WESTSIDE RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Meeting Minutes
October 15th, 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, Gene Brughelli, Jorgen Clausen and Steve Elgorriaga.

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


Agenda and Minutes:

A quorum was not present. The agenda was found adequate for conducting the meeting. The meeting minutes for the September meeting were posted on the Westside RCD web site and e-mailed to the Directors prior to the meeting. Director Clausen found the minutes reflected the meeting and moved approval, Director Brughelli seconded and the minutes were unanimously adopted 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. The warrants for the proposed payables were limited by the cash on hand. One payable was pulled from the tentative warrants because the cash was insufficient to cover that additional disbursement. The balance were approved on a motion by Director Clausen, seconded by Director Brughelli and unanimously adopted.

Under the Presidents Corner, President Erro discussed the agenda for the upcoming SJV RC&D Council meeting at the Center for Irrigation Technology at Fresno State. The meeting agenda will include a status report on water availability in all areas of the San Joaquin Valley. The future for the Valley will be different if climate change results in less snow and more rain. Capturing and storing water will be much more difficult because easy storage is no longer available including groundwater recharge. By example, Coachella Valley Water District in the low desert recently purchased land for recharge at the cost of $175,000 per acre. Phil had flyers on the program. The next meeting of interest is a Clean Energy Conference at AgTAC Tulare on December 1st. The conference will not only present technologies but explain the regulatory setting and use of technologies. Smart meters and other techniques that manage use will be part of the program. That approach will be similar to the Double D produce cooler example of shutting down when demands are high for air conditioning. Steve Elgorriaga wondered how people with “smart” meters who were billed for energy they didn’t use were being dealt with.

There were no other Director reports.

Under “manager reports”, the Manager discussed “drainage management” activities. Jim Cooper has a Task Order to continue the work at Red Rock including but not limited to; pretreatment, a new solar evaporator to integrate with the new salt treatment processes proposed and the brine shrimp system. All other projects, watershed, land restoration and conservation in general were on hold with funding issues. The only short term prospect was additional restoration of upland habitat with support possible from the Bureau of Reclamation. It is also possible to seek funds for invasive species control (salt cedar) from the BLM. Finally, Manager Green will seek to join with the consultants and managers that will be working on an updated “Westside Integrated Water Management Plan” because the plan has to conform to the new Proposition 84 requirements in order to obtain any additional funding. Manager Green asked Ken Johnson about the “Forever Water” machine status. Ken said the machine had finally been constructed and was being prepared for installation at the site in Westlands. He hoped he could report it was installed at the next meeting. He also mentioned the temporarily stalled water supply well was back up for construction because of the need for more consistent water supplies for the various experiments, the tile drainage water has just become to unreliable in the current limited surface water allocation environment.

There were no further reports and the meeting was adjourned unanimously at 11:30 AM upon a motion by Director Clausen, seconded by Director Brughelli.

Sargeant J. Green, Secretary-Manager