Irrigation Leader August 2019

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 7

David Dejong of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project: Nation-Building Through Irrigation Infrastructure

August 2019

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CONTENTS AUGUST 2019 Volume 10 Issue 7

Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

An American company established in 2009

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Nicole E. Venable, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer SUBMISSIONS: Irrigation Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions.

However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request.

For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or irrigation.leader@waterstrategies.com.

6

The Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project: Nation-Building Through Irrigation Infrastructure

5 Arizona Irrigation

By Kris Polly

22 Not So Convenient: Why So Many Scooters Are Ending up in Canals

6 The Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project: Nation-Building IRRIGATED CROP Through Irrigation Infrastructure 26 Growing Lettuce in Yuma 12 Powering Arizona’s Water: CAP’s Energy Needs 16 Linking Arizona Farmers With Researchers: The Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture

THE INNOVATORS 32 How Emrgy is Disrupting the Hydropower Industry CLASSIFIEDS 38-39 BUSINESS LEADER THE INNOVATORS

ADVERTISING: Irrigation Leader accepts one-quarter, half-page, and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or irrigation.leader@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Irrigation Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors.

For address corrections or additions, please contact our managing editor, Joshua Dill, at joshua.dill@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2019 Water Strategies LLC. Irrigation Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Irrigation Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Irrigation Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Irrigation Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised. /IrrigationLeader

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | IRRIGATION LEADER

irrigationleadermagazine.com

COVER PHOTO: David DeJong, Director of P-MIP. Photo courtesy of P-MIP.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF P-MIP.

Coming soon in Irrigation Leader: September: New Mexico October: The global business of irrigation

@IrrigationLeadr

Arizona Irrigation

By Kris Polly

A

rizona agriculture is a marvel. Despite its blazing hot summers and its desert climate, the state produces significant agricultural output, including most of the lettuce, cauliflower, and broccoli eaten in the United States and Canada during the winter. To make this happen, water suppliers and irrigators distribute hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water each year across the state.

In our cover story, I speak with Dr. David DeJong, the director of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project (P-MIP), the tribal program that is managing the design and construction of over 100 miles of irrigation conveyance structures in the Gila River Indian Community. Dr. Dejong, whose doctoral dissertation in history focused on the water rights of the Gila River Indian Community, provides a historically-informed explanation of how P-MIP’s activities fit into the broader picture of nation-building.

We also speak with Darrin Francom of the Central Arizona Project (CAP), who digs into the details of how the agency powers 1.6 million acre-feet of Colorado River water across Arizona. At 2.8 gigawatt-hours a year, CAP is Arizona’s biggest energy user.

The Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture, a University of Arizona–linked research center, links Arizona agriculture with researchers who are working to improve yields and water use.

I also talk with Roosevelt Water Conservation District’s Shane Leonard about the annoyances and expense caused by

scooters and other debris being thrown in his organization’s canals.

In our irrigated crop section, we get to the result that all this infrastructure and research aims at: Arizona’s agricultural output. Tom Davis of the Yuma County Water Users’ Association walks us through the process of growing lettuce from germination to harvesting to shipping. At the height of the produce season, a refrigerated truck is leaving Yuma every minute, 24 hours a day.

Finally, I speak with Emily Morris, the founder and chief executive officer of Emrgy. Emrgy creates simple modular hydropower arrays that can be easily installed in canals. This exciting technology should be of interest to every irrigation district in the United States.

Irrigation can make the desert bloom, but it takes hard work. This issue of Irrigation Leader highlights the water utilities, irrigation districts, tribal agencies, researchers, farmers, and entrepreneurs who make it happen. I hope you find the stories within interesting and inspiring. IL Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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The pima-maricopa irrigation project: nation-building through irrigation infrastructure

The new Casa Blanca Canal siphon under the Little Gila River in 2017.

T

he Pima people (also known as the Akimel O’otham, or “river people”) have lived in the Gila River Valley of south-central Arizona for thousands of years. In the latter 18th century, they were joined by the Maricopa (also known as the Pee Posh, meaning “the people”) and confederated together. While they had separate cultures and languages, the two tribes agreed to ally and to share the same land. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the settlement of Arizona by nontribal people and the upstream diversion of the waters of the Gila River deprived the Pima-Maricopa people of their water supplies, leading to hunger and the loss of their independent self-government. Over the course of the 20th century, these wrongs have slowly begun to be righted.

The use of a federal law called Indian Self-Governance in the 1990s allowed the Pima-Maricopa people of the Gila River Indian Community to assume control of the rehabilitation and construction of the federal irrigation infrastructure on the reservation via a tribal program known as the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project (P-MIP).

In this interview, David DeJong, the director of P-MIP, speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about the Gila River Indian Community’s history and its strides forward in capacity-building and self-governance.

David DeJong: By background, I am a political historian of American Indian law and policy. My PhD dissertation at the University of Arizona focused on Indian water rights,

6 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Kris Polly: Please give us an overview of P-MIP and its history.

David DeJong: The project originated in the early 1990s, as the community was negotiating a comprehensive water settlement, but agriculture in this community goes back thousands of years. By the mid-19th century, the PimaMaricopa people were farming in excess of 15,000 acres. As nontribal settlement in the area expanded during the latter 1860s and 1870s, the Gila River was diverted upstream, reducing water downstream and creating difficult conditions on the reservation. By the turn of the 20th century, the people were literally starving. Newspapers around the country reported on the deprivation and there was a concerted effort as early as the late 1890s to do something to restore the water.

But the wheels of justice turn slowly, and nowhere did the wheels turn more slowly than at Gila River.

In 1925, the community finally was able to sue in the federal courts. The Gila Decree, which was issued in 1935, recognized a community entitlement of 210,000 acre-feet of water off the Gila River, but upstream growers were able to keep the water that they were then using, which the community always felt belonged to it. In 1935, the federal

PHOTO COURTESY OF P-MIP.

Kris Polly: Tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

specifically those of the Gila River Indian Community. I have researched and written on the history of irrigation and agriculture here in the community for about 35 years. In 2000, I had the good fortune to be hired as project coordinator for P-MIP. In May 2006, when P-MIP’s director retired, I was asked to fill the position and have been in it every since.

district court recognized that the Pima-Maricopa people had an immemorial right to the waters of the Gila River, and as such, that water is delivered to the reservation at no cost, with the U.S. government paying for all the operations, maintenance, and repairs (OM&R) through the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) San Carlos Irrigation Project.

As a result of all that, in the late 1940s, the community sued the United States again due to insufficient water.

That lawsuit lingered for decades. Finally, in the late 1980s, the community put together a master plan for agricultural and water use on the reservation and identified a water budget. In 1990, the Salt River Project (SRP), the community’s largest and most influential partner, agreed to sit down and negotiate with it and with 34 other parties. In short order, the parties established a framework for the water settlement. It included an annual community water budget of 653,500 acrefeet. At that point, the community and the Bureau of Reclamation began discussing constructing the Central Arizona Project (CAP) Indian Distribution Division to deliver CAP-contracted water to and across the reservation. Reclamation, as the federal entity charged with constructing the CAP, was in charge of the project, but the community wanted control. In 1994, Congress amended the Indian Self-Determination Act to create something called Indian Self-Governance, which allows tribal nations to take over programs of the Department of the Interior and operate them themselves. The Gila River Indian Community immediately began to negotiate a self-governance contract, and on October 1, 1995, the community entered into its first annual funding agreement with Reclamation, putting the CAP Indian Distribution Division under tribal control. The tribe renamed it the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project.

Beginning in October 1995, the community began to contract with a number of architectural and engineering firms to start the planning process for a system that would deliver all that settlement water to and across the reservation. P-MIP brought four engineering firms under master contracts. The first 3 years were dedicated to environmental work, planning, and initial design. In 1998, P-MIP started the first reach of construction. It has now constructed over $425 million worth of infrastructure on the reservation, including 135 miles of new irrigation conveyance system and structures, including both concrete-lined ditches and pipelines. It includes a stateof-the-art supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system that we are continuing to build each year. About 65 check structures and turnouts are on SCADA already; more will be added in coming years.

P-MIP is responsible not only for constructing the system but also for all the design, for which we have contracted with four engineering firms. Right now, we have about 120 miles of design completed and next

year we will complete the remaining 35 miles. We have acquired nearly $12 million worth of right of way in the last 20 years and we have a small amount of right of way yet to complete.

We are also responsible for complying with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which deals with cultural resources. We do all the latter through the community, which has its own Cultural Resources Management Program. We contract for all the NEPA work with outside contractors.

However, P-MIP does not operate or maintain any of irrigation system. Once we complete the design and construction of each phase of the project, we turn it over to the operators. If it’s part of the existing BIA irrigation system, we turn it over to the San Carlos Irrigation Project (SCIP). If it is not part of the BIA system, we turn it over to the community, which operates and maintains the system through the Gila River Indian Irrigation and Drainage District (GRIIDD), managed by community member Ron Allison. The last year of funding in our long-term contract with Interior is 2029, so sometime in 2030, when all the construction is completed and all the canals have been turned back over to the operators, P-MIP will disband and cease to exist.

Kris Polly: How does P-MIP fit into the tribal governance system?

David DeJong: P-MIP is part of the tribal governance system, and all its employees are tribal employees. P-MIP has a staff of 34 people. About 22 of those are Native American, with about half either Pima or Maricopa. The rest of us are non-native. The community has worked hard to restore its self-governance. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, tribal governments were decimated, and the BIA took control of nearly everything. Tribes were not able to operate programs or deliver services themselves. In recent decades, that has changed. What P-MIP and the community more broadly are doing is engaging in nation-building.

Kris Polly: How big is your service area and what is its population?

David DeJong: The Gila River Indian Community’s reservation covers about 372,000 acres. Of that, about 201,000 acres is considered irrigable farmland under the practicably irrigable acreage doctrine established by the 1963 Arizona v. California Supreme Court decision. Based on that calculation of irrigable land, the community’s initial water claim was 1.5 million acre-feet. The community ultimately settled for 653,500 acre-feet.

Of the total area of the reservation, about 75,000 acres have been irrigated at one time or another. P-MIP has been charged by the tribal council to design and construct an irrigation system that will ultimately be able to serve up to IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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90,000 acres of land. Based on our groundwater modeling, we believe that the maximum sustainable acreage is in the 77,000-acre range, but during especially wet years, we might be able to irrigate 90,000 acres. Our goal is to construct a system that will deliver water to 90,000 acres, with 77,000 acres being the projected average on any given year.

Today, we are irrigating only about 32,000 acres, which is 6,000 acres more than were being irrigated in 2009. We are working closely with GRIIDD to identify lands that can be irrigated in the near future. In 2015 and again in 2017, the tribal council approved 5-year water plans in which it identified targeted numbers of acres that it would like to see developed. Around 1,200–1,500 acres are going into agricultural production each year.

Kris Polly: How has P-MIP affected the reservation and its economy over the last 20 years?

David DeJong: The tribe has experienced many changes over the past 25 years, and not only because of P-MIP. Gila River is a gaming tribe and opened its first casino in 1992. The resulting transformation has been nothing short of phenomenal. Twenty-five years ago, only around 7,500 people lived on the reservation. Today, it’s double that. The Pima-Maricopa combined population is about 23,000, and a little over 14,000 now live on the reservation. In the last 25 years, around 1,500 new homes have been constructed on the reservation. The casinos employ 4,000–5,000 people, a good percentage of whom are tribal members. The tribal government employs about 1,500 people, around two-thirds of whom are Native American. In 1992, there was no fire department, and police protection was provided by the BIA, which was understaffed. Today, the tribe has its own Gila River Police Department as well as fire stations all across the reservation. There is not only a new hospital, Hohokam Memorial Hospital, right here in Sacaton, but there are also ambulatory centers across the reservation.

Regarding irrigation water, while the laterals and sublaterals have not yet been completed, P-MIP is constructing the last piece of the backbone system right now. We have a $47.5 million contract with Coffman Specialties to complete the last 6 miles of the backbone system. When that piece is completed later this year, we will be able to take water all the way across the reservation.

Historically, the irrigation system that the BIA constructed between the 1910s and 1930s was not large enough to deliver water to all tribal lands. For instance, the tribe has water rights under the Gila Decree for the 50,546 acres of land that can be served by the Gila River, but it has never irrigated more than 35,000 of those acres because of a lack of infrastructure. Our state-of-the-art system will remedy that. Because of P-MIP’s technical skills, a number of tribal departments have spun off

8 | IRRIGATION LEADER

from P-MIP, including the surveyors, GIS and Cultural Resource Management Program.

Kris Polly: Where does the community’s water come from?

David DeJong: The Gila River Indian Community, under the Arizona Water Settlements Act of 2004, agreed to limit its annual water budget to 653,500 acrefeet. We have nine different sources of water. Ordered from largest to smallest by the rolling 10-year average volume they provide, they are CAP Indian priority water (191,200 acre-feet); groundwater (173,700 acre-feet); surface water from the Gila River (125,000 acre-feet); CAP non-Indian ag water, originally contracted by CAP to non-Indian agricultural purposes but reassigned to the tribe under the water settlement (120,600 acre-feet); Salt River water provided by the SRP (20,000 acre-feet); A+ reclaimed water provided by the Cities of Chandler (6,730 acre-feet) and Mesa (5,870 acre-feet); Haggard Decree water on the far western end of the reservation (5,900 acre-feet); and Salt River water provided by the Roosevelt Water Conservation District (4,500 acre-feet).

Some of these sources are geographically limited, for instance available only on the north or south side of the river. We model the input from each of these nine water sources, which allows us to see what’s happening with the groundwater table. We also monitor water quality.

The price of water varies by source. Gila River water is paid for by the U.S. government, meaning that it is free; CAP water costs about $158 an acre-foot (although under the Water Settlement Act, the United States pays fixed OM&R costs of about $96 an acre-foot); groundwater is $34–35 an acre-foot; SRP water runs about $20; and the reclaimed water that we get from the Cities of Mesa and Chandler is free. In order to be economical, we want to deliver the lowest-cost water the shortest distance possible and apply it to the lands best situated to receive it. CAP water is used as a buffer if there’s a shortage of water from another source. A good portion of it is recharged into the aquifer as a hedge against future shortages.

Kris Polly: What is your vision for the future of P-MIP? David DeJong: Whether you come into the reservation from the north or south, you come up over lowlying mountains and then look down into the valley.

Historically, people saw a ribbon of green meandering through the middle of the reservation: the flowing Gila River, surrounded by a gallery of cottonwood, willow, and mesquite trees and thousands of acres of agricultural land.

Our vision for the community and the community’s vision for itself is that green ribbon will once again demarcate the community as agricultural lands expand.

Since 1982, two-thirds of the agricultural lands of

Rubicon gates installed as part of P-MIP's work.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF P-MIP AND RUBICON.

The paving of the 14-foot-bottom Pima Lateral. The new canal has a capacity of 1,300 cubic feet per second (cfs). The canal was originally constructed in 1925; P-MIP improved the canal in 2014-15.

Maricopa County, north of the reservation, have gone out of production and been urbanized. The same is true of 51 percent of the agricultural lands in Pinal County, south of the reservation. As the agricultural regions of the Salt River Valley, the Gila River Valley, and the Casa Grande Valley urbanize, the community wants to pick up those ag lands and become the breadbasket of Arizona as it once was.

Historically, throughout a good portion of the middle and latter parts of the 19th century, the reservation was known as the breadbasket of Arizona, supplying all the foodstuffs for the mining operations in north-central Arizona, all the way down into Tucson and into northern Mexico. The community has historically grown a lot of durum wheat, with most of it going to Italy—you

A 132-inch siphon on the 750-cfs Santan Canal.

probably have eaten pasta that had its roots at Gila River.

The Gila River Farms has a large citrus orchard. All that citrus has been marketed under the label Pima Gold, and much of it ends up in Japan. The community envisions a day when it is sending agricultural produce all across the world and it becomes the breadbasket once again. IL David DeJong is the director of the Pima Maricopa Irrigation Project.

He can be contacted at ddejong@gilariver.com or (520) 562-6742. For more about P-MIP, visit gilariver.com.

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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Powering Arizona’s Water: CAP’s Energy Needs

An aerial view of CAP’s canal at Salt Gila Pumping Plant, just south of the Salt River siphon.

A

t 2.8 gigawatt-hours per year, the Central Arizona Project (CAP) is one of the biggest power users in the state of Arizona. Why? Mainly because of the immense power demands of diverting 1.6 million acre-feet of water a year off of Lake Havasu and immediately lifting it about 800 feet vertically. That is the first step in a process that ultimately brings water to CAP’s approximately 2 million agricultural, municipal, tribal, and industrial users. With the imminent closure of the coalfired Navajo Generating Station, CAP is identifying alternate sources of power to meet its considerable needs.

In this interview, Darrin Francom, the director of operations, power, and engineering at CAP, speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the process of ensuring power flow to this important agency.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

12 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Darrin Francom: CAP’s mission is to move Arizona’s allotment of Colorado River water from the river itself into the three counties that we serve: Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima Counties. We do that through a series of aqueducts, pipelines, and pumping plants. There are 15 pumping plants, 336 miles of canal, and 1 pump storage reservoir. The canal is quite linear. We move water off the Colorado River, and if it is not needed immediately, we pump it into our storage reservoir, Lake Pleasant, and release it as our customers need it. That allows us to shift the timing of our deliveries and helps us shape our power usage. When power is costly, we can make deliveries from our reservoir instead of pumping water from the river. We target our main pumping for periods when power costs are lower, since power costs are a large component of our water rate. Our use of the storage reservoir means that our deliveries of water to our customers and our diversions of water from the Colorado River don’t have to match each other.

Joshua Dill: How many customers do you have?

Darrin Francom: CAP has more than 80 long-term water users, who fall into three groups: municipal/industrial users, agricultural users, and Native American tribes. We serve about 5 million people, which is 80 percent of the state’s population, since the three counties we serve contain the state’s largest cities, Phoenix and Tucson.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about the power demands of moving all that water.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAP.

Darrin Francom: I’ve been at CAP for almost 18 years. Before that, I was an officer in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps. I was lucky enough to find a job at CAP as a civil engineer/project manager. I have been really lucky at CAP in that I’ve been able to move through a number of the different organizational pieces of our organization. I supervised our design engineering team and our project management team, moved on to be a manager within our centralized maintenance team, and then moved back into engineering as the manager of engineering.

Most recently, I’ve taken on the role of director of operations, power, and engineering. I’d say my background is primarily in engineering, project management, and maintenance, and now I’ve taken on this fun role within our operations team and our power group.

Joshua Dill: Would you give us an overview of CAP and what it consists of?

Darrin Francom: On an average year, CAP uses 2.8 gigawatthours of energy, which makes us, to my understanding, the largest energy user in the state of Arizona. Our diversion from the Colorado River is around 1.6 million acre-feet of water a year. That’s a significant weight that needs to be moved. Over the course of the canal system, it’s lifted vertically about 3,000 feet. The majority of our power— about 80 percent—is used at the first pumping plant, the Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant, which diverts water off of Lake Havasu near the city of Parker, Arizona, and lifts it over 800 feet vertically. Then it goes through a 7-mile tunnel.

That initial vertical lift takes a tremendous amount of power.

The next few pumping plants downstream are quite a bit smaller in size. They still move the same volume of water, but it’s a much smaller vertical lift. Then that water is moved by gravity across the desert in an open canal. The CAP Transmission System, which was built by the Bureau of Reclamation, brings power to this system of pumping plants. We also contract for and use the federal government’s Intertie Transmission System and some local transmission systems. Through this interconnected transmission system, we move our power across the state from the point where it is generated to the location of use.

Joshua Dill: Could you tell me about CAP’s relationship with the Navajo Generating Station and how it has changed over time?

Darrin Francom: The Navajo Generating Station was built by the federal government and started operating commercially in 1974, in part to help serve the power needs of CAP. CAP had a contract to be able to purchase 24 percent of the output of the Navajo Generating Station. The federal government retains partial ownership of the station; CAP simply has a contract to be able to purchase the power from that plant. The Navajo Generating Station has typically provided 50–60 percent of CAP’s overall power. As the cost to produce energy at Navajo started to increase beyond the levels in the rest of the energy market, the owners made the decision to move toward closure. That in some ways is difficult for CAP, but because the power costs at Navajo were escalating beyond the market price, the closure isn’t going to be detrimental from a pure cost standpoint, although we do empathize with those who will be affected by the plant’s closure.

From a business perspective, we will be able to engage on the open market or in power purchase agreements with others and offset that lost power at an equal or lower price.

These power contracts feed into our overall water rate. We’ve been able to show in our forecast and in our 2020 water rates that our energy costs are coming down.

Joshua Dill: Considering that you’re such a major energy user, was it difficult to figure out how to replace that source of power?

Darrin Francom: Back in 2018, we put out two requests for proposals. One asked companies that were utilizing their existing suites of energy resources to give us a cost proposal for power. We also accepted some proposals for renewable energy. The contract that we ended up executing was a 5-year, 35-megawatt contract with the Salt River Project (SRP), a significant local energy provider. The cost of the energy is related to the price of natural gas, so it has some potential to fluctuate. The other project that we executed was a power purchase agreement with a company called Origis, which is building a 30-megawatt solar plant in a western Arizona town called Salome. It will own the solar project, and we have a 20-year agreement to buy its energy output. The negotiated flat 20-year rate is just under $24 a megawatt-hour, which is a fantastic rate for us.

We’ve also recently executed an online auction accessible to all energy providers. We’ve defined the amount of energy we need to purchase, the months when we need that energy, the exact hours when we need to use the energy, and the delivery location. We’ve created 16 different products like that. We had a starting bid price, and companies could bid and offer lower energy prices for each one of those products.

At the end, we felt that the offered prices for 15 of those 16 energy products were good and we executed those. We’ve secured a bit over 55 percent of CAP’s total energy needs for 2020. The rest of our energy needs will primarily be bought on the month-ahead and day-ahead energy markets. We’ll watch what is happening in the energy markets closely. It is difficult for us to define our exact energy needs a year ahead, because our customers—including irrigation providers, local municipalities, and farmers—schedule their water use based on the needs of their crops or their city; as a result, we don’t prepurchase everything.

Joshua Dill: By how much will your energy expenses go down due to your new power arrangements?

Darrin Francom: We issue a current year and future year forecast for our water, and there’s an energy component within the overall rate. In 2017, we forecasted the pumping energy components of our rates for 2020 and 2021 to be $101 and $115 per acre-foot of water, respectively. When we did this again in 2019, the same pumping energy components for 2020 and 2021 were forecasted to be $56 and $57 per acrefoot. This shows some of the overall rate decreases that we have been experiencing.

Joshua Dill: What are the difficulties of buying power at such a large scale?

Darrin Francom: The capacity to provide the energy we need is in place with existing facilities within Arizona, including the Arizona Public Service and the Salt River Project (SRP), and other providers outside the state. One thing that we do worry about is volatility in the energy market. For example, if there IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 13

CAP’s Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant, which lifts water 800 feet out of Lake Havasu.

was a problem on a regional natural gas line, it could create a localized spike in power prices, which would affect us. When you’re a large purchaser of power, minor fluctuations in price add up.

We strive to divert our water from the Colorado River during the times when energy is cheapest. As I mentioned, we have a certain amount of water that we have to move off the river every year. To do that, we could use a few pumps and leave them running all year long, or we could use twice as many pumps and only pump for half the day, when energy prices are lowest. We need to use all our pumps to take full advantage of these localized low energy prices. When we have issues with those pumps and need to purchase more power during the higher-cost times, that drives our costs up.

Going back to the idea of volatility in the open market, we have to navigate a unique tradeoff. If we want a stable water rate, we can pre-purchase all our power. However, as with anything that is purchased years in advance, the providers sell it at a bit of a higher cost because there’s some risk to them.

We try to buy a certain amount of power at a predefined rate and then make good market decisions when the market has a lower-cost power offering. We have a group that monitors the daily and forward purchase prices of power. As we see advantageous prices, we execute on them, as we did at our auctions.

Joshua Dill: What is your vision for the future?

14 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Darrin Francom is the director of operations, power, and engineering at the Central Arizona Project. He can be contacted at dfrancom@cap-az.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CAP.

Darrin Francom: On the power side, we are just starting to move away from the Navajo Generating Station as our primary power source. Purchasing more directly from the energy market is relatively new to us. My vision is for us to become skilled at understanding the power market so that we

are able to achieve a stable, low power cost for our customers.

Gaining experience will help us make even better decisions.

When it comes to our operations team, one of the things that I’m watching for is our capacity to respond to drought conditions. As you may know, the Colorado River has been experiencing a drought for nearly two decades. When Arizona experiences significant cuts in our allocation of Colorado River water, I want to make sure that we can rapidly adjust and that we can communicate to our customers what those reductions mean for them and how the new system of drought contingency planning works. Drought conditions and reductions in our diversion will also affect our energy use.

There’s a dynamic interplay between the two.

When it comes to our engineering team, the system that the Bureau of Reclamation built for us is fantastic, but it dates back to the 1980s. Some of it is obsolete or nearing the end of its useful life. We need to replace aging or obsolete systems within our pumping plans and canal. I am leaning on our engineering team to help manage our overall capital replacement budget in a smart and efficient way, with a mind toward our water rates.

Those are the big three areas that I’m looking at: to gain further expertise and experience within the power market, to plan for potential shortages on the river, and to continue to look at a long-range plan for capital replacement and capital improvement projects. IL

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Linking Arizona Farmers With Researchers: The Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture UA researchers and students use a customized drone to perform thermal imaging of a Yuma, Arizona, broccoli crop.

This remote sensing will be used to ground-truth satellite data.

T

he Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture (YCEDA) is a research center at the University of Arizona (UA) that links farmers, researchers, and students. Its mission is to identify the needs of Arizona farmers, find researchers to work on meeting those needs, fund them with money donated by the agricultural industry and other sources, and then diffuse the results of their research among the farmers.

In this interview, YCEDA Executive Director Paul Brierley speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the exciting research his center is coordinating.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Paul Brierley: I grew up on a small farm in California, went to college, and became a computer scientist. I spent about 5 years in telecommunications research. Because I missed the rural lifestyle, I went back to production agriculture in Arizona in 1993. After about a dozen years, I ended up going to the Arizona Farm Bureau and working on grassroots issues advocacy. I got to know the state’s agriculture well. That led to my being selected as the first executive director of this center when it was started.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about YCEDA and its history.

16 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: What is the relation between YCEDA and the university today?

Paul Brierley: YCEDA is an organization within the university. I am a university employee and work directly for the vice president of agriculture, life and veterinary sciences, and cooperative extension.

The way the industry partners with us is that individual investors commit to fund our center via tax-deductible donations to the University of Arizona Foundation. Eight donors and UA’s vice president for ag, life and veterinary sciences, and cooperative extension sit on YCEDA’s advisory council, which gives me some guidance on the issues it would like worked on.

YCEDA does not do research itself. It tries to be a bridge that makes sure that research occurs on the issues that are important to our stakeholders. We get advice from our stakeholders, pull together researchers, try to get funding, and

PHOTO COURTESY OF YCEDA.

Paul Brierley: There was a new dean of the UA College of Agriculture who toured the state of Arizona to learn about its agriculture and saw that Yuma was a real gem, with worldclass agriculture, huge productivity, and a good relationship with the university. At the same time, the university and the cooperative extension were undergoing all sorts of budget cuts. His question was how the university could support this

industry at the needed level. He worked with the industry and came up with the idea of a public-private partnership.

The industry agreed to fund the center if it was allowed some influence over research topics and if the center’s results were useful. That is how it worked out. The industry funds the center and sits on the advisory council. If the center provides good results that contribute to resolving the industry’s urgent issues, the industry will continue to fund it.

In the last 4 years, we’ve gone from just me to five of us now. Our most recent hire, who came on last fall, is Stephanie Slinski, our associate director for applied research and development. She’s a PhD plant pathologist who understands the issues and the research networks. She’s really taken us to the next level of capability.

keep the research focused on usable results for the production industry. Then we disseminate those results back to the stakeholders.

Joshua Dill: Would it be accurate to say that YCEDA is a project manager for agricultural research?

Paul Brierley: Yes. It turns out that one of the main challenges is finding the people to actually do the research and making them aware of and interested in the problems that are affecting production agriculture. Despite our affiliation with the university, we are not constrained to collaborating with researchers employed by the university. We work with experts from other universities, like UC Davis, or from companies like Syngenta or even Raytheon. The key thing is finding the right partner, getting them focused on these problems, and providing the resources to get that research done.

Our advisory council helps us stay in close touch with industry needs. They bring ideas to us and tell us about their problems. Researchers come to us with ideas and proposals and we vet those. We can run those ideas by our advisory council to figure out where to focus our efforts. The number 1 issue that they’d like addressed is maximizing productivity.

Joshua Dill: How do you diffuse your research results?

Paul Brierley: We hold field days and research symposiums, and have a website, publications, and various other means to get information out. One advantage we have is that pretty much anything we work on is something that the industry needs and wants to incorporate into its operations. Our results are not just going to be a report on a shelf somewhere; they are going to be put to use and have an effect.

Joshua Dill: What are the main projects YCEDA works on?

Paul Brierley: One of the first things I was asked to work on at YCEDA was productivity. The biggest obstacle to productivity was plant disease. As the climate changes, different diseases come in, including soilborne diseases and mildews. One example is fusarium of lettuce, a soilborne disease that is currently spreading. There is really not a solution for it at the moment. Most diseases can be treated with a spray or a cultural practice, but with fusarium, you can’t plant lettuce in affected fields. We’ve had a number of projects in that area, including disease identification, remote sensing identification using spectral imaging, and DNA analysis. We’ve tried to identify thresholds from soil testing to help decide where to plant. We’d like to be able to predict whether a crop will get fusarium in a given field at a given time. We are in the infancy of identifying and quantifying this disease. Those tools will help growers predict whether their crops will get the disease, but they will also be able to analyze the efficacy of different ways of managing the disease. That could be resistant varieties.

We’ve had 4 years in a row of field trials in which we look at

new and current varieties of lettuce to see if they’re resistant to the disease. We try different crop protection products and cultural methods and try to figure out ways that this disease can be managed.

Joshua Dill: Tell us about your soil salinity study. What is the problem that you are trying to solve?

Paul Brierley: As I was coming on board 4 years ago, the irrigation districts here were working with a group of stakeholders including the Bureau of Reclamation, the Arizona Department of Water Resources, and UA on a study of water efficiency. All irrigation in the Yuma area uses water from the Colorado River, which has a lot of pressures on it from drought and development and the push and pull between states and urban and rural users. The study looked at the source of the water, how it was distributed to the farms, how it was used, and how productive it was. They looked at what was produced using the water and at the improvements in efficiency that have occurred over the past 20–30 years, and concluded that we were using 18 percent less water than we used 30 years ago and in some cases producing double the crop. The study tried to quantify all that. As in any study, however, there were gaps and further questions. One question concerned the necessity of pre-irrigation. There is a practice in this area of pre-irrigating before the vegetable season in order to push salts down below the root zone.

We undertook a study at the behest of the Yuma Agriculture Water Coalition, a coalition of irrigation districts, to look at crop water needs and soil salinity levels. The existing figures for evapotranspiration coefficients and things like that date back to the 1950s. Cropping patterns and yields are a lot different now. Crops such as lettuce are producing twice as much yield as they used to. We wanted to look at things like evapotranspiration and water needs from a holistic perspective, including the whole rotation cropping cycle throughout the year. We partnered with a UA researcher and a researcher from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Arid Land Agricultural Research Center. One task was to measure every bit of water applied to the field. We have expensive, high-tech measurement devices that measure all the incoming water, the evapotranspiration, the evaporation, and the leaching. Some of the water was being used by the crop, some was evaporating off, some was going down through the soil. We also observed what was happening to the salinity in the soil at different depths.

We built a huge database as we added more partners and more equipment, and we ended up with the ability to measure eight different crops at a time. We could do iterations of the same crop or different crops. We measured on different scales, as well: We had equipment on the ground measuring at the field level and we had equipment that was more at the regional level, measuring areas a mile or two across. We are actually taking measurements with satellites and ground-truthing that with drones and similar sensors. The goal is to eventually be IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 17

A high-tech Eddy Covariance System stands sentry in a Yuma, Arizona romaine lettuce field, measuring evapotranspiration and sending realtime data to researchers at UA and the U.S. Arid Land Agricultural Research Center.

able to get these measurements from satellites without having to disrupt field work with measurement equipment.

We are getting precise updated evapotranspiration coefficients for all the major crops in the Yuma area so that we can figure out exactly how much water those crops need. We hope to give the growers the information they need to more precisely select their crops, irrigate their crops, and engage in practices like pre-irrigation more precisely.

Joshua Dill: Does this study aim more at increasing production or at saving water?

Paul Brierley: It’s a little bit of both, because if you’re not leaching enough salt, then you’re going to be hurting your production. If you’re putting on more water than is necessary to leach the salts, then you can save water. It’s just a matter at this point of quantifying crop needs and soil salinity. It turns out that the farmers were doing a pretty good job. The words “water efficiency” have taken on a new meaning in my mind. It always seemed like a categorically good thing, but it turns out that if you get past 80–90 percent efficient you’re not adding enough water to properly leach the salts, thus increasing soil salinity.

Joshua Dill: Does YCEDA work with students at the university?

18 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: What is your vision for the future?

Paul Brierley: First of all, to do more of what we’re doing. I want to broaden our collaboration network, making sure we’re working with top-notch researchers on the urgent issues of the day. I want YCEDA to become more of a grant-giving organization. Right now, we typically go out with our research partners and try to bring in grant funds to support their research. I would love it if we had enough of a war chest that we could be the grant-giving agency. Then we could put people to work immediately on an issue instead of having to go through the whole laborious process of applying for a grant and waiting for approval and all that. I will always stay true to our industry focus. That is what differentiates us: We produce results that are meaningful and useful to the production ag industry. It’s a new model for university engagement with industry. So far, the track record has been good and I’m excited for the future. IL

Paul Brierley is the executive director for the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture. He can be contacted at paulbrierley@email.arizona.edu.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF YCEDA.

Paul Brierley: We’re doing that more and more. Our drone pollination project is a good example. The industry came to the university cooperative extension with the idea quite a few years ago. UA has a regional campus here in Yuma, which has an engineering program. Some senior engineering students took it on as a senior design project 3 years ago. They proved that pollinating from a drone actually gets the pollen where it is needed. They built a dispenser and a drone and pollinated date trees with it, and actually won the overall design contest for the whole university. This year, to carry that forward, we are working with the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurialism

at UA. YCEDA sponsored a two-semester class in which three engineering teams are working on building a commercializable pollinator drone prototype. An MBA class is working on a path to market. The hope is that the students can create a commercializable prototype with a path to market and that they can actually create a startup and carry this idea to commercialization by licensing the technology from the university. If that succeeds, the students will have created a commercial entity, the industry will have a solution, and the university will have a small revenue stream from the licensing of the technology. That’s one example I’m really excited about right now.

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Not So Convenient: Why So Many Scooters Are Ending up in Canals

Scooters like these are thrown into Roosevelt Water Conservation District's canals on a regular basis.

B

y now, residents of most cities in the United States are familiar with the electric scooters that have sprung up like mushrooms on every street corner. While they are convenient and quick for commuters, they pose an annoyance, a liability, and a hazard for canal owners. Arizona’s Roosevelt Water Conservation District is one agency that has had problems with these scooters.

In this interview, RWCD General Manager Shane Leonard speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about the recent spike in scooters being thrown into his agency’s canals and the massive headaches and possible lawsuits they are causing.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your issue with scooters and rental bikes.

22 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Kris Polly: Has anybody fallen into a canal while riding a scooter on its banks?

Shane Leonard: Not that we are aware of. That question is a lot like another one we are often asked: How many people get into our canals and get out without a problem? We don’t know, because people don’t call us up to tell us that they were trespassing. Typically, we find the scooters after they’ve moved down the bigger canal systems and gotten wedged underneath a gate or gotten trapped in a fish grate or trash rack. These things aren’t light. I have guys out there straining themselves physically trying to pull them out. Eventually, we have to send out a piece of equipment to pull them out using a chain or rope. It costs several hundred dollars in equipment and labor costs to pull a worthless scooter out of the system and stock it.

Kris Polly: Do people throw other stuff into the canals?

Shane Leonard: Oh, yeah. Some of the things are what you would expect, like shopping carts, but we have even found artificial limbs. One thing that freaked us out a year or two

PHOTO COURTESY OF FLICKR.

Shane Leonard: The problem is that our canals and open conveyance systems have become a dumping ground for everybody who does not feel like paying the bill for their scooters. We have collected between 50 and 100 of them from our canals. If I understand correctly, in order to use one of these scooters, you enter your credit card information into a crediting system, and when your allotted time runs out, the scooter locks up. People who don’t have anything else to do are figuring out ways to make these things run when they’re not supposed to, but the scooters still have GPS tracking systems. When these people get where they want to go, they throw the scooter in the water so that everything fritzes out.

One of the things that we’ve gotten concerned about is that the scooters are battery operated. Chemicals leach out of their battery packs into the water.

The scooter companies don’t seem interested in collecting them and the state doesn’t regulate them. When you call a scooter company and ask it to come pick up its scooters, and also tell it that the scooters got lodged underneath a gate and caused damage, it says that the lack of regulations exempts it from damages. One company actually wanted us to pay

for damages to its scooters on the theory that if our canals weren’t there, they wouldn’t have been thrown in. It wanted us to replace all of them.

In my personal opinion, it’s a bad idea to give folks unfettered access to motorized, battery-operated pieces of equipment without a code or theory on how to collect them. It’s no wonder that people throw them away. The lack of regulations is a problem for local cities and towns too.

A municipality around here was hit with a Persons with Disabilities Act lawsuit because scooters were left on ramps and sidewalks and folks in wheelchairs couldn’t get around them. People also use the scooters in places where they’re not supposed to, like our canal banks.

ago was that somebody had thrown a mannequin into the canal. We found it during a low-flow period, after it had been in the canal for a year or two accumulating sediment.

Kris Polly: Are you aware of other water providers having problems with the scooters?

Shane Leonard: I know Salt River Project has the same issue; so does everybody who’s got a canal system in the metro area. These scooter companies are trying to get into high-population areas. When they first showed up, it seemed that they were being dropped off in clusters. There might be 10 or 12 at an intersection. The first time we saw them in our canal, it looked like somebody had literally gone to the corner where all the scooters were, put them in their vehicle, gone 300 feet east, and thrown them all in our canal. Maybe it was kids having a joke, but that’s a lot of work just for that. I’m thinking it could have been somebody who didn’t like the fact that the company had just dumped the scooters out on the sidewalk. It could also have been a rival company.

Kris Polly: What policies have you and your board adopted to deal with this situation?

send the reports to me. I’ve got contact information for all the scooter companies that are operating in the area. I call them up and say, “All right, we’ve got 8 of your units. You’ve got 5 days to come collect them or I’m going to dispose of them.”

More often than not, they say, “Those are ours. You can’t do that.” I ask them to come get the scooters. They tell me to put them out on the sidewalk. I refuse, because if I do that, they are going to end up right back in my system.

Kris Polly: Do you throw them all away eventually?

Shane Leonard: Eventually. As I mentioned, we’ve pulled out 50–100 scooters within the last 18 months. The company that picks up our trash will deconstruct them and dispose their different elements, including the battery components, appropriately. I believe there have been two situations where a company has come to collect a couple. But in those cases, the person who shows up sifts through the scooters and grabs the ones that might still be serviceable and then tells me to do what I want with the rest. Why is it my responsibility to get rid of their trash? IL

Shane M. Leonard is general manager of the Roosevelt Water Conservation District. He can be contacted at s.leonard@rwcd.net.

Shane Leonard: It is somewhat informal. Someone who pulls a scooter out of the canal submits a field report, and those field reports go through the normal process of review. Since there is no standard of care, state policy, or state licensing associated with these scooters, however, I have my employees

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IRRIGATED CROP

Harvesting produce is a labor-intensive process.

Growing Lettuce in Yuma

M

ost of the winter produce consumed in the United States and Canada is grown in the Yuma, Arizona, region, in Southern California, and in Northern Mexico, and most is processed in Yuma before being shipped out to supermarkets across the country. While the average consumer in the produce aisle of a supermarket may not give a second thought to their lettuce’s provenance, there is actually a highly efficient process for harvesting, shipping, and selling Yuma’s winter crops within a matter of hours.

In this interview, Tom Davis, the general manager of the Yuma County Water Users’ Association (YCWUA), speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the growing, harvesting, and processing of Arizona produce.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

26 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: What facilities does YCWUA have, and who are its customers?

Tom Davis: YCWUA operates under contract with Reclamation to divert and deliver Colorado River water from the All-American Canal (AAC) through the project’s canal and delivery system to agricultural lands in the Yuma Valley. It’s a gravity-flow system that was designed and constructed by Reclamation at the turn of the 20th century. The original construction costs were repaid to the federal government decades ago. Our shareholders are the landowners and water right owners that we deliver water to. There are upwards of 1,000 shareholders. Their water rights are attached to their land. The association is just a canal delivery company. We divert water from the AAC, generate and market hydro power, operate and maintain the system, and measure and deliver water to the farmers’ private irrigation ditches. We allocate water on an annual basis to each acre of water right. We assess each acre of water right a tax which makes up most of our operations and maintenance budget. Each acre is allocated 5 acre-feet of water. If that amount is beneficially used, the grower may purchase additional water. Our members have a present perfected water right, which means that beneficial use is the limit and measure of the water right.

PHOTO COURTESY OF YCWUA.

Tom Davis: I previously managed an irrigation district on the Lower Pecos River in New Mexico. I became general manager of YCWUA 12 years ago. Associations are different than irrigation districts: Associations are private companies, while irrigation districts are quasi-municipalities of state governments. Most of the Bureau of Reclamation’s projects in the West are irrigation districts; there are only a few water users’ associations, although many irrigation districts were originally formed as water users’ associations. YCWUA operates under an operations and maintenance contract with Reclamation and was incorporated with the territory

of Arizona in 1903, right after the Reclamation Act was signed into law in 1902.

IRRIGATED CROP Joshua Dill: What kind of use do those shareholders put the water to?

Tom Davis: We grow crops year-round in the Yuma area.

We’re known for our winter crops, which are primarily produce. Most of the lettuce, cauliflower, and broccoli, and some of the seed crops and special crops that are consumed in the United States and Canada during the winter are grown here. Few other places grow the volume of wintertime produce that this area does. During spring and summer, that same produce business moves to the Salinas Valley in California. We also grow desert durum wheat, a fair amount of which is exported to the Mediterranean region to be made into pasta The rest is used here in the United States, primarily for pasta. After produce season, we grow cotton, sorghum, and melons, primarily cantaloupe and watermelon.

Those are all grown in the spring months and are generally harvested by mid-June.

Joshua Dill: Is Arizona a big winter crop producer because of its climate?

Tom Davis: Yes, particularly the Yuma area. There are five irrigation districts in addition to YCWUA here in the Yuma area. In other parts of Arizona, there’s irrigated agriculture, but it is mostly summer crops.

Joshua Dill: Would you walk us through the lettuce production process from planting to growing, harvesting, and exporting, especially as it relates to water use?

Tom Davis: We grow every kind of lettuce known. Different kinds of lettuces require different treatments, in terms of planting and irrigation. Most leafy green varieties are grown on raised beds, although some varieties like baby leaf spinach and arugula, which are referred to as spring mix, are raised on wide beds, which are about 4 feet wide. A salad with individual leaves with weird leaf margins and shapes is what I’m referring to when I say spring mix. They’re planted by seed, sprinkle irrigated over their entire lifetimes, and harvested mechanically. The wide bed varieties are planted in 18 lines per bed with narrow spacing. They are sprinkle irrigated because you can’t reach across the wide bed with furrow irrigation. Moisture doesn’t reach through all the root zones.

We also raise romaine, butter leaf, and iceberg lettuce on raised beds. Lettuce seeds are sprinkle irrigated to ensure that they all germinate on the same day and at the same hour so that they can be harvested the same day to meet shippers’ delivery contracts. Most of the lettuces, except for the wide-bed varieties, are thinned to the optimum spacing at which the plants grow and produce the fastest. Romaine, butter leaf, iceberg, and the other larger plant varieties of lettuce are planted in only two or three lines per bed surface.

They are furrow irrigated in the space between the raised

beds. Broccoli, cauliflower, and celery are germinated in greenhouses and then transplanted onto raised beds. Broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and some peas and beans are grown in two rows per raised bed. The top of the raised beds for those types of crops are maybe 14 inches wide with the furrow in the middle of each bed. Furrow irrigation is efficient. Heavy shaped rollers are run down the furrows to shape them for optimum water absorption into the root zone under the bed.

The water is actually flash irrigated with gravity flow down those furrows, which makes for an efficient delivery of that water.

Joshua Dill: What is the advantage of a raised bed setup?

Tom Davis: The biggest advantage is that it keeps the produce out of the water and away from any floating debris that might be in the water. The water just absorbs sideways into the root zone of the raised bed. The crop itself is not exposed to running water. It’s a taste, presentation, and food safety issue. Wide beds are sprinkled with water, but that water is treated and filtered, so that before it goes into the sprinkler system it is of higher quality than what we divert from the Colorado River.

Joshua Dill: How successful are you in meeting your goal of having all your lettuce ready to ship at the exact same time?

Tom Davis: Weather determines how fast the crop matures.

If it’s hotter, it matures faster; if it’s colder, it matures more slowly. Rain also affects the rate of growth. We have pretty consistent weather and little rainfall. The sun shines almost every day. We can know with a fair degree of certainty that our lettuce can be harvested 56 days after planting. We schedule our thinning, weeding, and harvesting well ahead of time, because the germination and growth rate of the produce is pretty predictable.

All produce is labor intensive. Although technology is getting better every year at spacing and weeding, and the wide bed spring mix and baby leaf lettuce is actually harvested with a machine, most of the crops are still harvested by hand. Because all of this needs to be prepared in a short period of time, this area requires hundreds of laborers every day.

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us a little bit about water use efficiency in Arizona in terms of farming a crop like lettuce?

Tom Davis: The efficiency level of furrow irrigation is probably above 80 percent. Water filters well beyond the root zones into the subsurface, and obviously there’s some evaporation, but all in all, furrow irrigation is pretty efficient. Sprinkler irrigation is also efficient. Sprinkler irrigation is also used for both moisture and climate control early in the fall during germination to ensure survival. Produce seeds are expensive.

Preparing the land for produce, getting the crop in the IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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IRRIGATED CROP ground, and getting the seed germinated costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000 an acre. Raising produce is expensive, but if the markets are right, it’s a good cash crop.

In this area, some produce is raised in Southern California and northern Mexico, particularly in the Mexicali Valley in Baja California, across the Colorado River from the Yuma area. A lot of U.S. growers produce in Mexico. The food safety regulations for farm-to-table crops are strict. U.S. growers struggle both in Mexico and here to meet ever-increasing food safety demands.

All the produce in the regions I mentioned comes into the Yuma area for processing and shipping. During the height of the produce season, a refrigerated truck leaves Yuma every minute, 24 hours a day. The produce has only been out of the field for a matter of hours when it goes into the truck, to the distribution centers, and to your supermarket. A lot of the produce—iceberg, romaine, and curly-leaf lettuce—is not touched between the time it is harvested by hand and when it reaches the customer’s home. That’s why they are called field-to-table crops.

Obviously, food safety becomes more and more restrictive every year. Millions and millions of meals of lettuce are served during the course of the year. Today, if five people get sick with a food-related illness, the whole United States knows about it within hours because of the 24-hour news cycle. The ever-increasing food-safety requirements drive up the expense of growing, producing, harvesting, and processing. There are also the costs of inspection and observation. Human access to the fields is limited when the crop is growing. Growers use different technologies and consultants to evaluate irrigation demands, fertilizer demands, any type of pesticides, and growth changes that happen during the growing season because of changes in the weather patterns. A lot of expertise is involved in growing produce aside from that of the grower. Every carton of produce has a bar code on it that allows it to be traced back to the acre that it was grown on and the day and hour it was harvested.

Joshua Dill: What is your outlook on the future?

28 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Tom Davis is the general manager of the Yuma County Water Users’ Association. He can be contacted at tdavis@ycwua.org or at (928) 581-1882. For more about the Yuma County Water Users’ Association, visit facebook.com/ycwua.

PHOTO COURTESY OF YCWUA.

Tom Davis: I think food safety regulations are going to become ever more restrictive and expensive. At some point they will reach a point of diminishing returns as their compliance costs cut into profitability. We in the United States like to strive for a risk-free society, which is a good goal but an impossible one. I think you’re going to see more automation in every phase of growing and harvesting as labor gets more expensive and scarce.

Right now, the industry uses some automated equipment for thinning, though it just happens to be a crop that’s difficult to harvest mechanically. There is breeding going on to change the physical features of the plant, making them grow higher off the ground so that they are more

easily harvestable. A lot of produce is stemless—it grows right on the ground and has to be cut by hand at the ground level. That includes celery, cauliflower, broccoli, and lettuce.

I think you’re going to see a labor crunch and a food safety crunch, requiring more technology in robotics. The food processing plants operate nearly 24/7. They typically shut down 1 hour every 24 hours and totally break down all the equipment and sterilize it. I think we will see the development of a kill step prior to shipping which will kill any bacteria that may be on the produce. You can’t raise something in an open environment or even in a greenhouse and have it be absolutely bacteria free. Those little vermin are in all the machines, on people’s hands, and in the air and soil. We need to develop a kill step that is economical and doesn’t destroy the nutritional benefits of the produce but does destroy dangerous bacteria. There is a tremendous amount of research going into that; I think we’ll see it implemented in a few years.

I don’t see much of this produce being grown in other countries and imported, like some crops are. One reason is the food safety requirements. The other is that produce has a short lifespan and has to be constantly refrigerated.

It doesn’t do well in long shipping processes. Here, it’s cut in the fields, processed, put on a truck, and delivered to supermarkets in a matter of hours. What you see stocked in the supermarkets rotates out of there really quickly.

I think you’ll see produce continue to be a part of the American diet. We’ll have to deal with these growing and harvesting complications with increasing technology, which increases costs. Plant breeders are constantly striving to modify the genetics of their crops to increase their nutritional value, hardiness, and yields. We have a middle class in this country for three primary reasons: We have cheap water, cheap food, and cheap power. If the cost of any of those three factors greatly increases, it starts reducing disposable income. There is constant concern about things that add costs to production, processing, and shipping and handling. Every step of the process must be profitable or it will not take place. The end product must also be safe and affordable for the consumer. We have to ensure that we can provide constant, stable, healthy, and nutritious food supply at an affordable price. IL

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THE INNOVATORS

How Emrgy is Disrupting the Hydropower Industry

Emrgy's first array, a 10–unit pilot project installed for Denver Water.

S

olar and wind power have exploded in popularity in recent years as facilities have become cheaper to build, but up until now, this has not been true of a third renewable power source, hydropower. This is primarily because hydropower relies on large installations that require civil construction. A new startup called Emrgy is seeking to change all this with its small, modular, distributed hydropower installations, which can be installed without civil construction.

In this interview, Emily Morris, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Emrgy, speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about her company’s innovative hydropower installations.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background.

Emily Morris: I went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where I created my own business degree. Despite having a graduate school of management, Vanderbilt doesn’t have an undergraduate business program, so I mixed organizational and corporate strategy studies. I graduated in 2009.

Emily Morris: I do not. I have a business degree. I’ve worked in engineering and among engineers my whole career, so I say I am an engineer by osmosis. I try to listen as well as I can to those who have training in those fields.

32 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Emily Morris: Emrgy was founded with a vision to take the attributes that made the solar power and wind power industries grow exponentially and bring them to hydropower. Emrgy builds modular hydropower systems that are flexible in where they can be located. The modular nature of the systems allows customers to increase their hydropower capacity by quantity of units instead of by size of equipment. I founded the company in 2014 after building the initial prototypes and embedding the technology at a defense contractor. This technology was originally funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

Personally, I was inspired by what the technology could do and how it enabled hydropower facilities to be distributed across a number of different areas rather than relying on large, centralized facilities.

Our simple product is essentially an open 8-foot precast concrete cube with hydrokinetic turbines inside. You place the concrete box into a channel of flowing water— irrigation canals are a perfect example—and as water flows through the box, it spins a turbine rotor. The mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy, which can either be sent back into the grid or sent directly into a microgrid or off-grid application.

I started working on the company in 2015 after receiving $1.25 million of grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue our research and product development.

I was also fortunate to get impact investors and venture

PHOTO COURTESY OF EMRGY.

Kris Polly: Do you have an engineering degree?

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your company, Emrgy.

THE INNOVATORS capitalists interested in what we were trying to achieve. The company has continued to grow. We have engaged in pilots with the City of Atlanta, Southern Company, and Denver Water so far. We’ve been able to prove that this technology works, that there is a market interest in it, and that it can generate revenue. We have a 10-module array currently installed in Denver, Colorado. We’re working to prove that the technology is both scalable and competitive with other forms of distributed energy generation. We’ll be deploying a number of additional installations in the United States as well as internationally this year.

Kris Polly: What is the meaning of your company’s name?

Emily Morris: Emrgy derives from the word “emergy,” which is short for “embodied energy” and refers to the total energy of all types that comes together to create a product or service.

Kris Polly: What kind of energy output do your modules provide?

Emily Morris: The modules work in a kinetic fashion, similar to a wind turbine. The speed of the water determines the power output of each module. That speed will vary based not only on where the modules are installed, but also on how the canal is operated. As the water flow changes, the power output changes as well.

Each module is optimized around 10 kilowatts. That’s sort of a rule of thumb—the exact generation depends on the specific velocity and the flow pattern over time.

Kris Polly: Would you say that it is a simple design?

Emily Morris: The design is very simple. When our potential customers, partners, or stakeholders, see our products operating in the water, they usually don’t have a ton of questions.

You can see the turbine rotors in

motion, and it is easy to understand how they produce a power output. It is like a modern water wheel.

Kris Polly: Where in a canal is your module placed?

Emily Morris: One of the reasons that small hydropower is not growing nearly as fast as the wind or solar power industries is that most hydropower facilities require civil construction activities. We were adamant from the very beginning of the design position that our product would be portable and would require no civil construction activity at the installation site. That is why we use a concrete structure to hold the module in place on the floor of the canal. It does not have to be anchored in any other way. We have customers who want to move a module from one place to another or to take it out for certain periods of time. That is absolutely doable with an appropriately sized crane. The system can be installed and removed very rapidly for those kinds of activities.

Kris Polly: What problems does this allow you to solve?

Emily Morris: We believe that distributed energy is the future, but that it currently has a number of shortcomings that need to be addressed. Distributed power generation often has to use intermittent generation technologies, like wind and solar power, which are not nearly as reliable as hydropower.

The permitting required to install a new hydropower facility in a waterway, however, is extremely challenging. Our product, which can be rapidly installed and can produce cost-effective power in a more reliable fashion—24/7 in the case of many canals—is appropriate for power generation in distributed applications across the country and the world.

Kris Polly: How is your distributed system different from a conventional hydropower system?

Emily Morris: A lot of our competitors build facilities that are small, but still centralized. They take a conventional Kaplan or peloton technology and shrink it down. We’re taking a completely different approach to hydropower by breaking the facility into much smaller modules and making it truly distributed.

Kris Polly: Tell us about your pilot with Denver Water.

Emily Morris: It is a pilot program, but it is also a commercial sale. The systems belong to Denver Water, meaning that it is our first array customer in the United States. We’re now in conversation with a number of irrigation districts and municipalities across the 17 Western states, most of them in Arizona, California, and Colorado. We are even looking at working with existing hydroelectric facilities, since our system is a great way to add capacity.

Kris Polly: Where are your turbines manufactured?

Emily Morris: We currently manufacture them in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at a contract manufacturer that is housed in a former GE wind blade facility. We are currently looking at other manufacturing strategies to increase sales and decrease costs but have not made any formal moves yet.

Kris Polly: Would you tell us more about how your technology compares to similar power sources?

Emily Morris: Obviously, when you take the head out of the power equation, the power density is going to be a bit lower. Our technology is not going to recreate Hoover Dam, but it can provide continuous kilowatt-hours in a way that is really low impact. Rather than impounding water to create the head pressure, we integrate the turbines directly into the water flow and harvest the natural IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 33

THE INNOVATORS

Simple, rugged, and modular. One of Emrgy’s 10–kilowatt modules being installed.

energy in it. This way, we can get systems online much quicker than is possible for other conventional or small hydro facilities, considering the civil construction activities they require. We can produce power more continuously than solar power facilities and in a more predictable pattern than wind power.

Finally, our facilities actually provide a way to monetize existing infrastructure such as irrigation canals. If an operator has the opportunity to be flexible in how it operates its canals and reservoirs, it could do so at times or in situations that provide the most energy output. It could run the system to achieve a certain velocity or do so when power prices are highest to take advantage of dynamic pricing.

Kris Polly: What is your vision for the future?

Kris Polly: What kind of customer service do you provide?

Kris Polly: What is your message to irrigation district managers and their boards of directors?

34 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Emily Morris: They should know that Emrgy provides a unique and low-risk way to monetize existing water infrastructure to produce power and increase revenues, resiliency and stability of the irrigation districts, as well as doing something that’s good for the environment and good for the communities around them. IL

Emily Morris is the founder and CEO of Emrgy. She can be contacted at emily@emrgy.com or at (770) 595-9018.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EMRGY.

Emily Morris: We can work with a customer in a number of ways. We can install the equipment and fully operate and maintain it for them—essentially just remit to them a usage fee for the waterway—or they can own the assets themselves. We found that some of the irrigation districts we’ve been talking to, specifically in California, value service, while other agencies, especially municipal agencies like Denver Water, have a significant maintenance staff of their own. Here at Emrgy, we are motivated to expand our reach into the market in the fastest and most sustainable way possible. We are interested in working with customers in whichever way suits them so as to grow and scale our product and show the world that this is a viable alternative to other solar, wind, or hydropower facilities.

Emily Morris: Here at Emrgy, we see an opportunity in each and every mile of canal across the western United States and the world. Canals are the simplest type of irrigation technology and are present all around the world. They are the perfect application for Emrgy technology. There are about 15,000 miles of suitable waterways just in the United States, considering their geometries, discharges, and proximity to existing power infrastructure. We’d like to see these modules becoming the base for distributed grids, and we’d like to partner with conventional hydro, wind, and solar technologies to serve communities in a clean, cost effective, and reliable way.

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CLASSIFIEDS Office of Columbia River (OCR) Operations Manager (WMS Band 2)

Does your irrigation district have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages?

Irrigation Leader provides this service to irrigation districts free of charge.

E-MAIL: Kris Polly kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

HENRY MILLER RECLAMATION DISTRICT #2131: WATER MASTER Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Range depends on qualifications DESCRIPTION: + Position provides direction and oversight, and personally performs professional skills in multiple areas including but not limited to, water delivery (both in and out of the Company), water scheduling, water accounting, financial accounting and resolution of complex customer concerns and issues. The position will assist and oversee, with environmental clearance documents, annual Company Shareholder elections and landowner water right/ownership documents.

APPLICATION ADDRESS: + Henry Miller Reclamation District #2131

Attn: Ann Umphenour

11704 W. Henry Miller Ave.

Dos Palos, CA 93620

209-826-5112 - Office APPLY AT: SLCC.net, mail, or E-mail: ann@hmrd.net or fax (209) 387-4237 THE FORT SHAW IRRIGATION DISTRICT: IRRIGATION DISTRICT MANAGER Salary: Dependent upon skill DESCRIPTION: + We are looking for an energetic individual to manage a 13,000-acre irrigation project.

QUALIFICATIONS: + Have knowledge with water distribution and supervision. + If not already skilled, ability to learn quickly on financial record keeping.

E-MAIL: Alan Rollo at arollo7@msn.com for additional information.

38 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Located in Union Gap, WA. DESCRIPTION: + The Operations Manager position is responsible for the administration and management of the OCR staff in the Central and Eastern Regional Offices of the Department of Ecology. + This position is directly accountable for direction, management, and performance of OCR staff in consultation with OCR Director.

DUTIES: + Plans, leads, organizes and controls the work performed by OCR staff. + Assures appropriate and optimum use of the organization's resources and enhance the effectiveness of employees through timely appraisal and professional development opportunities. + Implements, enforces, and ensures compliance with laws, rules, policies, and develops procedures to protect and manage the ground and surface waters of the Columbia Basin in the best public interest.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS: + Bachelor's degree in engineering, environmental science, public administration, or other qualifying disciplines, + At least two (2) years of supervisory experience. + Four (4) years of professional level environmental analysis, control, or environmental project management experience.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: + Advanced degree in engineering, environmental science, public administration or other qualifying disciplines. + Four or more years of supervising a work unit.

APPLY AT: careers.wa.gov. Please include the following documents attached to your application: A cover letter and resume.

Carlsbad Irrigation District: Manager Deadline: Open until filled Salary: $70K-$84K DOE QUALIFICATIONS: + Preferred BS in agriculture, hydrology, or business administration. May be substituted for training and experiences in water operations.

BENIFITS: + 100% Paid Healthcare plan + Optional dental, vision and life insurance + PERA retirement benefits + Earned vacation CONTACT: Call (575) 236-6390. Or visit the office at 5117 Grandi Road Carlsbad, NM.

CLASSIFIEDS ENNR10-10210-RIVER BASIN COORDINATOR- CHEYENNE Deadline: Open until filled Salary: $4,506.00 - $5,100.00/ Monthly DESCRIPTION: + Support and implement the State Engineer's Offices mission to protect the interstate waters of Wyoming + Support two of Wyoming's interstate compacts (Yellowstone and Bear River Basins), provide critical data and information to the ISS Administrator and the Governorappointed Commissioner + Serve as the primary representative concerning interstate policy issues pertaining to the Upper Missouri River Basin and greater Missouri River Basin. + These are some but not all of the duties required.

QUALIFICATIONS: + Preference given to Master's degree in civil engineering (water resources), hydrology, water planning, or other natural resources field PLUS three years of work experience in water resource management. + Bachelor's Degree (typically in The Sciences) + 1-2 years of progressive work experience with acquired knowledge at the level of a(n) Natural Resources Analyst + Knowledge of and ability to read, research, interpret and apply Federal, State, Local environmental laws and regulations. + Knowledge of and ability to read, research, interpret and apply state policies and procedures. + Knowledge of hydrogeologic processes. + Knowledge of multiple science and engineering disciplines. + These are some but not all of the qualifications required.

CONTACT: Rachael Reinhardt, (307) 777-6143, rachael.reinhardt2@wyo.gov.

South Columbia Basin Irrigation District: District Assistant Engineer, Pasco Office Deadline: June 28th, 2019 Salary: $32.14–35.39 per hour, DOQ DESCRIPTION: + Provides general engineering support for operation and maintenance activities and modifications of irrigation facilities.

QUALIFICATIONS: + Knowledge of basic engineering and construction practices and principles. + Strong math skills. + Superior oral and written communication skills. + Knowledge of AutoCAD, Microstation, or equivalent drafting software. + Ability to generate plans, charts, and graphs using word processing and spreadsheet software. + Ability to create, interpret, and communicate engineering plans and specifications. + Understanding of GIS and GPS a plus. + Valid Washington State driver’s license required. + Bachelors degree in Agricultural or Civil Engineering required. + EIT with 2 years of experience preferred. + Recent graduates with limited experience are welcome to apply.

BENIFITS: + medical, dental, retirement, paid vacation, holidays and sick leave CONTACT: Submit a resume and letter of interest to the District’s Pasco office (PO Box 1006, Pasco, WA 99301), attention Mylan Muhlestein, Human Resources Manager.

QUINCY-COLUMBIA BASIN IRRIGATION DISTRICT: SECRETARY-MANAGER POSITION Deadline: 4:00pm July 19, 2019.

Salary: $4,506.00 - $5,100.00/Monthly DESCRIPTION: + The Secretary-Manager is responsible for managing the internal and external affairs of the District and is the District’s primary spokesperson. + The Secretary-Manager is also responsible for the hiring, administration, and discipline of the District’s 120 employees.

QUALIFICATIONS: + Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Agricultural related field is required + Professional Engineer certification desired + Minimum of 10 years’ experience in an irrigation district is required + Minimum of 7 years’ supervisory experience is required + Knowledge of the Columbia Basin Project preferred APPLY AT: Additional information and complete job description available at www.qcbid.org or email humanresources@qcbid.org

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 39

Upcoming Events August 7–9 Western Water Seminar, NWRA, Portland, OR September 1–7 3rd World Irrigation Forum and 70th IEC Meeting, USCID, Bali, Indonesia September 8–11 34th Annual WaterReuse Symposium, WateReuse, San Diego, CA September 10–12 Husker Harvest Days 2019, Grand Island, NE September 8–12 Dam Safety 2019, ASDSO, Orlando, FL September 17 Water Rights in Nevada, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV September 23–26 Fall Week of Water, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV September 24 Fall Symposium, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV September 26 Marlette Lake Water System Tour, Nevada Water Resources Association, Carson, NV September 26 Operational Value of the Well, Nevada Water Resources Association, Reno, NV October 2 Golf Tournament, Oregon Water Resources Association, Sisters, OR October 25 H2OPen Golf Tournament, Arizona BWC, Casa Grande, AZ November 4–8 USCID’s 2019 Conference, Reno, Nevada November 6–8 88th Annual Conference, NWRA, Houston, TX December 2 Annual Agribusiness Roundtable, Arizona BWC, Tempe, AZ December 4–6 Annual Conference, Washington State Water Resources Association, Spokane, WA December 11–13 Annual Conference, CRWUA, Las Vegas, NV December 13–14 2019 Winter Meeting, Western Governors Association, Las Vegas NV

Past issues of Irrigation Leader are archived at irrigationleadermagazine.com @IrrigationLeader

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