VOLUME 12 ISSUE 2
Preserving Irrigation for Sidney and Kinsey
february 2021
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CONTENTS FEBRUARY 2021 Volume 12 Issue 2
Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by
an American company established in 2009.
STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator SUBMISSIONS: Irrigation Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or irrigation.leader@waterstrategies.com.
8
Preserving Irrigation for Sidney and Kinsey
5 H ow Efficient Cooperation Helped Save Sidney and Kinsey By Kris Polly
20 M ike Murphy of the Montana Water Resources Association on Working With Congress
8 P reserving Irrigation for Sidney and Kinsey
24 W orthington’s Behavioral Fish Guidance Systems
14 The Montana Congressional Delegation’s Work in Support of Legislation to Rescue Sidney and Kinsey Irrigators
30 C DI’s Growth in the Water Industry THE INNOVATORS 34 T echniPharm’s Simple and Effective Farm Product Solutions
ADVERTISING: Irrigation Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com. CIRCULATION: Irrigation Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors. For address corrections or additions, please contact us at admin@waterstrategies.com. Copyright © 2020 Water Strategies LLC. Irrigation Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Irrigation Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Irrigation Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Irrigation Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised. /IrrigationLeader
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Coming soon in Irrigation Leader: March: Shortage on the Rio Grande Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.
4 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
COVER PHOTO: From left to right: Raymond Bell, President of the Sidney Water Users Irrigation District; United States Senator Steve Daines; and Doug Martin, Project Coordinator of the Kinsey Irrigation Company. Photo courtesy of Raymond Bell.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF RAYMOND BELL.
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How Efficient Cooperation Helped Save Sidney and Kinsey By Kris Polly
I
n 2017, after 75 years of receiving affordable project use power (PUP) from the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program, the Kinsey Irrigation Company (KIC) and the Sidney Water Users Irrigation District (SWUID) of southeastern Montana were told that it had all been a mistake. The Bureau of Reclamation’s lawyers had determined that the two water providers’ access to PUP was due to a bookkeeping error and that only specific congressional legislation would enable them to use it again. Happily, 3 years later, that legislation was signed into law by President Trump, and the future of the KIC and the SWUID has been secured. One hundred thirty families will continue farming with irrigation. In this issue, we speak with KIC Project Coordinator Doug Martin and SWUID President Raymond Bell about the cooperative efforts and successful legislative process that led to this outcome. We also speak with Montana’s United States Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester; with Governor Greg Gianforte, who served as Montana’s at-large representative in the U.S. House of Representatives until January 2021; and with Mike Murphy, the executive director of the Montana Water Resources Association, about their roles in solving the problem. Honorable mention must be given to Kate Walker, Water Strategies’ lead lobbyist on this issue, for her tireless efforts in accomplishing the mission of our firm to help water users.
We also speak with several businesspeople whose efforts are leading to irrigation advancements around the world. Paul Meeks of Worthington Products updates us on his company’s behavioral fish guidance systems, which are used at dams and diversion structures around the nation. Jim Conley, Rod Stone, and Felix Diaz of Control Design, Inc., tell us about their company’s industrial automation solutions, which can remotely monitor and control many different kinds of water conveyance and storage structures. And Harmen Heesen, CEO of New Zealand firm TechniPharm, tells us about his company’s Ecobag storage solution and other products. The legislation that helped preserve the KIC and the SWUID for future generations stands as an encouragement to us all. By mobilizing Montana’s agricultural and irrigation sectors, trade associations, and legislative delegations, the two water providers were able to get a common-sense legislative solution to their problem through Congress. It can be done—all it takes is diligence, cooperation, effective communications, and good people, all working together. IL Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and the president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.
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Please save the date for this tour, sponsored by Irrigation Leader magazine and operated by Imagine Tours and Travel, LLC. $4,707.00 per attendee (with airfare from Dulles airport) $4,319.00 per attendee (without airfare) All posted prices, services, and destinations are subject to the terms and conditions of the participant agreement. To view, please visit http://irrigationleadermagazine.com/israel_tour/. Irrigation Leader magazine is published by Water Strategies LLC.
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Preserving Irrigation for Sidney and Kinsey Irrigation Leader: Please introduce yourselves and tell us about your backgrounds. Raymond Bell: I was born and raised in Sidney, Montana, on a farm in the SWUID. I haven’t gone far from home. After I got married, my dad got us into the trucking business, in which I worked for about 25 years before selling our trucking company and going back to farming. We invested in some more land for the farm in the irrigation district, put in some irrigation pivots, and made some other irrigation improvements. I joined the SWUID board in 1996 and became president of the district in 1998. I’ve held that position ever since. The SWUID has been pumping water since the early 1940s. The district was put together and founded in 1937 through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and was granted Pick-Sloan power in 1946. That power source was pretty much what got the district going. Right now, we support about 48 families. The district serves about 5,000 acres. The Yellowstone River is our source of water. We have four pump stations along the Yellowstone River as well as a couple of relift stations.
Raymond Bell (left) and Doug Martin (right) meet with Annick Miller Rivera, a professional staff member for the House Natural Resources Committee, on Capitol Hill.
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8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SWUID.
n 2017, two Montana irrigation water entities, the Kinsey Irrigation Company (KIC) of Custer County and the Sidney Water Users Irrigation District (SWUID) of Richland County, were informed that their contract for affordable project use power (PUP) generated by the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program would not be renewed. Both entities had been using PUP for 75 years, and an end to their eligibility would likely have put them out of business. The only solution to this problem was specific congressional authorization for the two entities to use PUP. Thanks to determined work by Montana’s congressional delegation in Washington, DC, President Trump signed Public Law 116-191 on October 30, 2020, which allowed the KIC and the SWUID to continue using PUP. In this interview, SWUID President Raymond Bell and KIC Project Coordinator Doug Martin tell Irrigation Leader about their experience with the legislative process.
Doug Martin: I was raised in Ohio and Pennsylvania, leaving in 1986. I bounced around Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming for a decade before settling in Custer County, Montana, in 1996. My cousin had a family farm, and all I ever wanted to do was have one of my own, but it didn’t work out given the state of the dairy industry in the early 1980s. I ended up going into general contracting, and I had been a carpenter for about 25 years before I had the opportunity to buy a farm in Kinsey, Montana, in 2006. That is how I got involved with the KIC. I had never been around irrigation prior to that. The irrigation system run by the KIC has been around for well over 100 years. The water right on the Yellowstone River goes back to 1896. Two projects were started and failed before the current one was instituted in 1936 by the WPA and the federal government. They built 80 units out here—basically homes with land to which people could move to get started farming, later paying back the Farm Service Agency at a low rate. In 1946, the farmers served by the irrigation system bought the Kinsey Irrigation Project from the federal government; it has been a private company ever since. In 1946, the KIC also signed an agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation to receive power from the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. We have done that ever since. Kinsey’s service area is currently 6,640 acres. About 80 families make a living off those acres.
Irrigation Leader: When did it become clear that your situation would require legislation to resolve, and what were your next steps at that point? Doug Martin: In 2017, we were notified that our PUP contract would not be renewed. We tried to resolve the situation via a couple of avenues, but nothing panned out. At that point, Raymond and I made a game plan to get some get some help from Water Strategies and see if we could resolve the problem through the legislative process. After exhausting all our efforts with Reclamation, even meeting the commissioner in person in Washington, DC, we met with our legislative delegation and decided that we were going to have to have legislation enacted to allow us to keep using PUP.
Irrigation Leader: What kind of input did you provide during the crafting of the legislation? Raymond Bell: One of the things that was most important was to provide a lot of information on the history of our two organizations so that they could see that there was a historical basis for us having PUP authority.
Raymond Bell: We received the same letter around the same time the KIC did. We took our response a step further and traveled to Reclamation’s Denver regional office to see if there was anything the staff there could do. They indicated that the solution would have to come from Congress Raymond Bell with SWUID pumping equipment. and that we would need specific congressional authorization to stay in the Pick-Sloan pumping group. We hired an attorney Irrigation Leader: Did you also cooperate with your to research the history of our project, to figure out when congressional delegation to make sure that the legislation we started receiving PUP, and to record all the steps we was written in a way that would resolve your problem? had taken to retain our PUP. All that was summarized and sent to Reclamation. Again, Reclamation told us Doug Martin: Reclamation made draft services available to that without federal ownership, it was not going to work; us. We would send Reclamation a draft and it would review the solicitors had made the determination that we had it and send it back. The congressional delegation provided received PUP due to an oversight and that in order for input on the drafts as well. It was modified many times until us to retain our Pick-Sloan power pumping contract, we it was acceptable to all parties. would need legislative action. Raymond Bell: To get the Montana legislative delegation in Irrigation Leader: Did the attorney you hired specialize in Congress on board, we had to prove to the legislators that water and irrigation matters? we had a legitimate case and that we had to get our problem corrected. We demonstrated that we were not asking for Raymond Bell: He was a Montana-based attorney who anything new; we just needed to fix an oversight made by did not necessarily specialize in water, but who had Reclamation 75 years ago. Getting our Montana delegation experience working with Reclamation. He put together onboard was a turning point for us. some good information, but I think it was a little too late, There were concerns from Reclamation and state because Reclamation’s solicitors had already finalized delegates that the draft language would set a precedent that their opinion. We didn’t want to push the issue because would allow other companies and districts to receive PUP, so we were told that filing a lawsuit against Reclamation we had to narrow down the language so that the law would would only make our problem worse. Our best route was apply only to the KIC and the SWUID, which have a 75congressional action. year history of access to PUP. irrigationleadermagazine.com
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Irrigation Leader: What was your experience working with your congressional delegation? Raymond Bell: I think our first step was to contact Greg Gianforte, who was Montana’s at-large representative in the House of Representatives at the time. He was helpful. Senator Steve Daines and his staff were also great to work with once they understood the problem and felt confident that they could help us fix it. Once we hired Water Strategies, we didn’t communicate with the delegation directly as much. Most things went through Water Strategies at that point. The third member of our delegation, Senator Jon Tester, was also receptive to helping us. In the end, he cosponsored the bill. Doug Martin: Representative Gianforte and Senator Daines took extraordinary measures to get this legislation through a very divided Congress. We appreciate their efforts and their willingness to stay with it and to take some unconventional measures to pass this law before the end of our contract. Irrigation Leader: The new law caps your use of PUP at its current level. Will that pose any difficulties for future operations or growth? Doug Martin: I don’t think it will pose a difficulty for either of our entities. Part of the reason for that is that we are using the water we pump more and more efficiently, with the result that we are actually pumping less water and using less electricity. We should have plenty of room to stay within the bounds of the current rate of delivery. If we go beyond the cap, we would have to purchase electricity from a different source, such as the Western Area Power Administration or a local utility. Raymond Bell: I should also reiterate that it was important for us to make clear that we were only asking to be able to continue with our current arrangement. We felt that it was appropriate to explicitly state this in the statute, and it was requested by the bill writers. Irrigation Leader: What advice do you have for other irrigation district managers who need to work with their legislators in Washington to pass a law like this?
Raymond Bell: I learned that legislation in Congress moves in jerks. Things go slowly most of the time, but when something happens, it happens quickly. Like Doug, I learned that you have to keep your representatives informed of the problem. What is a huge problem to you may just be one small part of all the issues they’re working on in Congress. Monthly and even weekly communication with our representatives was important. Irrigation Leader: Now that the PUP issue has been resolved, what are your districts’ top issues for 2021? Doug Martin: Our goal for 2021 is to actually become an irrigation district. The KIC is currently a private nonprofit company, as recognized by the State of Montana. Because of that, there are certain opportunities that we can’t take advantage of—grants and things of that nature. Our situation is unusual—most irrigation systems are districts. We are working through a Montana attorney and are currently in the process of petitioning the court to become a district. Second, we will continue to improve the efficiency of our system by reducing the water loss caused by evaporation, seepage, and other factors. Raymond Bell: Our number 1 goal is to get our contract with Reclamation in place now that the legislation is passed. We recently received our PUP power renewal contract for review from Reclamation. We anticipate having the contact signed and in place within the next month or so. The contracts offered mirror those of other PUP users. The KIC and SWUID systems are being treated exactly the same as the others in the Pick-Sloan Missouri River Basin Program, with the only changes being location and contract rate of delivery. Our number 2 goal, as Doug stated, is to improve the irrigation efficiency of our district even more by adding additional pipelines and pivots. IL Raymond Bell is the president of the Sidney Water Users Irrigation District. He can be contacted at rayb@midrivers.com or (406) 489‑2627.
Doug Martin is the project coordinator for Kinsey Irrigation Company. He can be contacted at kinseyirrigationco@gmail.com.
Doug Martin: It is important to act quickly and decisively and to keep things going forward. The legislative process is
10 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SWUID AND DOUG MARTIN.
Raymond Bell: First, I pray that no other irrigation district would have an issue like ours, but of course, other issues may come up. My first piece of advice is to start by getting your state legislators on board. It was also critical for us to have a contact in Washington, DC, namely Water Strategies, to help us out. We are farmers, and we have obligations and work at home. It was important to have a contact in Washington monitoring things and keeping them moving.
extremely slow and cumbersome, but it does finally work if you have your congressional delegation behind you and if keep reminding them that the law addresses a specific need on the part of their constituents.
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The Montana Congressional Delegation’s Work in Support of Legislation to Rescue Sidney and Kinsey Irrigators
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n October 30, 2020, President Trump signed Public Law 116-191, which allowed two small Montana irrigation water entities, the Kinsey Irrigation Company (KIC) of Custer County and the Sidney Water Users Irrigation District (SWUID) of Richland County, to continue using affordable project use power generated by the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. This legislation, without which the KIC and the SWUID would likely have had to cease operations, did not come from nowhere. It was pushed through Congress by the determined efforts of Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester and then-Congressman Greg Gianforte (now the governor of Montana). In this interview, Senators Daines and Tester and Governor Gianforte tell Irrigation Leader about their efforts on behalf of Montana irrigators.
Senator Steve Daines Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your work on the Sidney and Kinsey bill that recently became law.
Irrigation Leader: What effects will the new law have? Senator Daines: This law saved family farms and ag operations in the Sidney and Kinsey areas. Irrigators can continue to use the Pick-Sloan program and won’t have to worry about astronomical rate increases in the future. Irrigation Leader: What are the most effective ways for irrigated farmers to keep in touch with their elected officials and to communicate their priorities to them? Senator Daines: I am here to serve Montanans. I encourage anyone who needs help to reach out to any of my offices about any issue. We will do everything possible to help Montanans in need.
14 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
Senator Daines: Water is a fundamental resource that is critical for agriculture, public health, wildlife, and many other things. There are many needs related to outdated water infrastructure in Montana. I will keep fighting to ensure that Montanans have the resources they need to keep and maintain access to reliable, clean water.
Governor Greg Gianforte Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your work on the Sidney and Kinsey bill that recently became law. Governor Gianforte: It was an honor to get this bill to President Trump’s desk and signed into law to support more than 130 family farms in eastern Montana. During my time in the House of Representatives, our team worked side by side with the affected irrigators to understand the situation and spent long hours coordinating with Reclamation. We originally hoped that this could be fixed administratively, but once we knew a legislative fix was needed, we went to bat for our farmers and ranchers to get this bill across the finish line in the House. Senator Daines did the same in the Senate. We were incredibly proud to get this piece of legislation signed for Montanans. Irrigation Leader: What effects will the new law have? Governor Gianforte: The new law requires Reclamation to enter into a new contract with the irrigators that will allow them continued access to project use power, keeping costs down and protecting Montana ag jobs. Irrigation Leader: What has your role been in securing federal investment in Montana agriculture more broadly? Governor Gianforte: Agriculture is the number 1 driver of Montana’s economy, which is why I’ve always supported efforts to improve Montana’s infrastructure. Our farmers and ranchers work hard to feed the world, and I was glad to bring their voices to Congress, to advocate for Farm Bill programs and rural development programs to improve irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE OFFICES OF STEVE DAINES, GREG GIANFORTE, AND JON TESTER.
Senator Daines: I worked extensively and in close coordination and partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation and with the SWUID and the KIC to craft this critical legislation. We knew from the beginning that getting movement through Congress would be difficult, so I reached across state and party lines to the Oregon delegation to combine our legislation with a similarly pressing technical bill dealing with water issues in Oregon, which helped in the final push to get this critical bill signed into law.
Irrigation Leader: What are the next steps for Congress when it comes to securing the future of Montana’s irrigated agriculture?
infrastructure and promote value-added ag, and to support farmers when disaster struck. Irrigation Leader: What are the most effective ways for irrigated farmers to keep in touch with their elected officials and to communicate their priorities to them? Governor Gianforte: I strongly encourage irrigated farmers and all Montana producers to continue to keep in touch with their elected officials. Please bring your concerns to us on a regular basis so that we can work together on solutions. Irrigation Leader: What are the next steps for Congress when it comes to securing the future of Montana’s irrigated agriculture? Governor Gianforte: Congress still needs to do more work on the St. Mary Project, and to make that viable, we need to fix the cost share. Congress is getting close to passing legislation to do that, but discussions are ongoing. I know that Congressman Matt Rosendale will be a strong voice for Montana ag in Congress, and I look forward to continuing my work with Montana’s irrigated farmers as governor.
Senator Jon Tester Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your work on the Sidney and Kinsey bill that recently became law. Senator Tester: The Sidney and Kinsey bill was a piece of commonsense, ground-up legislation that fixed a clear oversight at the federal level. You frequently see unrelated bills get bundled together to make it through the Senate, and that’s ultimately what happened with this one—our bill was added on to an unrelated technical correction bill by Senator Merkley, and we were able to get across the finish line together. As always, the more you can build a coalition, the bigger your window for passing legislation is. Irrigation Leader: What effects will the new law have? Senator Tester: This law will ensure that folks getting water through the KIC and the SWUID will continue to be able to irrigate without breaking the bank. If this bill hadn’t passed, power rates for irrigation would have spiked astronomically due to a bookkeeping error that went unnoticed for decades. Irrigation Leader: What has your role been in securing federal investment in Montana agriculture more broadly? irrigationleadermagazine.com
Senator Tester: As a member of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, I fight every year to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture the full funding it needs to invest in rural America. Whether it’s updating a wastewater system in Hardin, researching wheat scab at Montana State University, or increasing broadband access out in Beaverhead County, these federal dollars go far in our state. I’ll keep fighting to make investments in production agriculture in Montana while ensuring taxpayers get the biggest bang for their buck. Irrigation Leader: What are the most effective ways for irrigated farmers to keep in touch with their elected officials and to communicate their priorities to them? Senator Tester: Write, call, or e-mail. Seriously. Every decision elected officials make involves the careful consideration of what their constituents are saying. When you get in touch, we listen, and quite frankly, some of the best work I’ve done only happened because someone called or wrote in about a problem they were facing or a new idea they wanted to share. So don’t be shy. Irrigation Leader: What are the next steps for Congress when it comes to securing the future of Montana’s irrigated agriculture? Senator Tester: We absolutely need to move legislation to rehabilitate the Milk River Project—that’s got to be a priority. We also need to be looking to resolve outstanding water rights settlements, including with the Fort Belknap Indian Community. Moving legislation on these makes good on our commitments to tribes, leads to big federal investments in water infrastructure, and gives irrigators peace of mind by avoiding water rights fights in court. IL
Steve Daines is a United States senator from Montana. For more information about Senator Daines, visit daines.senate.gov. Greg Gianforte represented Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2017 to 2021 and now serves as governor of Montana. For more about Governor Gianforte, visit montanacomeback.com. Jon Tester is a United States senator from Montana. For more information about Senator Tester, visit tester.senate.gov.
February 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER
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Mike Murphy of the Montana Water Resources Association on Working With Congress
M
ike Murphy has decades of experience in agriculture and has been the executive director of the Montana Water Resources Association (MWRA) for 27 years. The MWRA advocates for Montana’s irrigated agriculture on both the state and the federal levels. In this interview, Mr. Murphy tells Irrigation Leader about his views on the recent law that guaranteed continued access to affordable project use power (PUP) from the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program on the part of the Sidney Water Users Irrigation District (SWUID) and the Kinsey Irrigation Company (KIC). Mr. Murphy also tells us about the MWRA’s outlook on the year ahead. Irrigation Leader: What are your thoughts on the resolution of the situation of the SWUID and the KIC? Mike Murphy: The passage of the legislation in October 2020 was great news. It was certainly critical for the KIC and the SWUID, as it will enable them to remain economically viable. That’s hugely important for the economy of the southeastern part of the state, the local communities, and the farm and ranch families who would have been affected. The new law is consistent with the intent of the Pick-Sloan legislation that Congress passed in 1944. It addresses some of the obligations promised under the Pick-Sloan legislation, which included developing irrigated acreage into production to offset the loss of the land that was inundated under reservoir-development efforts.
Mike Murphy is the executive director of the Montana Water Resources Association. He can be contacted at mwra_h2o@msn.com or (406) 235‑4555.
Irrigation Leader: What is the current status of the Montana Water Rights Protection Act?
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irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE THE MWRA.
Irrigation Leader: Was the MWRA involved in the process? Mike Murphy: The MWRA provided input and assistance by contacting our congressional delegation, members of congressional committees, and staff members to express our support for this critically important legislation and to encourage its passage. Irrigation Leader: Does this legislation provide a model for the resolution of future Montana water resources issues? Mike Murphy: This is a fairly distinctive issue, since it relates directly to the Pick-Sloan program. I like to think that it indicates support for irrigated agriculture and recognizes the importance of the commitments that were made under the Pick-Sloan program. Certainly, it would be great to see some additional Pick-Sloan involvement in irrigation projects in Montana, particularly as a means to encourage new irrigation project development. That would be consistent with the original congressional intent.
Mike Murphy: Congress recently passed Senate Bill 3019, the Montana Water Rights Protection Act, as part of the overall COVID‑19 relief and omnibus legislation. The passage of the Montana Water Rights Protection Act is crucial for the overall adjudication of Montana water rights. The reserved water right compact that Montana negotiated with the Confederated SalishKootenai Tribes and the congressional authorization contained in S. 3019 resolve Montana’s tribal water right issues. The resolution of these water rights provides certainty regarding Montana water rights adjudication, prevents a decade or more of costly litigation, and protects water rights throughout Montana. With the COVID‑19 pandemic and everything else, 2020 was certainly a tough year, but with a concerted effort by many and the support of all the members of our congressional delegation, that legislation was passed. Irrigation Leader: What are the other top issues that the MWRA is working on right now? Mike Murphy: A primary one, which we’ve already touched on, is infrastructure. We not only need to focus on securing financing for needed repairs to existing infrastructure, but we need to finance infrastructure that is associated with new development. Resolution of the extensive infrastructure issues on the Milk River is crucial. We have also talked previously about the importance of the project on the lower Yellowstone River that involves building a fish bypass for the pallid sturgeon and establishing a new diversion structure that will provide irrigation water for future generations of farmers and ranchers within the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project. These are some of the bigger projects that we’ve been involved with and have supported. The MWRA’s ongoing efforts will continue to include involvement in the legislative, administrative, and policydevelopment issues affecting water and other private property rights. Some of these issues include states’ rights vs. federal overreach, the protection of the prior appropriation doctrine, infrastructure, the Endangered Species Act, water rights adjudication, and various legal challenges that affect Montana water users. IL
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Worthington’s Behavioral Fish Guidance Systems
A Worthington fish guidance system at Los Padres Reservoir, near Carmel, California.
W
orthington Products is well known as a multidisciplinary designer, manufacturer, and installer of waterway barrier systems made from steel, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), or molded plastic. These barriers keep floating debris away from dams, reservoirs, canals, and other structures. Fewer people may know, however, that Worthington also builds custom fish barrier systems to keep fish out of water conveyance structures. In this interview, Worthington President Paul Meeks tells Irrigation Leader about the company’s fish barrier product line.
systems that go to the bottom of a water body or down to a specific depth to prevent fish from going into a structure. Our behavioral fish guidance systems are floating walls positioned upstream of a structure in an area where water flows meet certain conditions. They guide fish to a bypass or a collection area. We study the currents and the fish types in order to decide on the depth and angle of the boom line.
Irrigation Leader: What is the difference between a fish screen and a fish guidance barrier?
Paul Meeks: A distinction should be made between structural materials and flotation materials. The flotation portions are on the surface, and they’re what everyone sees. On Worthington products, they’re usually orange in color. Those sections are usually made of HDPE pipe or molded plastic; sometimes, they’re made of steel. The majority of the structure, however, is underwater. It is generally made of galvanized or stainless steel. We customize it depending on the customer’s preference, using materials including perforated metal, solid panels of ultra-high-molecular-
24 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF WORTHINGTON PRODUCTS.
Paul Meeks: There are different types of fish barriers. One common type is electric fish barriers. There’s a company called Smith-Root that excels in those. They are not physical barriers; instead, they use some type of electronic current or strobe light to keep fish out of a structure. Then there are physical barriers, which are what Worthington produces. Our fish barriers include screening and netting
Irrigation Leader: What types of materials does Worthington use to build its fish barriers?
the world as well. For our U.S. clients, all production occurs here in the United States. We manufacture our floats in Ohio, but for steel fabrications, especially the large ones, we try to find a manufacturer close to the customer. That simplifies the logistics. Irrigation Leader: Where in the United States have your fish barrier systems been deployed? Paul Meeks: We have behavioral fish guidance systems on the West Coast from Washington State down to California. We also have a number of systems on the East Coast. Irrigation Leader: How about around the world? Paul Meeks: Most of our overseas business is focused on debris control rather than fish guidance. There is great interest overseas in fish guidance, but people haven’t moved toward getting a system in place. Usually, they just have a bypass structure. Irrigation Leader: What should every irrigation district or water entity know about working with Worthington on fish barriers? Paul Meeks: They should know that we have a resident fish biologist on staff who understands how fish behave. He says he A Worthington fish guidance system at Weston Dam in Skowhegan, Maine. likes to save the fish so that he can eat the fish. We know how to design barriers and weight polyethylene, rubber, and other nonmetallic make them work, we know how to make materials. For really deep installations, we may combine a effective floating systems, and we know how to guide fish. surface system that goes down 5 feet or so with some type of We involve experts in doing all of that. netting below that. Irrigation Leader: Who should our readers call to learn Irrigation Leader: What is the general life cycle of your more about your fish barriers? barriers? Paul Meeks: If they want to talk fish barriers, I suggest they Paul Meeks: If the floats are made of molded plastic, the call me directly at Worthington Products and I will guide barrier will last 15–20 years. If the floats are made of an them to the right people to talk to. IL HDPE product, it will last roughly 50 years. Galvanized steel, if you’re in decent water, will give you a 35‑year life, and stainless steel has a longer life than that. Paul Meeks is the president of Worthington Products. He can be Irrigation Leader: Where are your barriers manufactured? contacted at pmeeks@tuffboom.com or (330) 452‑7400. Paul Meeks: We manufacture all over the world. We have production in the United States, Brazil, Canada, France, and India. We have steel fabrication partnerships all over irrigationleadermagazine.com
February 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER
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CDI’s Growth in the Water Industry
A CDI automation control panel used in the motorized lift gate for flood control at the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
C
ontrol Design, Inc., (CDI) is a technology company that manufactures measuring, monitoring, and control equipment to manage natural resources like water, oil, and gas. One of its most important markets is the water and irrigation industry. CDI's custom-built equipment can measure and report critical data and activity in remote and challenging terrain, making it perfect for irrigation and water districts with infrastructure spread out over large mountain and desert regions. In this interview, Jim Conley, CDI’s founder; Rod Stone, its president; and Felix Diaz, a research and development engineer at the company, tell Irrigation Leader about CDI’s services and its exciting prospects for growth. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.
30 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
Rod Stone: The coowner of CDI, along with Jim, is a man named Keith Marshall, who owns several companies on whose boards I serve. Keith and I went to college together, and I have been actively helping him run his companies for the past 4½ years. When Keith and Jim formed a partnership to found CDI, Keith asked me to oversee and run the company. I’m not active in the day-to-day operations of the business, but I oversee its activities and provide support and resources as necessary. Felix Diaz: I’m from the East Coast and only moved to New Mexico recently. I have degrees in computer engineering and philosophy. That combination, along with working with medical diagnostics and Fortune 500 companies for a couple of years, showed me that the industry-leading technologies that Fortune 500 companies use are accessible to anybody who is bold enough to go after them. I came to realize that water, one of our oldest industries, needs this technology the most. I started wondering how I could get into this industry and how water could be better managed and organized. It just so happens that I met an individual who decided to bring me all the way to the West to help figure out how to show districts that this technology is attainable. irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CDI.
Jim Conley: I have been involved with radio communications since I was around 20 years old. I studied radio communications at a small college in eastern Kentucky. After that, I worked in radio communications for General Electric and Motorola. I spent about 20 years in data systems, microwave, and general radio-type communications. That’s where I saw the opportunity and developed the idea for this product.
A motorized lift gate kit with automation for flood control at the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Irrigation Leader: How does CDI fit in, and what is the niche that your company was founded to fill? Jim Conley: When I worked in the radio communications industry, Motorola saw the need for a more-reliable, longerrange radio communication system that would allow people to transmit data over long distances at a reasonable cost and would operate reliably for years without fail. I helped develop a product to meet that need. I was working in the oil and gas area of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico at the time, so for the first couple of years, I sold this product to the oil and gas sector. It allowed users to collect data at ranges of 50–100 air miles so that they could monitor their tanks in remote areas and prevent them from overflowing. Gradually, I worked my way over to areas of central and western New Mexico where there were irrigation systems. Irrigators there needed to communicate with gates and measurement sites that were 60–100 air miles from their main offices. My product allowed them to monitor water and control gates from afar, improving the management of their water resources and making better use of the limited amounts of available water. It has enabled them to manage their water more efficiently so that everybody gets a share instead of having to fight over it. That’s where I have put my focus for the last 20 years. Irrigation Leader: Was there anything else about the company’s history that you wanted to elaborate on? Jim Conley: Over the more than 20 years during which I marketed this product in the water, oil, and gas sectors, I had been looking for a good partner who could contribute the resources needed to expand the market for the product. Water is a pretty difficult industry to understand, and there’s not a lot of automation in it. At one point, while I was working in Arizona, I happened to stop at the RV dealer in Tucson to repair my motorhome. As luck would have it, Keith Marshall was also in the repair bay, and we were stuck at the repair shop for the next 3 or 4 days, waiting to get our RVs repaired. We started talking to each other, found that we had quite a few things in common, and struck up a friendship. Keith discovered more about my business and the fact that I was a one-man operation. I discovered that he was an entrepreneur. He started talking to me about how to grow my business and offered to help me find an investor. A few months later, he decided that he himself would like to be the investor. He had done more research into the potential of my product and recognized that it had better capabilities than anything else on the market. In October 2019, we signed an agreement, and Keith came on board as an investor to help grow this business. For the last year, we’ve been getting it on the fast track. Irrigation Leader: How many employees does the company have, and where around the country is it active? irrigationleadermagazine.com
Jim Conley: I operated as a one-man business for more than 20 years. Since October 2019, when Keith and I signed our agreement, we’ve taken on six new employees and are working to expand the business into the water and irrigation market through advertising. Rod Stone: We’re active in the western states. We work closely with the Bureau of Reclamation and water districts west of the 100th parallel. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about CDI’s main product and service offerings today. Felix Diaz: Today, we have transitioned to being a full-service provider. Not only do we allow our customers to monitor their resources, we also give them all the solutions they need to control and manage those resources the way they know the best. We have a solution for any industrial automation need a customer may have. We often joke that if it runs on electricity, odds are we can get you working with it. We give customers the hardware they need to interface with their equipment and the software they need to control all that equipment remotely. Rod Stone: There are a number of other manufacturers in this space, and our equipment is capable of interfacing with any technology that’s out there. Our customers don’t have to replace everything to use our equipment; we can interface with whatever they currently have. Irrigation Leader: Are control panels your major product offering? Rod Stone: It’s really only one of our product lines. We have solutions for monitoring and measuring water, oil, gas, or any other resource. We can monitor and assess limits, set alerts, and things of that nature. We collect that information and transmit it to central locations. Irrigation Leader: Who are your customers? Jim Conley: About 99 percent of our customers are from the water sector. One of our top clients has been Reclamation. It is tasked with managing most of the water resources in the West, and it has found our products to be reliable and easy to work with. Our other clients include quite a few water, irrigation, and conservation districts, such as the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District in Albuquerque, which has used our product for 20 years. That district has published documents about how our product helps it monitor an endangered bird species and save its environment. Using our equipment, the district has reduced the amount of water it takes out of the Rio Grande by over 50 percent and has reduced the amount of wastewater it sends back to the Rio Grande by over 80 percent. It has over 200 automated monitoring sites and gates. February 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER
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The Elephant Butte Irrigation District in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has more than 400 sites where it uses our equipment to monitor its water resources for deliveries. It uses our equipment to monitor all the water resources throughout its canal systems and its deliveries in New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. The Farwell Irrigation District in Farwell, Nebraska, uses our equipment to run gates and monitor water resources throughout its canal system, which is about 50 miles long. Its staff uses a product we offer called the CDMTU, or mobile truck unit, which is a handheld remote terminal transmitting unit. Using that device, the district’s ditch riders can check on water resources throughout their system and manage the gate settings from their pickup trucks. The only irrigation district in Yuma, Arizona, uses our equipment to monitor the water in its canal system, triggering alarms if the water levels get too high or too low. Because the district has to deliver so much water, it tends to run its canals a little too full at times. If the canals run over, it costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair. We’ve also been working recently with the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District in Colorado, using our equipment to send radio signals into remote mountain canyons where nothing else will work except satellites—and even satellites don’t work that well. We’ve recently installed equipment to allow the district to control its gates in real time at the remote mountain lakes where it gets its water. That allows it to manage its gates to more than a hundredth of a foot of accuracy, allowing it to get exact water flows from the lakes to deliver to its towns. Felix Diaz: Our equipment can be used to monitor and control water, oil, gas, and many other resources. One of our four major focuses is natural resources. Water, for instance, is foundational to almost every industry. We want to make sure that we’re putting our equipment into the hands of individuals who know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to managing water. Irrigation Leader: What are the company’s top issues, and what new technologies are you working on now? Rod Stone: As Felix said, water is not a renewable resource. The western United States is running out of water. We need to supply water more efficiently to grow the crops that feed our population. One issue is education. Many farmers and irrigation districts have been in operation for 100 years or more, and their canal systems are aging. Educating people about what our technology is capable of has been a challenge. It’s gotten a lot more attention from the people in government who hold the purse strings and can provide the necessary funding to automate and manage these resources better. As far as internal issues, Jim ran this business as a oneman operation for 25 years and was only able to take on as much business as he could handle personally. Because of that,
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CDI’s growth was stagnant. Branding and increasing name recognition have been challenges for us. We’ve spent the last 11 months building the infrastructure that is necessary for that task, updating our website, providing marketing material, and joining the United States Committee on Irrigation and Drainage to expand our clientele. As we’ve built our team, we’ve been getting more business. It is always a challenge to efficiently manage growth. The keystones of the company that Jim has built have always been reliability, data accuracy, asset cost competitiveness, and the ability to transmit data over long distances. We want to manage our growth properly so that we don’t lose any of that. Those are the challenges that we’ve been trying to deal with over the last 11 months. Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future? Rod Stone: First, we want to become the leaders in water management and irrigation. Over the long term, we want to expand into other markets or other resources, including renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power. Felix Diaz: Our vision for the future is to take water and get it out of the endangered resource category. We want to give people the tools that will allow them to manage water the way they know best. Once we do that, the rest of society can rest easy, knowing that water, the foundation of every single thing we do, is on the road to being safe. I also want to get beyond the stage in which people fall out of their chairs when we show them what our equipment can do. I want to show people that they can be comfortable with automation and that the equipment and technology that seemed to be reserved for Fortune 500 companies really isn’t. I want normal people to get the features and abilities this technology has to offer and to recognize that they can get tremendous value from this investment in ways they previously thought were impossible. Jim Conley: We want our customers to understand that they don’t have to spend a fortune to get the quality tools they need to manage their resources. Our technologies make it affordable and feasible to get out there and take care of these resources. We want to continue to expand on that. Our customers are our first priority. We are ready and organized to get out there and do the job right the first time so that they get what they need to manage their water. That’s what we’re all about. IL
Jim Conley is the founder of Control Design, Inc. Felix Diaz is a research and development engineer at Control Design, Inc. Rod Stone is the president of Control Design, Inc. For more on CDI, contact Matt Jaramillo of the sales and technical team at (833) 932‑7323 or mjaramillo@cdione.com. irrigationleadermagazine.com
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THE INNOVATORS
TechniPharm’s Simple and Effective Farm Product Solutions
N
ew Zealand–based TechniPharm International Ltd. is a leading supplier of specialized agricultural equipment solutions and related services, primarily oriented toward dairy, beef, and sheep farming. Its overriding focus is on making farming easier, and to accomplish that, it creates products that are easy to use and install. One of them is the Ecobag, an enclosed storage system for water and effluent. In this interview, TechniPharm Group CEO Harmen Heesen tells Irrigation Leader about the company’s history and its products. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background.
This Ecobag is equipped with a separator that removes fiber from the effluent stored inside. The remaining liquid can be used for washing the yard or can be injected into a pivot irrigation system to use as fertilizer. The fiber is composted or distributed to pasture or cropping land.
Harmen Heesen: I emigrated from the Netherlands to New Zealand in 1981. I had studied dairy farm management, general agriculture, and economics, and I came to the conclusion that New Zealand might be a nice place to explore those opportunities further. When I first arrived in the country, I got involved in farming right away and was engaged in it for a number of years. During that time, I came up with several ideas for products and services I thought could be helpful in the practice of farming, and those were the origins of what is today TechniPharm. We’ve always looked for proven, new, and innovative solutions to solve problems on farms, and our main focus has always been dairy, beef, and sheep farmers in New Zealand. We do quite a lot in animal handling facilities, such as chutes and corrals. Irrigation Leader: When was TecniPharm founded?
Irrigation Leader: What products and services does your company provide? Harmen Heesen: While our main focus is animal handling and automation, we’re also active in the environmental
34 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TECHNIPHARM.
Harmen Heesen: We started in 1987 on a small scale while I was still farming. By 1993, we had grown to the point that the company became my family’s and my full-time focus. We have continued to grow since then. We’re still not a big company by any means, certainly not by the U.S. scale, but we have 25,000 farmers on the books in both New Zealand and Australia, and we have provided a huge number of products to those farmers over the years.
sector. New Zealand has rigorous new environmental standards, particularly water quality regulations, that govern how farmers can dispose of dairy effluent and use chemical fertilizers. We do a lot of work in effluent storage facilities, which is where our Ecobag and Flexitank R products come into play. In general, there is a lot of open storage of effluents in New Zealand, which results in the rapid loss of quite a lot of nitrogen and the expulsion of greenhouse gases. Neither of those things are ideal from an environmental point of view. The Ecobag is a completely enclosed system that negates those problems. The Ecobag also avoids crusting and bad smells and prevents rainwater from getting into the storage system. The Ecobag can also provide clean water storage, which can be useful for several reasons. There are farmers who depend on irrigation water but rely on a limited source, such as a well or river, that does not provide enough water for frequent irrigation. They would benefit from a storage solution. Evaporation is also a big problem in some areas, particularly in the South Island, where there are warm winds, a lot of sunshine, and little rain. Also, some irrigation systems, such as drip irrigation systems, require fairly clean water without debris, rubbish, or algae. That is another factor that makes closed storage systems like the Ecobag more attractive. The Ecobag is available in a standard square model or in models that are rectangular, round, or other shapes and sizes. We’re working in tandem with the Europe-based manufacturer Wiefferink BV, which also supplies a lot of biogas plants throughout Europe. The Ecobag can be manufactured in a multitude of sizes up to 15,000 cubic
THE INNOVATORS meters (3.9 million U.S. liquid gallons). That is not enough water storage for pasture irrigation, but for specialized and small-acre irrigation applications like a winery or green house, it’s a good option to consider.
irrigation water in the horticultural sphere, and we see this market growing, as there is a big focus in New Zealand now on horticulture. Frost-protection water storage is another alternative use.
Irrigation Leader: What are the typical dimensions of an Ecobag?
Irrigation Leader: What can you tell us about introducing new products in New Zealand? Why is the country considered to be on the cutting edge of new technology?
Harmen Heesen: Ecobags need embankments or a support structure behind them. They can be anywhere from 2½ to 4½ meters (8.2–14.7 feet) deep. They can be below ground level, provided you don’t have a high water table, or partly under and partly above ground level. The most common method we use is cut and fill. That means we cut the dirt in half and use it to create the embankment. The embankments represent about 75 percent of the total storage capacity; with the enclosed system, we can store some of the effluent or water above the embankment. Irrigation Leader: Is the material resistant to the sunshine? Harmen Heesen: Yes, definitely—it has to be. The material is produced by a specialized manufacturer in Italy. It’s a so-called space-age material—a composite of nylon and polyester with webbing. It is extremely strong. We’ve done chemical residue storage facilities as well. In New Zealand, landfills have to be completely sealed, and when it rains, the water that filters through the garbage needs to be contained and treated before it can be released back into the environment. We’ve used Ecobags for this as well. Irrigation Leader: What is the predicted life of the bag? Harmen Heesen: It depends on what you store, how it’s being used, exposure, and other factors. If it is used to store more chemically aggressive products, it will have a shorter life. Water, on the other hand, is a neutral product. In general, most systems are expected to last 20–30 years, but some could last even longer. Irrigation Leader: Is the Ecobag available in the United States? Harmen Heesen: Yes. We work in partnership with our manufacturing suppliers in Europe to provide them to U.S. customers. We always try to ship directly from the manufacturer to the farm and keep costs down that way.
Harmen Heesen: I think some of that is driven by the fact that we have a culturally diverse population with a lot of people from different places around the globe. When people move somewhere new, they are more open to new ideas and ways of doing things. That’s probably largely responsible for the “Let’s give it a go” attitude that is so prevalent in New Zealand. There is always great interest in trying something different while also making sure that the boxes are checked and that things work. At the same time, in a small market like New Zealand, you can’t get away with anything. Everybody knows everybody. When you experiment, you do so with a lot of transparency until you reach the point at which you can honestly say that you have a good and effective product. Then you bring it into the marketplace. Irrigation Leader: What should every irrigator know about TechniPharm? Harmen Heesen: Our whole focus is on making farming easy. We try to realize that by promising to make our products easy to understand, easy to install, and easy to maintain. Distance in New Zealand is a big factor: You don’t want to be rushing all over the country to make repairs. The products you manufacture need to be robust. From the buyer’s perspective, I think those things are quite important. A farmer knows that buying a product is easy; what’s more important is to keep it running. With that in mind, we advise farmers not to overcomplicate things. Make sure that what you’re investing in is going to do the job you’re expecting it to and communicate clearly what you’re trying to achieve. Also, have a longer-term view of how things will work, and how they will add to the bottom line of your farm. In today’s world, we need to start thinking about how we can enhance the environment. How do we make sure that what we extract is not detrimental to the environment, while guaranteeing the good quality of our food, using fewer chemicals, and making better use of resources? We need to make sure that it creates value across the board, not just profits. IL
Irrigation Leader: How else do irrigators use the Ecobag? Harmen Heesen: Some dairy farmers separate the liquid and solid components of effluent and then inject the liquid component into the pivot irrigator. It’s a form of fertigation with natural fertilizer, and it works really well. The Ecobag is dual use for that. There are a number of systems to store irrigationleadermagazine.com
Harmen Heesen is group CEO of TechniPharm International Ltd. He can be reached at hj@technipharm.co.nz.
February 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER
| 35
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Upcoming Events February 4 & 11 Idaho Water Users Association, Annual Convention (virtual) February 18–19 Family Farm Alliance, Annual Conference (virtual) March 3–5 Texas Water Conservation Association, Annual Convention, Bastrop, TX CANCELED: March 13–17 Nebraska Natural Resources Districts, Washington, DC, Meeting April 21–23 P3 Water Summit (virtual) May 4–7 Association of California Water Agencies, Spring Conference and Exhibition, Monterey, CA May 4–7 Texas Ground Water Association, Annual Convention and Trade Show, San Marcos, TX May 7–19 Utah Water Users Association, Annual Workshop, St. George, UT May 19–21 Multi-State Salinity Coalition, Annual Salinity Summit, Las Vegas, NV June TBD Groundwater Management Districts Association, Summer Conference, location TBD June TBD Idaho Water Users Association, Summer Meeting, location TBD June 7–8 Nebraska Natural Resources Districts, Basin Tour, location TBD June 7–11 2021 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress (virtual) June 16–18 Texas Water Conservation Association, Summer Conference, Horseshoe Bay, TX
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