Agency gives OID the OK to annex, provide water to border parcels

The Oakdale Irrigation District can annex and provide water to 1,070 acres in 14 scattered parcels on its borders north and east of Oakdale, a growth-guiding agency decided Wednesday, setting aside irksome memories of fallout from OID’s 2013 annexation of mega-grower Trinitas Farming.

OID historically enjoys a larger water supply than other agencies and has enough for the nearby farms without hurting existing customers, the district said in its application. Also, using OID’s Stanislaus River water will enable the newcomers to pump less groundwater to feed their crops, easing fears of dwindling aquifers, the district said.

“Let’s keep as much water as we can local,” said Bill O’Brien, a county supervisor well acquainted with OID’s penchant for shopping surplus water to wealthy outsiders. “This absolutely is the right thing to do.”

Sitting Wednesday on the Stanislaus Local Agency Formation Commission, O’Brien noted that the panel has no authority to regulate noise, dust or truck traffic caused by farming on newly annexed land. He also said – more than once – that he hoped LAFCO would not get bogged down in a “political fray” playing out on the five-person OID board.

Three board members have sued the other two after the two – Linda Santos and Gail Altieri – became involved in a separate fallowing lawsuit facing OID, and several customers last week launched a recall effort against Santos.

The women last year campaigned to bring transparency to OID and were elected in November, shortly after the district surprised many with a $5.75 million water sale to Fresno-area buyers, with no public vote or discussion in Oakdale. Shortly before the announcement, LAFCO commissioners had urged OID General Manager Steve Knell to negotiate with local buyers; he said nothing of the pending sale, consummated out of public view only six days before.

The revelation had prompted Jim DeMartini, also a county supervisor and LAFCO commissioner, at the time to call OID a “rogue agency” for “operating in secret and not being truthful in presentations.” DeMartini was absent Wednesday.

Also last year, some commissioners sympathized with OID customer Robert Frobose when he accused the district of deceiving longtime farmers and LAFCO to win approval for the Trinitas annexation. OID had promised that Trinitas’ 7,234 acres between Oakdale and Knights Ferry would get no water in a drought season until existing customers got full allotments, but OID that year imposed a cap on water deliveries while providing Trinitas and another newly annexed customer a third of the amount going to established customers.

“It didn’t turn out the way they presented it,” Frobose told commissioners Wednesday, asking for the definition of “no negative impact” to existing customers – the same promise repeated as a term for Wednesday’s approval. “OID uses a different dictionary than most everyone else,” he said. He and another man brought the fallowing lawsuit against OID in the spring.

O’Brien and Terry Withrow, another county supervisor, said it’s not LAFCO’s job to meddle in OID’s contracts with those to be annexed.

Farms joining OID Wednesday had signed up during an application period after the controversial 2013 annexation.

“After Trinitas, we did the fair thing and offered it to anybody,” Knell said. “These took the district up on that offer.”

“The window was open and I ran through it,” said grower John Brichetto, whose operation includes 78 acres annexed Wednesday.

OID gained 625 acres of Jack Hoekstra’s dairy. He said the operation installed $50,000 worth of “state-of-the-art measuring devices” to meet OID’s connection policy. Such efficiency improvements help free up water to offer to others, Knell said.

Before the annexation, OID’s service area was about 82,000 acres.

This story was originally published August 25, 2016 at 12:14 PM with the headline "Agency gives OID the OK to annex, provide water to border parcels."