CA DWR.

Agenda and Minutes:

The following is a summary of the Westside Resource Conservation District Board of Directors regular meeting held on August 20th, 2009, at the Westlands Water District Five Points office.

President Phil Erro convened the meeting at 10:10AM. A quorum was not present. The draft minutes of the July meeting was posted on the Westside RCD web site and e-mailed to the Directors prior to August 20th. Both the agenda and minutes were deemed adequate for conducting the meeting and a recommendation was made to approve them at the next meeting a quorum was present. The recommendation was approved unanimously by the Directors present.

Public Comments:

There were no public comments.

Reports:

Under financial report, the Manager outlined the current financial condition of the District. Several items were reviewed including that the insurance policy was offered to the District at a renewal rate of $2,240.00 and that the Eucalyptus Improvement Association was willing to transfer a donation from a northern California RCD that did not want to plant eucalyptus and was returning the money for re-distribution to WRCD. The donation was approximately $3,500.00. The money can be used to grow plant materials in Westside areas. Several land operators had requests and the Coalinga High greenhouse could grow the seedlings.  The water left over from the Bureau Restoration plots was sold and the proceeds of approximately $2,800.00 were deposited to the account. Therefore there was cash available to address the submitted payables. Based on the account conditions, Finance Committee Chair Clausen recommended the District pay the submitted bills.  

Under the Presidents Corner, President Erro followed up on the availability of funds for tree plantings by asking Directors and others to make the availability of the funds and the tree growing capability known to Westside operators.  One of the chief goals of planting some of the materials is to pump out shallow saline water tables.  Trees besides Eucalyptus include Argentine mesquite and Paulonia. Clarence Finch has collected thorn-free clones of the mesquite and they are being propagated in a nursery in Salinas. President Erro then described an upcoming Clean Energy Conference in December. It will be comprehensive and explore many clean energy concepts ranging from: biomass conversion to fuel such as by growing sunflowers or canola, biogas from dairies that is pressurized into commercial gas lines, or solar photo-voltaic or thermal. Given the desire for alternate energy it is likely companies and their representatives will be at the conference to offer leases or purchase of land suitable for some of the energy production alternates. In addition to private companies State agencies such as the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission will be attending also. An example private energy offers are PG&E and SCE who are offering up to 24.5 cents per kilowatt hour for qualified facilities. PG&E is seeking up 250 megawatt systems to meet the California 20% renewable mandate. The Fresno County Economic Development Corporation is interested in marketing the Westside for energy development as well as farming and food production. There were no other specific Director reports.

Under the Manager reports, the Manager discussed the pending new contract with DWR to conduct drainage management activities. The Task Orders still active include but not limited to: Red Rock Ranch drainage management testing, Argentine mesquite production, agroforestry promotion, Tulare Lake Drainage District pond management for habitat, UCLA RO testing and EM38 salt profiling with Fresno State. The other agreement for Arroyo Pasajero CEQA programmatic analysis of ranch practices implementation is still active but will need rapid implementation. It was held due to the State financial conditions that would have impacted the ability of the District to pay contractors and get into the position it was when the payments on previous contracts resulted in a problems for the District.

The “partner” in attendance included CA DWR Ken Johnson who mentioned that the final invoice under the previous contract for drainage management activities had been approved and sent to the Controller for disbursement. In addition he mentioned that the Regional Water Quality Control Board was holding workshops on developing strategies to maintain groundwater quality. The strategies would likely be used in changes to the basic guidance document the Board uses, their “Basin Plans”.
 
There were no further reports and the meeting was adjourned unanimously at 11:35 AM.

Sargeant J. Green, Secretary-Manager