Irrigation Leader Nov/Dec 2021

VOLUME 12 ISSUE 10

november/december 2021

Director Tom Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources: Dealing With the Tier 1 Shortage on the Colorado River

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CONTENTS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 Volume 12 Issue 10

8

Director Tom Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources: Dealing With the Tier 1 Shortage on the Colorado River

5 C uts on the Colorado

By Kris Polly 8 D irector Tom Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources: Dealing With the Tier 1 Shortage on the Colorado River 14 T he Gering–Fort Laramie Irrigation District: Responding to Catastrophic Failure and Uniting to Support Aging Infrastructure

20 H ow Automating Furrow Irrigation Can Save Water and Reduce Labor Costs 26 H ow Moleaer’s NanoScale Aeration System Can Benefit Irrigators 34 E vans Equipment: Selling Top-Quality Refurbished Work Equipment to Irrigation Districts 42 JOB LISTINGS

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 Elaine Robbins, Copyeditor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Tom Wacker, Advertising Coordinator Cassandra Leonard, Staff Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Intern Amanda Schultz, Media Intern 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.

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 or Tom Wacker at tom.wacker@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.

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Copyright © 2021 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.

4 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

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COVER PHOTO: Tom Buschatzke, Director, Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Photo courtesy of the ADWR.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ADWR.

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

@IrrigationLeadr

Cuts on the Colorado

I

n August 2021, the severe drought in the Colorado basin triggered a tier 1 shortage under the terms of the Drought Contingency Plan, resulting in automatic cuts to lowerpriority water users in Arizona and Nevada. Further drought threatens to result in further cuts. Not only is this huge news for Arizona and Nevada, it is also a vivid illustration of how long-term drought may begin to affect water users across the West. To learn more about the effects of the tier 1 cuts, we speak with Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Two years ago, the unthinkable happened for Nebraska’s Gering–Fort Laramie Irrigation District (GFLID). One of its water conveyance tunnels collapsed, leaving it without water for more than a month during the most critical time of the year. GFLID Manager Rick Preston tells us about the hard work the district put in to get water flowing again.

Next, we speak with Dr. Khaled Bali and Dr. Stephen Kaffka, two University of California experts who were involved in studying the benefits of automating the surface irrigation of sugar beets in the Imperial Valley. Using Rubicon gates and software, they demonstrated an increase in water use efficiency from 70–75 percent to 85 percent.

Moleaer has created a novel and highly effective aeration system that injects water with billions of tiny air bubbles,

By Kris Polly thousands of times smaller than a grain of salt. We speak with Moleaer CEO Nick Dyner about the technology’s potential for reservoirs, canals, and other irrigation-related use cases.

Evans Equipment Inc. buys, refurbishes, and sells Caterpillars and other heavy work equipment, often disassembling the machines to the frame and completely rebuilding them. President Brad Evans tells us about the cost savings this allows the company to pass on to customers, including irrigation districts.

Cuts in deliveries of Colorado River water demonstrate just how serious the effects of further drought may be.

Addressing these challenges will require considerable ingenuity and effort. Luckily, as the stories in this magazine show, irrigated agriculture in the United States is full of smart, hard working individuals. Let’s all roll up our sleeves to help secure the future of irrigated ag. 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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QUESTIONS: Please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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Director Tom Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources: Dealing With the Tier 1 Shortage on the Colorado River

Tom Buschatzke (standing, fifth from left) and other water professionals join former Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman (seated, left) and former Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tim Petty (seated, right) at the signing of the Drought Contingency Plan in April 2019.

A

Irrigation Leader: Please tell our readers about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Tom Buschatzke: I have a bachelor of science degree in geology from the State University of New York. I came

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to Arizona to attend graduate school at Arizona State University. I have 40 years of experience in water resource management. I started working for the ADWR in 1982 as an intern. I spent 6 years there and then went to work for the City of Phoenix for more than 20 years. In 2011, I came back to the ADWR as an assistant director, overseeing many of its policy licensing functions. In 2015, the governor appointed me director, and I have been in this role ever since.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the ADWR. Tom Buschatzke: The department was created by the 1980 Groundwater Management Act. We are both a regulatory and a planning agency, and we are responsible for Colorado River management throughout the state. We also do a lot of permitting—for instance, requiring developments to have 100 years of an assured water supply before houses can be built. We also have a program for municipal, industrial, irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

rizona is an arid state whose productive farmland and major urban areas are supplied by carefully husbanded water from the Colorado River, among other sources.

The severe, decades-long drought in the Colorado basin has now triggered a tier 1 shortage under the terms of the Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) and, with it, automatic cuts to certain lower-priority water users in Arizona and the other basin states.

In this interview, Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR), tells us about how Arizona is responding to the tier 1 cuts and planning to secure its future water supplies.

Lake Mead on the Colorado River.

and agricultural water users to increase their conservation through a series of 10‑year plans extending through 2025.

I think it’s critical that we plan for the sustainability and augmentation of our water resources.

PHOTO COURTESY OF EDDIE BUGAJEWSKI.

Irrigation Leader: What are your thoughts about the tier 1 cuts under the DCP? Tom Buschatzke: The cuts are a necessary evil. We need to look at ways to slow the decline of Lake Mead. That’s what the first year of the tier 1 cuts is intended to do. Unfortunately, those cuts will cause pain for those who are losing their water supplies. The cuts are really going to be felt by agriculture in the Central Arizona Project (CAP) service area, which is losing substantial amounts of its water supply. The Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) and a few cities will also see cuts in tier 1.

The reductions to tribal communities and municipal users will be fully mitigated with substitute water supplies or financial compensation. The Arizona Water Banking Authority, which stores water in underground aquifers for future recovery, will not be mitigated.

One positive thing that has come out of the tier 1 process is that stakeholders have come together to create the Arizona Implementation Plan. The plan is a series of agreements to share the burden of the effects of the irrigationleadermagazine.com

Colorado River reductions. It lays out a collaborative process in which higher-priority water users like cities, industry, and tribes put their water on the table to help agriculture. The mitigation plan also involves financial resources that the State of Arizona has provided to the ADWR and financial resources created by the CAP board.

Unfortunately, the DCP cuts that are designed for tiers 1, 2, and 3 and the cuts that Mexico will take under the binational water scarcity plan are not enough. Lake Mead continues to decline. Mother Nature was not nice to us this past winter: We only had a 32 percent runoff from the Colorado River, which caused another drop at Lake Mead.

This will also trigger adaptive management under the DCP. If the Bureau of Reclamation’s monthly 24‑month study projects the level of Lake Mead falling below an elevation of 1,030 feet, then Arizona, California, Nevada, and the federal government need to consult and take additional actions for Lake Mead. The elevation level of 1,030 feet was hit in August 2021, so we are in discussions about doing more. The three states have been meeting to discuss additional actions and to identify and resolve the many issues that may attach to those actions. Those additional actions could fall into two categories: additional mandatory reductions in use and additional voluntary conservation of water in Lake Mead through intentionally November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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created surplus or system conservation. At this time, the states are focusing on the latter.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the Arizona Implementation Plan?

Tom Buschatzke: The agricultural communities need to get wet water. Some of the cities that are losing some of their water are also going to get full mitigation. The GRIC may get a combination of water and money, in this case primarily from CAP. The GRIC and the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) are conserving some of their water.

The wet water resources are coming out of Lake Mead. To offset the water that’s coming out of Lake Mead, we created 400,000 acre-feet of additional conserved water in the lake

rely on CAP water, were that they would have to fallow 30–40 percent of their farmland when the tier 1 cuts hit. I don’t know yet what the actual numbers are going to be.

Another interesting thing about the implementation plan is that after 2022, it does not include any more wet water mitigation for agriculture. Agriculture will have to rely solely on the groundwater resources that it is legally entitled to use under the 1980 Groundwater Management Act. On the municipal and tribal side, the mitigation steps down, reaching zero in the last year of the DCP. That was purposeful, because we don’t have the resources, but also because we need to move into a new paradigm in which cuts from water resource supplies like the Colorado River need to be dealt with by entities taking cuts without mitigation. Mitigation is not sustainable for us from either a financial or a water resources perspective. We didn’t want to do that for the DCP, because the expectation before we implemented the plan was that there would not be additional shortages before 2026. However, there were, because Mother Nature was not kind to us.

The important message is that we are planning for a hotter and drier future in which our resources are going to be affected, and we need to start figuring out ways to live within our means until such time as we can increase the water supplies of our state.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey at the Arizona Drought Contingency Plan signing event in January 2019.

10 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Tom Buschatzke: The state is currently neutral on that legislation if it gets adopted in Congress. We worked closely with the CRIT to craft that legislation. We also worked with the tribes and the federal government to craft agreements that ensure that the CRIT actually reduce their consumptive use through whatever program is adopted. The legislation does not allow the CRIT to market their water outside of the state or to market water that doesn’t have a use attached to it.

Those are two important elements of the program.

Generally, leasing water from the CRIT would be a great opportunity for the state to support economic vitality while also seeking other methods of augmentation and future water supplies. In the near term, however, while the CRIT’s legislation is important, we need to focus on Lake Mead and the system as we continue with the consultation revision of the DCP, because Lake Mead is falling quicker than we were expecting when the DCP was written. That’s more of a priority for the department. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR DOUG DUCEY.

over and above what the DCP requires us to cut. The State of Arizona provided $30 million for that, and millions of dollars more came from a consortium of nongovernmental organizations that is funded in part by business entities.

During the term of the DCP, groundwater withdrawal fees from the Pinal Active Management Area will go to help agricultural districts fund groundwater infrastructure and efficiency projects. Those fees will go to help agriculture and infrastructure and increase efficiencies. Part of the program to increase efficiency is also being funded directly by the state legislature to the tune of $40 million through two different processes established during the budget discussions of the last legislative session. The agricultural community is seeking additional funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also has a program that provides money to increase infrastructure and increase the efficiency of farming operations.

Despite all of this, the estimates we heard in 2018–2019 from the Pinal County agricultural entities, which mostly

Irrigation Leader: What are your thoughts about legislation that would permit the CRIT to lease their water to other users in the state of Arizona?

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to other water users in the Colorado basin?

Tom Buschatzke: My message is that we need to continue to collaborate to create resiliency and sustainability for the system. No one state or water user can solve this problem on its own. The challenges of climate change and a hotter and drier future will continue to increase, and flows in the Colorado River will continue to decrease. As we deal with these challenges, it’s important that the seven Colorado basin states and Mexico share the benefits and the risks of the system in an equitable manner.

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to your state legislature?

Tom Buschatzke: The state legislature approved the DCP back in 2019. It was critical, I believe, that the leadership of both parties in both houses were able to work with us from the ground up, and that all the stakeholders participated in creating the Arizona Implementation Plan. We also reconvened the lower basin DCP steering committee delegates to form the Arizona Reconsultation Committee, which will plan future management programs for the river.

We also applaud the state legislature for creating a drought mitigation fund during the last legislative session. The fund has several elements, but the most important part funds projects that will augment our water supplies from sources outside of the state of Arizona. It also gave me $10 million to use for compensated conservation to help conserve water at Lake Mead. I think the drought mitigation fund sets the stage for augmentation and is a meaningful step forward. This really needs to be the focus for our future.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ADWR.

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to Congress?

Tom Buschatzke: Congress needs to understand how important the Colorado River is, not just to the seven states and Mexico but to the region and the nation. More than 40 million people rely on the Colorado River for their drinking water, and millions of acres of agriculture depend on it. From November to April, about 90 percent of the green vegetables that we eat in North America come from Yuma, where they are irrigated by Colorado River water.

There are also a variety of other issues, including environmental ones, that affect our ability to reduce Colorado River water use. I’ll give you two examples. California has 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water per year, and we need it to participate in conservation efforts to protect Lake Mead. The Imperial Irrigation District, which uses 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water per year, has issues with the shrinking of the Salton Sea. The dust that comes off the seafloor as the water recedes is causing health issues. In order to conserve water in Lake Mead, we need to deal with the shrinking Salton Sea. Likewise, there are environmental issues irrigationleadermagazine.com

in the Bay Delta, which is the headwaters of California’s State Water Project. Those issues have been boiling for over 20 years without resolution. They continue to make it harder for California to participate with us. Congress needs to understand that.

Congress also needs to provide funding for future augmentation, including desalination and our ability to use our reclaimed water. It needs to understand that while we will follow all the environmental laws, we need a way to make these projects come to fruition. Streamlining and making the process simpler and quicker would be helpful.

Lastly, it needs to be understood that watershed health is also a key element of management in all the states in the West. We need to attend to that, because the wildfires we’ve seen throughout the West are a clear example of how watershed health immediately affects us in lots of ways, including on the water resources side.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Tom Buschatzke: In the near term, we are going to continue to find ways to conserve water within our state. In the long term, we need to look at desalination facilities and at improving and expanding the use of reclaimed water. There is a binational desalination working group, for which I serve as the cochair of the U.S. delegation, that is looking at opportunities for desalination in the Sea of Cortez. In addition, the ADWR is partnering with CAP, the Southern Nevada Water District, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to look at using reclaimed water in the Los Angeles area that is currently being discharged into the ocean. It’s those kinds of partnerships that can create some new sources of water for us.

In Arizona, we’re going to have to make tough policy choices about water management. We’ll have to make choices about which aspects of our lifestyle we can give up and which we will maintain. Arizona already does a lot of water reclamation, which has environmental benefits for the restoration of streams and riparian habitat.

I am optimistic when I look at the progress we’ve made in the 40 years during which I’ve been working on these issues.

In Arizona, there is a history of strong political leadership working collaboratively with stakeholders to find successful paths forward. I feel confident that we will figure out a way to solve the issues we face. We’ll make the hard choices we need to make to sustain our agriculture, our environment, and the lifestyle that people in the state of Arizona enjoy. IL

Tom Buschatzke is director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

He can be contacted at (602) 771‑8426.

November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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The Gering–Fort Laramie Irrigation District: Responding to Catastrophic Failure and Uniting to Support Aging Infrastructure

Debris fills the GFLID’s tunnel number 2 after the collapse.

T

he Gering–Fort Laramie Irrigation District (GFLID) is one of the major districts on the North Platte Project, located in Nebraska and Wyoming. After suffering a major infrastructure failure, the irrigation district had to make huge changes and updates to support the water users. In this interview, Rick Preston discusses the infrastructure failure and all the repairs the district carried out to get the irrigation district back in service and running better than before.

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

14 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the GFLID. Rick Preston: The GFLID is one of four government districts under the North Platte Project. In 1902, President Roosevelt commissioned five different projects, including the North Platte Project. The four government districts under the project are Pathfinder Irrigation District in Nebraska, Goshen Irrigation District (GID) in Wyoming, Northport Irrigation District in Nebraska, and the GFLID in Nebraska. Construction started on Pathfinder Dam in 1903, and work on the dams and the irrigation systems was completed in 1924.

The Fort Laramie Canal lies on the south side of the North Platte River, starting at Guernsey, Wyoming, and traveling southeast for about 130 miles. About 52,000 acres irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GFLID.

Rick Preston: I was born and raised in the Central Valley of California. As a young man, I worked in the agricultural construction field, building irrigation districts. In 1992, H.R. 429 was signed, taking about 800,000 acre-feet of water away from some of the Central Valley projects. I decided it was time to move to the plains area, and I went to

work for the GFLID. I’ve been working with the GFLID as general manager for 30 years.

in the GID in Wyoming are irrigated out of the Fort Laramie Canal, as are another 55,000 acres in the GFLID in Nebraska. Our diversion is located on what we call the Whalen Diversion, which was completed in 1917. It’s a diversion out of the North Platte for the Fort Laramie Canal and for the Interstate Canal, which belongs to the Pathfinder Irrigation District.

Irrigation Leader: How many irrigated acres do you serve?

Rick Preston: There are about 107,000 irrigated acres under the Fort Laramie Canal. The operations and maintenance (O&M) costs for our share in Nebraska equals about $32.25 per acre. We have 55,000 acres in Nebraska, which are farmed by about 365 water users within the district.

The GFLID has about 90 miles of drains, numerous major structures called siphons, and three tunnels on the Fort Laramie Canal. One is a horseshoe-shaped tunnel about 14 feet in diameter, located about 5 miles downstream of our diversion at Whalen. The second tunnel is about 13½ miles below that diversion. It is a 14‑foot-diameter, horseshoeshaped tunnel about 2,200–2,300 feet in length. The third tunnel on the system is on the Fort Laramie Canal, just south of Gering, Nebraska. It is a 10‑foot-diameter, horseshoe-shaped tunnel about 6,500 feet in length. The two tunnels in Wyoming were completed in 1917, and the tunnel in Nebraska was completed in 1924.

getting into the system had caused material to move around the outside edges of the tunnel, creating an air gap between the tunnel and the material, with the material forming a bridge shape over the gap. In addition, there was about 300 percent more rain than usual in that particular area in 2019. That made the material so wet and heavy that the bridge couldn’t carry its weight. The engineers believe that the bridge failed, hammering the top of the tunnel, causing the concrete to collapse, and creating a dam inside the tunnel. That dam backed the water up and breached the canal system south of Fort Laramie, Wyoming. There was about 1,400 feet of water in the system at that time, and water moves in the system at about 1 mile per hour. After we got all the gates on our Whalen Diversion closed, it took about 14 hours for the water to subside enough for us to evaluate the damage. By that time, it had washed out about a quarter mile of our bank. The material funneled into the tunnel like an hourglass. Now, we were dealing with roughly 5,000–7,000 cubic yards of material in the tunnel, while also dealing with a major breach in the canal system. We started in dewatering and evaluating our next steps right away.

Irrigation Leader: Does the GFLID serve acres in both Wyoming and Nebraska?

Rick Preston: The Fort Laramie Canal is shared by the GID and the GFLID. The GFLID holds 51 percent of the acres, which brings us into some contract issues. The GID runs the canal for us and delivers the water to the state line for us.

We don’t get involved until the water gets to the state line; then, we take it and carry it through the Nebraska portion of the Fort Laramie Canal and deliver it to about 55,000 acres.

We’ve got about 1,300 delivery points on our canal and about 300 miles of lateral. The majority of our water stays within the system. We have five different spillway points on our system, which we use to regulate our water under extreme weather conditions.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the tunnel collapse that occurred in 2019.

Rick Preston: On July 17, 2019, we had a major structural failure in tunnel number 2. At about 1:00 a.m., the alarm on the canal system started going off, and GID personnel went to find out what was going on. First, we thought maybe a tree had gotten in and plugged up a check. Later that morning, we realized that we had an actual structural failure. It was covered with about 120 feet of material. Our engineers speculated that years of water running through the system and rainwater irrigationleadermagazine.com

The collapsed ceiling of the tunnel.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell our readers about your response.

Rick Preston: We started looking for experts who dealt with tunnel repairs. We settled on a company from St. Louis, Missouri, called SAK Construction. About 2 days after the tunnel collapse, SAK Construction moved in and started doing the necessary work to remove the materials from inside the November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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On August 28, we put water back into the Fort Laramie Canal to try to finish the year. Our normal contracted water season is May 1 through September 30, but because of the failure, the Bureau of Reclamation allowed us to take water into October to try to save our crops. The tunnel breach occurred during the most critical time for the irrigation of our crops, and we lost most of them due to the lack of water.

The hay, sugar beets, and some other crops were able to finish, but the corn and beans were not. If that breach had happened in the middle of August 2019, it would’ve allowed us an additional 30 days of water, and we would have been able to save those crops.

Irrigation Leader: What other work will you have to do on the tunnel?

Contractors had to remove 300,000 cubic yards of dirt to gain access to the top of the tunnel.

16 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GFLID.

tunnel. It also gave directions to companies based in in Fort Laramie and Goshen on removing the materials off the top of the tunnel. We were responsible for moving about 300,000 cubic yards of dirt just to get to the top of the tunnel. Once we got about 28 feet from the top of the tunnel, we had to quit moving with machines. The contractor brought in nine shoring boxes, which were about 17 feet wide, 24 feet long, and 10 feet high.

They tied together three of them, end to end, and then went in and started taking the material out of these boxes to slide them down to the top of the tunnel. As the contractor workers moved the material, they would stack three more shoring boxes on top, until they were three long and three high. Once they got to the top of the tunnel and took the pressure off, they were able to finish removing the material from inside the tunnel. After the materials were removed, we put a steel shoring in the tunnel.

Next, we had to put in steel shoring every 4 feet to support the existing tunnel and ensure that the workers weren’t at risk inside.

It took about 6 weeks to return things to a state in which we could run water through the tunnel.

We also had to address the washout and the breached bank upstream on our main canal. About 2–3 days after it aired out, we hired a local contractor to oversee the dirt work. We brought in all our machines and some contracted machines to start moving material and putting our canal system back together. Both of those projects were completed at about the same time.

Rick Preston: Because of the shoring we put in that tunnel, we were only able to deliver 75 percent of what customers would normally receive at their headgates. We were only running 1,200 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water through the tunnel, which normally runs about 1,450 cfs. For the remainder of 2019, instead of delivering 1 foot for every 100 acres, we were only able to deliver 1 foot for every 125 acres. The same was true in 2020. Before the 2021 irrigation season, we went in and put steel plating over the top of shoring ribs to try to increase the hydraulic efficiency of the tunnel. By putting the sheeting in and covering the ribs in the tunnel, we increased the amount of water we could run from 1,200 cfs to 1,400 cfs. Today, we’re delivering 85–90 percent of what our customers would normally receive.

When all this started, the cost of temporarily repairing tunnel number 2 was estimated in the millions of dollars.

That was money we did not have in our accounts— irrigation districts do not operate in a way that produces an excess amount of cash unless they are power-generating districts, which we are not. We had to start work, and we did not have the funds. We met with Reclamation about finding some emergency money. To our good fortune, the regional director with Reclamation was able to find $4 million within Reclamation’s nationwide operation. Reclamation allowed us to take that money on an emergency repair contract. We will have to reimburse it for 65 percent of that money; the other 35 percent was given to us in the form of a grant. That helped us get started and pay off our debts.

Governor Ricketts also came out here and sat with me so I could go through all this with him and give him some estimated costs for the temporary repair of these tunnels. After that discussion, the Nebraska Legislature passed legislation to allow us to take money out of Nebraska and use it in Wyoming, and the governor provided a $3.8 million grant to the GFLID. That helped us cover on our loan payments and the final cost of repairing tunnels number 1 and number 2.

As of today, the GFLID alone has spent a little over $4 million on temporary repairs. The GID, our sister district on the Fort Laramie Canal, has also paid around $4 million on temporary repairs.

Today, we’re still not sure which direction we’re going, which means we may have to run with what we have for at least 1 more year, if not 2. Our initial thought was to bring a permeation contractor in to inject about 10 feet of liquid concrete all the way around the existing tunnels to stabilize all the material so that if there were any shifts, the same thing wouldn’t happen. The cost of that was estimated at $25 million for both tunnels. The GID also found a tunneling contractor working in Las Vegas, which proposed digging two new tunnels, side by side, for about $12 million. We would also have to design and build the structures for these tunnels, which would cost another $12 million or so, so both proposed solutions cost about $25 million. However, by law, irrigation districts cannot take out loans from public financing entities equivalent to more than 75 percent of their annual O&M budgets. In our case, that’s about $1.25 million. If we contract with government entities, by contrast, we can go as high as we need to repair the system. If we can work with Reclamation, we can go into a 50‑year contract and pay off our debt over time. We’re unsure of which direction we’re going to go in and how we’re going to find the funding to do this. The frustrating part for us is that we have done as much work as we know how to try to obtain grants. The problem is that we must be approved before we can start to work. We’re in an emergency situation, and we can’t wait. We have to continue to proactively get these systems put back together, not only for the stability of the system, but for the stability of the lives of our water users. There may be grants available that we would actually qualify for, but we can’t wait 18 months to be approved.

priority, especially if we want to continue our transport of foods and necessities. If we want to continue growing crops for food and for the livelihood of people within our nation, we need to focus on the infrastructure that has made us who we are and kept us on top of the world’s agricultural economy. Every state where irrigation is vital to the lives of the people needs to focus on infrastructure. I talked with the governor of Nebraska about how the state needs what’s called a Nebraska state water fee. It would be a flat fee charged to all residents of Nebraska. Currently, we do not have readily available funding to address emergencies, to prepare for future devastation, or to address today’s needs. A fee like that would ensure that we would have the funding to address those issues. This is not only needed in Nebraska;

A steel shoring was installed to support the tunnel and ensure the safety of workers inside.

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to Congress and to your state legislature?

Rick Preston: The only reason we have progressed as far as we have is that the State of Nebraska and Reclamation stepped up to find funding to address the temporary repairs. Our governor, Senator Stinner, and other legislators worked diligently to approve the change to allow us that money. We’re thankful for their commitment. Our federal representatives, Senator Fischer and Congressman Smith, have been aggressive in trying to get the financial support we need to move forward. For the past 25–30 years, we’ve been talking about the need to address infrastructure nationwide. Today, we are sitting with the heartache of having a structural failure within a federal facility. Nobody has seemed to listen, and now we’re sitting with it in our laps. I would encourage all our constituents, regardless of whether they’re from Nebraska, Wyoming, or elsewhere, to realize that infrastructure in our nation should be a top irrigationleadermagazine.com

every state in the United States needs to do the same.

Irrigation Leader: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Rick Preston: The word I would use to address the need for infrastructure is united. We need a united effort by everyone who is involved in water or transportation. We need to come together. We need to make it as clear that things like infrastructure are important for the people of the United States. IL

Rick Preston is the manager of the Gering–Fort Laramie Irrigation District. He can be contacted at geringftlaramie@gmail.com or (308) 436‑7144.

November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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How Automating Furrow Irrigation Can Save Water and Reduce Labor Costs

A Rubicon system is used to automate the furrow irrigation of sugar beets at the DREC.

O

ver the last decade, researchers from the University of California (UC) Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) and UC Davis have been working at the UC Desert Research and Extension Center (DREC), located in Holtville, California, and carrying out studies on the possibilities offered by automating surface irrigation using gates and software produced by Rubicon. Studies of sugar beets irrigated in the Imperial Valley using furrow irrigation have demonstrated that automation can increase water use efficiency from 70– 75 percent to 85 percent. Moreover, automation reduces labor costs, which make up an increasing percentage of the overall costs of farming. In this interview, we speak to two experts who were involved with the DREC study: Dr. Khaled Bali, a statewide irrigation water management specialist who works for the UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE), and Dr. Stephen Kaffka, an extension specialist and agronomist at UC Davis.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.

20 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Stephen Kaffka: I’m an extension specialist and an agronomist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. I’ve been at UC Davis for almost 30 years. I have statewide commodity assignments for sugar and oilseed crops, but I’ve also worked quite a bit on other irrigationand water-quality-related topics, including water quality and irrigation in the Upper Klamath basin and salinity and drainage issues in the western San Joaquin Valley and, to some degree, in the Imperial Valley. I have been working with Khaled over the last few years on various projects.

Water use and related economic issues are important to the sugar beet producers in the Imperial Valley. I cooperated on a successful precision agriculture project in the Imperial Valley with Khaled several years ago that focused on the effects of salinity on yield and fertilizer use efficiency. This research on irrigation is consistent with my responsibilities and overlaps nicely with Khaled’s skills and abilities.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the research on automating surface irrigation that you carried out at the DREC. Khaled Bali: All the water used for irrigation in the Imperial Valley comes from the Colorado River. As you know, both the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River are facing severe shortages when it comes to the water that goes into the seven states and Mexico. The Imperial Valley grows lots of field crops, 70–80 percent of which are field crops like alfalfa, wheat, sugar beets, Sudan grass, Bermuda grass, and other types of grasses. Sugar beets are one of the major crops in the Imperial Valley, and the Imperial Valley is the irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE DREC.

Khaled Bali: I’m a statewide irrigation water management specialist. I work for the UCCE, which falls under the ANR. Today, I am based at UC’s Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, located in Fresno County in Central California. I do statewide work on issues related to irrigation, water conservation, and climate-smart agriculture.

I’ve been with the university for nearly 30 years. During the first 25, I focused on low desert research at the DREC in Holtville, California, near the Mexican border. That’s where we did the work on sugar beets.

Sugar beets grown at the DREC.

only major production area for sugar beets in California.

Typically, there are about 25,000 acres of sugar beets there per year. Sugar beets are typically planted around September and harvested between April and July. All the sugar beets in the Imperial Valley are irrigated with flood irrigation, also known as surface irrigation. One type of surface irrigation is furrow irrigation, which involves growing sugar beets between furrows about 30 inches wide.

Using surface irrigation, you have to apply enough water to meet the crop water demand. The process of applying that order is not 100 percent efficient, especially with furrow irrigation. If you apply enough water to get enough moisture into the soil profile, you end up with water leaving the field at the end of the irrigation event, which is known as runoff. Any water that leaves the field is lost water. There is significant surface runoff with the type of soils that we have in Imperial Valley, which are on the heavy side. Generally, furrow irrigation causes more runoff than other surface irrigation systems, such as border irrigation. Our objective here is to automate surface irrigation systems to minimize runoff so that we can increase irrigation efficiency and reduce surface runoff.

Stephen Kaffka: Many of these fields are quite large, and it’s hard to apply water uniformly and efficiently on them.

These automated surface irrigation technologies have the potential to reduce overirrigation at the head end of the field and underirrigation and runoff at the tail end of the field, which improves water use efficiency.

Irrigation Leader: Would this research be applicable to any furrow-irrigated crop or just to sugar beets?

Khaled Bali: It would be applicable to any surface irrigation system, including furrow, basin, or border irrigation.

Stephen Kaffka: This is the first trial with row crops that we know of in Imperial Valley. The previous work dealt largely with alfalfa, which uses a flood or border irrigation system without rows or beds. The Australians have used this technology successfully with cotton on beds in large irrigated fields. We wanted to get some experience with sugar beets. As Khaled said, the Imperial Valley has relatively secure water rights, but there is concern about water rights in the Colorado River basin, so it is prudent to pursue research on how to become more efficient. Savings of even 10–15 percent are significant.

Irrigation Leader: What technology were you testing?

Khaled Bali: We were using gates and software made by Rubicon, which has extensive experience in this type of work, as Steve mentioned. It is the leader in terms of farm automation. It has reliable software and various irrigation system components. The gate we have at the DREC has been there for 9 years, and we have had very few issues with irrigationleadermagazine.com

maintenance. It is a good and reliable system that has been working well in the harsh desert environment.

Irrigation Leader: Tell us about the study and its results.

Khaled Bali: We have been doing automation for at least 7–8 years. We started at the DREC and then expanded to an automatic system with an alfalfa grower in the Imperial Valley. We have lots of data documenting how much water and labor we can save. It’s not just about the water savings— labor costs have been going up and are a major component of the total costs of producing sugar beets or any other field crop in California.

As Steve mentioned, Rubicon has done lots of work in Australia. Universities and researchers in Australia have looked at automating furrow irrigation for cotton. With a traditional furrow irrigation system, an irrigator goes to the field and turns on the water for a section of the field and judges how long to keep it on based on their experience and how much flow is coming in. They might keep it running for 4, 5, or 6 hours in one section before opening another.

The work is 100 percent manual, and the decisions are made based on the experience of the irrigators.

Instead of having an irrigator opening and closing the gates, we have the system open the gates automatically.

As the water advances and moves through the field, we measure the flow rate and how fast the water is moving.

With this information and other site-specific information, such as soil type and field slope, we can make real-time decisions about irrigation runtime. It provides much more control over flow rate than manual operation. It’s kind of like cruise control on a car—it keeps the flow steady, but you have the ability to slow down if you need to. It gives you a lot of flexibility.

Stephen Kaffka: The labor cost issue is very much in the minds of farmers. California has passed a number of new laws and regulations in recent years that increase the costs of agricultural labor, including laws related to overtime, health benefits, and so on. Field crops in particular have low margins of profitability, and increased labor costs could eat up all the profit. Automating surface irrigation is an important technological improvement for keeping the sugar beet crop economic, and it could be used for other crops, too.

Irrigation Leader: How has the labor cost issue been developing?

Khaled Bali: As California implements increases in minimum wage standards, labor savings have moved to the forefront of concerns. Right now, the minimum wage is $14 an hour for large companies. By January 2022, it will be $15 plus about 40 percent of overhead. To sustain field crops in California, we have to find ways to reduce the cost of irrigation labor. That’s a big component of this work.

November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 21

Stephen Kaffka: It’s going to affect all kinds of things, including picking peaches. It’s an interesting problem. It’s not that you want to put people out of work, it’s just that the policy choices that are being made and the economic realities of farming favor automation if farms are to stay in business.

Automation gives farmers more and better control of resource use. It supports more-efficient management by the farmer.

The fewer variables associated with getting the water on and having labor show up and so on, the better. Farmers can manage automated systems from their cell phones, which is appealing. It’s consistent with the modernization pathways that agriculture has followed for decades.

Irrigation Leader: What results did your study find?

Khaled Bali: A typical furrow irrigation system for sugar beets or similar crops can achieve 70–75 percent efficiency. The minute we go to automation, we can achieve about 85 percent efficiency. That goes a long way when you’re looking at a desert region like Southern California, where evapotranspiration rates are relatively high during the spring and summer months, and it is still hot even in September and October.

Irrigation Leader: Is the DREC working to diffuse these results to sugar beet farmers?

Stephen Kaffka: We have annual workgroup meetings for sugar beet growers and other people in the sugar beet industry at the DREC, and we reported these results over a 2‑year period at those meetings and elsewhere. There are a number of farmers who have become interested.

Baja Farms is now in the process of cooperating with Khaled and me on a grant proposal to submit to Imperial County to support the installation of this on-farm technology on a couple of fields that it uses for alfalfa, sugar beets, wheat, and other crops. The farm is owned by a long-term pioneer family in the valley that holds the current world record for sugar beet yields. If we’re successful in automating the family’s fields and it has results that it likes, the results will spread through the valley, since there’s a community of growers there that all know each other. I have found that if a technology works, makes sense, and is economic, it’s a relatively easy sell.

Those things propagate pretty readily.

Khaled Bali: In general, technology companies approach us.

We conduct educational activities, such as workshops and field days. The irrigation industry knows about the UCCE, and it knows that we’re well connected with the agricultural

22 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Irrigation Leader: What are the next steps in this particular research project?

Khaled Bali: The next step is to implement automation on a large commercial field in the Imperial Valley with a sugar beet grower. The field we have selected is about 70 acres in size.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future of desert agriculture and surface irrigation?

Stephen Kaffka: The Imperial Valley is one of the most productive places anywhere in the world. It has the highest sugar beet yields in the world by quite a bit. The highquality durum wheat produced here is in high demand internationally, and the Imperial Valley is also an important producer of alfalfa, which has an international market. The difficulties are that it is a desert environment with a high demand for water. I think that if this irrigation technology works well in the Imperial Valley, it can serve as a model for irrigated agriculture in other hot desert and semiarid climates. This technology integrates all kinds of new digital capacities. Information on infiltration rates on a field scale become part of your data. You can use Internet technology to control the system. If you already have a highly efficient system and can save 10–20 percent of the water that you used previously, you can keep your operations viable and maintain or increase yields while lowering your water use and your greenhouse gas emissions.

Khaled Bali: We’re facing serious challenges when it comes to climate change and water supplies. We have to look at ways to increase efficiency and sustain agriculture with more efficient practices. IL

Khaled Bali is a statewide irrigation water management specialist based at the University of California’s Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. He can be contacted at kmbali@ucanr.edu or (559) 646‑6541.

Stephen Kaffka is an extension specialist and an agronomist at the University of California, Davis. He can be contacted at srkaffka@ucdavis.edu.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE DREC.

Irrigation Leader: In general, how do the DREC and other extension centers find out about technological solutions that have the potential to benefit local farmers? Do technology companies usually reach out to you, or do you actively look for things that are worth testing?

industry in California. Most of our research projects are done with the growers. We operate nine research centers all over the state directly with the growers, and there is a UCCE presence in every county in California.

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How Moleaer’s Nano-Scale Aeration System Can Benefit Irrigators

A Moleaer Nexus nanobubble generator at an almond orchard. Moleaer nanobubbles help reduce biofilm and improve soil and plant health.

M

oleaer has created a novel aeration system that is vastly more effective than traditional models. It injects air in the form of miniscule bubbles only 100 nanometers in size—thousands of times smaller than a grain of salt—that, unlike larger bubbles, spread throughout a water body and do not float to the surface. This allows water to provide higher levels of oxygen to plants’ roots, to better penetrate soil, to break apart biofilms and algae within irrigation systems, and to oxidize pathogens in the water. In this interview, Moleaer CEO Nick Dyner tells us more about this impressive technology and its uses in the irrigation field.

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

26 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

to do business in 92 countries. It was an incredible experience.

In 2014, LG Chem acquired NanoH2O, with successful outcomes for all parties involved. I stayed with the company for about 2½ years to help LG during the transition, teach it about the water business, and help it grow globally. It now has the second-biggest market share in the RO membrane field, which is fantastic to see.

In late 2016, as I was coming to the end of my time at LG, I was lucky to meet the cofounders of a company called Moleaer. I got interested in the potential of nanobubbles for various industries, particularly for the treatment of industrial process water and surface water. In early 2017, I and a few others invested in the company, and I joined the team to help grow the business. Now, 4½ years later, we’ve got over 1,000 nanobubble systems installed globally. Irrigation water is our biggest market, and surface water, including lakes and ponds, is our second biggest. The business has been growing rapidly ever since. I am fortunate to get to be Moleaer’s CEO, a role I have held since the company’s inception.

Irrigation Leader: Where are you from originally?

Nick Dyner: I was born in England to a Dutch mother and a Brazilian father. I moved to New Jersey when I was 6, and I spent pretty much my entire life there until I moved to Los Angeles 11 years ago.

Irrigation Leader: Tell us about the history of Moleaer.

Nick Dyner: Moleaer was started by Bruce Shelton, who is our chief technical officer, and Warren Russell, our chief irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MOLEAER.

Nick Dyner: I’ve been in the water industry for almost 15 years. I got into the industry through General Electric (GE). I was moving from business to business within GE, and around 2005, I landed in its water business. I fell in love with the industry. I was primarily focused on GE’s desalination business, which produced reverse osmosis (RO) membrane systems for industries like power; semiconductor production; and drinking water for hotels, resorts, and island municipalities.

In 2010, I joined a startup called NanoH2O, and my wife and I moved to Los Angeles. NanoH2O was a technology company focused on developing a new type of thin-film RO membrane for seawater desalination. I was fortunate enough to be the first commercial hire, and I eventually led the sales marketing/app engineering/tech service organization and commercialized the company’s product globally. I got a chance

A Moleaer Neo nanobubble generator installed in a greenhouse in the Netherlands to optimize irrigation water for tomatoes.

commercial officer. They had previously worked together informally on projects in which Warren was selling his microbiology for wastewater treatment and Bruce was building custom water treatment equipment for various municipal and industrial uses. Warren came across a project in the Middle East in which the client was using his biology in a shallow, temporary lagoon in a high-temperature environment. When water temperatures rise, it becomes challenging to maintain dissolved oxygen (DO) levels that are high enough to allow the microbiology to do its job.

Also, it is challenging to use conventional aeration systems to effectively dissolve oxygen into shallow water, because traditional aeration systems only dissolve about 1–2 percent of the oxygen they release per foot of water. If you’ve got a 4‑ to 5‑foot-deep lagoon, you’re only going to get around 5–10 percent of the oxygen transferring into the water before the bubbles reach the surface. It’s really inefficient.

Moreover, hotter water holds less oxygen. Faced with those obstacles, Warren reached out to Bruce to see if he could develop a way to make very small bubbles that would take longer to rise to the surface.

While developing the technology, they realized that it was behaving completely differently from what they expected.

The oxygen levels were rising rapidly and staying high for long periods of time, even after the system was shut off. This suggested that the bubbles weren’t leaving the body of water.

Warren and Bruce filed patents on the technology so that they could explore it further, and they eventually started a business together. They formally incorporated Moleaer in August 2016.

Soon, through third-party research and instrumentation, they realized that the bubbles they were producing were on a nano scale. I joined Moleaer after we funded the company in January 2017. In June 2017, we launched our first product, a nanobubble generator with a rate of 200 gallons a minute with a pump designed to focus on wastewater.

Irrigation Leader: Is your company based in the United States?

Nick Dyner: Yes, we are based in California. We design and manufacture all our products in our assembly facility, which is 15 minutes south of Los Angeles International Airport.

We use only our own patented, proprietary technology, and all our systems are designed in the United States.

Irrigation Leader: How does the technology work?

Nick Dyner: When you inject air or oxygen into water, you form bubbles. As I mentioned before, the bubbles rise, and typically, they dissolve at a rate of only 1–2 percent per foot of water. The bubbles from our system dissolve at a rate of more than 85 percent per foot of water because the vast majority of the gas we’re injecting is in the form of 100‑nanometer bubbles. These gas nanoparticles lack the buoyancy to come to the surface and pop, so releasing them in water is like blowing smoke into a room. They dissolve irrigationleadermagazine.com

everywhere throughout the body of water, from the bottom to the surface.

Because we all came from a water/wastewater background, we targeted that market first. Over the course of 6–9 months, as people were hearing about our product’s value proposition, we began to look at additional industries that were interested in oxygenating water more efficiently, including horticulture, surface water, and aquaculture. We started to expand into those markets. Today, more than three-quarters of our business is in industries that have nothing to do with wastewater, including agricultural irrigation; algae and aquatic weed control in lakes, ponds, and canals; fish and shrimp farms; and even oil, gas, and mining. Today, we have 42 employees, primarily based in Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United States, and we’re now entering Spain.

Irrigation Leader: How small are the nanobubbles?

Nick Dyner: A 100‑nanometer bubble is 2,500 times smaller than a grain of salt. It’s about the size of a virus. At that scale, you can’t see these bubbles, no matter how high a concentration we put into the water. We put between 500 million and 1 billion nanobubbles into each milliliter of water. Even at that scale, you cannot see these bubbles without an instrument. We use a laser particle-tracking analyzer called a NanoSight to detect them.

Irrigation Leader: Tell us about how your technology works with irrigation and its advantages.

Nick Dyner: Irrigation makes up more than 40 percent of our business today. We have about 450 systems installed in irrigation systems—everything from small greenhouses to outdoor specialty crop farms that use drip irrigation. Our customers typically install our system to treat either their storage water tanks or ponds or to add oxygen nanobubbles to their irrigation make-up water, to which they also add fertilizers or other nutrients. Our nanobubbles become part of the irrigation water, which is then sent down a drip irrigation system, a nutrient-film-technique gutter in a greenhouse, or a deep horticultural pool in a hydroponic growing environment.

If a customer installs our system into a pond, lake, or canal, there are typically three core components: a pump, which recirculates water through the core technology; the core technology, which is a passive device with no moving parts that diffuses compressed air or compressed oxygen into flowing water; and a third device that provides the compressed gas, such as an air compressor or an oxygen generator. As the water and gas flow into our core technology, we form the nanobubbles and dissolve the gas incredibly efficiently. Then, the water goes back to its destination. Many people refer to it as an umbilical cord or a kidney. The system is easy to install. It involves two pipes: November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 27

one screened intake pipe and one discharge pipe, which sends the water back, enriched with nanobubbles.

Several things then happen inside the body of water.

First, the oxygen levels throughout the tank or pond rise, particularly near the sediment. It’s hard to get oxygen to the sediment in a body of water, unlike the surface, which is constantly exchanging oxygen with the air. The reason that this is desirable is that if you create an aerobic environment near the sediment, you allow beneficial bacteria and probiotics to flourish and to outcompete algae and other nuisance weeds. You can also oxidize pathogens in that water. Nanobubbles provide a mild natural oxidant. It’s not as strong as bleach, chlorine, peroxide, or ozone, but it still has an oxidative property.

As you start to raise the oxidative state of the water, you’re able to lyse algae cells and destroy algae toxins and other pathogens. Over time, this improves the overall aquatic health of the body of water.

Other customers use our technology to add pure oxygen bubbles to the water immediately before it goes into the irrigation system, elevating DO levels to 2–3 times what you can achieve with air and supersaturating the water with oxygen. That enables them to provide higher levels of oxygen to the plants’ roots; also, because our process reduces the surface tension of water, it penetrates the soil much better, which is particularly important with compact soils. We see that in the capillary action of the water. There are other benefits, too: We see biofilms and algae breaking apart in drip lines or other irrigation systems.

Irrigation Leader: Have you tested your technology in irrigation canals?

Nick Dyner: Not at a large scale yet, but there is no reason why an irrigation canal would behave differently from an irrigation lake or pond. Ultimately, we size our systems to the requirements of the body of water. Because the water in an irrigation canal is flowing, we ought to be able to eliminate the pump, making our system even more energy efficient and cost effective. Most of the systems we create today oxygenate water at a rate of 25–1,000 gallons a minute, but we’ve designed systems with capacities well in excess of 1,000 gallons a minute for specific projects. There’s no reason that we couldn’t effectively treat water in a large-scale irrigation canal.

Irrigation Leader: How long do your bubbles stay in the water column?

28 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Nick Dyner: The inputs are primarily energy, unless you use an external gas source from a bulk gas supplier. The energy demands of the system might range from 2–15 kilowatts, depending on its size.

Irrigation Leader: Is there anything else you’d like to add about your technology and its relationship with irrigation?

Nick Dyner: We routinely survey our customers to understand their experience and satisfaction with our technology. Our customers typically recoup their investments in 6–24 months, depending on the value of the crop they’re growing. Our irrigation customers are able to monetize the value that we’re creating quickly. With water becoming scarcer in the West, our principal focus as a company is to figure out how to allow our customers, particularly farmers, to use water more efficiently. As we start to see the benefits of using nanobubbles to reduce the surface tension of water so that it infiltrates soil more effectively, we are realizing that the benefits of our technology go beyond just water quality and plant health. Our technology can actually help address water supply and water use challenges.

Irrigation Leader: Are you interested in partnering with an irrigation district to test your technology on the reduction of required aquatic herbicide?

Nick Dyner: We have not started that type of effort with an irrigation district yet, but we are doing something similar for algae control in lakes and ponds in Florida. We’re looking at how our process can reduce the need for chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, and peroxides. I think that process can be translated effectively to irrigation, and we have somebody on the team who is looking closely at partnering with an irrigation district to start that effort.

Irrigation Leader: Do you have a message for irrigation districts?

Nick Dyner: We would love to partner with an irrigation district to develop new applications around this platform technology. We think nanobubbles have enormous potential across a wide range of industries and uses. We can do two things for irrigation districts: We can reduce the chemicals needed to achieve the quality required, and we can reduce the amount of water that is needed. IL

Nick Dyner is the CEO of Moleaer. He can be contacted at info@moleaer.com.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF MOLEAER.

Nick Dyner: It depends on the quality of that water. For example, wastewater coming out of a brewery with a biological oxygen demand of 5,000 parts per million would consume the bubbles more rapidly than a clean water environment. Most surface water in irrigation canals or freshwater bodies has a lower organic load and oxygen demand, so bubbles would last in it for weeks or months.

Irrigation Leader: Can you estimate the costs of operation of your system?

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Evans Equipment: Selling Top-Quality Refurbished Work Equipment to Irrigation Districts

A Caterpillar D11T bulldozer sold by Evans Equipment to Kennewick Irrigation District.

E

vans Equipment Inc. buys, refurbishes, and sells Caterpillars and other heavy work equipment, often disassembling the machines to the frame and completely rebuilding them. This allows the company to sell top-grade equipment at 50–60 percent of the cost of new machines. Evans’s customers include irrigation districts, and it is interested in working with more in the future.

In this interview, Brad Evans tell us more about the history and current activities of his family’s business.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell our readers about your background and the history of your company.

34 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Irrigation Leader: Do you focus exclusively on Caterpillar machinery?

Brad Evans: Not exclusively, but that is the main type of equipment we work on. We work on other types, such as Hitachi and Komatsu, from time to time, but we have found that our potential customers are most interested in Caterpillar.

Irrigation Leader: What was your father’s vision when he started the business?

Brad Evans: When he worked for a Caterpillar dealer in Kansas City years ago as a territory salesman, my father quickly saw that the dealership’s philosophy was to focus on selling new. Whenever he was trying to sell used equipment, it was usually still in the same condition it had been in when it was traded in. Caterpillar dealers generally frowned upon the idea of investing a lot of money into the repairs necessary irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EVANS EQUIPMENT.

Brad Evans: The business was founded as an independent dealer focused on buying and selling used equipment in 1965 by my father, Tom Evans, and a partner who had previously worked with him at a Caterpillar dealership. After they had built a solid foundation over many years in business, my brother Bryce Evans and I joined the company. Around the same time, the company was officially renamed Evans Equipment Inc., after the remaining partner was bought out.

At our facility, we repair equipment that is not ready to be completely reconditioned or disassembled. However, when necessary, we also have the capability of disassembling

equipment to the bare frame, rebuilding all the components, and making it run like new. That’s been the cause of our success over the years.

to put used equipment into a first-class condition. That’s what he wanted to do.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us more about your father's background?

Brad Evans: My father, Tom Evans, who just passed away about 2 years ago, worked every day, even past his 91st birthday. He was having just as much fun at Evans Equipment as he did when he started the business in 1965. He started out selling Ford vehicles with his father in a small, rural town in Missouri. If you can believe it, he was approached by someone whom he sold a vehicle

or three states over that used big equipment. From there, we started working on the bigger dozers, trucks, and loaders.

Eventually, we made some contacts with European dealers. I remember our first international transaction in 1983, which happened to be a large spread of German equipment that was used on a big highway project in the middle of the desert outside Baghdad, Iraq. That was our first taste of international business. From then on, the world truly shrank. We did a lot of business in Russia during the 1990s, as well as in Asia, Australia, and Europe. It’s not uncommon at all to buy and sell from one part of the world to the other. That’s one of the things that fascinated my dad—how small the world had become over the course of his life and career. We were proud and grateful that we had a chance to work with dad all these years. He was very well respected throughout the industry. We had a lot of clients whom he dealt with for 30–40 years.

Irrigation Leader: How many employees do you have?

A Caterpillar D11T bulldozer is delivered to Kennewick Irrigation District by Anchor Trucking Inc.

to whose son happened to work for the Caterpillar dealer in Kansas City. That individual told my father, “You ought to apply for a position at the dealership. They’re looking for a salesman, and I think you’d be an excellent salesman.” My dad went home and told my mom, “You know, I think I’m probably just going to stay here. I’m happy selling Fords.” My mom said, “Tom, that’s fine.

They probably wouldn’t hire you anyway.” That bit of reverse psychology was the best salesmanship in the history of the Evans family. He went to Kansas City 2 or 3 days later and applied, and they selected him out of several candidates, even though he was the only one who had zero experience in the Caterpillar industry. He went on to be a territory salesman for the next 10 years.

He made the move away from Caterpillar at the age 39.

When he left, he took the used-equipment manager and the dealership’s top two mechanics, so when they opened the new business refurbishing equipment and selling to our local market, they hit the ground running. We then expanded to a three- or four-state area. When my brother and I got out of school, we realized that we needed to expand outside the Midwest, because there wasn’t a lot of highway work going on at the time. We discovered that there were coalfields two irrigationleadermagazine.com

Brad Evans: We have around 30 employees. We are busy year round, either repairing or completely rebuilding machines.

Bryce and I have the same philosophy as our dad regarding our team: It’s important to the success of the company to surround yourself with good-quality, competent employees whom you take care of. We’re proud that in all our years in business, we’ve never laid off any of our employees.

Most of our machines are not sold in our local market.

For example, we are doing business with Kennewick Irrigation District (KID), which is located in central Washington State, halfway across the country. We buy and sell machines all over the United States and around the world. We’re in the middle of the country and right on the interstate. Freight is getting to be a pretty expensive part of the equipment business, but it does not prevent us from consummating a transaction.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about your business with KID? Brad Evans: We have sold KID four large Caterpillar 657 scrapers. These are midlife machines that did not need to be rebuilt, but we have completely processed them in our shop. We’ve done all the necessary repairs, starting with things as minor as fixing oil leaks, to make sure that everything is extremely tight and that it will be in excellent working condition when it hits the ground out in Washington. We ensured that they have excellent brakes, which is important in big scrapers. KID has also acquired a Caterpillar D11T, the largest dozer that Caterpillar makes, which it will be using to move a lot of material.

We disassembled that particular machine to the bare frame in our shop and completely rebuilt it from the frame up, including a new, out-of-crate engine assembly. That machine is 850‑horsepower and is powered by a Caterpillar November/December 2021 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 35

The D11T bulldozer eventually purchased by KID was completely disassembled in Evans Equipment’s shop and rebuilt from the frame up.

C32 engine. The powertrain has been completely gone through, and we installed a complete new undercarriage.

Everything else has been processed here as well, so it looks and runs just like a brand-new tractor.

Irrigation Leader: Is there a general rule of thumb for how much customers can save by buying your refurbished used equipment instead of buying brand new?

Brad Evans: In this particular circumstance, without giving exact prices, the machines are close to half the price of what a new machine would cost. The savings depend on the machine, but the number is usually fairly close to that.

Sometimes, it may be 60–65 percent, but usually, it’s in the 50–60 percent range.

Irrigation Leader: What’s an example of equipment you sell to the mining industry?

Brad Evans: Basically, a smorgasbord of all the main production machines as well as all the support machines. We sell the mining industry a lot of trucks—100‑ton trucks and up. A lot of the mining folks have a need for large dozers like the one we sold to KID. We’ve got six more that we’re getting ready to process—big D10s and D11s. Currently, we have the biggest motor grader Caterpillar makes on our yard, a 24M that we have remanufactured from the bare frame. Only the largest of the mines are able to use motor graders of that size. If they have a lot of trucks, they also need a lot of 10‑ to 20‑yard-size wheel loaders.

Irrigation Leader: What’s the biggest truck that you’ve worked on?

36 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

Brad Evans: They should know that we have a large quantity of machines available for whatever type of work they have within their districts, including new construction of the kind that KID is undertaking. We sell earth movers, big dozers, and motor graders. If it has been processed through our shop, it’s something that will hit the ground running whenever it gets to its destination.

Irrigation Leader: What is Evans Equipment’s business philosophy?

Brad Evans: We have a lot of philosophies, but one thing that my dad always said was, “The quality of the equipment we supply has to match the quality of our company.” You have to make all the necessary repairs to make it function.

But most importantly, when you do all those things, you can never sell to somebody just once. That’s always been the key to our success. If we do sell somebody a machine, we’re going to sell to them many more in the future as well.

Irrigation Leader: Is there another generation that is cued up to take over?

Brad Evans: Around 7 years ago, one of Bryce’s sons joined the company to learn the business that his grandfather founded and that his dad and I own and operate on a daily basis. I also have a son who is currently at the University of Missouri. He has expressed interest in possibly joining the company in the future, and if he chooses to do that, I think he’d be a good addition.

His grandfather would be pleased to see the legacy of Evans Equipment Inc. as the third generation gets further involved. IL Brad Evans is the president of Evans Equipment Inc. He can be contacted at (660) 463‑2204.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EVANS EQUIPMENT.

Brad Evans: We’ve rebuilt some 150‑ton Caterpillar rock trucks, and we have owned quite a few that are bigger than that, but never brought them into our facility to work on.

We have sold them at the location where we purchased them. As for dozers, the D11 is the biggest tractor that Caterpillar makes. I mentioned we’re working on the biggest motor grader Caterpillar makes; we’ve done several of those over the years.

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to irrigation districts? What should their general managers and boards of directors know about Evans Equipment?

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JOB LISTINGS

Does your organization have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages? Irrigation Leader provides this service to irrigation districts, water agencies, and hydropower facilities free of charge. For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

CARLSBAD IRRIGATION DISTRICT GENERAL MANAGER Location: Carlsbad, New Mexico Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +D irects the activities of the district’s 30 personnel in administering, operating, and maintaining the water storage, delivery and the facilities of the project. +O versees the contractual operation and maintenance on three BOR dams on the Pecos River. Provides a recommended annual operating budget for approval by the Board. +R epresents the district on federal, state, and local levels. +W orks on operation and contractual matters on a continual basic with federal and state agencies as necessary.

REQUIREMENTS: +S uperior oral and written communication skills and a demonstrated ability to interact effectively on behalf of the district and to stress the value of protecting the project’s water rights, the district’s operation authorities, and proving service to its members. +W orking knowledge of the operations of an irrigation district and ability to project a positive image of the organization and to stress the value of irrigated agriculture.

For more information: Administrative Assistant, Carlsbad Irrigation District, 5117 Grandi Road, Carlsbad, NM, (575)236‑6390 or e-mail: cid@plateautel.net.

To apply: submit a cover letter, resume, and three references to: cid@plateautel.net or mail to: Carlsbad Irrigation District, 5117 Grandi Road, Carlsbad, NM 88220.

OAKDALE IRRIGATION DISTRICT GENERAL MANAGER Location: Oakdale, CA Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +P rovides oversight of irrigation and water utility operations, personnel matters, fiscal control, and safeguarding District assets.

42 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2021

+D evelops and maintains active relationships with local, state/federal agencies, elected policymakers as well as the private industry.

REQUIREMENTS: +C ollege degree in engineering, construction, public administration, business administration, economics, industrial relations, government, or related field.

Additional qualifying experience and/or education may be substituted. +M inimum of five years of successful experience in a high level administrative position. +U nderstanding of California Water Law, Government Code, Environmental Law, Public Records Act, Employment Law, Contract Law and California water rights related to both pre-1914 and post-1914 rights and storage.

For more information: contact Kim Bukhari, HR Administrator at (209) 840‑5519 or go to www.oakdaleirrigation.com/employment To apply: submit a cover letter, resume, and three references to: kbukhari@oakdaleirrigation.com or mail to: Oakdale Irrigation District, 1205 East F Street, Oakdale, CA 95361

LEAN COORDINATOR Location: Adelanto, CA & Orem, UT Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +L ead evaluation of production processes needing improvement and recommend solutions to management. +W ork with management/supervision, Operations, QA, and Maintenance to develop best practices. +D rive process improvement through statistical analysis and Lean toolbox. +O ptimize manufacturing processes to attain maximum safety, product quality, efficiency, and repeatability. +T rain and mentor department subject-matter experts in the application of the continuous improvement system.

REQUIREMENTS: +B achelor’s degree in Engineering or a technical discipline desired. +M inimum 3 years business operations, plant engineering or manufacturing experience to include 1‑2 years of process improvement program proven success. +U nderstanding of welding concepts and liquid industrial coating applications. +C ertification in Lean Manufacturing processes strongly preferred.

For more information: contact Nick Hidalgo, Talent Acquisition at nhidalgo@nwpipe.com, or go to www.nwpipe.com/careers. irrigationleadermagazine.com

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Phoenix

January 26 —27, 2022

JOIN US FOR THE 2022 IRRIGATION LEADER OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT TRAINING WORKSHOP About the Workshop

Workshop Details

Irrigation Leader magazine, after a COVID gap year, is sponsoring the 2022 Irrigation Leader Operations and Management Training Workshop. This year’s theme, “Prospering in Uncertain Times,” will focus on managing labor issues, insurance, and finance and finding new ways to reduce costs and add revenue. The purpose of the workshop is to provide an opportunity for general managers and directors of irrigation districts to discuss ideas and exchange information on a variety of district operations-and-managementrelated issues and to build out-of-state working relationships. The issues and topics to be covered have been suggested by general managers and board directors.

Date: January 26–27, 2022 Registration: $550.00 Vendor: $1,000.00 Location: Crowne Plaza Phoenix Airport Hotel 4300 East Washington Street Phoenix, Arizona 85034

Workshop Topics: -Effective public communications/managing a crisis -Building public good will -Bureau of Reclamation grant program changes -Private financing options -Federal COVID mandates -Creating an irrigation insurance pool -Unique sources of revenue -Things to know for the new manager/board member -Zero-based budgeting -Firing an employee the right way -Renewable energy/revenue sources -Buying rebuilt construction equipment -ATLIS electric truck factory tour

For personalized hotel registration assistance, please phone Kristen Thomas at (202) 656-1684.

Hotel Information: Book your room NOW at a rate of only $169.00 per night. Call (855) 729-6011 to make your reservation no later than Thursday, December 30, 2021, to take advantage of the special 2022 Irrigation Leader Workshop rate.

How to Sign Up Space is limited, so register on our website today!

Learn more and purchase your registration at irrigationleadermagazine.com/ If you have any questions, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

Upcoming Events November 3–4 Texas Rural Water Association, Fall Management Conference (North), Dallas, TX November 3–5 National Conference of State Legislatures, Legislative Summit, Tampa, FL November 8–10 National Water Resources Association, 90th Annual Conference, Phoenix, AZ November 17–18 Kansas Water Office, Kansas Governor’s Water Conference, Manhattan, KS November 22–23 Nebraska Water Resources Association and Nebraska State Irrigation Association, Joint Conference, Kearney, NE November 29–December 3 Association of California Water Agencies, Fall Conference & Exhibition, Pasadena, CA December 6–10 Irrigation Association, Irrigation Show & Education Week, San Diego, CA December 7–10 North Dakota Water Users Association, 58th Annual Joint North Dakota and Upper Missouri Water Convention and Irrigation Workshop, Bismarck, ND December 14–16 Colorado River Water Users Association, Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV December 14–16 National Ground Water Association, Groundwater Week, Nashville, TN, and virtual January TBD National Water Resources Association, Leadership Forum, Phoenix, AZ January 4–6 Idaho Irrigation Equipment Association, Show & Conference, Idaho Falls, ID January 12–13 Four States Irrigation Council, Annual Meeting, Fort Collins, CO January 18–20 Ground Water Management Districts Association, Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX January 21–22 Texas Rural Water Association, Rural Water Conference, Round Rock, TX January 26–27 Irrigation Leader Operations and Management Training Workshop, Phoenix, AZ January 31–February 3 Nevada Water Resources Association, Annual Conference Week, Las Vegas, NV February TBD Idaho Water Users Association, Ditch Rider and Applicator Workshop Series, Southern Idaho locations TBD February 17–18 Ditch and Reservoir Company Alliance, Annual Conference, Colorado Springs, CO

Past issues of Irrigation Leader are archived at IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM /IrrigationLeader

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