Irrigation Leader October 2014

Volume 5 Issue 9

October 2014

Tage Flint: Planning for the Future at Weber Basin Water Conservancy District

Irrigation Leaders in Utah

By Kris Polly

T

he history of Utah is intertwined with the development of irrigation. Native Americans irrigated crops in the region for centuries.

Beginning with the settlement of Salt Lake City in 1847, irrigation was developed on a much larger scale.

According to the Utah Division of State History, by 1865 the Mormons had dug over 1,000 miles of canals and the territorial legislature granted individual irrigators the ability to form irrigation districts. The districts had the authority to tax their respective members for the purposes of operating and maintaining their canals. The beginnings of the basic principles of western water law, including the doctrine of prior appropriation, beneficial use, and the creation of the water master, can also be attributed to those early years in Utah.

Today, that long history of irrigation is evident in the quality of irrigation leaders found in Utah. Their knowledge, people skills, and above all, patience allow them to accomplish great things. Some of my favorite Utah irrigation leaders are in this issue of Irrigation Leader magazine. Tage Flint, Keith Denos, and Jeremy Sorensen are all managers I highly respect. In his interview, it is clear Tage Flint is an accomplished leader with an eye to the future and the ability to tackle challenges effectively.

Highly intelligent, even keeled, and strategic in his thinking are all accurate descriptions of Tage. Those who know Tage’s father would agree, “The apple did not roll far from the tree.”

I cannot say enough good things about Keith Denos.

He is a manager who has accomplished the impossible.

Any manager can tell you about the difficulty of building a project, working through environmental laws, building a coalition of different interests, or raising large sums of funding. However, Keith Denos can tell you how he and his board dealt with all those challenges and succeeded at piping a major canal for the benefit of everyone involved.

Lots of folks worked on that project, but it would not have happened without Keith.

Jeremy Sorensen is much newer to management than Tage or Keith, but he has the stuff of great managers and has already done well. Many of the managers with smaller boards of 3 or 5 directors marvel at Jeremy’s 18-member board. “It takes us 30 minutes just to sit down,” he once told me about their meetings.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Carly Burton, executive director of the Utah Water Users Association.

Carly and his wife, Barbara, are fixtures in the western water community, known and liked by all. Always helpful, Carly is the first person I recommend to anyone interested in Utah water issues.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Irrigation Leader magazine and thank you for your continued support.

Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com.

The Water and Power Report www.WaterAndPowerReport.com The Water and Power Report is the one-stop aggregate news site for water and power issues in the 17 western states. Sign up for the free “Daily” service to receive e-mail notice of the top headlines and press releases each business day.

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Irrigation Leader

OCTOBER 2014

C O N T E N T S 2 Irrigation Leaders in Utah

Volume 5

Issue 9

Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by: Water Strategies LLC P.O. Box 100576 Arlington, VA 22210 Staff: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief John Crotty, Senior Writer Robin Pursley, Graphic Designer Capital Copyediting LLC, Copyeditor SUBMISSIONS: Irrigation Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request.

By Kris Polly

4 Planning for the Future at Weber Basin Water Conservancy District

10 Provo River Aqueduct Title Transfer 14 FSMA UPDATE: An Interview With Mike Taylor and the Food and Drug Administration’s Produce Safety Team

20 Avoiding ‘Slow-Motion Catastrophe’ in Washington’s Columbia Basin

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

CIRCULATION: Irrigation Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors. For address corrections or additions, please contact our office at Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

26 Surfing Down the Sevier River

Copyright © 2014 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.

COVER PHOTO: Tage Flint, general manager for Weber Basin Water Conservancy District.

Irrigation Leader

By Gregg Herrington

22 The Rural Water Technology Alliance

By Amy Green

By Roger Hansen

30 The Utah Water Users Association

By Carly Burton

district focus

32 Strawberry Water Users Association

By Jeremy Sorensen

IRRIGATED CROPS

34 Great Basin Alfalfa 38 Classifieds 3

Planning for the Future at Weber Basin Water Conservancy District

W

eber Basin Water Conservancy District (WBWCD) provides agricultural and municipal water to the residents of northern Utah, including the northern Wasatch Front. It is the largest drinking and irrigation water provider in Utah and one of the largest purveyors of pressurized secondary irrigation water in the country. WBWCD manages and operates the federal Weber Basin Project, which includes six dams and reservoirs, along with hundreds of miles of canals, pipelines, and tunnels.

The United States Congress authorized the Weber Basin Project in 1949. WBWCD was created on June 26, 1950, by a decree of the Second District Court of Utah, under the guidelines of the Utah Water Conservancy Act. WBWCD has developed its supplies beyond the federal project with the addition of another dam and reservoir, a

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hydropower generation plant, drinking and irrigation water transmission systems, and groundwater wells. WBWCD serves agricultural water to 150,000 project acres and 175,000 nonproject acres. District farmers grow row crops— mainly onions and corn—along the Wasatch Range, and alfalfa and grains beyond the range. The district diverts 80,000 acre-feet per year (afy) for agriculture, 60,000 afy for urban irrigation, and 85,000 afy for municipal use.

Tage Flint oversees WBWCD’s staff of 100. He has been WBWCD’s general manager for the last 14 years. Prior to that he was assistant general manager of the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District. Irrigation Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, spoke with Tage about the unique challenges of his district, the potential for water development in the district, and successfully addressing urban growth.

Irrigation Leader

Kris Polly: Your district is distinct from many others in the West because of its secondary water system. How did that come about?

Tage Flint: The Bureau of Reclamation built the Weber Basin Project to have a large-scale secondary water system in our urban centers. The secondary system consists of untreated water in a separate pressurized pipe used for lawns and gardens. Most of the outdoor irrigation in our Wasatch Front cities is done with that untreated source coming out of our project. That created a cultural expectation—the system has expanded over and over again so that we now have more than 100,000 connections in our area.

Water users expect costs to remain very low, and that creates a whole set of challenges, not the least of which is that we are shut down for six months of the year. Secondary water service is not conducive for water conservation. In addition, the Reclamation Reform Act (RRA) applies to those using urban irrigation water. The RRA was designed to keep large corporate farmers from getting subsidized water; however, given the rules, we might have a condo complex with 40 feet of grass that is prohibited from using our secondary system water because of its corporate structure. It really is the ultimate example of unintended consequences.

Our work-around has been to convert any of the qualifying recipients or unauthorized users to municipal water. We have several people on staff who deal with RRA issues because of this issue.

Kris Polly: What are some of the other major challenges facing your district?

Tage Flint: There are a few. One is the projected population growth in northern Utah and our area specifically. Our district is predicted to more than double in population in the next 25 years. We serve about 640,000 people right now and are projected to serve 1.5 million in 40 years. What that means is that we are going to have to develop another 150,000 acre-feet of water to meet that municipal demand.

With that, we have to determine the potential impact on our agricultural users, particularly the conversion of ag water when growers convert their land to something beyond farms. Our irrigators would like to preserve their agricultural water rights—they don’t want to see any threat to that water supply, but at the same time, they do not want their rights to develop their lands to be restricted.

They want to retain the ability to convert their lands at their own discretion.

Our age-old challenge is prolonged drought—how flexible is our water supply in the face of the sustained dry Irrigation Leader

East Canyon Dam, 12 miles south of Morgan, Utah.

periods? We have gone back and checked our yields for water supply. We have not found anything alarming for reliability, unless we impose any kind of climate change scenarios. The key is how to firm up those supplies.

Our district is divided into two general areas: the Wasatch Front, which is heavily populated and urban, and the lands east of the Wasatch Range, which are rural and agricultural with a significant recreational component.

We are always working to make sure all of those pieces fit together in terms of protecting the watershed, in terms of having enough water high enough in the system to supply growth industry needs.

For example, we serve the entire Park City area—all the areas where the 2002 Olympics were held. The demands up there are entirely different than the rest of our district.

There is still an agricultural component, but there is also a huge snow-making demand. It is off-season in the middle of the winter, yet the flow rates are tremendous.

So the question is how we meet these changing needs in the upper mountain valleys that used to be almost all agriculture.

Kris Polly: Are you concerned about the proposed Forest Service guideline changes with respect to groundwater?

Tage Flint: At least two of our seven major reservoirs are on Forest Service land. Every one of our reservoirs is served by watersheds on Forest Service lands. That 5

Davis North Water Treatment Plant and Conservation Garden.

automatically makes us concerned about how the Forest Service interprets its groundwater management plans.

There may be a potentially large impact on our operations.

Fortunately, to date, our local forester’s interpretation of management plans has not been overly burdensome.

Kris Polly: What potential sources is the district planning to develop to meet the projected 150,000 acrefoot demand?

Tage Flint: We will have to do much more than agricultural conversions. For starters, water conservation has to be first and foremost for us, especially in our urban centers. We need to drive our per capita use downward, at least 25 to 30 percent from year 2000 levels. That will create a big block of water that will keep us from having to do premature agricultural conversion.

We also will look to optimize within our own system.

For example, we are artificially putting more water in our aquifer than can be done naturally.

But even after all of that, we will have to import new 6

water supplies into our area to address that growth. And in northern Utah, that generally means the development of the Bear River, the last major river planned to be developed by the state of Utah. The Bear River is about 30 to 40 miles north of our district boundaries. In 1991, the Utah legislature passed the Bear River Development Act, which identifies five counties to receive water from that project. Two of those counties reside within my district. The law proscribes that of the 220,000 acre-feet of water to be developed, 50,000 of that is dedicated to the counties in my district.

Kris Polly: Where does the Bear River Project stand at the moment?

Tage Flint: It is in its infancy—at the planning and preservation stage. It does have water rights owned by the state of Utah. The planning stage addresses where and when we would build storage reservoirs. The preservation stage involves purchasing lands for pipeline alignments and reservoir sites to preserve our options for some Irrigation Leader

40 years from now.

The cost of the project will be borne by the users proportionally to the volume delivered. The projected water rate would be triple what our current supplies cost.

It will not be a cheap source by any means. And that is why you will see us do 30 to 40 years’ of other projects and efforts before we ever get to that one.

The Weber River Basin Aquifer Storage and Recharge Project is augmenting groundwater supplies in the Odgen Area.

Kris Polly: Tell our readers about some of your ongoing projects.

Tage Flint: We have several ongoing infrastructure replacement projects. We are also completing the groundwater development within our district. Although we are largely appropriated out, we do have a few water rights left. We aim to use them to drill wells for agricultural and municipal use.

Beyond that, we are looking to enlarge the 14.5mile A.V. Watkins Dam, which holds back Willard Bay Reservoir. We want to raise it just a few feet. The surface area of the reservoir is 10,000 acres, so every foot gets another 10,000 acre-feet for storage. But the project is big—nearly 15 miles of earthen dam requiring an army of large equipment machinery. We hope to be underway next year and completed in a 12- to 14-month time frame.

We have completed our report for our aquifer storage and recharge project and found the pilot study to be very successful. So we will be expanding it considerably. We will be intercepting supplies from the Wasatch Front to percolate it into the underlying aquifer. Any additional pumping will have to be supplemented with new water going into the recharge zones. The expansion will begin next year but the implementation will stretch out over 20 years.

Kris Polly: What have learned working in an increasingly urbanized district?

Tage Flint: First, we are advocates of agricultural production remaining in our district. Most people are not interested in wall-to-wall urbanization. We still have highly productive farms that produce food and fiber for people and livestock. It seems to us that we should facilitate striking a balance. That gets harder and harder to do when urban areas continue to push on fringes of rural areas. The next generation may or may not want to stay in the farming business, and the value of the land changes.

We are in an ongoing discussion with our agricultural producers on these issues.

Kris Polly: Are encroachments a significant issue?

Tage Flint: Yes, they are another growth-related issue.

Irrigation Leader

We have hundreds of miles of canals and pipelines, and there is a staff demand that we did not used to have.

We are constantly protecting rights of way and fee title lands containing facilities from encroachment. With urbanization, the expectations of the citizens change in terms of safety and protection.

Kris Polly: What advice would you give managers dealing with similar issues?

Tage Flint: It sounds simplistic but diligence in protecting of your facilities and rights of way is paramount. For example, we have employed a lot more information technology people who are GIS trained to overlook our properties and rights of way with aerial photographs and on-the-ground inspections. It is very easy to let those things go when your resources are stretched.

We instituted an entire cultural change. Instead of just catching someone after they put a foundation in on our right of way, we are preventing those situations from occurring during the permitting or surveying process. It is as much in-office work as it is out in the field. If you have a better database, a lot more GIS information, it is much easier to track what is yours and what you can allow. We have invested in hardware, software, and personnel. Our database not only contains aerial maps of the property, but also all the written documents that are associated with that parcel.

It has really paid off for us. The legal costs of trying to retroactively take an encroachment off our property usually exceed our preventative costs.

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Provo River Aqueduct Title Transfer

W

ater infrastructure projects require vision, perseverance, and strong intergovernmental and community relationships. Back in 1998, the Provo River Water Users Association (PRWUA) set forth on a plan to enclose the 21 miles of the Murdock Canal into 10.5‑foot-diameter pipe. On Friday, October 31, 2014, PRWUA and the Bureau of Reclamation celebrated all of those qualities with the transfer of ownership of the Provo River Aqueduct from the United States to PRWUA in a signing ceremony in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The signing marked the end of that 16‑year journey.

The enclosure project and the title transfer were the product of negotiations among a variety of local, state, and federal entities. The key players included the Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD), the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy, the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, and the Central Utah Project Completion Act Office. Jennifer Gimbel, principal deputy assistant secretary for water and science, U.S. Department of the Interior, spoke at the October 31 ceremony and acknowledged the efforts of all parties involved: The Provo Reservoir Canal Title Transfer and associated canal enclosure project is one of the most significant recent water projects in Utah, bringing together a combination of stakeholders and federal,

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state and local governments. Reclamation is proud to have been involved with a project that represents the successful management and rehabilitation of aging water infrastructure in Utah.

The Need for Title Transfer

Keith Denos, general manager of PRWUA, noted that the association initially started down the road of title transfer because it saw ownership of the canal and corridor as an essential step toward enclosing the canal.

The board president at the time, John Carman, “was very visionary about the possibility of transfer of title. He laid the groundwork and got us rolling down that road as we tried to figure out how we would obtain the funding for this $150 million project.”

PRWUA looked at funding options and did not see a lot at the federal level. So the association started to investigate options the state level. The Utah Constitution required entities seeking loans from the Utah Board of Water Resources (UBWR) to have title to water rights or water facilities. Provo River Project water rights and facilities are held in the name of Reclamation, not the association.

PRWUA and other canal enclosure stakeholders worked with their local Utah state representatives to Irrigation Leader

pass a bill removing the title requirements for UBWR loans. Ironically, that legislative effort happened after the federal title transfer process began. Nonetheless, the state legislation helped clear the way for PRWUA and project partners to obtain state loans. Ultimately, half of the enclosure project funding came from the UBWR.

Congressional Leadership

Keith Denos highlighted the sustained congressional support for the title transfer. Back in the early 2000s, when PRWUA began the title transfer effort, Representatives Jim Matheson and Chris Cannon and Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett provided the guidance and help necessary to get the legislation rolling.

Denos noted the effectiveness of the Utah delegation.

“I’ve heard that this title transfer was the quickest to move through Congress from beginning to end. We started in 2002 and had a complete signed bill by the end of 2004.

That speaks to our legislative consultants in Washington, DC, as well as the tireless work of our congressional delegation and their staffs.”

Unfortunately, despite the initial legislative success, PRWUA struggled to achieve title transfer after the actual enclosure. Reclamation determined that the original legislative language did not authorize the transfer

Irrigation Leader

of the pipeline, only the canal. So, PRWUA had to go back to Congress for an amendment to the original act. Representative Jason Chaffetz, Senator Mike Lee, and the rest of the Utah delegation were a significant help navigating that amendment through the gridlock in Congress, leading to passage of the amendment in October of this year.

Reaping the Benefits of Enclosure

Ownership has its rewards. The Provo River Project was authorized in 1935; the association entered into contracts with Reclamation in 1937. PRWUA is set to fulfill its repayment obligations in 2025. Noting that history, Keith Denos acknowledged, “It is a good thing to be able to realize that we can actually call the pipeline our own. Now, if we have a need in the future, the association has an asset that we can use as collateral.”

Water conservation was a critical component to project funding. The CUWCD pledged some of its own funds, as well funds through the Central Utah Project Completion Act section 207, in exchange for saved water and capacity in the pipeline. With several years of pipeline operations under its belt, PRWUA has seen more water savings than anticipated. Efficiencies abound: The pipeline is metered and tied into PRWUA’s SCADA system, and water users 11

are able to have water on demand as opposed to waiting 16 to 20 hours for it to reach them from Dear Creek Reservoir.

Benefits extend beyond the operational and the administrative. According to Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Gimbel, “The completed canal enclosure enhances public safety for people in the area surrounding the canal, and the conservation of 8,000 acre-feet will make available water to provide in-stream flows on the lower Provo River and benefit the endangered June sucker.”

And an important element of the enclosure project is the multipurpose paved trail that runs atop the pipeline. Denos remarked that it has been an amazing amenity for the community. PRWUA research shows that approximately 20 percent of trail use is by bicycle commuters. One month last year, the trail hosted 30,000 users; Denos thinks that usage numbers for 2014 will likely be higher than 2013.

Jennifer Gimbel, the Department of the Interior’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, speaks at the Provo Reservoir Title Transfer ceremony on October 31, 2014. (Keith Denos in the background).

Reed Murray, Program Director for Central Utah Project Completion Act Office; Jennifer Gimbel, Department of the Interior’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science; Brent Rhees, Acting, Upper Colorado Region Regional Director; Wayne Pullan, Area Manager, Provo Area Office pose for photos at the Provo Reservoir Title Transfer ceremony on October 31, 2014.

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FSMA Update:

An Interview With Mike Taylor and the Food and Drug Administration’s Produce Safety Team

M

ichael R. Taylor is deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Irrigation Leader last spoke with Mr. Taylor in the July/August 2013 issue on the topic of the proposed rule to establish the science-based Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption as part of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The FDA is currently proposing to amend certain specific provisions of the proposed rule. In light of the proposed amendments, Irrigation Leader’s editor-inchief, Kris Polly, reached out to Mr. Taylor and his produce safety team (Samir Assar, Joy Johanson, and Marianne Fatica) to discuss the amendments and what Mr. Taylor learned from his tour of farms in the Pacific Northwest.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about what you learned from your tour to the farms and irrigation districts in the Pacific Northwest. How did that experience impact the revisions to the proposed Standards for Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption?

Mike Taylor: Our goal in implementing the FSMA has always been to enact standards that are practical and feasible across a wide diversity of food operations while meeting our public health goals. We don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to regulation, and we traveled to the Pacific Northwest and New England to learn what works on the ground level. We listened to growers tell us which of the proposed regulations would be too burdensome for their operations, and in the high desert of the Pacific Northwest, the water quality proposals were of great concern. What we learned on these trips, in addition to the thousands of comments submitted during the public comment period, led to the revisions to the proposed produce safety rule. We tried to make the water quality and testing standards in particular more flexible in a way that would provide growers with alternative ways to meet the microbial standards.

Farmer Paul Skeen (left), president of the Malheur County Onion Growers in Oregon, shows FDA Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor how water is siphoned from the canal for furrow irrigation of bulb onions.

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Kris Polly: What kind of feedback have you received from water providers and farmers since the standards were proposed?

Irrigation Leader

consumers, but to those who earn their living supplying that food.

I would not characterize them as cons, but there will be new regulations for growers to follow. There will be microbial standards to meet and a tiered testing regimen to follow. The produce farming industry has previously not had the same level of oversight as those who manufacture or process foods, so this will be a new landscape for them.

Kris Polly: What advice do you have for water providers and farmers concerned about the potential impact that the cost of compliance may have on their operations?

Mike and colleagues are touring an irrigation canal at Quincy-Columbia Basin Irrigation District. QCBID General Manager Darvin Fales on the microphone.

Mike Taylor: We received an extensive number of comments on the proposed quality and testing standards for agricultural water that is applied directly to produce during the growing period. A majority of them either questioned the scientific basis for the proposed microbial quality standard, characterized the standard as too stringent, or urged us to consider other factors that would allow the safe use of agricultural water that does not meet the proposed microbial water quality standard.

So far, the reaction to the proposed revisions to these standards has been more favorable. While there are still objections to our decision to base our standards on the data that support the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for recreational water, which we view as sound science, the introduction of some flexibility in the microbial quality and testing provisions has been received positively.

Kris Polly: Please talk about the pros and cons of implementing the proposed standards for (1) water and irrigation districts, (2) farmers, and (3) consumers.

Mike Taylor: I think the pros for all three groups will be increased consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply, because that’s really the bottom line. We want people to feel confident that the foods they serve their families are safe. That can only be beneficial, not only to Irrigation Leader

Mike Taylor: The FDA will do its utmost to help farmers comply with these new regulations. The agency is proposing staggered compliance dates, based on size of farm, to provide enough time for them to meet the requirements, and additional time is being provided to meet certain water requirements. And, we’ve been working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), state agriculture departments, the Produce Safety Alliance, the Sprouts Safety Alliance, and the American Farm Bureau, as well as others, to make sure there are plentiful resources for growers. The agency is planning to use a number of approaches, including guidance and supporting training and technical assistance, to provide the tools needed for farms to comply with the new regulations.

Kris Polly: Please describe the recent changes to the proposed Standards for Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption as they apply to farmers and water providers.

Produce Safety Team: The FDA is updating the water microbial quality standard to reflect data that support the 2012 Environmental Protection Agency recreational water quality criteria.

Farmers with agricultural water that does not initially achieve the proposed microbial standard would have additional means to achieve the microbial quality standard after accounting for naturally occurring microbial die-off or removal during such practices as commercial washing.

The FDA is proposing a tiered and more targeted approach to testing each source of untreated water used in direct application during growing (other than sprouts), which will be less burdensome on farmers than the original proposal while still protecting public health.

The agency is removing the nine-month proposed minimum time interval between the application of untreated biological soil amendments of animal origin (including raw manure) and crop harvesting. The agency is deferring its decision on an appropriate time interval until 15

it pursues certain actions. These include conducting a risk assessment and extensive research to strengthen scientific support for any future proposal and working with the USDA and other stakeholders.

Also eliminated would be the previously proposed 45-day minimum application interval for compost, including composted manures. This is being done, in part, to encourage widespread use of composting.

The FDA is proposing that farms or farm mixed-type facilities with an average annual monetary value of produce sales of $25,000 or less will not be covered. The original proposed rule defined that monetary threshold in terms of all food sales. The FDA is also proposing corresponding changes to the definitions of very small business and small business to base those monetary thresholds on produce sales rather than food sales.

The definition of farm would be revised; a farm would no longer be required to register as a food facility merely because it packs or holds raw agricultural commodities grown on another farm under a different ownership. The FDA is proposing that such activities would be subject to the produce safety rule (when conducted on produce) rather than the preventive controls rule for human food.

The proposed revisions would establish procedures to guide the FDA in withdrawing a qualified exemption and for reinstating a withdrawn qualified exemption.

The FDA states in the proposed revisions that the proposed produce regulation would not authorize or require farms to take actions that would constitute the taking of a threatened or endangered species in violation of the Endangered Species Act. There were concerns expressed that growers would interpret the original proposed rule in ways that would harm wildlife, including taking measures to exclude animals from outdoor growing areas or destroying animal habitats.

Kris Polly: What is the likelihood that treatment of water delivery systems will reduce the number of incidences of foodborne illnesses? What evidence is being used to substantiate that likelihood? Please provide a few examples of the treatment of water used for irrigation stopping an outbreak of a foodborne illness.

Produce Safety Team: Reducing incidences of foodborne illness with a science-based food safety system is the goal of all of these FSMA foundational rules, including the proposed produce safety rule. We expect that these rules will help prevent outbreaks from occurring.

In drafting the originally proposed produce safety rule, the FDA conducted a qualitative assessment of risk of hazards related to produce production and harvesting.

This document is reference 2 in the record for the original proposed rule. Two of the key conclusions in this document 16

are the following: 1. The most likely routes of contamination from growing, harvesting, and on-farm postharvest activities are associated with seed (for sprouts), water, soil amendments, animals, worker health and hygiene, and buildings/equipment.

2. Although some types of produce have been repeatedly associated with outbreaks, all types of produce commodities have the potential to become contaminated through one or more of these potential routes of contamination.

Recognizing that agricultural water that is intended to, or likely to, contact the harvestable portion of the produce can be a potential route of contamination, the FDA is proposing to require that agricultural water be safe and of adequate sanitary quality for its intended use.

The supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking for the produce safety rule includes flexible water quality standards with additional options beyond the treatment and alternative options provided in the originally proposed rule.

The supplemental notice includes provisions to allow for microbial die-off or removal (based on appropriate dieoff or reduction rates) to be accounted for postirrigation if agricultural water does not initially achieve the proposed microbial standard (see proposed sections 112.44(c)(1) or 112.44(c)(2)).

The proposed water quality standards and additional microbial die-off or removal options are intended to provide flexibility to allow the agricultural water standards to apply to diverse irrigation and growing conditions while still protecting public health.

Kris Polly: What kind of treatment options does the FDA envision that irrigation districts will use to comply with proposed FSMA standards for water quality? Who will bear the cost of compliance, and how will it be borne?

Produce Safety Team: The originally proposed produce safety rule stipulates that any water treatment (such as with an Environmental Protection Agency–registered antimicrobial pesticide product), when used, must be delivered in a manner to ensure that the treated water is consistently safe and of adequate sanitary quality for its intended use. The proposed rule regulates covered farms, rather than irrigation districts. For detailed information on projected compliance costs, we would refer readers to the Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis at http://www.fda. gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ucm334114.htm.

As I mentioned, the option for treatment of water is a third option that can be used in lieu of following the procedures in sections 112.44(c)(1) or 112.44(c)(2) of the proposed rule.

Irrigation Leader

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Avoiding ‘Slow-Motion Catastrophe’ in Washington’s Columbia Basin

By Gregg Herrington

C

Aquifer—noun. Any geological formation containing or conducting groundwater, especially one that supplies the water for wells, springs, etc.

olumbia Basin Herald, Nov. 7, 2014—“MOSES LAKE - New development in the Columbia Basin Project will allow farmers in the Odessa Subarea aquifer to start replacing ground water irrigation systems with surface water systems. The East Columbia Irrigation District board voted Monday [November 3] to allocate project water for 17,639 acres that currently use ground water.”

The irrigation district’s action was preceded by it and several other agencies jumping myriad permitting and financing hurdles the past 10 years. But it has all led to good news for the future of the Odessa aquifer and the fulfillment of a broader dream that was brought to life in the early 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

That dream, first promoted in 1918, was to take Columbia River water from behind Grand Coulee Dam and irrigate 1.029 million acres, turning Washington’s Columbia Basin into one of the nation’s leading bread baskets.

Partners agree to work cooperatively

It was late 2004 when Washington Governor Gary Locke, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Regional Director Bill McDonald, and the board presidents of Columbia Basin irrigation districts signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to cooperate on a range of actions that would benefit the project and the state of Washington.

“Finding solutions for the Odessa aquifer depletion through replacement with Reclamation’s Columbia Basin Project was one of the largest undertakings set out in the agreement,” wrote Mike Schwisow in the July/August edition of Irrigation Leader. Schwisow is the Columbia Basin Development League’s government affairs director.

The league is a nonprofit advocacy organization established in 1964 to support the development of the Columbia Basin Project.

Relying on unreliable wells

Work on those solutions is underway, thanks to years of cooperation, perseverance, and hard work by hundreds of dedicated people in numerous federal, state, county, and city governments and irrigation districts plus the farmers who now rely on increasingly unreliable wells. Those wells are too deep to be replenished by rain and snow.

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The original feasibility study estimated it would take 75 years to build out the vast network of canals, reservoirs, and pump stations to serve the entire authorized project.

To date, 680,000 acres are getting water from the project.

The Odessa Ground Water Replacement Program has enough water available for 87,000 more acres, which are now irrigated by the wells tapping the Odessa aquifer.

Simply stated, the goal of the Odessa aquifer project is to get as many farms as possible off deep wells now draining that aquifer.

‘A slow-motion catastrophe’

It is an “urgent” goal, said Schwisow. He likened the current status of deep wells tapping the aquifer to “a slowmotion catastrophe. It doesn’t happen all at once, like Boeing closing a big plant.”

But it is happening, he said, and “the solution has always been there—surface water from behind Grand Coulee Dam” delivered to farmers via canals.

Moreover, the Columbia Basin Project’s partners— federal and state governments (legislative bodies and several agencies in each) and the Columbia Basin’s three irrigation districts—have worked since the late 1940s to make the 1918 dream a reality and irrigate all 1.029 million acres.

The East Columbia Basin Irrigation District has already widened 13 miles of the East Low Canal in the project to bring Columbia River water to Odessa aquifer farms. The district will complete the final 31 miles this winter, clearing the way for construction of pumping plants and pipeline systems that will deliver water to the farms.

Gregg Herrington is a former reporter and editor with The Associated Press and The (Vancouver, WA) Columbian. He now lives in East Wenatchee.

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The landowners and stakeholders of the Columbia Basin Development League Thank these companies for their support!

THANK YOU JR Simplot Co Conagra Foods/Lamb Weston Lindsay Corporation Big Bend Electric Cooperative Connell 76 LLC Valley Irrigation key Bank McCain Foods USa Inc McGregor Company Wells Fargo Insurance Services USa Inc ag World Support Systems Bank of america Merrill Lynch Inland Power & Light Co nelson Irrigation Corp Ritzville Warehouse Co./ Odessa Trading Company Twin City Foods Inc Washington Trust Bank

Since 1964, the League has supported Washington state’s Columbia Basin Project and its future development. The League is the only group representing stakeholders to protect Project water rights and educate the public on the renewable resource and multiple-purpose benefits of the Project.

You can help. Join today: www.cbdl.org/join Columbia Basin Development League PO Box 745, Cashmere, WA 98815 PhOne: 509-782-9442 FAx: 509-782-1203 Irrigation Leader

The Rural Water Technology Alliance

By Amy Green

T

wo of the basic challenges that every irrigation and water district face are monitoring and controlling their water delivery systems. Every irrigation and water district wants real-time, remote control of its water delivery systems. In 2004, a nonprofit organization called the Rural Water Technology Alliance (RWTA) was established to develop a technological solution to these challenges. The mission of RWTA is to facilitate the process of enabling irrigation districts to automate and monitor water delivery infrastructure to improve system efficiency and sustainability. RWTA has helped water districts discover funding options for technology acquisition and has provided educational training to promote sustainability.

RWTA grew out of the work of the Provo, Utah, office of the Bureau of Reclamation in the early 2000s, which had developed an affordable software solution, now called ExacTraq, to gather water data for constituent water districts. Two of those districts—the Sevier River Water Users Association and the Emery Water Conservancy District (EWCD)— formed RWTA to maintain ExacTraq and enable smaller districts to benefit from the software. It has since expanded to include the Duchesne County Water Conservancy District. RWTA partners with Reclamation to provide yearly training workshops on ExacTraq and how the software interacts with different types of monitoring hardware.

ExacTraq at Work in the EWCD

Farmers in the EWCD, which spans four river systems, rely on ExacTraq to operate and monitor their reservoirs.

Information is key for these alfalfa and small-grains farmers.

Each of the district’s 1,500 members is able to see exactly

ExacTraq

RWTA members use ExacTraq software, which interacts with a variety of existing hardware systems to bring watermonitoring data into a secure database accessible from multiple platforms. ExacTraq is customized to district needs and uses. It works with most existing data collection and automation packages, including but not limited to, Campbell Scientific LoggerNet networks, U.S. Geological Society RDB files, SNOTEL graphs and text data, and G.E. Proficy systems.

ExacTraq enables districts to gather and visualize hydrological, meteorological, and agricultural data in real time. ExacTraq is a powerful tool that enables district managers and staffers to understand what is happening in their district and operate accordingly. Flow rates, gate heights, soil moisture content, and even webcam monitoring of remote sites can all be tracked through ExacTraq.

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Monitoring site at the Terry Diversion, Sevier River Water Users Association.

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Screen shot of real time camera monitoring available to ExacTraq users.

what is happening in each part of the district in real time; they know when their water was turned on and where it is in the system. District Manager Jay Humphrey has been impressed with the results. “We’ve saved 10 to 20 percent of supply each year because of better management with the ExacTraq system. It has been especially vital during the last couple of years of drought.”

Building on Success

Since RWTA was founded, the three districts have added sites as they have obtained funding through Reclamation programs and grant money. They each currently have over 150 monitoring sites. By working together as an alliance, these districts built a more convincing case for acquiring federal grants than if they had pursued those funds alone.

Monitoring sites cost about $3,000, including equipment and installation. There may be substantially higher costs if a gate actuator or some other type of high-tech equipment must be added; for this reason, the ability to acquire outside funding is critical for smaller districts.

Horseshoe Irrigation is a small rural irrigation company in central Utah, managing around 15,000 water shares for 640 shareholders. Operating with a minimal staff and budget like other small water districts, Horseshoe Irrigation turned to RWTA and ExacTraq to leverage technology in the monitoring and management of water resources.

In the case of Horseshoe Irrigation, a lack of finance, human resources, and infrastructure made it difficult to consider configuring, hosting, and operating its own server. Responding to this need, RWTA researched and

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implemented a simple, cost-effective solution. Horseshoe Irrigation maintains complete control over the configuration of its network, but does not have the overhead or responsibility of purchasing and managing a data collection server. Consequently, it can dedicate more resources where they are really needed—implementing and maintaining data collection endpoints.

From the beginning, RWTA developed its training and software program as a low-cost option for smaller districts that would otherwise not have the financial ability to monitor and control their delivery systems with the latest technologies. RWTA implemented its efforts so that each district could determine and plan around maintenance costs, training the districts to do as much maintenance internally as possible. RWTA’s success flows from that concern for sustainability.

RWTA’s ExacTraq, a web-based application that communicates with various SCADA and data collection systems to make real-time data available online, as well as via voice, text, and other communication methods, displays the data so that everyone knows who is getting what— and where the water is going. According to customers, the ExacTraq software has reduced 90 percent of the contention over water by solving the problems of remote control and monitoring.

Amy Green is the president of the Rural Water Technology Alliance. You can reach Amy at amy@rwta.org.

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Surfing Down the Sevier River

By Roger Hansen

W

hen Jim Walker, Lower Sevier River Commissioner (central Utah), enters his home office, he sits down at his computer and logs onto www.sevierriver.org. This public website provides hourly updates on the status of much of Millard County’s water supply and other environmental conditions.

The system is the work of the Sevier River Water Users Association (association), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and, more recently, the Rural Water Technology Alliance (RWTA).

The association’s monitoring and control system and website have been particularly useful during the recent prolonged basin-wide drought and during flash and prolonged flooding events. According to Mr. Walker, “With the network in place, I can react faster to changing weather and stream-flow conditions, thereby better managing water deliveries. It also lets me see the water that is being released from the Upper Sevier River Basin.”

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Because the website provides for transparency, it has helped build trust between the various canal companies up and down the Sevier River.

Experiences similar to Mr. Walker’s have occurred in the Upper Sevier River Basin. There, Commissioner Ray Owens has been able to not only provide better service to the canal companies but also reduce the number of miles that he has had to travel in his efforts to better manage the upper half of the river.

Basin Background

The Sevier River Basin in central Utah is one of Utah’s major drainages. A closed river basin, it encompasses 12.5 percent of the state’s total area. From the headwater 250 miles south of Salt Lake City, the river flows north and then west 225 river miles before reaching Sevier Lake. Since the beginning of the 20th century, irrigation has depleted the river, and the only flows that reach the terminal lake are occasional floodwaters, like those in 1983 and 1984, and some agriculture return flow.

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The river is heavily regulated by reservoirs and irrigation delivery systems. The three largest water storage facilities in the Sevier River Basin—Otter Creek, Piute, and Sevier Bridge Reservoirs—account for about 75 percent of the total water storage capacity and can store 361,000 acre-feet. The basin has no large federally constructed projects.

Environmental Monitoring Network

The origins of the Sevier River real-time monitoring and control system date back to 1981, when a Utah State University research project demonstrated a low-cost, solarpowered automation system on the head gates of Canal B in the Lower Basin. As a result of this effort, Reclamation installed a modified version in the Upper Basin. The success of these two systems demonstrated the advantages of having more accurate and timelier information and having better control over canal flows.

To fill the need for better water management, the association began a program to monitor water and other environmental conditions throughout the Sevier River Basin. Reclamation agreed to assist with the program by providing financial and technical assistance. The goal was to provide a mechanism to enhance the distribution of the basin’s water supply, while at the same time protecting individual water rights. Since 1989, the monitoring and control system has grown from the original 2 sites to over 100, with more being added every year. Included in their system are stream gauging stations, canal monitoring and control sites, reservoir control sites, and weather stations.

Because the lower Sevier River has salinity issues, water quality stations are planned for the future.

Early data communications for the real-time system were by narrow-band VHF radios. The datalogger/ controllers (remote-terminal units or RTUs), radio modems, radios, and sensors were powered by solar energy systems. Because of equipment evolution and changing association needs, a more complex configuration is sometimes used on major monitoring and control sites.

Communication is sometimes by cellphone to reduce the need for repeaters, and sometimes by spread-spectrum radio to increase the bandwidth and make streaming video surveillance possible. Increasingly, cameras are being integrated into the network.

Operating the real-time monitoring and control system has not always been easy. On occasion, solar panels have been stolen or vandalized, although the problem has not been nearly as serious as originally anticipated. Wireless communication is occasionally difficult. Some of the association’s field sites are located deep in incised canyons.

For this reason, cellphone technologies have proved to be a real asset.

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Since 1993, the base station for the association’s network has evolved substantially. The first unit consisted of a PC running DOS and the datalogger manufacturer’s software. The current base station consists of a muchimproved version of the manufacturer’s software, but instead of running on a PC, it runs on a cloud server. The server connects to the dataloggers via communication equipment located at a datahut in Richfield, Utah.

The Association’s Website

The association’s real-time monitoring system generates a great deal of information, much of it potentially useful to outside organizations. There was a long debate about the best and most efficient method to dispense the data.

At the recommendation of the association’s computer consultant at that time, StoneFly Technology, it was decided to connect the monitoring system dynamically to the association’s website.

In 2001, the first attempt was made at using the association’s website, www.sevierriver.org, to distribute the river basin’s real-time and historic information. The website includes four major sections: reservoirs, rivers, canals, and weather. Each section allows the user to display data in either a graphical or tabular format. A flexible graphing tool generates time-series graphs that may be exported to an Adobe Acrobat PDF file for publicationquality output.

The website is also designed to exchange data

Installing real-time monitoring equipment on a ramp flume near Delta, Utah.

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dynamically with a variety of other websites, including those of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (SNOTEL), the U.S. Geological Survey (stream gauging stations), AgriMet (weather stations), and the National Weather Service. The goal is to provide water managers and others with a comprehensive source of information for the entire Sevier River Basin. The website is the start of creating a virtual river basin—an accurate, realtime representation of the entire Sevier River Basin—on the Internet. It is also the beginning of creating a fully automated river.

Real-time data are provided on the association’s website through the use of ExacTraq software. ExacTraq is a cloud-based software package developed through RWTA to communicate with the various data collection stations (dataloggers) on the Sevier River and collect those data into a centralized, relational database. Because ExacTraq is cloud based, it is always available online and easy to access via any web-connected device (a smartphone-friendly interface increases the software’s utility). Real-time data can be embedded on any website through the use of simple scripts. Additionally, ExacTraq provides an API (Application Programming Interface) that exposes data to automated access and consumption by other systems.

Alerts and warnings can be configured to keep responsible parties apprised of critical situations. For those wishing to access data without going online, ExacTraq can also provide information via a standard telephone dial-in interface.

In addition to the association, ExacTraq software is also being used to meet the automation and real-time data needs of the Duchesne County Water Conservancy District, the Emery Water Conservancy District, and other water organizations.

Field Equipment

The water-level measurement equipment for a monitoring site (with an existing flume and stilling well) is typically a float-and-pulley assembly attached to a potentiometer, a datalogger, and a solar power system.

Then, all that is needed to collect data in real time is some form of real-time communications. The monitoring equipment currently in place in the Sevier River Basin varies in price from $2,000 to $3,500 per site, depending on the datalogger and communication being used. The equipment costs for a solar-powered gate actuator vary greatly. A do-it-yourself model (originally designed

by Reclamation) can cost as little as $3,000 per gate; commercial gate actuators are more expensive. Once a canal gate is automated, the ditch rider or river commissioner can either move the gate remotely or can set a flow target.

With the latter, a constant flow is maintained in the canal automatically.

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Future

By any measure, the Sevier River Basin real-time monitoring and control system and website have been a success, but having a product that is continuously evolving has not always been easy for Walker and Owens and the other system users. It is not uncommon for them to express frustrations with the new improvements. Comments such as, “But we just got used to the old one!” were occasionally heard. Ways to mitigate the impact of a continually evolving product need to be carefully considered, particularly as the rate of technological change continues to increase. Ensuring that new products are backward compatible is always an issue.

As of today, the Sevier River is being managed for flow and storage. But in the future, managing for water quality—particularly salinity in the lower basin—will be a critical consideration. Managing for water quality will be facilitated as better and lower-cost ion-specific and biological sensors are developed.

As automation and new technologies are being developed, the association’s ability to manage its increasingly scarce water resources, new risks begin to emerge. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has recently taken a special interest in these risks by funding research aimed at discovering architectural-level vulnerabilities in cyber-enabled infrastructures such as water management systems. Professor Sean Warnick of Brigham Young University explains, “Our critical infrastructures, such as water management, agricultural systems, or power networks, increasingly demand the efficiencies made possible from Internet technologies.

Designing these system-level technologies so their architectures are robust with respect to various attacks or component failures is the goal of this effort.” This objective is in stark contrast to the design of the Internet, which dealt with security as an afterthought.

Mr. Walker feels that the association has only scratched the surface of the network’s potential. Anticipating a rapidly changing future, the association has joined with the Emery and Duchesne County Water Conservancy Districts to form RWTA. The idea is that together, as a group, they can improve the sustainability of the water networks and have better bargaining power with manufacturers and vendors.

Roger Hansen, PhD, is chief of the Water Automation Group in Reclamation's Provo Area Office Design Group and the principal investigator on several Reclamation-funded research projects dealing with water system automation. You can reach Roger at rhansen@usbr.gov.

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The Utah Water Users Association

By Carly Burton

T

he Utah Water Users Association (UWUA) was formed over 70 years ago in response to a growing need to provide a voice for all water users at the Utah legislature and in the United States Congress.

Association membership is growing in response to the water challenges facing the state of Utah. Over the last 15 years, UWUA participation has doubled to more than 600 members.

The UWUA is the largest active association in Utah. It represents water user entities, including irrigators; municipal users; industry; federal, state, county, and local agencies; and private entities. A 31-member board of directors, a 9-member executive committee, and an executive director manage the UWUA. The purpose of the UWUA is to (1) protect water rights administered under state law, (2) promote the conservation and efficient use of water, (3) provide legislative support, (4) sponsor workshops and seminars related to water issues, (5) provide technical advice to members regarding all water matters, and (6) represent members on national water issues through the National Water Resources Association (NWRA) and other national associations.

One way the UWUA achieves its goals is through lobbying the Utah legislature on water issues. The association educates legislators on the importance of water legislation through its conferences and workshops.

Annual Conferences

The UWUA holds two conferences a year. Our fall conference is called the Utah Water Summit. This year’s Water Summit focused on the future of water development in the state and drew 250 people. The UWUA’s annual Water User’s Workshop in St. George brings together most of Utah’s water community to learn about best practices in water rights, conservation technology, water storage, water quality, and irrigation and municipal water topics.

This year’s workshop in March was extremely successful, bringing in 900 attendees.

Planning for the Future

Utah is the second-driest state in terms of annual precipitation and has one of the fastest-growing populations in the nation. The combination of population growth and persistent lack of precipitation in our state leads to conflicts in water supply and use. The water community is

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challenged to meet those demands and still maintain the other the viable uses.

Understanding the critical role of water in our lives and business, the governor’s office began a sizable effort to develop a course of action to ensure water for this growing population and economy, as well for agriculture, recreation, tourism, and the environment. This effort included eight well-attended public listening meetings around the state.

Those meetings generated more than 800 comments regarding the future of water in Utah.

The effort continues now with the Water Strategy Task Force—a group of stakeholders with interests in all aspects of water. The task force melds the comments received with its own thoughts, experience, and additional public input to develop a course of action on water legislation and planning.

There are multiple UWUA board members on the task force.

Top Issues

Addressing Drought. Five years of significant drought has prompted drastic water conservation and restrictions, affecting everyone in the state of Utah in the following areas: agriculture; municipalities; counties; special service districts; private associations and companies; commercial users (schools, parks, golf courses, churches); and end users.

Funding for Water Storage. Many of Utah’s big districts— Weber Basin, Jordan Valley, Provo River Project, Central Utah—are Bureau of Reclamation projects that were built in the first half of the 20th century. The challenge moving forward is how to maintain these projects—billions of dollars in funding is going to be needed, and there is going to be less and less federal money available.

The solutions to water shortages and management cannot be legislated in all instances. There needs to be more emphasis on making funds available for additional storage facilities through local grants or federal funding of storage infrastructure projects, such as new reclamation facilities.

National Environmental Protection Act. The act’s requirements in many cases override the needs of the public to have sufficient water available. The UWUA advocates for striking a balance for the implementation and management of water resources between environmental concerns and meeting the needs of the people of Utah.

Carly Burton has been with the UWUA since 1975, when, as an employee of the Utah Power and Light Company, he was appointed to the UWUA’s board of directors to represent the industry in Utah. He became executive director in 1998.

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Lewiston, Utah

District Focus

Strawberry Water Users Association

By Jeremy Sorensen

T

he Strawberry Water Users Association (SWUA) has provided much-needed water to citizens in southern Utah County for more than a century. SWUA delivers 71,000 acre-feet of water to more than 40,000 acres near the town of Spanish Fork on the southern Wasatch Front. SWUA also operates three power plants that can generate more than 1,500 kilowatts of power on its water delivery system.

SWUA is home to diverse agricultural production.

Cherries are a key crop grown on land that makes up a large swath of SWUA’s jurisdiction. In fact, Utah is the second-largest cherry-producing state in the nation. As you move farther away from the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, alfalfa, corn, barley, and other grains gain in prominence.

One Hundred Years of Infrastructure Development

The Strawberry Valley Project (SVP) has the distinction of being the first Reclamation project in Utah. Authorized in 1906, the project was and is an engineering marvel. The Wasatch Mountains separate the Strawberry Valley, which is located in the Colorado River Basin, from the dry Bonneville Basin lands surrounding the Spanish Fork River. The solution for a trans-basin delivery was dauntingly simple: a 4‑mile tunnel underneath the Wasatch Range.

The concrete-lined Strawberry Tunnel took six years to complete. Engineers drilled from both sides of the mountains, eventually meeting in the middle

Completed Spanish Fork Diversion structure. Water was turned into the Power Canal on December 13, 1908, and in spring 1909, the gatekeeper’s house (shown on the left) was built.

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in 1912—a mere 6 inches off the projected meeting point. Around the same time, engineers erected the 72‑foot-tall earthen Strawberry Dam to form Strawberry Reservoir, as well as the 17.5‑mile High Line Canal and the 6.75‑mile Mapleton Lateral. In 1916, the U.S. Reclamation Service transferred the operations and maintenance of all 17.5 miles of the High Line Canal to the Strawberry High Line Canal Company and the Springville-Mapleton Lateral to the Springville and Mapleton Districts. Prompted by the Fact Finders Act, the Reclamation Service created SWUA in 1924 to maintain and operate the remaining federal facilities and officially transferred operations in 1926.

When the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project (CUP) came online in the early 1990s, CUP managers wanted to enlarge the Strawberry Reservoir.

So SWUA entered into an agreement with CUP to transfer operations and maintenance of the enlarged reservoir to CUP, which now delivers the water to us. The Strawberry Tunnel was replaced by the Syar Tunnel in 1996, which, like the Strawberry, was also dug out from opposite sides of the Wasatch Range. In constructing the tunnel, however, modern engineers missed their mark by 20 feet instead of 6 inches.

SWUA now serves as middle man and recordkeeper for all of the entities involved in bringing water to south Utah County from Strawberry Reservoir. The association currently operates and maintains 6 miles of canal.

Design of the SWUA Board

SWUA has 16 board members, each representing a district of 3,000 to 5,000 shareholders with one share

Strawberry Tunnel west portal structure and weir (1913). Water was first released into the tunnel on September 13, 1913.

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The Spanish Fork Diversion today.

equaling 1 acre-foot of water. The large number of board members ensures that the shareholders are adequately represented in a district.

Each board member is a leader in his or her respective area and brings a great deal of experience to the table.

The challenge, and benefit, of the large size of the SWUA board is having 16 unique opinions in the association’s decisionmaking process. The SWUA board structure channels all of those opinions through board committees of 4 or 5 members each. The committees make recommendations to the board as a whole.

Challenges

Aging Infrastructure. As you might imagine with respect to the oldest reclamation project in the state of Utah, aging infrastructure is a significant challenge. For example, the High Line Canal, which is almost 100 years old and falls within the High Line Canal Company’s jurisdiction, requires replacement. One way in which SWUA has addressed this challenge is through a dedicated infrastructure grant program. When CUP took over Strawberry Reservoir operations in 1991, SWUA received $15 million. While $6 million of those funds went to taxes, the remainder was used to fund an infrastructure improvement program.

The grant program is a vehicle to distribute funds to the ditch companies to help improve their systems. Many of the projects funded involve relining ditches and putting open laterals into pipelines. SWUA has spent more than $9 million on these types of projects and still holds $9 million in the account.

Encroachment. SWUA boundaries are situated 50 miles south of Salt Lake City. The growth of cities and towns on the Wasatch Front has created a growing demand for the delivery of SVP water. However, there are legal limitations on the purposes for which SVP water may be used—our water is classified as agricultural use only.

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SWUA believes in the old footnote 6—anything green can be irrigated with agricultural water. SWUA works to ensure that the irrigator can use the water and that it is used in accordance with the law. Approximately half of the original U.S. SVP contracts specifically described parcels to be “irrigated” with SVP water that were smaller than 10 acres. For virtually a century, our understanding, and Reclamation’s practice, was reflected in the following statement in a 1994 letter from the Reclamation Provo Area office manager: “When SVP was authorized small lot gardens, etc., were legitimate uses of irrigation water.”

Written Reclamation policy interpreting Reclamation law has long said that uses of Reclamation water on the same lands, without treatment, is not a “transfer” or a “conversion,” even if the water is used for the type of irrigation that reflects development.

To that end, SWUA partners work hand in hand with the local Reclamation office within the legal limitations.

SWUA uses water dedication agreements, under which property owners own the water, but they have assigned all of their rights to water to a local municipality. The city or irrigation company pays the bill, and the owner assigns the rights. Under these agreements, the city still has to deliver water through its system to the specific lot of the property owner.

Jeremy Sorensen started with SWUA as an accountant in 2006.

He became general manager in 2011. Jeremy has a strong familial connection to the association—his wife’s ancestors were some of SWUA’s first board members, and his father and grandfather served on the board.

He can be reached at (801) 465‑9273 or Jeremy@strawberrywater.com.

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Irrigated Crops

Great Basin Alfalfa

C

lyde Bunker has been farming the soils of the Sevier Desert in Central Utah for 45 years.

The farmers around Delta, Utah, were earlier adopters of laser-leveling technology, bringing the growth of alfalfa hay and the dairy industry to the area. With an average elevation of 4,600 feet, the region’s growing season runs 180 days, from mid-May to mid-October, and farmers can generally get three to four cuttings of alfalfa a year. And while farming arid stretches of the Great Basin can prove challenging, Mr. Bunker and his peers have produced impressive results—Utah is 11th in the nation in alfalfa hay production.

Mr. Bunker grew up farming with his father and brothers. And since 1981, when he struck out on his own, he has been growing alfalfa and rotating in corn, wheat, and barley. He now farms 1,500 acres of what was once the floor of the ancient Lake Bonneville with his two sons, Brett and Kristopher.

Throughout the course of his career, Mr. Bunker has tapped into national and international markets.

For many years, he shipped cubed alfalfa hay to a Japanese buyer via Long Beach harbor. In the 1990s, he transitioned to a mix of cubed and baled hay and starting selling to a dairy in Fresno, California. That evolved into an operation of baled hay exclusively.

After the retirement of the dairy in Fresno, the hay now goes to a dairy in Bakersfield, California.

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Cubing Alfalfa

Cubing alfalfa hay requires extremely dry climates to control moisture content. The process is slow— requiring the addition of a small amount of moisture prior to putting the hay into cuber—but it is very good for freight rates. However, with the advent of double compressors for hay bales, field cubers went by the wayside.

Mr. Bunker started cubing hay with his father and brothers in the mid-1970s, and continued the practice for his customers in Japan. Now his sons, Brett and Kristopher, bale all his alfalfa. That is a salient point for Mr. Bunker. “I don’t even know how to make a bale; I intend to quit before I ever run the baler.”

Watering the Desert

Central Utah has low humidity and cool nights, with summer temperatures ranging from the mid50s at night to the 100s during the day. Delta-area growers are on the tail end of the Sevier River and depend heavily on return flows—their water is used up to 13 times prior to reaching them. Consequently, the water is extremely salty, and farmers flood irrigate their crops to keep the salt leached out of the soil.

The Sevier River starts in southern Utah above Cedar City and runs more than 380 miles north, draining into the intermittent Sevier Lake. According to Mr. Bunker, state officials have claimed that Irrigation Leader

water use on the Sevier River is 97 percent efficient.

The only water not used is drain water that too salty for consumption. Any increases in efficiency will impact return flows and the ability of growers to keep salt out of the root zone. Efficiency may actually destroy crops.

While there are multiple irrigation and drainage districts in the delta area, all of Mr. Bunker’s farms are close enough to the Sevier River, which is lower than the fields, to create natural drainage for his farms. He also owns irrigation wells to pump groundwater into his ditch and mix with his surface water to improve irrigation water quality. Despite the desert conditions, Mr. Bunker is fortunate to have bought farms with adequate water supplies in a normal year.

Changes in the Industry

Over a lifetime of growing alfalfa hay, Clyde Bunker has seen significant increases in the sheer size and volume of the inputs that his equipment can handle. “When I started, fertility was not an issue to most of the farmers in our area. You would put some manure on, and take what Mother Nature gave you. Now we do full-year soil and foliar testing to determine what the plant actually needs, not what the ground says it needs.” For Mr. Bunker, nutrient applications are more intent and intense than ever before, and consequently, production has gone up.

Ironically, part of Mr. Bunker’s success is attributable to time-tested natural selection—he has been working with a pre–World War II variety of alfalfa hay that has been naturally mutating on his fields. “Only the strong plants survive, and those are the ones from which I select the seeds. ” “If our alfalfa had to meet its parents, they wouldn’t recognize him.”

Clyde Bunker is an alfalfa farmer in central Utah. He was appointed by Utah’s governor to the Utah Water Quality Board, which guides the development of water quality policy and regulations within the state. You can reach Clyde at hay4u2@frontiernet.net.

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Clyde and his wife at the recontsruction of the Yuba Dam Reservoir, the Delta area's main reservoir. It has only been drained twice in the past 100 years.

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Irrigation Leader

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

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

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

CLASSIFIED LISTINGS FARMERS IRRIGATION DISTRICT FARMERS IRRIGATION DISTRICT has opening for Supervisor with a crew of 6. Seeking qualified applicant with experience in canal & lateral operation and maintenance, water measurements, construction & pipeline installation, record keeping, heavy equipment operation; communication, motivational, and delegation skills. Clean driving record. Drug test required. Must live in Bayard, western Nebraska area, a community of about 1300 population, 20 miles from twin cities of Scottsbluff/Gering, Nebraska.

Generous benefit pkg. Salary commensurate with experience.

Farmers Irrigation is a district servicing approximately 55,000 acres along a 75 mile canal system in western Nebraska, with three divisions, each with a shop location, supervisor and 5-7 employees, with headquarters in Scottsbluff. Submit letter and resume to Farmers Irrigation District, 1505 2nd Avenue, Scottsbluff, NE 69361or fax to 308-632-5085.

For further information, please call 308-632-4921.

Application deadline Dec 20.

Ditch Rider Position Available on the Upper Hanover Canal.

Applications may be picked up at 725 Big Horn Avenue, Worland WY 82401 or by calling the Upper Hanover Irrigation District at 307-347-3134. Competitive Wage!

E.O.E.

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

waterstrategies.com

ProductS & ServiceS Guide

Volume 1 Issue 2

Fall 2014

Keith Denos: Provo Irrigators Benefit from Canal Enclosure Project Targeting Challenges of Urbanization

ProductS & Services Guide Since our debut issue of Irrigation Leader magazine in October 2010, we have followed a simple rule with regard to advertising: We only advertise those projects and service that are already being used by an irrigation district or water-providing entity. Our readers appreciate this standard, and our advertisers have greatly benefited. We have learned that it is important for irrigation districts and water-providing entities to know that others are using a product or service they are considering purchasing.

The Irrigation Leader Products & Services Guide provides an easily accessible, visual listing of those products and services that are used by irrigation districts and water-providing entities today.

38

Irrigation Leader

3RD ANNUAL

IRRIGATION LEADER OPERATIONS and MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP Sponsored by Irrigation Leader Magazine

Phoenix, Arizona | February 4-5, 2015 IRRIGATION LEADER magazine is sponsoring the 3RD Annual Operations and Management Workshop with a theme of “Reducing Costs/Investing Wisely.” The purpose of the workshop is to provide an opportunity for General Managers and Directors of irrigation districts to discuss and exchange information on a variety of district operational and management-related issues, build out-of-state working relationships, and learn from their peers. The issues and topics will be selected by general managers and board directors and will pertain directly to the management and improvement of irrigation districts. Discussions will feature case studies with general managers sharing their experiences alongside product or service vendors who were directly involved.

TENTATIVE AGENDA WEDNESDAY, February 4 1:00 pm Obamacare Requirements: Options for Irrigation Districts and Water Agencies 2:00 am Wellness Programs to Reduce Medical Expenses 3:00 pm Break 3:30 pm Boosting Employee Morale with Positive Reinforcement 5:00 pm Hosted reception THURSDAY, February 5 8:00 am Reducing Risk/Insurance Costs 9:00 am Canal Safety Programs 10:00 am Break 10:30 am Buying Pipe -- Lessons Learned 12:00 pm Lunch provided 1:30 pm Financing Major Projects: Bonds, Grants, and Assessments 3:00 pm Break 3:30 pm Open Forum Topics Include: • Enforcing right-of-ways • District drug policies in states with legalized marijuana • Manager succession plans 5:00 pm Hosted reception ONLINE REGISTRATION: Registration for the Operations and Management Workshop is located at www.

WaterStrategies.com. Please complete and submit the online form as soon as possible as space will be limited.

Should you have a particular topic you would like discussed during the Open Forum at the meeting, please add it to the registration form in the space provided. Should you have other ideas for the workshop, please share those as well. Updates of the agenda will be provided as registrations are received.

HOTEL RESERVATIONS: We have reserved a block of rooms at the Radisson Phoenix Airport Hotel located at 427 N. 44th Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85008. This hotel is ranked on www.tripadvisor.com as #14 of 174 hotels in Phoenix.

455 or 88% of the 519 reviews rank this hotel as excellent or very good. The hotel has availability at $141.00 per night plus tax. This rate includes full buffet breakfast, complimentary airport shuttle service, complimentary Internet service, and free parking. To make your reservations, please call (800) 333-3333 or (602) 220-4400 no later than Friday, January 16.

Please tell the agent that you are attending the Irrigation Leader Workshop to obtain this special rate.

QUESTIONS: Please contact Kris Polly by phoning (703) 517-3962 or by e-mailing Kris.Polly@WaterStrategies.com.

Thank you for your time. We hope to see you in Phoenix.

2014 CALENDAR

December 2–5

Assn. of California Water Agencies, Fall Conference & Exhibition, San Diego, CA

December 3–5

North Dakota Water Convention and Irrigation Workshop, Bismarck, ND

December 3–5

Washington State Water Resources Assn., Annual Conference, Spokane, WA

December 10–12

Colorado River Water Users Assn., Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV

January 6–8, 2015

Groundwater Management District Assn., Annual Meeting, Scottsdale, AZ

January 14–16, 2015

Four States Irrigation Council, Annual Meeting, Fort Collins, CO

January 13–14, 2015

National Water Resources Assn., Leadership Forum, Las Vegas, NV

January 20–22, 2015

Idaho Water Users Assn., Annual Convention, Boise, ID

January 28–30, 2015

Colorado Water Congress, Annual Convention, Denver, CO

February 3–5, 2015

Texas Water Conservation Assn., Texas Water Day, Washington, DC

February 4–5, 2015

Irrigation Leader, Annual Operations Management Workshop, Phoenix, AZ

February 19–20, 2015 Multi–State Salinity Coalition, Annual Salinity Summit, Las Vegas, NV February 19–20, 2015 Family Farm Alliance, Annual Meeting & Conference, Las Vegas, NV February 25–26, 2015 Assn. of California Water Agencies, Washington Conference, Washington, DC For more information on advertising in Irrigation Leader magazine, or if you would like a water event listed here, please phone (703) 517-3962 or e-mail Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

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

Past issues of Irrigation Leader are archived at

www.WaterAndPowerReport.com