OID approves outside water sale

Farmers around Oakdale and Riverbank can sell some shares of Stanislaus River water to wealthy outsiders, irrigation leaders decided this week on a 3-2 vote.

Also, Oakdale Irrigation District customers face no cap this year on water use. Last year – the fourth in an extended drought – marked the first time OID had imposed limits, initially set at 30 inches but periodically bumped up, to 44.

Board members Linda Santos and Gail Altieri, both elected in November, voted against water transfers this week, saying they weren’t given time to review objections from two landowners and their attorney, or the district’s responses.

Voting in favor were board members Herman Doornenbal and Gary Osmundson, and Chairman Steve Webb.

“There is a lot of support from constituents who want to partake of that,” Webb said.

The district hopes to fetch $400 for each acre-foot of water shipped to Fresno-area buyers, potentially bringing $4 million through the On-Farm Conservation Program. It’s called that because 75 percent of proceeds will help growers upgrade equipment to boost efficiency when fallowed land is put back into production. Sellers will get 20 percent in cash, and the district will take 5 percent.

It’s an innovative way for growers to comply with state law requiring higher efficiency, Webb said. Plus, the transfer will be timed to coincide with state and federal requirements for spring pulse flows, or extra water flowing in the Stanislaus to help push young salmon toward the ocean.

OID last year made the same deal but canceled it because of drought and a legal challenge from former board member Louis Brichetto, whose lawyer had argued that state law mandates environmental studies previously ignored by OID for such transfers. The district sold the water anyway in a surprise announcement at the end of the season, reaping $5.75 million but perhaps helping the campaigns of Santos and Altieri because the transfer was secretly consummated while growers had been told to conserve water.

Both women had voiced wariness about outside sales in their campaigns, but said their recent opposition stems from a sense of being railroaded. They were handed dozens of pages of critics’ comment and district responses only minutes before the meeting, they said.

“It’s not that I’m against the program in itself or benefits for landowners,” Santos said. “My concern was rushing to do this without complying with all the regulations tied to it. I’m not going to vote on something we haven’t had a chance to fully vet.”

Brichetto, joined by another frequent board critic, Robert Frobose, had submitted new objections on environmental grounds, saying water sent elsewhere cannot seep down here, replenishing groundwater.

Altieri said, “I don’t feel I need to be pressured into going a certain way when I have not had the information in my hands long enough to make an educated decision.”

OID General Manager Steve Knell has said outside sales are necessary because the district must spend $168 million by 2030 upgrading canals, pipelines and tunnels.

Also, “there is strong community interest and support for this project,” a report says.

OID isn’t worried about drought even as other water agencies are taking a cautious approach – the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts, for example, expect to deliver 30 inches and 36 inches, respectively. The South San Joaquin Irrigation District, OID’s Tri-Dam partner on the Stanislaus, last week said its farmers around Escalon, Ripon and Manteca will get at least 40 inches this year.

“OID will not have any allocation restrictions on water,” the OID report says, anticipating the first water deliveries March 28. Even after sending water to Fresno, delivering about 230,000 acre-feet to customers and selling another 5,000 to farmers just outside OID’s borders, the district should have a surplus of 60,000 acre-feet, the report says.

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 2:55 PM with the headline "OID approves outside water sale."