Irrigation Leader April 2013

Volume 4 Issue 4

April 2013

Brian Betcher: Managing at the Nexus of Water and Energy

Using Experience to Find Solutions

By Kris Polly

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his photo shows a recent early morning meeting on the Quincy Columbia Irrigation District’s main canal near Ephrata, Washington, between Quincy General Manager Darvin Fales, former Reclamation Commissioner Bob Johnson, and Columbia Basin Project Counsel Richard Lemargie. Listening to these men talk underscored for me that there is no substitute for experience in trying to find a solution to a problem. The wisdom of knowing what has worked and what has not is invaluable. This is especially true in the irrigation business, where large volumes of water must be moved safely and efficiently in support of regional economies. All three men in the photo have grown up in or around agriculture and have spent their adult lives working in irrigation.

Darvin Fales has served as the Quincy general manager for 9 years and worked as an engineer for the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District for 18 years before that. Darvin is from near Goshen, Wyoming, and was raised on his father’s sheep ranch on Reclamation’s North Platte Project. Bob Johnson came back from retirement to serve as Reclamation commissioner after having worked for Reclamation for more than 30 years.

He grew up on his family farm near Lovelock, Nevada, on Reclamation’s Humbolt Project. Richard Lemargie’s father was Reclamation’s regional solicitor during the

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construction of the Grand Coulee Project. His father’s unique position allowed Richard to begin his education on Reclamation law as a child around the kitchen table. Their lives, just like the many people they represent, are part of the Reclamation legacy of providing great value and security to our country through the production of food and hydropower. Listening to them talk, difficult problems became less so, and “win-win” solutions more achievable, strengthening the longtime partnership between the districts and Reclamation.

Helping people share their experiences and find solutions is what Irrigation Leader magazine is about.

Helping people find solutions to challenging water issues is also what Water Strategies, LLC, is about.

We are especially proud to have former Reclamation Commissioner Bob Johnson as our senior advisor. Should you or your district have a challenging issue you would like to discuss, please contact former Commissioner Johnson by e-mailing Bob.Johnson@WaterStrategies.com.

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.

Irrigation Leader

APRIL 2013

C O N T E N T S 2 Using Experience to Finding Solutions

Volume 4

Issue 4

Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for November/December and July/August by: Water Strategies, LLC P.O. Box 100576 Arlington, VA 22210 Staff: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief John Crotty, Senior Writer Robin Pursley, Graphic Designer Capital Copyediting, LLC, Copyeditor 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.

By Kris Polly

4 Brian Betcher: Managing at the Nexus of Water and Energy

8 The Economic Value of Irrigated

Agriculture in the Western United States

By Darryll Olsen

12 Potatoes: An Economic Engine in Washington State

By Chris Voight

District Focus: 18 Roosevelt Irrigation District

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.

Reclamation Profile:

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 office at Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

26 Investing in Water Infrastructure &

Copyright © 2013 Water Strategies, LLC. Irrigation Leader relies upon 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.

COVER PHOTO: Brian Betcher, general manager of the Maricopa Stanfield Irrigation & Drainage District. Photo by district staff.

Irrigation Leader

22 Regional Director Mike Gabaldon

International: Management to Reduce Poverty

Water Law: 30 Is State Regulation of Water Prohibited?

Where Do We Go from Here?

By Kathy Robb

The Innovators: 34 Water Savings with Canal3®

36 Improving Water Measurement with H2oTech’s Remote Tracker

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CLASSIFIED LISTINGS

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Brian Betcher:

Managing at the Nexus of Water and Energy

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overing nearly 400 square miles in Pinal County, Arizona, Maricopa Stanfield Irrigation & Drainage District (MSIDD) provides water to highly productive cotton growers and farmers who supply forage for local dairy operations. General Manager Brian Betcher has worked for MSIDD for 23 years, having served as its district engineer and assistant general manager for 18 of those 23 years and working under great mentors such as Van Tenney and Grant Ward. He has overseen the 200-mile irrigation system that delivers both pumped groundwater and surface water from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) to area growers.

MSIDD is dealing with the effects of urbanization, having lost 6,000 net farmable acres to the city of Maricopa over the last decade. In addition, groundwater pumping has placed the district at the front line of the water-energy nexus. Irrigation Leader magazine’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, talked with Brian about MSIDD and district management in a time of increasing energy demands, decreasing water supplies, and urbanization.

Kris Polly: What are farmers growing in your district?

Brian Betcher: The traditional mix of local crops used to be cotton and grain with a scattering of fruits and vegetables, but in the last 15 years, we’ve seen a shift to alfalfa and corn silage. A growing population has squeezed dairy operations out of the greater Phoenix area.

A number of those dairies have moved out to MSIDD and have brought different cropping patterns with them.

Growers irrigate year round and produce six to nine

cuttings of alfalfa per year depending on the market.

Sometimes the growers will back off in the summer because the quality goes down. But prices have remained strong enough to support up to nine cuttings.

One of this area’s claims is that it is home to some of the most productive cotton ground in the country in terms of yield per acre. We also grow very high-quality winter durum wheat that was, for years, what Italy needed for pasta production. A few years ago, Italy downgraded its criteria, but we still produce that high-quality wheat.

Kris Polly: What irrigation methods do your farmers use?

Brian Betcher: When the district started planning for this project in the early 1980s, it was mostly furrow and level basin flood irrigation. Right now, we have a good mix of subsurface drip, pivot, and linear sprinkler systems. This year, 2,000 to 3,000 new acres will be under center pivot on land that was previously furrow irrigated. One MSIDD grower, with the use of EQIP [NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program] funds, is putting 1,500 acres into drip. He has invested in a large regulatory reservoir to facilitate growing peppers, grains, forage, and cotton.

Kris Polly: What are the top issues for your district?

Brian Betcher: Right now, energy costs are number one. We are fighting a very hard battle over the Navajo Generating Station, which provides the bulk of the power

Lateral Canal WM at Turnout WM-3. Discharge from Well WM-3 #1 is 1,900 gpm.

Lateral capacity 85 cfs. Looking south-southwest, spring melons in background.

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Two large drip filter stations, SRC-8D and 8E, along Santa Rosa Canal. Each has a 6 cfs capacity.

to the CAP, which brings water from Small drip filter the Colorado River to the central part station SRC-8F along of the state. Let me go back a little to Santa Rosa Canal. describe the situation.

Capacity 3 cfs.

Our district is a conjunctive use district [using both surface water and tribal CAP use, both of which hold a higher priority. and groundwater]. In the 1960s and 1970s, MSIDD was We knew this would occur eventually, and we’ve been built on groundwater. When we finished building our planning for it. We knew we would be relying more on canal system to receive Colorado River water [via CAP] in groundwater once again.

1989, we also took control of all the irrigation wells. That All these wells acquired by the district in 1989 are way, MSIDD could provide the best mix of groundwater now 25 years older. Many are 40 and 50 years old. We and surface water to its growers. are dealing with the costs to keep those in repair as the The price MSIDD pays for CAP water is driven by casings get weak and deteriorate. We are evaluating price of energy, which is essentially driven by the cost of whether we need to drill new wells. We have to keep our doing business at the Navajo Generating Station. The U.S. well infrastructure healthy.

Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a rule based on regional haze criteria mandating best available retrofit Kris Polly: How far are you from groundwater? technology (BART). If the rule is finalized, we could be looking at substantial increases in costs that would be Brian Betcher: There is an area in the northern part of passed on to our growers. our district where MSIDD pumps from 300 to 400 feet.

This year, we will receive about 50 percent of our In the southeastern part of the district, there are areas water from the CAP. In prior years, it has been 60 or where pumping levels are 600 to 700 feet. Unfortunately 70 percent. Almost 75 percent of the cost of water to our for us, the wells in the top end of our system pump from growers is energy driven. We are on the firing line of the the deepest groundwater. We’ve lost a number of our water–energy nexus. Our power provider—we only have shallowest, most efficient wells to development. Costs one electric district that provides power for our wells—has are going up because the district is pumping from deeper been in a position to lower our costs in 2012, and it is regions. anticipating being able to hold rates constant for the next three or four years. That is based on its supplemental costs Kris Polly: Are the wells electric or diesel? What is the of power that are driven primarily by the cost of natural average gallon per minute? gas. We’ve benefitted from that in terms of keeping costs steady.

Brian Betcher: They are all electric and average about Our number two issue is a decreasing surface water 1,200 gallons per minute. We have a few that are in the supply due to the increase in municipal and industrial use Irrigation Leader

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2,500-gallons-per-minute range. In terms of energy efficiency, district-wide we are averaging less than 1,000 kilowatts per hour per acre-foot. A typical farm has two or three wells, nearly one well per quarter-section.

Of the over 300 wells controlled by MSIDD, 140 are currently operational, what we call “run list” wells. About 60 percent of those are connected to the canal system to utilize them more efficiently. The entire 200-mile canal system is concrete lined. We operate a supervisory control system on the 70 miles of main canals, controlling 33 radial gate structures from our dispatch office.

Kris Polly: What major projects are you working on right now?

Brian Betcher: We are targeting 2017 when MSIDD will have its surface water supply reduced by about 25 percent. We are expanding our groundwater program to make up the loss. In the next three to four years, we plan to add 40 to 50 more wells, bringing back online old wells and reequipping them. We’ll be looking at the status of old wells and determining what we can do to reequip them and connect them to the canals.

With a planned well increase of 30 to 40 percent, the responsibilities of our pump maintenance department will grow. MSIDD has decided to do as much in-house repair as possible to deal with its aging well infrastructure. We’ve purchased two used pump rigs for pulling and reinstalling deep well equipment. The district is increasing staff to bring more expertise in-house to help facilitate this transition. We already do most of our motor and electrical repair in-house. It has really been helpful in emergency situations, because you do not have to wait for someone else to come out and do the repair.

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Lateral WM Outlet off the Santa Rosa Canal. WM capacity is 100 cfs.

Well WM-1 #2 is discharging into the canal at 2,200 gpm. Looking NNE. Well is ¾ of a mile to the NE.

You can’t have too much experience when it comes to repairing deep wells. When you’ve removed and installed equipment in deep wells for a number of years, there is a certain feel and an understanding. You need time with your equipment.

Kris Polly: What are the dimensions of your pipelines?

Brian Betcher: Almost all of our pipeline work is for connecting wells to the canal system. I don’t like to have more than two wells feeding one pipeline. Our longest pipeline is about a mile and a half in length.

Most of our well connections to the canals run a couple of hundred feet, a quarter-mile at the most. However, our new challenge will be running pipelines longer and longer distances to get more water canal-side. Most single well discharge pipelines are 10‑inch. We do have some 12‑inch pipes, as well as few that are 15‑inch and 18‑inch for double well discharges. We use PVC pipe for all new installations as it is lightweight and easy for our crews to handle.

Kris Polly: Do you have any concerns about groundwater decline as you plan to transition away from surface water use?

Irrigation Leader

Brian Betcher: In order for the State of Arizona to get authorization to build the CAP, the state passed the Groundwater Management Act to secure groundwater supplies for future use. Our district is in the Pinal Active Management Area where there are not huge sources of natural recharge. Most of the recharge we do receive is from irrigation and infrequent flooding events. The conservation management programs in the act encourage growers to be more efficient with their use of groundwater.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we were pumping 350,000 to 400,000 acre-feet per year (AFY) out of the aquifer. As a result, the district area had experienced land subsidence and aquifer consolidation. The town of Stanfield is one of two places in the state that has suffered the most land subsidence and now finds itself about 18 feet lower than it was 40 or 50 years ago. Luckily, there hasn’t been a lot of fissuring, and there has been no evidence of continued subsidence since the late 1980s.

Subsidence shows up 10 to 15 years after the deed is done, and it doesn’t reverse. When you de-water soil materials, depending on their composition, they will consolidate. So even if groundwater recovers to historic levels, there is not as much water down there as there was before.

When CAP water came online, we reduced our pumping to the 90,000 to 120,000 AFY range.

Groundwater levels recovered, and we’ve had a steady groundwater situation for some time. Now, however, as we pump more groundwater, we are seeing levels drop again.

That is a concern.

We are targeting 147,000 acre-feet of pumping for this year. My personal rule of thumb is that once we start pumping more than 120,000 AFY, we are going to experience groundwater declines. If our demand stays strong, we are going to pump a lot. However, increased fallowing, which would accompany a reduction in demand, to where 70 or 75 percent of our acreage is irrigated— down from our current 90 to 95 percent—would help counteract increased pumping.

Kris Polly: You are clearly looking at the future.

What would you tell other district managers is the most important consideration when planning ahead?

Brian Betcher: Assess your resources and make sure your infrastructure has the capacity, is located where you need it, and is working efficiently enough to successfully handle those resources. We’ve had the benefit over the years of having two sources of water. We are entering into a future where those sources are more limited.

Infrastructure, especially related to groundwater and its transportation, becomes that much more important.

Just as important are the people you have on board to operate and maintain that infrastructure, you want quality people you can trust who know what they are doing. You have to be forward looking with your personnel, especially as quality workers get older and look to retire.

Finally, my advice to younger managers is to remember that you are stewards of someone else’s money. Learn to manage their resources well.

Santa Rosa Canal looking upstream (south), capacity 750 cfs. Spring melons to west, foothills in background.

SW corner of district service area.

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The Economic Value of Irrigated Agriculture in the Western United States

By Darryll Olsen

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n this time of economic uncertainty, few industries serve as both a bulwark of the macroeconomy and as a real catalyst to generate household income. Irrigated agriculture is one of those industries. In my mind, there is no better measure of economic wealth, value, and stability than household income. It is what we carry around in our wallets. The Pacific Northwest Project, commissioned by the Family Farm Alliance, investigated irrigated agriculture’s economic impact on household income.

Taking into account the total direct, indirect, and induced impacts, irrigated agriculture has a $128 billion effect on American household income.

EPA Study The impetus for our research is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study on the importance of water in the U.S. economy. The study addresses water’s contribution to the U.S. economy, current methods to analyze this contribution, and steps necessary to improve the consideration of water’s economic significance in EPA decisionmaking. EPA sought the expertise of representatives across various economic sectors to help generate literature for the study. At a day-long workshop in Washington, DC, last September, the Family Farm Alliance unveiled its report.

Methodology Simple approaches to problems yield very useful numbers.

Pacific Northwest Project focused on two areas: a basic description of irrigated agriculture in the western United States and a focused depiction of impacts on annual household income at the county, state, and regional (i.e., western United States) levels. Our analysis started with taking some of the most basic information we have, such as agricultural production values, breaking it down by commodity and specialty crop per state, and then differentiating between irrigated and nonirrigated agriculture.

We took that information and employed conventional models to measure income impact. First, we looked at the direct impacts of the irrigated agriculture industry, which comprises three sectors: agricultural production, agricultural services, and food processing. We then employed the IMPLAN® (IMpact analysis for PLANning) economic impact modeling system to create a multiplier model to generate secondary and induced economic impacts—the economic activity of the butchers, the bankers, the equipment operators, and the lawyers. What we ended up with, on a state-by-state basis, is the total annual household income that is produced from the irrigated agriculture industry.

The other part of our analysis was an investigation of the opportunity costs associated with irrigated agriculture—looking at the kind of trade-offs people make in the consumer economy.

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That is tied to available household income that is devoted to food versus the other products in the consumer economy. Our economy is 70 percent consumption. If households have to direct more income toward food and away from other areas— electronics, automobiles, clothes, etc.—the shift will create a shockwave in the economy.

The Numbers People do not usually equate fields of alfalfa and corn with an aerospace-level industry. Irrigated agriculture is a significant commercial industry that is one of the top sectors for householdincome generation in the western United States. Approximately 42.3 million acres of total irrigated acres in the western United States generates $103 billion in estimated agricultural production value (in 2010 dollars). The direct and indirect annual income impact of irrigated agriculture to the U.S. economy is $128 billion (in 2010 dollars).

Much of the U.S. economy is dependent on the availability of cheap food. Since World War II, the percentage of disposable household income devoted to food has declined from 27 percent to its current level of 6 or 7 percent. Reduced food costs over the years has had a tremendous impact on the economy, enabling the dedication of household income to consumer goods and services.

The importance of irrigated agricultural production and impact values can help illustrate the net value of water. Using several examples, the Pacific Northwest Project estimated the direct net value of water used for irrigated agriculture: • $200–$500 of agricultural production value per acre per year • $1,300–$1,500 of capitalized land value per acre-foot per year in the Odessa Subarea • $1,500–$2,500 of water market value per acre-foot per year in the western United States.

Conclusions Our message to EPA is to be wary of tinkering with one of the most vital factors of our food supply. Irrigated agriculture is completely dependent on access to water, and if the agency starts to restrict that access, or increases the cost of access, the result will be negative reverberations throughout the economy.

Increases in the cost of food will take money away from other sectors in the consumer economy. Ultimately, restricting access to water will impede the economy’s ability to move out of recession.

Darryll Olsen, PhD, is a resource economist with the Pacific Northwest Project and an adjunct professor at Washington State University–Tri-cities. He has 20 years of experience working on land, power, and water resource projects. Dr. Olsen can be contacted at (509) 783­­‑1623 or DOlsenEcon@AOL.com.

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Potatoes: An Economic Engine in Washington State

By Chris Voigt

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he Washington State Potato Commission knows potatoes. Established in 1956, the commission’s mission is to support an economically and environmentally sustainable Washington State potato industry by providing leadership and innovation and by building partnerships to meet the demands of global consumers. The commission acts much like a trade association—anything that affects the potato industry is going to cross someone’s desk here.

Technically, the commission is a quasi-governmental agency. We do not receive financial support from the state, but legislation enables us to collect mandatory fees from potato growers: 4 cents for every 100 pounds of potatoes they grow. The commission is governed by 15 commissioners from the state’s potato industry who serve three-year, rotating terms: 9 are grower-elected positions, 5 are appointed positions by the commissioners, and 1 is a representative from the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

With an annual budget of approximately $3.5 million,

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the commission and its members work to the benefit of all Washington potato growers. While keeping the state’s approximately 250 growers apprised of significant issues, news, and advice, the commission represents the growers’ interests in its work with businesses, domestic and international markets, the media, and leaders in the state and national capitals.

Our primary focus is research on any and all things having to do with potatoes, from investigating how to grow more potatoes on an acre of ground using fewer inputs to developing new potato cooking technology for a healthier french fry. The second main area of our work focuses on regulatory and legislative issues, including irrigation infrastructure improvement, the Farm Bill, food safety, agriculture research funding, and pesticide re-registration issues. On many issues, we partner with other specialty crop producers not only here in Washington State, but across the country, to advocate for provisions in legislation. The commission’s third main focus is potato promotion. We promote potato products locally and nationally, as well as overseas—mostly in the Pacific Rim and Central America.

Irrigation Leader

Making Potato Promotion Personal One of our most successful promotions involved a dose of public policy protest to illustrate the incredible amount of nutrition in a single potato. I ate only potatoes for 60 days. No sour cream or butter on top. Just potatoes.

Twenty a day for 60 days.

At the time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was looking at removing the potato from school breakfast programs and restricting its use in school lunch programs. The commission wanted to show USDA that potatoes were nutritious and that they are an important part of a healthy diet. And we did. On the potato diet, I lost 21 pounds, my cholesterol dropped 67 points, my blood sugar dropped, and I got healthier.

The potato diet was a catalyst for public awareness about USDA’s considerations. We created a website and a Facebook page, and it really took off. I did over 300 interviews, including discussions with journalists from more than 14 countries. That public awareness became the foundation for efforts to counteract what USDA was trying to do. It was so successful that Congress intervened and prevented USDA from removing the potato from the school feeding programs.

Currently, our growers have recently decided to put potato-specific promotions on the back burner. They see a better return on investment in promoting agriculture. The commission has committed a quarter of a million dollars a

year, and it is partnering with other agriculture groups in the state.

We are producing a television show, “Washington Grown,” to communicate the agriculture story to the public. We have funding for 13 episodes on what looks to be two stations in the Northwest. One thing that we all have in common is food, so this is going to be a food show. That will be the hook to bring in the average consumer, and we will then talk about how that food gets to people’s plates. We are very excited.

Potatoes in Washington State Harvest season for Washington potatoes breaks down as early, mid-range, and long season. Frozen potato products start depleting in early July, so growers start harvesting early potatoes around July 5. Typically, they are not high-yield, but they are the first ones ready for processing. The middle of August begins the harvest of mid-season potatoes. Those potatoes go straight to the processing plant until October. Harvested in October, lateseason potatoes go straight to storage for the rest of the year.

There are three primary potato-growing areas in Washington State. One is in the Skagit Valley north of Seattle. Dutchmen settled the valley in the late 1800s and brought potato production with them. The bulk of the potato production in Washington State, 90 percent, is in the Columbia Basin in the center of the state. That production did not start until the irrigation projects were built.

The soil, the right latitude, the long summer days, and perfect temperatures in the Columbia Basin combine to produce the highest yields in the world. There are growers in the basin that produce 1,000 bags per acre.

That makes us sustainable—you can grow more food per acre with minimal inputs than anywhere else in the world.

Lockwood potato harvester.

Purple bloom of the potato plant.

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That wouldn’t be possible without the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project.

The primary potato in the basin is the russet, and the majority of its production is for processing. There are 10 potato processors in the basin—a very high concentration.

Year in and year out, the processors know that they will be getting a high-quality potato. The processors mostly prepare frozen potato products, but also potato chips, potato starch, and dehydrated potatoes. Pretty much any potato product that you can buy is processed in the basin.

The cash value of the crop is about $750 million but the actual economic impact of the potato industry is much higher. Washington State has 100 potato farms generating $4.6 billion in economic activity. Roughly half of that value is tied to Pacific Rim exports. And those 100 potato farms are responsible for over 23,000 jobs when you take into account getting the potatoes to the market, the ports, and the processing.

Water We look at irrigation as a cycle. There is really no water wasted, whether it is rill (furrow) irrigation or drip irrigation—the water is reused and recycled. Ultimately, new technologies for reducing water and electricity use translate to cost savings for our farmers.

The Columbia Basin started off as 100 percent rill irrigation. Then our irrigators found that crop growth was more effective and efficient with center pivots. From overhead sprinklers, they moved to low-pressure drop nozzles hanging off the center pivots to get the water closer to the crop and reduce evaporation. Now, irrigators are switching over to variable-rate sprinklers. Through GIS technology, irrigators are able to program exactly where we need more water and where we need less water.

Potatoes in the Odessa Congress designed the Columbia Basin Project to be built incrementally. While the first part of the project was being developed, the latter part, which was some years down the project line, was not receiving any surface water.

So the State of Washington stepped in and permitted drilling for groundwater to develop the land.

When the federal government stopped building the Columbia Basin Project, the surface water never reached the irrigators in the Odessa. Now the aquifer is depleted, the wells are going dry, and the area is losing production.

The intent was never to irrigate the aquifer forever; the intent was to irrigate with groundwater until the federal government delivered the surface water.

The potatoes that grow in the soil of the Odessa are the potatoes that last the longest in storage. You can put a potato in storage at harvest in October; take that potato out in June, and it looks like it was freshly dug out of the ground. The potatoes grown in the Odessa are critical to the processing industry. The processing plants in the Columbia Basin can run their plants all year round. The plants use the potatoes from the Odessa for the last part of the year. If the processors lose those Odessa potatoes, it will negatively impact their ability to keep facilities running.

Right now there is a $775 million project to expand water delivery infrastructure to get water to the growers of the Odessa. The amazing thing about the project, and it may serve as a model for future infrastructure projects, is that the growers are going to pay $700 million out of pocket. Currently, the commission is helping to advocate the project’s message. In the early stages of the Odessa project, we facilitated bringing agriculture groups together to find common ground and move forward under a unified plan.

Chris Voigt is the executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission. For more information on the commission, go to http://www.potatoes.com.

To contact Chris, call (509) 855‑6439 or email cvoigt@potatoes.com.

Pivots irrigating a potato field.

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Irrigation Leader

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District Focus

Roosevelt Irrigation District

By Donovan Neese

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oosevelt Irrigation District (RID) delivers water to a more than 35,000-acre service area for cotton, alfalfa, and corn west of the Phoenix metropolitan area. A groundwater-dependent district, RID is divided into a collection area and a distribution area. The collection area has two well fields, one in a residential area and another in an industrial area, connected by three canals that bring water west of Phoenix. RID operates more than 100 wells across 136 miles of laterals and 47 miles of main canal. Collector canals connect to the distribution area by a 108-inch diameter inverted siphon under the Agua Fria River. The main delivery canal runs 26 miles from the Agua Fria River to the Hassayampa River. Headgates along the main canal turn deliveries out to laterals running south and draining into the Buckeye Water Conservation and Drainage District.

History

In 1921, the Carrick and Mangham Agua Fria Lands and Irrigation Company began negotiations with the Salt River Project to purchase dewatering wells that pumped out of a waterlogged area and transmit waste and drainage water out of the

boundaries of the project. The company was not able to raise enough capital to build the delivery system.

In 1925, Carrick and Mangham assigned their rights to RID. Building on the groundwork laid previous by Carrick and Mangham, RID began delivering water on April 8, 1928.

The district runs from downtown Phoenix though the cities of Avondale, Goodyear, and Buckeye.

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company started the city of Goodyear in the days when they previously made tires out of cotton. That cotton was used to make rubber tires for airplanes in World War I. Although the company has come and gone, we continue to grow a lot of cotton in this area.

Sources of Water

RID does not use any surface water. We draw from an aquifer that lies underneath the city of Phoenix—our downtown well field is prolific as it was originally a waterlogged area. RID supports water reuse by conveying treated effluent to irrigated lands.

The majority of the effluent, approximately 30,000 acre-feet, flows from a city of Phoenix wastewater treatment plant. RID also receives effluent from other sources as well as remediated groundwater from groundwater treatment facilities.

Further out west, when you get to the Hassayampa

RID's main canal.

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Irrigation Leader

and what they ordered. We then print out those water orders for the Watermaster to schedule, and revised order sheets are printed for the Zanjeros.

TruePoint replaces the old, outdated software—it required us to enter orders into the system two or three times, then at the end of the month, all those were gone.

We had to do a full printout of everything. We switched over to TruePoint eight years ago, and I have all eight years of data at my fingertips. Those data are essential for accurate reporting and planning.

The Challenges of Urbanization

River, the groundwater gets saltier. Total dissolved solids run up to over 3,000 mg/L. The RID canal runs at about 900 mg/L. So, RID provides water with far less salinity than is available on the west side of town, making the RID an important water source for the area.

The Importance of Power

Given our reliance on groundwater, RID’s power portfolio is essential to the success of the district. RID receives an allocation of power from Hoover generating plant, which is transmitted via Western Area Power and sold through the Arizona Power Authority. Half of our power comes from Hoover, while the other half comes from various sources. We also run an electrical district on top of the irrigation district and service a number of agricultural-related electricity needs.

Overall, RID has been doing well with respect to our power purchase portfolio. When RID has excess demand, it buys supplemental power from two power districts: Salt River Power District and Arizona Public Service.

Lately, however, RID has been buying supplemental power from the Navajo Generating Station (NGS), since the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power decided to sell its stake in the facility. NGS is a coal-fired power plant in Northern Arizona. With the departure of Los Angeles, NGS has extra capacity that has been put up to auction. RID has been able to buy some of that power for reasonable prices—it has been a great addition to our portfolio over the last six months.

The Power of Information

RID runs its water system with TruePoint Solutions.

While TruePoint offers a whole enterprise system, RID only runs a small part of it. Our customers call in their water orders by 3:00 P.M. the prior day. We put those orders into TruePoint system and it keeps track of all of our customers, including how much water they are using Irrigation Leader

As the urban sprawl of the Phoenix metropolitan area encroaches into RID, new challenges arise. With the transition of land use from agricultural to urban, we must consider entering into industrial and municipal markets.

We are considering this market, the best options for entrance, and the system demands of these sales.

Reusing effluent as drinking water is a tough sale. Until attitudes change regarding treated effluent, the district is considering the development of a separate water delivery system without effluent for municipal and industrial use.

Most of our lateral piping has been done in the last 10 years primarily due to urbanization. Many of those laterals run through urban areas, so we have to dig through sidewalks and driveways to make repairs. As new roadway projects develop over our lateral ditches, they are relocated into pipe outside the roadway. These relocations increase our maintenance, since relining a ditch is less expensive than digging up pipe and replacing it. Therefore, we will be faced with increased expenses as those pipes require replacement.

Nearly a Century of Water

RID has been delivering water for nearly a century. We have already begun planning for our 100-year birthday.

Fighting for water in a thirsty desert has presented many challenges. The next several years will likely bring considerable change to the district, which will affect the next 100 years.

Donovan Neese, P.E., M.B.A., is the superintendent of the Roosevelt Irrigation District. Prior to his current position, he consulted in agricultural engineering design and construction.

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the AgriBusiness Council of Arizona, and the Irrigation and Electrical Districts Association.

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R E C L A M A T I O N

P R O F I L E:

Regional Director Michael Gabaldon Mr. Michael Gabaldon is the director of technical resources for the Bureau of Reclamation. In that position, Mike oversees Reclamation’s Technical Service Center, Research and Development Office, Power Resources Office, and Design Estimates and Construction Office. The Technical Resources Directorate provides water resource engineering, science, research, and support to Reclamation’s programs, regions, and area offices, as well as to other federal agencies.

A Reclamation lifer, Mike has held a variety of engineering and management positions. Lured by the promise of ski slopes in Colorado, he began his career with Reclamation in 1982 as a construction engineer at the Montrose Projects Office in Colorado, where he worked as a construction inspector on Ridgway Dam. In 1989, he relocated to the Durango Projects Office, where he was a design engineer on the Anima–La Plata Project. In 1991, Mike moved to the mobile construction unit of the Bend Construction Office in the Pacific Northwest (PN) Region, where he served as office engineer. He then served two years as the PN regional liaison officer in Washington, DC. In 1998, he moved on to be the area manager in Albuquerque, where he was responsible for program activities in the Rio Grande Basin, the Pecos River Basin, and the Canadian River Basin.

In 2001, Mike returned to Washington, DC, to serve as the deputy director of operations. In 2003, he was promoted to director of the Policy, Management, and Technical Services organization that was co-located in Washington, DC, and Denver. He is currently the director of technical resources, part of the Commissioner’s Office located in Denver. Irrigation Leader magazine’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, spoke with Mike about his career, the work of Technical Resources, and the challenges of water resource engineering.

Kris Polly: Tell our readers about Technical Resources and its four distinct offices.

Michael Gabaldon: The Technical Resources Office comprises four offices: the Technical Service Center (TSC); the Power Resources Office; the Design, Estimates and Construction (DEC) Office; and the Research and Development Office.

The TSC is Reclamation’s in-house provider for specialized technical services to support engineering, environmental, research, and science activities. The Power Resources Office focuses on reliability and compliance for Reclamation—and provides expertise in power operations and maintenance (O&M) as well as renewable energy. The DEC Office was established in 2006 to ensure we had the right checks and balances in place for construction estimates. The Research and Development Office focuses on research to fulfill Reclamation’s mission of delivering water and generating power.

Kris Polly: Give our readers examples of the work activities in each of those offices.

Mike at the Hoover Dam. 22

Michael Gabaldon: I’ll start with the TSC. The TSC consists of four divisions: Civil Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Water and Environmental Sciences, and Infrastructure Services. Examples of recent or ongoing engineering work in the TSC include Navajo–Gallup Water Supply Project, Echo Dam Spillway Modification, Grand Coulee Efficiency Irrigation Leader

Upgrades, Delta–Mendota Canal, and Red Bluff Fish Passage Improvement.

In the Power Resources Office, ongoing work includes lease of power privilege directives and standards, conducting O&M reviews on our power facilities, ensuring compliance with NERC/WECC requirements, and conducting three pilot projects to demonstrate small hydro.

In the Research Office, ongoing work includes research on eradicating or mitigating impacts from Quagga/Zebra mussels on our water and power infrastructure, research on optimizing power plant operations, and coordinating research activities at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research facility in New Mexico.

In the DEC Office, ongoing work includes DEC review on the Arkansas Valley Conduit, DEC review on the Payson Rural Water Project, and DEC reviews on Indian Water Rights Settlement efforts.

Kris Polly: Part of your organization includes a worldclass laboratory right there in Denver. Tell me about that and how it supports Reclamation and the industry.

Michael Gabaldon: Building big dams requires materials testing, hydraulics, and hydrology. So the lab dates back to 1930 when it was first established at Colorado State University. The world-class lab that we see today at the Denver Federal Center was created in the 1940s. Many project features used today in water and power construction—jet flow gates and coated sleeve valves, for example—were invented by Reclamation engineers in this lab.

Personnel in our materials and engineering part of the lab work on a myriad of projects, including dam safety research, concrete analysis, and earth material investigations. We undertake a lot of structural testing— we have a 5-million-pound pressure machine, one of only two in the United States, which we’ve used not only for Reclamation project testing, but we’ve also provided highload testing for other agencies. NASA used the 5-millionpound machine to test space shuttle components.

Our environmental applications group performs investigative lab work toward the goal of mitigating impacts to endangered species and or fish.

Our hydraulic investigations team has provided key modeling for numerous projects over the years, including our recent 1:48 scale model of the Folsom Dam Axillary Spillway. The Folsom model allowed designers to gather critical information such as water depth, speed, and volume. The hydraulics lab also houses an automated canal model that is utilized to train water users in water conservation techniques.

Kris Polly: What are some of the top issues that you are

Irrigation Leader

addressing as director of technical resources?

Michael Gabaldon: One of Reclamation’s top issues is to keep our facilities operating in a reliable, safe, and efficient manner. Continuing to provide top-notch engineering and technical support to the regional offices and to the Dam Safety Office is one of my primary goals.

It’s my job to ensure that we maintain the right mix of technical expertise and the right staff size to provide efficient and cost effective technical resources.

As director, I also focus on NERC/WECC compliance; dam safety; WaterSMART program; advanced water treatment; and power resources, including renewable energy and lease of power privilege.

Kris Polly: With the cost of new projects or modifications to existing projects being a very sensitive topic to both customers and the public, do you have any special processes in place to ensure that Reclamation is providing the best value solutions for water resource challenges?

Michael Gabaldon: In addition to our extensive peer review process, Reclamation manages two activities to ensure that our cost estimates represent both a complete picture of project costs and the best value for the objectives we are trying to achieve with a project.

Value engineering approaches are used at various stages of the design process to ensure that we have considered a broad spectrum of alternatives for meeting project objectives. In fiscal year 2012, we completed 33 value studies resulting in recommendations for potential cost savings of over $13 million.

DEC reviews are conducted on projects where plans, designs, and estimates are expected to result in stakeholders seeking construction authorization. The intent of the DEC reviews is to ensure that all factors that might influence project costs have been addressed and fairly represented in the estimated cost.

Kris Polly: As you outlined your career, it occurs to me that you’ve worked closely with at least four commissioners. What are your thoughts about those commissioners?

Michael Gabaldon: I had never even met a commissioner until I went to Washington as liaison officer for the Pacific Northwest. At the time, I only owned two ties and one had a picture of Santa Claus on it. I grew up in a small town in the Middle Rio Grande valley in New Mexico, so DC was a huge awakening for me. Reclamation always seems to have the right commissioner at the right time.

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Eluid Martinez was former New Mexico state engineer, and his knowledge and background in water rights was important to have at a time when issues were arising from the Rio Grande Compact, the Klamath River, and the Animas–LaPlata project. He brought calmness to very stressful situations. He worked closely with area managers and did an excellent job reestablishing relationships with water users.

John Keys had a great relationship with Congress. He led Reclamation through 9/11 and established a new office for security and law enforcement. He effectively dealt with difficult issues such as Klamath, California Bay–Delta, Middle Rio Grande, and Colorado River. John knew the organization inside and out. He knew everyone by first name and always asked about your family before he got to the issues of the day. The right person at the right time.

Bob Johnson again the right commissioner at the right time. He was extremely good for maintaining morale as we were implementing the Management for Excellence actions. Bob never had a negative word for anyone. And nobody handled Colorado River issues better than he. He brought those seven basin states together to tackle some

very difficult issues.

Mike Connor is a big-picture thinker. His previous experience on the Hill, coupled with his legal and engineering background, is impressive. He is directly involved in California issues and was instrumental in the development of Minute 319 with Mexico. His knowledge and grasp of our budget is another example of the right commissioner at the right time. He has a great relationship with Secretary Salazar, with Congress, and with stakeholders. He is a strong advocate for Reclamation’s mission.

Kris Polly: Any closing thoughts?

Michael Gabaldon: Reclamation has been around for over a hundred years, and our mission remains relatively the same—deliver water and generate power. In fulfilling that mission, we want to secure long-term access to water for water users, and to provide long-term access to lowcost hydropower for power users.

Reclamation Commissioner Michael L. Connor and New Mexico State University President Barbara Couture are joined

by Senator Jeff Bingaman, Michael Gabaldon, and New Mexico State Engineer John D'Antonio Jr. at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Laboratory in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

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International 26

Investing in Water Infrastructure & Management to Reduce Poverty

M

any of the challenges irrigators in the United States face—limited budgets, weed control, salinity, failing infrastructure—are also challenges for irrigators in the developing world. But while American irrigators and growers can rely on a century of irrigation experience, the latest technological innovations, or funding from comparatively well-functioning private or governmental entities, irrigators and growers in developing nations lack the access and the institutions to This map shows the irrigation scheme in the Senegal River Delta. The canals and improve water delivery and drain highlighted in yellow are being upgraded by MCC. crops yields and maximize their agricultural know-how. Acknowledging the own implementing entity. essential role that agriculture, and the access to MCC usually outsources investment feasibility water required to sustain it, plays in both economic studies to an outside firm to help dig through an development and poverty reduction, the Millennium investment. For all projects, evaluators look at brickChallenge Corporation (MCC) is using American and-mortar, resettlement, end-user, and feasibility irrigation experience to fund and guide irrigation issues. MCC may utilize the expertise of land grant projects in developing countries throughout the world. universities, particularly Utah State University for irrigated agriculture projects, to analyze investments.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation MCC then signs a compact with eligible countries, providing large-scale grants to fund proposals. MCC Congress established the MCC in January 2004 works with an accountable government entity—a to take a different approach to development and Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)—responsible foreign assistance. MCC partners with a subset of poor for managing the program as a whole. The MCA countries evaluated against 20 indicators that reflect works and contracts with implementing entities for the good governance, investment in people, and economic particular project. MCC oversees the work of the MCA freedom. As Kathy Farley, MCC senior director for and implementing agencies. MCAs manage, contract agriculture and land, describes it, “We work with more for, and hire engineers following MCC guidelines on targeted countries, more targeted assistance. . . . In procurement and works contracts. Quarterly reports short, we work with countries that are already on their describe what has been done and what money has been way, in places where our compacts and projects will spent. have a transformational impact on economic growth.”

The compact-eligible country is thus responsible For countries that perform well on the evaluation for the success, or failure, of the project. MCC provides indicators, MCC engages in a thorough internal technical oversight, but does not implement the discussion with its board of directors, of which the project. A compact lasts five years. According to Ms. secretary of state is the chair, to finalize the list of Farley, “Quite often, completing a large infrastructure countries that are compact eligible. Once a country investment within that time frame is a challenge.” becomes compact eligible, it develops its own proposal, In-depth evaluations follow the closing of a compact. tells MCC what it wants to invest in, and creates its Irrigation Leader

Irrigated Agriculture Investments Water infrastructure investments are a key part of the MCC economic development portfolio, totaling almost $1 billion. MCC works with partner countries to incentivize efficient water use and enable institutions to effectively operate and maintain water delivery infrastructure.

Partnering counties must address issues familiar to American irrigators: setting the water prices so that they reflect the costs of service delivery and water scarcity, devolving the responsibility for irrigation management to water users, and facilitating access to cost-effective technology through open markets and agricultural research.

So irrigation investments often involve a combination of infrastructure development and capacity building.

Improving Irrigation in West Africa Ghana

In Ghana, MCC invested $21.9 million in irrigation infrastructure to increase the production of high-value cash and staple crops in the country’s northern and southern regions. By supplying 2,290 hectares of land [1 hectare ≈ 2.4 acres] with irrigated water, the project has enabled 9,784 farmers to expand fruit and vegetable production.

Agriculture is the backbone of Ghana’s economy, accounting for 40 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, employing more than 60 percent of the labor force and generating more than 55 percent of foreign exchange earnings. Ghana is a major cocoa producer, and there has been a significant investment in that crop. In eastern and southern Ghana, growers produce mangoes, pineapples, and vegetables. In the central and northern regions, agriculture focuses more on traditional crops, such as rice, corn, millet, and cassava.

However, multiple impediments hamper the Ghanaian agricultural sector’s ability to maximize crop production and values: a lack of interconnectivity between production areas and markets, limited access to credit, limited investments in irrigation—only 2 percent of land under production is irrigated—and inefficient land registration. MCC Associate Director Damiana Astudillo summed up those difficulties, stating, “The challenge in Ghana is that its current agricultural production is largely dominated by rain-fed production of crops for local consumption by smallholder farmers using rudimentary technology.”

After becoming compact eligible, the Ghanaian government consulted with the private sector and civil society to set forth the country’s priorities for the compact, focusing heavily on agriculture and infrastructure. With respect to agriculture, the Ghanaian proposal sought to improve yields, increase the acreage devoted to high-value crops, and meet international export standards. Driven by those goals, the compact generated significant irrigation

Irrigation Leader

system investments to bring water to small, medium, and large farmers cultivating approximately 2,300 hectares in the Volta and northern regions of Ghana.

In addition to investments in irrigation, MCC and its local partner the Millennium Development Activity (MiDA) invested in other strategic activities to support the transition of farmers to commercial agriculture.

These investments included providing training and capacity building to over 64,000 farmers in the targeted regions, along with $18.9 million invested in postharvest infrastructure and $69.2 million invested in feeder roads that connect farms to markets.

The rehabilitation project in the north of Ghana involved two systems and 840 hectares. The water in these systems is pumped from a reservoir and distributed through gravity-fed irrigation canals. Three hundred five of those hectares are irrigated directly from a main canal to the fields through a pump and the use of center-pivot irrigation systems. In the Volta region, MCC funded a new irrigation system covering about 1,450 hectares. Like the northern systems, 1,000 hectares of the Volta system are irrigated through center-pivot irrigation systems that obtain water from the main canal. The remaining 450 hectares receive water through main, secondary, and tertiary canals.

Pursuant to the compact, MCC-funded systems are managed by private entities, with a management contract that includes the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) and farmers’ cooperatives. A governing board with private-sector, government, and farmer representation oversees operations. Fees collected from irrigation service charges are placed in an account to be used only for documented operations and maintenance.

Irrigated pineapple field in Ghana.

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MCC, along with its local partner MiDA, completed the compact last year. For Ms. Astudillo, success means “sustain[ing] the investments from an economic, social, and environmental point of view. [MCC] wants to make sure that the beneficiaries of the irrigation projects, for example, will still be benefiting from the project in another 20 years or more.” Reaching that goal will require well-managed and -maintained systems.

Senegal

In Senegal, deficient irrigation systems constrain economic growth. Developed in 2009, Senegal’s MCC compact includes $169.8 million to rehabilitate key components of the Senegal Valley’s main irrigation and drainage system, which serves 26,000 hectares. The goal is to increase the reliability of irrigated water, eliminate the risk of abandonment of irrigable land, provide additional water for human and animal use, improve crop yields, and develop new irrigated lands. The compact requires the Senegalese Ministry of Agriculture to conduct an audit of irrigation network maintenance and develop an action plan to address identified weaknesses.

From its headwaters in the highlands of Guinea, the Senegal River traverses the arid and semiarid savanna of the Sahel to the Atlantic Ocean and serves as the border between Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal. The region is prone to decreasing rainfall and scarce water resources, averaging less than 30 inches of rain per year.

In the 1970s, Senegal and its neighbors invested, with international donor support, in two major dams along the Senegal River. The Manantali Dam, located in Mali, provides hydropower and flood control, while the Diama Dam in Senegal provides protection against tidal salt intrusion in the river’s delta zone. The construction of these dams has enabled the delivery of fresh water supplies for irrigation and, over the last 35 years, facilitated the development of a number of irrigation perimeters in the Delta area.

Farmers have benefited by growing flooded rice with gravity-fed systems and more recently, high-value vegetables in the off-season. There are limited but growing efforts in drip and sprinkler irrigation on some of the larger commercial farms. A system maintenance organization, akin to an irrigation district in the United States, is responsible for operation and maintenance of the main network of intakes, canals, and drains.

Despite this progress, MCC’s constraints analysis revealed significant gaps in the existing irrigation system, 28

including limited conveyance capacity of the main canals and poor drainage, leading to salinization and field abandonment. Moreover, the system’s earthen canals have experienced heavy weed infestation, further reducing flow rates to the fields. Finally, system maintenance and operations services have been inefficient, leading to poor water fee collection rates and a steady deterioration of the system’s infrastructure.

Therefore, MCC is investing in infrastructure, human capital, and management reform. Infrastructure investments include cleaning, upgrading, and expanding the conveyance capacity of the main canals, as well as the construction of a main drain in the delta area. The program also includes a joint effort with the government to expand irrigation further upstream with a small pilot investment of 440 hectares (176 acres), for which MCC is financing the main and secondary network, while the tertiary canals will be built with local funds. Human capital and management reform efforts are grounded in an irrigation maintenance reform action plan that focuses on improving system maintenance and service delivery to the farmers, as well as management capacity of the farmers’ water users’ associations.

Through these multipronged investments, MCC seeks to improve food security for the country while increasing farmer incomes. Construction is now underway and the compact is half way through its five-year life. As noted by Robert Fishbein, director of infrastructure, “In the near term, we hope to see an increase in cultivated land, while preserving hectares in danger of salinization. Ultimately, . . . our goal is to contribute to a virtuous cycle of reliable water service delivery, higher production and income, and sustainable system maintenance.”

The 440-hectare Ngallenka development plan in Ghana. This map shows the layout of the MCC-financed pilot irrigation perimeter.

Irrigation Leader

Steven L. Hernandez attorney at law Specializing in

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Contracts and Western Water Law 21OO North Main Street Suite 1A P.O. Box 13108 Las Cruces, NM 88013

(575) 526-2101 Fax (575) 526-2506 Email:

slh@lclaw-nm.com

Family Farm

LLIANCE The Family

SM

Farm Alliance is a powerful advocate for family farmers, ranchers, irrigation

districts, and allied industries in seventeen Western states. The Alliance is focused on one mission To ensure the availability of reliable, affordable irrigation water supplies to Western farmers and ranchers.

As a 501(c)(6) tax exempt organization, our support comes exclusively from those who believe our mission is important enough to contribute. We believe the cause is important enough to ask for your support - Please join us by completing the web form at http://www.familyfarmalliance.org/ProspectiveContact.cfm.

For more information contact Dan Keppen by phone at (541) 892-6244, or by e-mail at dankeppen@charter.net

Water Law 30

Is State Regulation of Water Prohibited?

Where Do We Go from Here?

By Kathy Robb

W

hat began in 2010 as an attempt to stop the licensing of a power plant resulted in a decision of take under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), enjoining the State of Texas from issuing any water permits. If it stands, it would have profound effects on state water permitting and regulation, and those who seek and hold state permits.

A federal district court in Texas concluded last month in The Aransas Project v. Shaw that the State’s lawful regulation of water diversions resulted in a take, and ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), “to seek an Incidental Take Permit that will lead to development of a Habitat Conservation Plan” (HCP)–an expensive and very lengthy process that would be duplicative of the state’s existing environmental flows process– enjoining it from “approving or granting new water permits affecting the Guadalupe or San Antonio rivers until the State of Texas provides reasonable assurances to the Court that such permits will not take Whooping Cranes in violation of the ESA.” The Court stated it would retain jurisdiction over the case during the HCP process.

The State and defendant-intervenor GuadalupeBlanco River Authority (GBRA) each immediately moved for a stay of the district court’s order, which were granted by the U.S. Fifth Circuit court of appeals within 48 hours.

At the center of the case is the iconic whooping crane, which winters in Texas around the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (Refuge) located on San Antonio Bay at the bottom of the Guadalupe and San Antonio River Basins and summers in WoodBuffalo National Park in Canada. The whooping crane is listed as endangered under the ESA, but the continuing recovery of the whooping crane population is considered an ESA success as the flock continues to expand to record levels. Estimates of the flock’s size have increased from 15 in 1941, to 247 by the end of winter 2008-09, to 283 by winter 2010-11, and to 300 by winter 2011-12.

The plaintiff, a nonprofit group formed for

the purpose of the litigation, filed a complaint in March 2010 alleging that 23 whooping cranes died at the refuge during the winter of 2008-09, during a severe drought, as a result of the State’s regulation of water diversions. The plaintiff claimed that the diversions decreased inflows and resulted in higher salinity in the San Antonio Bay, allegedly reducing the abundance of wolfberries and blue crabs, which the plaintiff asserted are the two most important food sources for the cranes.

The uncontroverted testimony was that diversions from the Guadalupe and San Antonio Rivers during 2008-09 did not affect the salinity levels of San Antonio Bay on average more than about 1 part per thousand (ppt) from the salinity levels actually recorded in the bay that year. Experts for both sides agreed that wolfberries and blue crabs living in a marsh environment tolerate a wide range of salinity, and that a 1 ppt on average increase in salinity did not affect wolfberries or blue crabs.

The plaintiff ’s argument that a “take” had occurred turned solely on testimony from an employee at the refuge that 23 cranes died in 2008-09, a conclusion that employee based on his aerial surveys. He “counted“ cranes from an airplane, declaring dead any individual crane that went undetected by him on two successive, hurried aerial flights.

He assumed that there was predictability in identifying individual cranes where he expected to find them within specific territories. Color bands had permitted identification of individual whooping cranes in the past, but they had not been continued over the years and in 2008-09 colorbanded cranes were at an historic low. In prior years, color bands had helped identify a whooping crane that had been mistakenly declared dead by the employee–not just once, but twice–because it was not seen from the aerial surveys. In addition, according to the employee’s testimony, “unusual,” “chaotic” crane movements severely impeded his count conclusions in 2008-09. He concluded he had “no confidence in the faith of his numbers.”

The district court refused to reopen the record to consider a new U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) report, released after the trial, that rejected this aerial-survey methodology for determining crane mortality. The district judge, an avid birdwatcher, subsequently adopted verbatim Irrigation Leader

the findings of fact and conclusions of law proposed by the plaintiff.

The International Whooping Crane Recovery Team and the FWS have repeatedly stated that the cause of whooping crane mortality cannot be determined unless a carcass is found and examined through a necropsy. The plaintiff presented two experts on this issue and both agreed that necropsy reports are necessary to determine cause of death.

Only two intact carcasses, one partial carcass (viewed in the mouth of an alligator), and an “old pile of whiteplumaged feathers” were found as evidence of whooping crane deaths that winter of 2008-09. Necropsies were performed on the two intact carcasses at the National Wildlife Health Center to determine the cause of death of those two cranes. The unrebutted testimony was that the first crane had a significant injury to the left leg, which became infected, and the crane died as a result of the inability to feed due to its injuries. The second crane had infectious bursal disease, pustules in the esophagus that would have made it difficult for the bird to feed; it was killed and partly eaten by a predator. The partial carcass and the pile of feathers could not be medically examined for cause of death.

The plaintiff offered no evidence that regulation of water permits by the State caused the deaths of these four cranes. While the plaintiff focused almost exclusively on wolfberries and blue crabs, the overwhelming testimony from experts on both sides was that the whooping crane is an opportunistic omnivore that exploits a wide variety of food sources. This makes eminent sense given that whooping cranes migrate 2,500 miles one way from the refuge across the middle of the United States to summer in Canada, across diverse habitats from the Canadian boreal forests to the Great Plains and finally to coastal Texas.

There are no blue crab or wolfberries available during migration or in Canada. Evidence presented from a period of over five decades chronicled no fewer than 11 and as many as 45 different food items consumed by the whooping cranes at Aransas.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Babbit v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, regulators cannot be held liable for a take unless their actions are the proximate cause of actual harm to the species. There are simply too many links in the chain of events that occur between the TCEQ’s permitting decisions and the alleged harm to the whooping cranes–and too many intervening acts and events that affect the whooping crane population. Rainfall, tides, and climate all are key factors affecting salinity. And there was a severe drought in winter of 2008-09. Plus, the plaintiff did not establish actual harm, much less proximate cause.

Irrigation Leader

But contrary to Sweet Home, the district court concluded that the State agency officials are liable for a take under the ESA merely by issuing lawful water permits, even when their action indirectly authorizes an activity that does not inherently cause take. The State officials cannot be liable for a take if their actions were not the proximate cause of actual harm, and have no duty to enforce the ESA by imposing constraints on those whom they regulate.

The district court concluded that the Texas water rights permitting scheme was preempted by the ESA and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The ESA explicitly requires consultation under section 7 by federal agencies in certain circumstances.

There is no consultation requirement for state agency action under the ESA. If it stands, the decision would essentially impose on the TCEQ, a state agency, a section 7–type consultation process that is required under the ESA explicitly only for certain federal agency action.

GBRA is a service provider, not a regulatory entity, and devotes its limited resources to develop new water supplies to serve its constituents in a fast-growing area. It has been forced by this case to spend an enormous portion of its available resources to defend and retain water rights it holds that are needed to develop new supplies.

The case is now on expedited appeal before the Fifth Circuit, with briefing expected to be completed by mid-June and oral argument scheduled for August. GBRA has spent has spent over $6 million to date in defending its customers on the case. The litigation has cast a shadow on financing options and the ability of GBRA to proceed with much-needed water projects in its high-growth river basin.

Kathy Robb is a partner at Hunton&Williams LLP. Her practice focuses exclusively on environmental law, including litigation in federal district and appellate courts, regulatory advice, and environmental transactions on issues under the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, NEPA, CERCLA, and other environmental statutes, representing water districts, developers, energy companies, paper companies, and investors. She represents GBRA in TAP v Shaw, et al. She can be reached at krobb@hunton.com.

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The Innovators 34

Water Savings with Canal3® For budget-conscious irrigation districts looking to save water and money, the right canal lining can make all the difference. Huesker Geocomposites, LLC, manufactures a long-lasting, American-made canal lining that has proven to be a smart return on investment for districts across the country. With seepage rates of unlined canals running upwards of 60 percent in water loss, the installation of Huesker’s Canal3® can serve as an effective water conservation measure.

German Precision, American Ingenuity

In 2011, Huesker Synthetic GmbH celebrated its 150th anniversary. From its humble beginnings as a textile manufacturer in northern Germany, Huesker incorporated the manufacture of synthetic fabric in the late 1950s, followed by the development of geotextile products for construction and engineering projects. In 1991, Huesker incorporated Huesker Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina, to help meet the needs of the North American market. In addition to canal linings, Huesker custom engineers geosynthetics for highways, landfills, airports, and environmental projects.

A key figure in Huesker’s story in the United States, and the developer of the Canal3®, was Ron Marsh. A Gastonia, North Carolina, native, Ron was a fixture in the geosynthetics industry since the 1970s. Huesker first worked with Ron’s geosynthetic manufacturing company, GeoComp, selling specialty nonwovens that GeoComp produced at a cost far less than German imports at that time. The relationship flourished.

In 2004, Ron sold GeoComp to Huesker and moved over to Huesker. He spent a lot of time in the

Ron Marsh, developer of the first version of Canal3®.

field working with irrigation districts, particularly along the Rio Grande River in Texas. Ron knew his materials and turned his willingness to share his knowledge into long-lasting relationships. Ron retired in February 2006 and, sadly, passed later that year.

But his legacy lives on. Typically, one must install a nonwoven material or sand bed in a canal before installing a membrane. Ron looked at that fact and brilliantly combined a membrane with nonwoven puncture protection layers together into one product.

That served as the basis for the Canal3® composite.

The product had only been on the market for four years before Huesker bought the company. The product was still evolving and Huesker improved it along the way, developing three products with that material: a lightmedium-, and heavyweight family of liners.

Huesker Geocomposites, LLC, plant in Shelby, North Carolina.

Irrigation Leader

The Canal3®

Huesker’s Canal3® is a composite made of nonwoven polymeric materials adhered to a polyethylene liner used for civil engineering solutions. A high percentage of those materials in the lining are postconsumer recyclable polymers, such as plastic soft drink bottles, plastic beer bottles, and other polyesters. For folks who are not materials scientists, the bottom line is that the Canal3® provides canals with three layers of protection against punctures, temperature swings, and long-term wear. With most canal lining manufacturers, there is only a single membrane of material.

Another important benefit of Canal3® is the high frictional coefficient of its materials. The lining’s nonwoven bottom layer provides significant interface friction with a variety of soils to prevent sliding. The superior integrity of the top layer enables the use of soil or shotcrete for cover material.

Canal3® provides a sound return on investment.

According to Huesker Geocomposites Product Manager Roy McClinton, “With prices ranging from 60 to 80 cents a square foot, a district can easily recoup its investment in savings from seepage prevention.” In fact, a 10-year Bureau of Reclamation study on canal linings showed that burying the Canal3® in soil or shotcrete can extend a canal’s lifetime over 50 years.

Installation

Installation season is generally in the fall, when irrigation districts turn the water off. Huesker normally supplies Canal3® in widths of 17 and 25 feet and roll lengths up to 361 feet. The company also produces special roll sizes to meet customer needs and minimize waste on large projects. Depending on the canal’s size and alignment, it is possible to install the material either perpendicular or parallel to the center line of the canal.

Rolls are seamed together using a hot melt adhesive or a wedge welder.

Lining Lateral “A” in Hidalgo County

In 2005, after years of concrete repairs and high seepage rates of up to 46 percent, Sonny Hinojosa, general manager of Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2 in South Texas, reached out to Huesker to line more than 7 miles of its Lateral “A” canal. Huesker supplied the district with standard and custom rolls that were placed directly on the existing concrete canal and then covered with 3 inches of shotcrete. The shotcrete provided extra protection against the ultraviolet rays of the sun, vandalism, and damage attributed to animal crossings. That protection helps the district continue to perform its canal maintenance with heavy equipment.

The results have been fantastic—and the district has been very pleased with the performance of the Huesker Canal3® liner. Sonny Hinojosa reported, “Based on a Texas A&M Extension seepage study, we reduced our canal seepage loss by 87 percent, and Agrilife Research & Extension reports the cost of saving water for this project was $49.47 per acre-foot.”

For more information on Canal 3® and other Huesker products, please contact Roy McClinton at (800) 942-9418 or rgmcclinton@hueskerinc.com.

Ron Marsh onsite.

48-foot flatbed with 27 rolls of Canal3®, equating to approximately 166,000 square feet of material, an amount that will cover a canal 17 feet wide and 1.85 miles long.

Irrigation Leader

35

The Innovators 36

Improving Water Measurement with H2oTech’s RemoteTracker

F

or irrigation district operators, water deliveries can function more like an art than a science. In districts where infrastructure dates back decades, even a century, operator experience and his “feel” for the water delivery system are used to determine the volume of water a farmer receives. But 10 acre-feet for one operator may be not be 10 acre-feet for another. And 10 acre-feet with an imprecise measurement tool may not match what an experienced operator knows to be 10 acre-feet.

H2oTech is working to take some of the guesswork out of water delivery measurement. After years of testing its technology in the rice fields of Northern California, the company has developed the RemoteTracker System. The RemoteTracker is an integrated turnout flow measurement, data management, and volumetric accounting system for agricultural water system operators.

The System The RemoteTracker System consists of a wirelessly controlled water velocity sensor, a ruggedized tablet PC for the operator’s vehicle, and a database running on a computer connected to the Internet. The tablet interface enables operators to view real-time flow data from the wirelessly controlled water velocity sensor while adjusting flows at turnout gates. Field data automatically transfer over a wireless wide area network to a cloud-based storage system and then load into a custom database. The database performs quality control and quality assurance procedures on the data and develops daily volumes for each turnout with a district.

The device requires very little input by the operator.

The device identifies the turnout where it is being deployed based on GPS location, and pulls the associated turnout attributes from a database. Once installed at a turnout, the operator can see the flow rate change as he is adjusting the gate. Instead of guessing what gate setting is needed, measuring, and then readjusting the gate, an operator can stand at the gate and adjust it until the requested flow rate is achieved.

H2oTech continually works to improve the system. It is refining the RemoteTracker by integrating a different velocity sensor that enables measurements in open channels and partially full pipes, in addition to the sensor piloted at Reclamation District No. 108 (RD108), Biggs–West Gridley Water District (BWGWD), and Richvale Irrigation District (RID), which measures in full pipes.

H2oTech has also recently released RemoteTracker LT, which provides the same flow and order data management platform as RemoteTracker, with the main difference being that flow data are collected and entered manually (e.g., meter gate, weir) instead of via the wireless water velocity sensor.

Initial Idea The genesis of the RemoteTracker was a series of studies in the rice fields of the Sacramento Valley, where H2oTech looked at alternative methods of measuring flows for agricultural water providers. In 2009, the California legislature passed a comprehensive water package that set forth a planning framework through which urban and agricultural water suppliers will reduce water use. Senate Bill No. x7-7, Water Conservation Act (WCA), required improved delivery measurement at the farm level.

Prior to the passage of the bill, RID, BWGWD, and RD108 hired H2oTech to evaluate and assess district measurement infrastructure in light of the then-pending legislation. The RD108 pilot tests involved testing alternative field turnout measurement methods, including (1) existing orifice gates, (2) weirs set in precast boxes, and (3) the RemoteTracker. The pilot test revealed that the weirs were not able to meet the new accuracy standards in the regulation, while delivery gates and the RemoteTracker did achieve those standards.

California’s Water Conservation Act of 2009 Touted as a truly bipartisan effort, the WCA requires all California agricultural water suppliers to implement certain “efficient water management practices.” Suppliers serving 25,000 irrigated acres or more must prepare and adopt agricultural water management plans, update those plans by the end of 2015, and then update every five years.

Additionally, they must report aggregated farm-gate delivery data to the state, and adopt water price structures based at least in part on the volume of water delivered to customers.

New regulations (California Code of Regulations, title 23, §597 et seq), promulgated pursuant to the WCA, mandate accurate delivery volumes. The measured volume H2oTech President Jeff Davids using an acoustic Doppler device to measure flow in a small lined channel in Arizona.

of RD108, was happy with the results. of water delivered at each farm turnout “We didn’t have any reliability issues. . . . must be no greater than 12 percent And our guys loved the device because it more, or 12 percent less, than the actual performed so well.” volume delivered. Additionally, any new For irrigation districts, there is or replacement measurement devices a range of benefits to using the installed must be accurate to within RemoteTracker. ±5 percent by volume in the laboratory if using a laboratory certification, or Capital Costs ±10 percent by volume in the field if Most alternative measurement using a nonlaboratory certification. methods require an installation The regulation also requires at every single delivery point, that an accuracy certification RemoteTracker user interface on a Panasonic Toughbook which can run anywhere from be performed by either (1) field CF-19. The last flow measurement and any pending $5,000 to $15,000 each. And, testing of a random and statistically flows (i.e., orders) for a site are shown on the home tab. there can be maintenance and representative sample of existing The CF-19 is one of the only tablet PCs that comes with vandalism issues with permanent farm turnouts, (2) field inspections a Class 1 Bluetooth radio, which enables long-range communications (300 feet) between the tablet PC and the electronics deployed at each and analysis of every existing wireless water velocity sensor. delivery point. farm turnout, with the testing With the RemoteTracker or inspections documented by a System, a district with 300 delivery points and three registered engineer, or (3) a laboratory certification if accuracy is operators would only need to buy three devices (one per within 5 percent. operator). The RemoteTracker costs roughly $30,000 per operator—depending on how much data a district has for its Pilot Programs delivery points—totaling less than $100,000. In contrast, an During the 2012 irrigation season, H2oTech piloted the alternative measurement device at $10,000 per delivery point RemoteTracker with the same three agricultural water providers would run up a bill of over $3 million. with whom the initial investigations had been performed.

The RemoteTracker does require some infrastructure All three pilot programs were successful, and each district modifications depending on the type of delivery point, but has adopted the RemoteTracker as its preferred delivery the costs of those changes are less than permanent electronic measurement system. H2oTech is currently helping the districts installations. On the basis of the pilot study, RD108 created implement the RemoteTracker system over the next three a cost estimate for the necessary infrastructure changes to years: RD108 is about one-third of the way through outfitting accommodate testing with the RemoteTracker. RD108 its 650 turnout locations; RID is about two-thirds of the way estimated it would cost $2.1 million to retrofit the district’s through; and BWGWD, about 15 percent.

650 turnouts with concrete boxes and implement the system Based on the research done with RD108, H2oTech found software. The district’s board of directors and farmers that the amount of water going out of the turnouts matches the recently approved the plan. difference between what was put into the canal and what spilled out. RemoteTracker’s overall volume measurement accuracy, Labor and Time Management including operator error, was determined to be just 3.7 percent Because the RemoteTracker can be lab certified, districts on average over the course of the irrigation season. Additionally, can save time and labor by undertaking the arduous task of a peer-reviewed uncertainty analysis of the volumetric accuracy collecting water volume data at individual delivery points. of RemoteTracker spot measurements shows that the expected Moreover, the data stay digital all the way through the volumetric accuracy for each turnout is 4.6 percent. These measurement process. Operators do not have to take notes in results indicate that RemoteTracker can qualify as a labthe field and then enter them into the computer in the office, certified device for purposes of California regulations. reducing the time operators spend accounting for numbers as well as the chance of error being introduced into the A Beneficial, User-friendly Technology database.

Right now there is little on the market that makes delivery Ultimately, the RemoteTracker ratifies operator experience measurement easy and affordable. Current metering devices with advanced measurement. As Lewis Bair stated, “The require significant data input and are meant for engineers. The best barometer for the effectiveness and reliability of the RemoteTracker simplifies that process by linking the device RemoteTracker system is the buy-in of our operators. The to GPS and making an easy-to-use interface on a tablet PC. guys are confident in the device.”

The touchscreen RemoteTracker interface does not feature menus or a mouse. Jeff Davids, H2oTech president, noted For more information on the RemoteTracker, please contact that “[H2oTech] was initially concerned about giving these Jeff Davids at (530) 588-3064 or jeff@h2otechonline.com. measurement tools to people who were not comfortable with computers. . . . So the biggest surprise was all the positive feedback regarding ease of use.” Lewis Bair, general manager Irrigation Leader

37

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Irrigation Leader

GENERAL MANAGER

CLASSIFIED LISTINGS

We are conducting a national search for a full-time executive to lead our team and deliver on our mission: To provide reliable, high quality and affordable water supply to benefit the people of North Dakota.

The North Loup River Irrigation District, with headquarters in Ord, Nebraska, is seeking a

General Manager The District consists of three diversion dams, including two that are new state of the art structures, with approximately 77 miles of canals, 60 miles of laterals and numerous flume structures that deliver water to 25,000 acres. The General Manager reports to a five member board, supervises nine employees and implements Board Policies while managing the administration and operational functions of the District.

Responsibilities include personnel management, long range facility planning, financing and budgets, public relations and team building. Good oral and written communications skills are essential. A knowledge of water delivery/irrigation systems and state/federal water rights/laws are a plus.

Engineering skills are rewarded.

Starting salary is commensurate with qualification and experience. A full benefit package is included.

Submit resumes by June 15, 2013 to: North Loup Irrigation District ATTN: Mike Cox, Board President P.O. Box 147 Ord, NE 68862 or to nlrppid@yahoo.com

If you are a visionary leader in the water industry who is looking for an opportunity to lead, impact legislation and drive the necessary change to make a difference in North Dakota, then apply with us.

Ideal candidates will demonstrate excellence in planning, communication, negotiations and problem solving.

Leadership excellence in the area of strategic decisionmaking, emotional intelligence, team development and coaching. Requires a Bachelors degree, with 7-10 years of water industry leadership.

We offer competitive salary and benefits and look forward to your application including a cover letter, resume and three professional references to: recruiter@vogelbusiness.com.

For more information and to download our application, please visit: www.garrisondiversion.org.

GDCD is an EOE

For information on posting to the Classified Listings, please e-mail Irrigation.Leader@ waterstrategies.com

–

2013 CALENDAR

Apr. 14–16

National Water Resources Assn., Federal Water Seminar, Washington DC

Apr. 16–19

International Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, 7th International Conference on Irrigation and Drainage, Phoenix, AZ

May 7–10

Assn. of California Water Agencies, Spring Conference & Exhibition, Sacramento, CA

May 17

Agri–Business Council of Arizona, Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ

June 2–4

Groundwater Management District Assn., Summer Session, Colorado Springs, CO

June 4–5

Nevada Water Resources Assn., Well Design, Construction & Rehab Workshop, Reno, NV

June 10–11 Nebraska Assn. of Resources Districts, NRD Basin Tour, Valentine, NE June 17–19 Idaho Water Users Association, Summer Water Law & Resource Issues Seminar,

Sun Valley, ID June 19–21 Texas Water Conservation Assn., 2013 Mid–Year Conference, Galveston, TX July 8–12

ESRI, International Users Conference, San Diego, CA

July 29–31

National Water Resources Assn., Western Water Seminar, Stevenson, WA For more information on advertising in Irrigation Leader magazine, or if you would like a water event listed here, please phone (703) 517-3962 or e-mail Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

Submissions are due the first of each month preceding the next issue.

Past issues of Irrigation Leader are archived at

www.WaterandPowerReport.com