Irrigation Leader May/June 2019

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 5

may/June 2019

Shane Leonard of RWCD: Saving Money Through Public Outreach

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CONTENTS MAY/JUNE 2019 Volume 10 Issue 5

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

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

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

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

6

Roosevelt Water Conservation District: Saving Money Through Public Outreach

5 Public Outreach for Irrigation Districts

By Kris Polly 6 Roosevelt Water Conservation District: Saving Money Through Public Outreach 12 Most Crop Per Drop: The Arkansas Irrigation Yield Contest 18 Kennewick Irrigation District’s Customer Service Strategy

24 Naches-Selah’s Outreach to Local Schools 30 How Agri-Inject Invites the Public In 32 Why Your Irrigation District Needs a Media Plan 38 Classifieds BUSINESS LEADER DISTRICT PROFILE ASSOCIATION PROFILE

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

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

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

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

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

4 | IRRIGATION LEADER

irrigationleadermagazine.com

COVER PHOTO: Shane Leonard, General Manager at RWCD. Photo courtesy of RWCD.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RWCD.

Coming soon in Irrigation Leader: July: Financing Water Projects August: Arizona

@IrrigationLeadr

Public Outreach for Irrigation Districts

By Kris Polly

P

ublic outreach is a must for irrigation districts. By getting to know ratepayers and community members, educating them, and solving their problems, an irrigation district can save time and money, gain goodwill, and even find new employees. In this month’s Irrigation Leader, we talk with managers, public relations staff, scientists, and communications professionals about how districts can boost their public outreach efforts.

In our cover story, we interview Shane Leonard, Simon Wallace, and Allison Brague of Arizona’s Roosevelt Water Conservation District. By hiring Mr. Wallace and Ms. Brague to create his customer service department, Mr. Leonard was able to better address customer concerns— but perhaps more surprisingly, he saved money. The district has succeeded in reducing repetitive calls, educating new customers, and keeping ratepayers informed via social media.

We also speak with Dr. Chris Henry of the University of Arkansas. Dr. Henry and his colleagues realized that they could get farmers excited about their irrigation water management research by establishing a contest in which farmers competed to produce the most crop with the least amount of water. This unique public outreach strategy garnered interesting results on the application of water saving techniques.

Dana Hernandez of Kennewick Irrigation District (KID) tells us about her district’s community outreach events,

which allow customers to ask about water delivery and billing. KID also does after-school presentations at local schools. Justin Harter, the general manager of the NachesSelah Irrigation District, also does twice-a-year in-class presentations to local seventh graders. Colorado-based chemigation company Agri-Inject also presents to local students—but in this case, by bringing them into the factory for tours and presentations.

Finally, we speak with communications professional Keith Yaskin about why irrigation districts need a media plan. As Mr. Yaskin explains, the time to think about how your agency will respond during a crisis is now—not when it happens.

It is clear that public outreach is of crucial importance for irrigation districts. This issue of Irrigation Leader brings together such a variety of perspectives that I am sure that even districts with a well-developed outreach program will find something new to consider. IL Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Roosevelt Water Conservation District: Saving Money Through Public Outreach The Phoenix skyline.

T

he Roosevelt Water Conservation District (RWCD) has been serving local farmers, urban irrigators, and other central Arizona water users for almost a century.

Located on the eastern edge of the Phoenix metro area in Maricopa County, its 40,000-acre service area overlaps with the quickly growing cities of Mesa and Chandler and the town of Gilbert, meaning that it is acquiring many new customers that have limited experience with and knowledge of irrigation. To communicate with and educate its new customers, RWCD has hired several new staff, including Simon Wallace, its neighborhood liaison supervisor, and Allison Brague, its public and media relations coordinator.

In this interview, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Brague join RWCD General Manager Shane M. Leonard to speak with Kris Polly, editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader, about RWCD’s public outreach and how it has saved the district both time and money.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about how public outreach has helped RWCD save money.

6 | IRRIGATION LEADER

PHOTO COURTESY OF ADOBE STOCK.

Shane M. Leonard: About 3 years ago, I realized that our front office and a good portion of my administrative staff were increasingly being called away from their normally assigned duties by customer complaints. In addition, we realized that although we had folks in the field who were knowledgeable about delivering water, including zanjeros, lead zanjeros, and schedulers, we didn’t have anyone specifically dedicated to addressing customer issues and complaints. That issue has become more critical as an overall measure of success as our district urbanizes. When it was a primarily agricultural entity, RWCD had 400–500 users who

typically knew what they were doing with their water and could solve most of their own problems. When we picked up 2,000 new customers in less than 7 years, we fell behind on customer service, and we have spent the next decade playing catch-up.

Roughly 5 years ago, I sat down with my staff to review a year’s worth of field reports. At that time, we were generating about 2,000 field reports a year. Everything RWCD does from an operational standpoint—water deliveries, system maintenance, etc.—is catalogued through a field report. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, the field report is catalogued and goes into a searchable database. If a field report occurs when something anomalous happens—a low head call, a no head call, or even a car in the canal—the field report is directed up the chain of command to the appropriate level for resolution.

During this review, we ascribed a low, medium, or high level of importance to each field report and then assigned a time value to each outcome. We found that, particularly with medium- or high-importance field reports, as soon as the initial call came in, we were never going to get anywhere close to recapturing the stranded costs of resolving the issue over an appropriate timeline.

After reviewing the results of the study and talking with my staff, customers, and RWCD’s board of directors, I decided to set the goals of reducing the number of medium- and high-level customer-related field reports by 50 percent over the subsequent 3 years and reducing the total amount of staff time spent resolving them by 35 percent. The members of my board were supportive of these goals, but as the businessmen and businesswomen

they are, they directed that these activities would have to be done within the confines of our existing budget.

I recognized the need to bring someone into the organization whose primary skill set did not focus on water operations, but on customer service. Almost immediately, I had someone in mind. There was a gentleman named Simon Wallace working at the gun shop I frequented whose customer service approach was always impressive.

A lot of interesting folks come into an Arizona gun shop, and I watched how he interacted with them and handled and deescalated situations, and more importantly, how he treated everyone with respect. Long story short, he agreed to come to work for the district before I even had a title for the position. I just knew we needed him, even though his experience with water was pretty much nil.

As I mentioned previously, one of our goals was to reduce the total amount of staff time (and the associated salary cost) spent resolving serious field reports by 35 percent over a 3-year period. With the addition of Simon to our team, and with a much more extensive involvement of our customers in resolving these issues, we not only achieved our desired goal within the first year, but we realized an approximately 65 percent reduction in the number of customer calls and an 80 percent reduction in the number of repetitive calls regarding the same problem.

Instead of calling the office, these customers were calling Simon. Within the first year of implementation, the staff time and cost savings were not only paying for Simon’s position, but they reduced our overall salary line item budget by approximately 12 percent relative to the previous year’s overtime costs. Perhaps an even better result was that our customer satisfaction measures increased dramatically as well.

Seeing the results, the board’s somewhat reluctant approval of this plan turned into an open-armed embrace, so much so that it agreed that we needed more than one person in the position. We also started to realize that while Simon was doing an excellent job handling the infield issues, the district was still running up against a wall with our public outreach efforts, particularly on social media.

For example, we had been trying to set up meetings in all of our irrigated neighborhoods to address local issues and to better inform our customers about RWCD, but after about a year, we realized we were not achieving our desired results. Some of the feedback we were getting from these meetings was that they were too technical; that we were not specifically addressing the neighborhood’s concerns; and most importantly, that almost no information about RWCD was available online. As others might suspect, water managers, attorneys, and engineers aren’t always the best people to present solutions to a relatively uninformed public.

Much as in the case of Simon, I began to focus on the efforts of a person I knew from outside my immediate professional sphere—in this case, someone I met

volunteering in my kids’ school district. Allison Brague is a realtor by trade and a tireless advocate for the school district, and she knew how to use various social media platforms to engage the public on important issues. Like Simon, she knew very little about irrigation. Rather than being a hindrance, Allison’s relative inexperience helped us better understand how to best get information regarding RWCD to the public for the simple reason that she made us explain it to her in terms she could understand.

We now have two liaisons (and are in the process of hiring a third). With the addition of Allison, we have an entire department within RWCD devoted to addressing customer service. These positions were added without increasing our line item for salaries over the past 2 years.

Kris Polly: Simon, please tell us about your experience at RWCD. Simon Wallace: I have been with RWCD for 2½ years.

When I first started coming to grips with the task at hand, I quickly discovered that there were several repeat callers who were consistently taking large amounts of the time of our zanjeros, lead zanjeros, schedulers, and office staff, either with phone calls or field visits. I collected all the information I could about why these people were calling, and while some had perfectly valid concerns and issues, it was less clear why others were contacting the district.

I began methodically working through these callers and either helping them solve their problems, redirecting their concerns to the proper staff member, or helping them to understand that their issues were not necessarily the responsibility of the district. Many callers simply wanted to vent about repetitive neighborhood issues. Helping solve these issues, putting customers in contact with each other, or helping to mediate communications quickly reduced the number of these calls.

Next, I focused on the district’s new customers. Previously they were mostly left to figure things out for themselves, often by trial and error. By offering educational assistance early on, I could explain their responsibilities and the boundaries between RWCD-operated property and the neighborhood-owned, neighborhood-operated system.

Meeting customers in their neighborhoods, walking their systems, making sure they knew what to do to get water to their properties, and setting them off on the right foot greatly reduced the number of calls and call-outs during their initial irrigation runs.

After that, I worked on reviewing individual customers’ situations whenever I got the chance. When responding to a low head call, a flood, or a neighborhood concern, I would often discover other issues that needed to be addressed. If I could help customers figure out these issues themselves, they would rely less heavily on the district. I took these opportunities to remind customers of their responsibilities, to share information learned about the neighborhood system, IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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to advise them on maintenance, and to recommend internal neighborhood communication. This also reduced the number of concerns bought directly to RWCD. Currently, I work mostly at the neighborhood level.

I review neighborhood irrigation systems and the most common issues they experience. Via group email, I encourage the neighborhoods to consider the actions necessary to keep their systems up and running. Often, there are customers who are already spearheading much of their neighborhood’s system maintenance. I can assist these customers by sharing information on their behalf.

Kris Polly: What is the most common question you get from new customers?

Simon Wallace: The most common question I receive from new customers concerns ownership and responsibilities.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there as to who owns and operates what. I clearly define the boundaries of RWCD-owned, RWCD-operated irrigation systems and those of the neighborhoods. A lot of confusion can be dispelled by explaining to the customers who owns and operates which systems and who is responsible for setting gates, directing water, cleaning ditches, and maintaining infrastructure. Once responsibilities are clearly outlined, I find that customers are much more willing to assume them.

Kris Polly: Do you reach out proactively to spread that information?

Simon Wallace: Yes. We communicate in person, via phone, by written notices sent by mail, by email, or at neighborhood sign-up box locations. We communicate at the individual customer level, the neighborhood level, and the district level.

The individual level is the most basic. We visit neighborhoods during their irrigation runs to make sure everything is running as intended, and we take the opportunity to stop and talk with any customers we can.

This is a great way to learn and to share information.

We encourage our customers to communicate among themselves; many these days are hesitant to do so. The results can be amazing. Sometimes the whole neighborhood comes together over an irrigation issue or system cleanup.

I send out group emails to neighborhood irrigation boards regarding current issues and maintenance. This not only increases general neighborhood awareness, but often it brings out those within the neighborhoods who are more socially inclined and willing to start up internal avenues of communication, whether via phone, e-mail, or social media.

Such communication greatly increases a neighborhood’s levels of customer participation and makes it much more self-sufficient.

On a district level, we are currently renovating our website. In the future, we want to be able to direct people there for any information they may require.

8 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Kris Polly: Allison, please tell us about your work.

Allison Brague: I have been with the district for just about a year now. Like Shane said, I didn’t previously know much about irrigation, particularly on this scale. Although I’ve lived in the East Valley for 25 years, either within or close to the RWCD service area, I had no idea that its canals existed, and I didn’t know anything about flood irrigation.

Learning about it has been interesting. That learning process has informed how I post on our social media accounts.

Our job on social media is to educate and provide value and eventually to drive everyone back to our website. Many of our customers only encounter RWCD when they first open an account, during a complaint, or when they look at their tax bill. My job is to show them what RWCD does, the value of that, and why it is worth it to know more about the district.

With social media, I can see what people like and what they don’t like. I was teasing my colleagues here at RWCD that if I post one more article about the drought contingency plan, I’m going to lose my entire viewership.

While it is an important issue, many people don’t pay attention to it. Other things are shared more. I also listen to what Simon is hearing in the field, and what calls are coming into the front desk. That has provided a lot of content for me.

Our social media accounts are not yet where they need to be. For example, while we have about 2,300 customers who order water and pay their bills online, and about 500 more who come into the main office on a regular basis, we only have about 250 followers on Facebook. With that in mind, I am constantly refining what we are posting and how often we post to attract more of our existing customer base.

Our irrigated neighborhoods often have their own private social media groups. If I can get access to those groups and provide content for them, RWCD can reach and educate more people. People are interested in posts that are hyper-focused on seasonal information and events that are happening right now. Posts about what you should do when you encounter a rattlesnake or a coyote or how to deal with bees are popular this time of year. One of our most popular posts was about a lost dog that was rescued from one of our canals. The post about us assisting in rescuing the dog received 26,000 views and over 240 shares. Not only did we get more engagement on that post than we ever have on a direct irrigation post, the owner of the dog ended up getting it back because somebody had seen our post and shared it with her. That tells you that when we do post, people are watching. It shows how much reach we can have if the topic is important to our viewing public. If you want to view that post, you can see it on our Facebook page!

Kris Polly: I think that’s genius. You’re providing a real service to folks.

An RWCD social media posting helped this dog get back to its owner.

Allison Brague: Like a lot of other urbanizing districts, we have realized that we probably need a website that has a little more zest to it. Our new website is being built now. I sat in on a meeting with the web designer and our engineer—it helps to have someone like me who isn’t completely tech savvy to provide input on whether the website is userfriendly. In this day and age, people use their phones to access information, and they expect to find what they are looking for within a few clicks. If they can’t, they’re irritated.

Shane M. Leonard: With Allison and Simon’s input, we’re focusing on the mobile features first, and then backstopping them with the website. That’s what people want.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RWCD.

Kris Polly: What has been your experience delivering unwelcome news regarding rate increases?

Allison Brague: Oftentimes, management is afraid to talk about things like rate increases. Managers don’t know how customers are going to respond. Before we increased our rates, we sat down and had a meeting about how the increases would happen and what kind of pushback we might receive. We posted about our rate increases prior to their introduction, and we posted three more times after they went into effect. I think we had a total of two calls from people questioning them. I think that was surprising to management. The managers expected the increases to be more of a problem. In general, people just want to know about these things, and social media is good a way of informing them and avoiding unwelcome surprises.

The construction of our new headquarters also threatened to be a touchy subject. We didn’t want to look like we were spending too much money on it, but we have been in our old

location for 100 years and needed a new building. We posted around six times about our new headquarters, and we’ve only had one negative response. I think that as management sees that lack of a negative response, it is more confident in putting out real, transparent information about the district.

Shane M. Leonard: Very often I am asked for any words of caution regarding a public outreach program on this scale.

As you increase public outreach, you need to do it in a managed, focused, and legal manner. There are things that might seem appropriate for public consumption that really are not, particularly as they relate to matters of privacy and potential litigation. That is why it is imperative you have an active, engaged, and trusted group of people involved in your outreach program. IL

Shane M. Leonard is general manager of the Roosevelt Water Conservation District. He can be contacted at s.leonard@rwcd.net. Simon Wallace is RWCD’s neighborhood liaison supervisor. He can be contacted at s.wallace@rwcd.net. Allison Brague is RWCD’s public and media relations coordinator. She can be contacted at a.brague@rwcd.net. For more information about RWCD, please visit rwcd.net or call (480) 988-9586.

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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MOST CROP PER DROP: THE ARKANSAS IRRIGATION YIELD CONTEST Multiple-inlet rice irrigation in action.

M

ost farmers are familiar with contests in which participants try to achieve the maximum yield of a crop from a given field. Fewer would be familiar with a contest in which participants’ total crop yield is divided by the amount of water they use—thus measuring their water use efficiency. That’s the kind of contest that Dr. Chris Henry and his colleagues at the University of Arkansas sponsored for the first time in 2018. Building on the success of a 5-year on-farm demonstration program, they developed the Arkansas Irrigation Yield Contest to harness farmers’ ingenuity and competitive instincts in order to increase water use efficiency.

In this interview with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill, Dr. Henry discusses the genesis of the Arkansas Irrigation Yield Contest, its results, and the lessons learned from the contest’s first year of operation.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you ended up in your current position.

12 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: How did the idea for the irrigation yield contest emerge?

Chris Henry: My colleague in Mississippi, Dr. Jason Krutz, and I had started programs where we demonstrated irrigation water management (IWM) practices on farms using a paired-field comparison. These tracked two fields: a field managed with IWM practices and a control field managed by a farmer. We were able to document that IWM practices could achieve a reduction in water use of about 24–27 percent—about 2½ acre-inches of water savings.

However, paired-field comparisons had their downsides.

One of the challenges was that during the course of the demonstration itself, the farmers would begin to schedule irrigation on the control field using techniques and technologies they observed us using on the IWM field, like soil-moisture sensors. In addition, the motivation to do a paired comparison is not always strong with farmers, because they see it as a test. Even if we are able to demonstrate that our techniques result in significant water

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRIS HENRY.

Chris Henry: I grew up on a farm in Kansas and obtained my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biological and agricultural engineering at Kansas State University. Then I went to the University of Nebraska and worked there as an extension engineer. While I was there, I spent 10 months in Australia as a Fulbright scholar. I worked on my PhD while I was a full-time employee and finished

in 2011. Then I came to Arkansas and have been here for 6 years. I’m an associate professor and water management engineer with the University of Arkansas at the Rice Research and Extension Center.

savings or a big yield improvement, it may not be enough to make them consider making a change. There is a perception that implementing IWM may cut into profits because of yield drag or because of additional equipment costs.

We wanted to find a program that would reward and recognize farmers for excelling in the implementation of IWM. The contest approach provides a mechanism to recognize hard work and ingenuity. We hoped that it would also tap into farmers’ competitive instinct. We also wanted to establish a reward for being the best out there—a big prize. So we went out and accumulated about $20,000 in prizes for each of our three categories. The irrigation industry really stepped up to support this effort.

Joshua Dill: How is this contest different from other yield contests that farmers might be familiar with?

Chris Henry: Commodity-based yield contests are popular. There is the National Corn Growers Association’s yield contest; the California Rice Yield Contest; and, in Arkansas, the Go for the Green Soybean Yield Contest. These operate on the basis of maximum yield—maximum bushels per acre. The growers enter a field and are required to harvest a portion of it, usually between 11/4 and 5 acres, with a supervisor present to witness the yield.

We used a similar concept, but in our contest, the winner is not the person with the greatest overall yield, but the person with the greatest yield per amount of water on the field—the person who gets the most crop per drop. We track rain using precipitation models and measure the amount of irrigation water that is applied to the field, and then calculate the farmers’ water use efficiency by dividing the yield by the amount of water on the field. The farmer with the best water use efficiency wins.

There is a winner for each of the three

commodities that have supported the contest: corn, rice, and soybeans.

Participants must have a flow meter that we know is accurate.

Arkansas is a mainly surface-irrigated state, so we use portable propeller meters manufactured by McCrometer in Hemet, California. We have come up with a tamper-proof method of attaching and sealing the flow meters and universal hydrants to the alfalfa valve, so we can guarantee that they measure all the irrigation water applied. We also spent a lot of time writing rules to make sure that we could ensure the accuracy and validity of our measurements. I have great program associates, Greg Simpson and Dustin Pickelmann, who make sure that the contest, as well as our research and extension programs, are well implemented. They took care of most of the meter sealing, the setup with IWM tools, and the yield checks. Almost every contestant got help from their local county extension agent or an NRCS technician, so there was considerable involvement at the local level. The contestants and supervisors all had the opportunity to learn and experiment together.

Joshua Dill: This was your first year.

What were the biggest challenges you faced?

Chris Henry: We had a lot of challenges. One challenge was making sure we could guarantee that the meters would not be tampered with. The second challenge was deciding how to handle rainfall. We use National Weather Service models to predict rainfall rather than relying on onsite rain gauges.

Also, we needed a substantial prize. We thought we needed at least $10,000. We had strong support from the Arkansas Corn and Grain Sorghum Promotion Board and the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board; they donated $10,000 each.

The industry strongly supported the effort as well. The first company to commit to supporting the contest

was McCrometer, which donated portable flow meters for each winner.

Ricetech donated a seed tote valued at over $10,000 for the prize of the rice contest. We also received commitments from P&R Surge and Triad Fastener for surge valves and controllers for each of the winners.

Irrometer donated sensors, hardware, and cash for each winner. Delta Plastics donated cash. Trellis donated a sensor array, a wireless node, and a gateway for each winner. In total, each winner will receive over $20,000 in cash and products.

Joshua Dill: Did you see the participants taking different approaches?

Chris Henry: Yes. I think the water management element was harder than some participants expected. The farmers tried a variety of approaches, including some we didn’t even think about. We expected many to use computerized hole selection, surge irrigation, and soil-moisture sensors. Many of them did; some of them didn’t. In the rice contest, most farmers used multiple-inlet rice irrigation and alternate wetting and drying. About half the fields were furrow irrigated; the other half used alternate wetting and drying. Furrow irrigation is a production system for rice that has become more popular in recent years. It was interesting that people used the furrow-irrigated riceproduction system rather than the conventional flood-levee system to try to win the contest. There was no real difference between the results of the two systems, which is surprising because less than 10 percent of the acres of rice in Arkansas are furrow irrigated.

The soybean grower who won the contest yielded over 100 bushels an acre, which is a pretty impressive yield for soybeans under any circumstances.

That was a surprise to us: All the yields were respectable, in line with what a normal yield contest with unlimited water would produce. For IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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From left to right: Chris Henry; Robert Goodson, a Phillips County ag agent and a supervisor for the contest; Michael Taylor, the winner of the contest in the soybean category; and two Taylor Farm employees.

example, Arkansas’s Go for the Green Soybean Yield Contest has 24 winners, one for each of 24 categories dependent on tillage system and region; only one of those winners had a higher yield than our soybean contest winner did.

Nobody in our contest intentionally severely deficit irrigated, which is one of the things we were concerned about. Our rules include a minimum yield, which is intended to eliminate contestants who severely deficit irrigate. The goal of the contest is to have a nearly fully irrigated contest crop.

Joshua Dill: What were the biggest lessons learned about irrigation methods?

14 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: What can you say about the advantages of using a contest format as a method of educating and promoting innovation?

Chris Henry: We’re going to present the winners with their prizes at the Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Conference, a well-attended yearly conference at the end of January, and the contestants will be able to talk about how they did it. That’s going to be a really great way for others to learn. Anyone who entered the contest is a winner at the end of the day. The experience of carefully managing water on one field may show them that it is not as hard as they thought. It may also be interesting to compare the approach they took to the contest to their normal way of doing things. Even the farmers who didn’t win may find that their yields and their water use efficiency were better than they expected.

The contest recognizes farmers for their hard work and demonstrates what they can accomplish. Normally, when

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHRIS HENRY.

Chris Henry: I was amazed at how far some of the contestants took the tools we have provided. The corn contest winner used my mobile app to interpret sensor readings. I helped him at the end with terminating the crop. He had just enough water to finish out the crop, thanks to his usage of the sensors and the app to check the growth stage. It was really nice to see him win and to help him make that call at the end.

You’ve got to have a little luck and skill. If you get a lot of rain, that’s probably going to throw you out, because your total water numbers are going to be higher, but if

you’re really dry, you have to irrigate more. We know irrigation is not as good as natural rainfall. Everything else has to go right during the season for you to win, which makes it interesting. The highest yields didn’t necessarily win the contest. You had to have both high yield and low water use.

The bonnet and flowmeter are secured with cables, security tape, and security seals to prevent tampering.

we preach water conservation, it is just another obligation for farmers to meet and they do not gain any real recognition for it. It is much different to be able to say, “You saved an amazing amount of water; here is $20,000.”

Joshua Dill: By how much did you find that farmers were able to reduce their water use?

Chris Henry: In the rice contest, the average water use of participants in the contest was about 31 acre-inches per acre. That’s near the average of 32 acre-inches per acre for a rice crop in Arkansas. The winner was able to do it on about 16 acre-inches—about half of the average use.

Joshua Dill: What can you tell us about the long-term goals of this project?

Chris Henry: We’re just getting started. Contestants from last year have already started planning their entry for this year. I expect more entrants this year, although the number may be limited somewhat because of the requirement of a portable flow meter.

Joshua Dill: Do you know of other organizations or people who have been inspired to look into doing a similar contest?

Chris Henry: Not yet. Daran Rudnick, Matt Stockton, and Chuck Burr created the Testing Ag Performance Solutions (TAPS) program in Nebraska, which looks at overall profitability. They have a program in which groups make production-related decisions using a variable rate irrigation center pivot and then make all the marketingrelated decisions associated with selling their crop, and they recognize the most profitable group. We’ve been comparing notes with them over the last year. IL

Chris Henry is an associate professor and water management engineer with the University of Arkansas at the Rice Research and Extension Center.

For more information about the Arkansas Irrigation Yield Contest, visit www.uaex.edu/irrigation or contact Dr. Henry directly at cghenry@uark.edu.

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 15

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A community meeting at KID's headquarters.

KENNEWICK IRRIGATION DISTRICT’S CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY

K

18 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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

Dana Hernandez: I started out working at the front desk of a hotel. I did that for about 5 years and found that I really enjoyed dealing with people and helping them with whatever issues had come up. After that, I went on to a few different jobs, which were more operations-type work. During this time, I earned my bachelor’s degree in business management. When the position at the irrigation district opened, I applied for it because I saw it as an opportunity to get back into working with the public. When I was hired by KID, I started supervising the customer service department because I was quite well versed in dealing with customers. Then, last year, the opportunity came up to be able to supervise and work closely with

Shelbea Voelker, our public relations coordinator.

Joshua Dill: Would you give us a quick overview of KID’s history, its service area, and its services?

Dana Hernandez: The district’s roots go back to the late 1800s. The modern KID we know today was formed back in the 1950s, when this area was mostly agricultural land. Our system was built to bring Yakima River water to the Tri-Cities via open canals. As the Tri-Cities have grown, our services have shifted from mainly agricultural to mainly residential services. The district now serves about 25,000 accounts representing over 65,000 people and has 74 miles of canals and over 300 miles of pipeline.

Our system is over 60 years old now, and aging infrastructure poses a challenge. Many of our existing canals

PHOTO COURTESY OF KID.

ennewick Irrigation District (KID), nestled in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State, was started in the 1950s. The canal system that KID was formed to build is still in operation today, serving more than 65,000 people. The district has shifted from primarily agricultural land usage to more urban land usage as the Tri-Cities— Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland—have grown. To make that shift successful, the district employs various methods of outreach to engage the public about how their water is used.

In this interview, Dana Hernandez, the customer service supervisor at KID, speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the district’s history, its current public outreach strategy, and the challenges of maintaining a safe and effective district to serve to the community.

have never been lined, though we are aggressively working on doing that now and anticipate having all canals lined in the next 8 years. The district started the lining as a risk-management project because our canals go through the heart of urban centers.

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about the community outreach events you hold?

Dana Hernandez: Around 5 years ago, we started holding community outreach events at home improvement stores, the county fair, the home and garden show, and the local farmers’ market. It is a way to get in front of the public and to give people the opportunity to approach us and talk with us.

At these events, our operations, engineering, management, and customer service staff, as well as our directors, are on hand. We provide information about when our customers’ water comes on and current and planned projects, and we answer questions. We talk about how our customers can help with water conservation, for example, by using brooms to clean off their driveways instead of hosing them down. We have a kids’ table, too.

We create informational handouts for these events and set up tables where we talk to our customers individually.

Right now, the top issues include the electrification of the Chandler Pump Station, title transfer, and canal lining.

When we set up our booth this year, we will have handouts to explain what these things are and why we have been working on them for the past several years. The idea is to provide a place where people can come and ask questions.

Joshua Dill: Do you find that people are familiar with what KID does, or is this information new to them?

Dana Hernandez: I think people know that we provide them water, but I don’t think that they all understand where the water comes from or why they have outages in the summer. I also don’t

think many people realize that outages can affect entire neighborhoods, not just their individual water supply. In reality, if there is a break in one person’s yard, it can shut down the entire neighborhood.

When you have close to 25,000 accounts, one break usually affects a lot of people, and we sometimes have multiple breaks at a time. I do not think that customers understand how big the district is or the scale of the challenges we face during the water season.

Joshua Dill: What questions are most frequently asked?

Dana Hernandez: “When do we get our water?” and “Why don’t we get our water sooner?” are questions that come up a lot in March. KID has a water right that gives us our water no earlier than April 1 each year. Some customers see water in another district’s canal and wonder why that district has water and they don’t. They don’t realize that our water right is different and our water comes from the Yakima River, not the Columbia.

People also want to know why they don’t get refunds for days when there is no water. If your water is off for a week in the summer, we do not lower your bill or give a refund. During times when there is no water, the cost incurred by the district actually increases. We have more staff on hand to fix the issue, parts have to be purchased to do repairs, and additional equipment has to be used to get that water back on. If we refunded customers who were without water each time there was a break, the rest of our customers would have to supplement the cost to restore water to those receiving the refund. When we inform them that KID doesn’t actually charge for water but rather for the delivery system, they sometimes get cranky.

Joshua Dill: What was the specific motivation that led you to begin this program?

Dana Hernandez: Since our district manager, Chuck Freeman, started with the district in November 2009, his goal

has been to increase public outreach and to get out in front of our customers.

When I started with KID about 6 years ago, it was clear that our focus was to be visible to our customers and to have events where anybody could talk to us and ask questions.

Joshua Dill: Would you also tell us about KID’s school programs?

Dana Hernandez: KID’s school programs have been going on since before I started with the district. KID participates in a program in the TriCities called Safe Kids, in which the fire department, the police department, and the city meet monthly to go over anything that is relevant to the kids in the community. We proposed to the local school districts the idea of coming to the elementary schools and talking about canal safety and why it is important not to swim, play in, or jump over the canals. They accepted, and since then, we have done presentations in the schools’ after-school programs and at the YMCA. We have a PowerPoint presentation that explains why playing in the canal is dangerous.

This year, Shelbea has been working with the assistant superintendent of Kennewick School District to create a new presentation on canal safety that we will present during the school day rather than at after-school programs.

That will help us reach all the students.

Joshua Dill: Has KID considered presenting in science classes?

Dana Hernandez: Our focus in the schools is safety, but presentations on the science of irrigation is an interesting idea. The schools have tight schedules dictating what they have to do each day and each week, so getting into the classroom is a challenge. We are willing to present in any class that is available. We are excited to have the opportunity to present in assemblies in which we can talk to the whole student body. The goal is to inform as many kids as we can about canal safety. Kids are playing around in the canals all IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 19

Bureau of Reclamation safety mascot Otto the Otter visits a KID outreach event held at Home Depot.

the time, even when the water comes on. We need to tell them that that is unsafe.

Joshua Dill: What is the benefit for KID of doing these public outreach programs?

shutdown. I would also like to do more radio spots or get us on the local news or public access television.

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about the meetings you hold for the public?

Dana Hernandez: Education is the main benefit. I do not think people really understand where their water comes from or how it gets to their property. When they buy a property, a lot of people do not understand that there is a difference between irrigation water and drinking water or the water they use every day.

Joshua Dill: What advice would you have for other irrigation districts that are thinking about developing their own public outreach programs?

20 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: What are your ambitions for the public outreach program in the future?

Dana Hernandez: I hope that we do more. In the past, we have done one event a year. I would like to increase this in 2019 to one event in spring and one in fall, so that we can talk about water startup and water

Dana Hernandez: Find a good public relations coordinator who knows how to reach people. Get out and be visible as often as you can. Be available to your customers so that you can constantly talk about what you are doing and what you are improving for your customers. Public outreach is a great resource for continued improvement. IL

Dana Hernandez is the customer service supervisor at KID. She can be contacted by calling the customer service department at (509) 586-9111 or by emailing customer service at customerservice@kid.org.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KID.

Dana Hernandez: Any time something is going to change for a neighborhood, whether we are putting in new piping, putting in a new system, or pressurizing a system, we try to have as many public meetings with that neighborhood as we can. We find a central location for our meeting, send out emails, and distribute door hangers in that neighborhood to invite residents to come in. We explain the project we are working on and answer questions from the residents so that they understand what we are doing before we start working and disrupting their everyday routines.

We also have a Facebook page that we started a few years ago. During water on, we are posting at least every other day, explaining what our operations crew is working on or informing customers about any problems.

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NACHES-SELAH’S OUTREACH TO LOCAL SCHOOLS Justin Harter visits a Naches Valley Middle School classroom.

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

Justin Harter: I’ve been in irrigation for 22 years now. I started my career at South Columbia Irrigation District in Pasco, Washington, and for the last 14 years I’ve been the manager of the Naches-Selah Irrigation District.

Careerwise, it’s been rewarding to work at a small, older district that needs a lot of improvements. We’ve made many of those improvements, and we have more to do.

24 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about Naches-Selah’s school outreach program.

Justin Harter: Ms. Katherine Miller, a teacher at Naches Valley Middle School, saw the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan outreach booth at the Kittitas County Fair in September 2017 and inquired about the possibility of someone coming to speak to her class. The outreach person we had for the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan was leaving the position at that point, so I was asked to volunteer.

I visit a seventh grade science class twice every year—in the fall to speak for one period to a conservation-focused student group called the Green Team, and in the spring for a full day.

Joshua Dill: What do you tell them about?

Justin Harter: In the 40–50 minutes I have with each class, I explore the importance of water in the basin that the kids live in. I tell them what an irrigation district does and how our district serves the community and them, and I show them different parts of Naches-Selah’s irrigation infrastructure as well as irrigation infrastructure in other parts of the basin. Additionally, I show the students slides from a trip to India I took with the World Bank in 2016 to demonstrate how irrigation works on the other side of the world.

I also get into broader topics, from the natural science of water to the applied physics and engineering that goes into

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NACHES-SELAH IRRIGATION DISTRICT.

he Naches-Selah Irrigation District serves more than 10,500 acres in Washington’s Yakima County and has a history going back to the 19th century. The land the district serves is devoted predominantly to apple, cherry, and pear orchards, some of which have now been in the same families for five or six generations.

Justin Harter has been the district’s general manager for the past 14 years. For the past several years, he has also been involved in a simple and effective form of public outreach.

Twice a year, Mr. Harter presents information about his district and about the art of water management generally to a local seventh grade class, building the community’s knowledge of and appreciation for the work of the district.

In this interview with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill, Mr. Harter explains how the outreach program got started, what he teaches the students, and the benefits the program has both for the district and for the community as a whole.

operating and maintaining our water infrastructure, parts of which have been in service since 1890. I tell them about the ongoing projects that are part of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan—as a 30-year plan, it will still be ongoing when these students become voters. I even delve into Washington State water law with a slide called “How We Share the Available Water.”

Ms. Miller also encourages her students to hear about different career paths. They like to know how I got into my career and what I’ve done. I also tell them about other opportunities in water and irrigation beyond engineering, including science, law, and the trades. I tell them about the teams that maintain the canals and keep the water flowing.

To have people choose careers in water is as important, or more so, than the dams, canals, and pipes into which so much capital is invested.

Joshua Dill: Are the students familiar with what an irrigation district does before you get there, or is it new to them?

Justin Harter: It varies. It is a rural school district, so some of the students live on farms, but people are getting further and further removed from agriculture, so some of them don’t have a extensive understanding of irrigation.

Joshua Dill: What are the students most interested in learning about?

Justin Harter: There is a student group called the Green Team that meets during the first period and focuses on conservation, recycling, and reuse. The Green Team oversees the recycling program at the middle school. They are interested in natural resources and conservation.

The seventh graders come up with interesting questions. They ask me everything from, “Do you enjoy your job?” to “How do you know when the river’s going to flood?”

Joshua Dill: What are the most important things that the students learn?

Justin Harter: First, the effort it takes to move water and put it to use.

Second, the activities we undertake in the Yakima basin to improve water supply while also protecting habitat and improving flows in the rivers for various interests—fish, wildlife, agriculture, and other community needs.

Joshua Dill: Is it difficult to present the information in a way that is comprehensible to seventh graders?

Justin Harter: I don’t worry about talking over their heads. I talk to them in the same way I talk to the general public. They can understand complex concepts. In my experience, you can just talk to the students, and if they don’t understand something, they’ll ask questions.

The slides I use are mix of slides I created for this class and others that were made for Yakima Basin Integrated Plan presentations. Most presentations, even in a professional setting, are fairly straightforward.

If I’m interested in something, I find it easy to talk about, so I feel fairly comfortable speaking in a setting like the classroom. I share my interests and my professional experience, help the students understand our world a bit, and maybe even make them consider a career path in the irrigation field.

Joshua Dill: What are the benefits of community outreach for the irrigation district?

Only a small part of the population knows us well. I think it is our duty to make sure the community knows what we do and whom we serve. If you aren’t making the effort to provide the community with a positive view, they’ll develop an opinion on their own, and depending on their experiences, it may be negative. Building that awareness helps down the line, for example, when there are elections. Some conscious effort needs to be made to maintain what is called a social license—that is, goodwill and support that you may need to call on at some point.

Joshua Dill: What is your vision for this program for the future?

Justin Harter: I would like to maintain it. I’ve encouraged Ms. Miller to offer my contact information to teachers at other schools in the area. There are also other professionals in the area who visit this class, which is good to see. I’ve been happy to be a resource to put her in touch with other professionals.

Joshua Dill: What advice do you have for other districts that want to set up a similar program?

Justin Harter: Reach out to the schools.

Schools and teachers are looking for relevant, educational materials for their students. Information like this is relevant to a number of subject areas, not only to science. You can work around their lesson plans—for example, a science class may cover natural resources and water at a certain time of the year, so you can time your visit to line up with that. It’s a time commitment, but nothing huge. IL

Justin Harter: At the irrigation district, we do our jobs without necessarily attracting too much attention, so we are Justin Harter is the general manager of the sometimes Naches-Selah Irrigation District. He can be taken for contacted at justinh@n-sid.org. granted by the community.

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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How Agri-Inject Invites the Public In A student group is led on a tour of Agri-Inject's facility by Sergio Sanchez.

S

ince the 1980s, Yuma, Colorado–based Agri-Inject has been a leader in manufacturing products for chemigation, which is the use of mobile irrigation systems to apply fertilizer and chemicals in liquid form. Agri-Inject, however, is also a leader in public outreach. The company brings local students into its facilities for tours and simulations and also provides opportunities for internships.

In this interview, Erik Tribelhorn, the chief executive officer of Agri-Inject, speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about how Agri-Inject is using outreach and internship programs to train up the next generation of ag manufacturers.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about Agri-Inject’s public outreach initiatives.

30 | IRRIGATION LEADER

Kris Polly: Do you send the students home with anything?

Erik Tribelhorn: I want to give them something useful, so I hand out six-in-one screwdrivers, with small and large flatblade and Phillips-head screwdrivers and two nut drivers.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AGRI-INJECT.

Erik Tribelhorn: Over the last few years, we have taken the initiative to let our local community know what we do. A lot of folks in our small town don’t understand who we are, that we are a manufacturing business, what manufacturing means, what our products do, or where around the world those products go.

To address those problems, we’ve held tours and educational sessions for students and teachers, including a manufacturing simulation for students to teach them how lean manufacturing or one-piece flow works.

We have a group of students coming in from a nearby school that has an overall K–12 enrollment of about 70 kids.

They have signed up with a program called “What’s So Cool About Manufacturing?” They choose a local manufacturing company, do an intensive tour, and then create a video in

which they describe the company and how it manufactures its products.

I’m also working with the local school here in Yuma. Six students are going to come over and look at the production cell where we build pipe-fitting assemblies. They will study, observe, and perform the production techniques and then use an online computer-aided design (CAD) product called Onshape to develop jigs and fixtures and different tools that we can potentially use to improve the cell’s productivity and quality standards. Working with students in this way is challenging in that it takes us out of our routine and requires our employees’ time, but it always turns out to be rewarding.

Plus, the students who visit us today may be our most valuable employees in the future.

My background—I attended college for several years but moved on to the professional world without a degree—allows me to tell students that college isn’t for everybody, and that if you can think creatively and critically, solve problems, work well with others, and add value to an organization and its customers, you can be successful without a degree. You can also create your own organization where you’re adding value to customers. Unless I’m hiring for a really technical position, I look for those skills before I check what kind of degree an applicant has.

Agri-Inject employee Morgan Spencer leads a simulation for a visiting student group.

Since we have shown them some of the things that you can do and build with manufacturing tools and equipment, we send them home with a tool that will be useful for them and their family. We tell them, “Be constructive with it.

When you repair something, remember the impact that those skills can have, and remember that if you apply those skills in a manufacturing business, you can find a job in that industry—maybe with us!”

Kris Polly: Do you have internship programs as well?

Erik Tribelhorn: We did a high school internship a couple years ago through a program that was partially funded by the state. Our intern, a high school senior, had no CAD background but was interested in going into engineering.

I showed him how to use OnShape for about 15 minutes and then told him, “Go online; the company offers plenty of tutorials.” He spent a week doing that and then worked that entire summer doing 3D modeling of bill-of-material breakouts for us. He has come back during his winter and spring breaks from college to continue that work for us. It’s high-value work; he’s likely going to be a valuable employee for us someday.

Here is another example of how outreach, employment, and training intersect. We have a valuable staff member named Morgan Spencer. She started with us 6 years ago in a temporary position working in our assembly area.

She worked her way into the position of lead assembly technician within a couple years. Later, based on expanding

needs in our rotational molding cell, Morgan migrated into the lead position in that department, which is hot, hard, physical work, and was completely outside her experience level at the time. She nevertheless quickly became our inside expert. About 2 years ago, we moved her into a purchasing agent position, and now she leads our lean manufacturing efforts.

For the last 2 years, she has been working with a project called Girls Only, which is put on by a local community college in Fort Morgan, Colorado. She presents on the topic of women in manufacturing to groups of eigth grade girls—four groups of 20 students per day. She also conducts our in-house designed manufacturing simulation, in which students compete in teams building an AgriInject product. One team does it the old way, in a batch method; the other team builds the product in a process called one piece flow. We measure quality, throughput, order fulfillment, and labor optimization. It’s a real learning experience, and a great method of outreach. IL

Erik Tribelhorn is the chief executive officer of Agri-Inject. He can be reached at erik@agri-inject.com.

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

| 31

Why Your Irrigation District Needs a Media Plan Keith and Loren Yaskin.

I

n today’s media environment, news travels fast and customers can communicate their feedback and complaints instantly and publicly. This means that organizations like irrigation districts need to prepare for possible crisis situations in advance, by identifying spokespeople, preparing media plans, and proactively communicating with their customers and employees.

In this interview, Keith Yaskin, president of The Flip Side Communications, speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about how irrigation districts should handle the stressful and ever-evolving landscape of digital media.

Joshua Dill: Tell us about the importance of messaging and having a media plan.

Joshua Dill: How should an organization like an irrigation district prepare for that kind of situation?

Keith Yaskin: Let me give you an example of something we just experienced. Last week, I received a phone call from an irrigation district. The caller played me a recording of one of the district’s customers calling a local morning radio show.

The customer had some questions about where the irrigation district got its water. This led to some additional questions about the irrigation district’s new office headquarters. The district felt that the entire discussion on the radio program would reflect on it negatively. The caller wanted to know what

Keith Yaskin: The organization should put together a plan. That plan should start with the key messages the organization would want to share during any given situation and should indicate who on the team will deliver those messages. There needs to be a process in place to enable the organization to respond quickly. In today’s environment, it’s not only important to respond to a crisis, it’s important to do so quickly. Failing to do that can compound the problem. I recommend that irrigation districts have a conversation with their attorneys today. The

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

32 | IRRIGATION LEADER

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE FLIP SIDE COMMUNICATIONS.

Keith Yaskin: My background is in broadcast journalism. I was a TV reporter for about 17 years. Most of that time, I was an investigative reporter. In 2011, I left broadcast journalism to join my wife, who 2 years previously had founded a media company, The Flip Side Communications. Her background is in public relations and employee communications. Our company is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. We focus on public relations, video production, media training, and employee communications. Our clients include a wide range of companies, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses.

We have clients both in the government and private sector.

to do. I think they were also frustrated because the district had purchased advertising with this radio station.

I recommended that the district identify an appropriate spokesperson and ask the radio station for an opportunity to have that person be interviewed to respond and to address some of the questions that were brought up in this conversation. The district was able to get an interview time, and staff prepared some messages ahead of time that they wanted to communicate. They decided to stay positive and not to be defensive or negative in any way. Someone from the irrigation district went on the air and, in a positive, professional way, addressed some of the questions that had been previously brought up by the customer. I listened to that interview. I thought it was excellent. It was a great example of how an organization can take a negative situation and turn it around to make it a positive educational opportunity for its customers. The district also contacted the customer and, to my understanding, has offered to set up a meeting with him to address any concerns or questions he might have.

The moral of the story is, even if you’re not interested in proactively reaching out to the news media, you should prepare for unexpected situations in which the news media starts talking about your organization. The worst time to start coming up with a plan on how to handle that unexpected situation is on the spot.

steps you’ll want to take from a public relations perspective to protect your organization’s reputation do not always align with an attorney’s responsibilities. Everybody should be on the same page to avoid a conflict later on. Another important thing to consider is who your backup spokesperson is. You can’t afford not to respond in a crisis situation simply because your point person is out of town or on vacation or otherwise unavailable.

Joshua Dill: Would you explain a little bit more about why an irrigation district should speak with its attorney?

Keith Yaskin: If you’re handling a crisis, and you feel that there are negative comments being made by the news media or the public about your organization, from a public relations perspective, you want to protect your reputation and go out there to explain what the genuine facts are. An attorney’s job, on the other hand, is to limit your liability. They don’t want you to have to write a check for a large amount of money, so a lot of attorneys will recommend that you say nothing. I’ve seen situations in which an attorney advises an organization to say nothing and the public relations team is urging the opposite. The public relations team is saying, “You’ve got to speak in common language in a way that everybody’s going to understand,” and the attorney is saying, “You’ve got to use these words that no one knows, because they are important from a legal point of view.” Your public relations team and your attorney are at loggerheads, and the clock is ticking. My advice is to have that conversation now. Sit down with your attorney and your spokesperson and decide on what you will do if there is a crisis.

Joshua Dill: What kind of media training do you recommend that people undergo?

Keith Yaskin: I think the best type of media training is actually getting in front of a camera and being interviewed by somebody who has experience reporting. Our media training, for example, includes a portion where we give a presentation, but I think what people learn from the most is when we put them in front of a camera and ask them the toughest questions they may ever face. Then we watch the video and analyze it. We discuss what worked and what needs improvement.

Getting in front of a camera and having the lights on you is an excellent exercise. I would recommend it to people even if they never expect to be on camera. More and more journalists who write for newspapers or websites bring video cameras to their interviews because they are expected to shoot some video for their websites.

to communicate your response to this bad news to your employees, to your customers, to your board of directors, and to any other stakeholders you believe will want to hear directly from you. If they’re not hearing directly from you, they may be getting misinformation from the news media or from rumors.

It also shows respect.

Joshua Dill: How should irrigation districts communicate with their ratepayers?

Keith Yaskin: You want to make sure that you’re communicating with a consistent voice. While we were doing some training with one of the irrigation districts, we learned that one of its top customer questions regarded a fee for a certain service, and that different people at the irrigation district were providing different answers as to why the fee existed. Giving customers different answers to the same question is a fast way to lose credibility.

You want to speak with your ratepayers in a language that they’re going to understand. Not everyone understands the technical jargon that irrigation districts use. Today, irrigation districts have a lot of customers who are accustomed to living in large cities and are now moving out to rural areas. Here in Arizona, developers are building like crazy in formerly rural areas. An irrigation district may have to dramatically simplify its language to make sure it is successfully communicating with ratepayers who have never worked with irrigated water before.

Joshua Dill: Do you have any other advice for irrigation districts?

Keith Yaskin: My advice is pretty simple: Actually begin to take some of these steps. When I speak with irrigation districts, I do infer that there is a portion of the industry that still has an old school mentality. They don’t talk to the news media very much. They certainly don’t proactively share positive stories with the news media. In some cases, they don’t have the best lines of communication with customers, because that’s the way it’s been done for decades, and in many cases, customers don’t have options. In a lot of cases, customers only have one place to get their water, so there hasn’t been a lot of pressure to deliver responsive customer service. I would encourage irrigation districts to proactively communicate with customers, especially younger customers, on social media. I would encourage them to start taking baby steps toward doing more of all that we have discussed. You can’t expect to change the way you do things in the process overnight, but go out there, take a risk, try something new. IL

Joshua Dill: How should an organization handle bad news?

Keith Yaskin: If there is bad news on TV, in a newspaper, or online, many organizations immediately attempt to call up a reporter to address the question. What they don’t do is explain the situation to their own employees. I think that is the first thing they should do. Experience shows us that if there is bad news and employees don’t hear from their organization’s leadership team, they rely on rumor and speculation. Sometimes they start to fill in the blanks with incorrect information. It is important to have a plan in place

Keith Yaskin is the president of The Flip Side Communications.

He can be contacted at keith@theflipsidecommunications.com.

IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM

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CLASSIFIEDS

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

For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Office of Columbia River (OCR) Operations Manager (WMS Band 2) Located in Union Gap, WA. DESCRIPTION: + The Operations Manager position is responsible for the administration and management of the OCR staff in the Central and Eastern Regional Offices of the Department of Ecology. + This position is directly accountable for direction, management, and performance of OCR staff in consultation with OCR Director.

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

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

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The Fort Shaw Irrigation District ENNR10-10210-RIVER BASIN COORDINATORCHEYENNE Deadline: Open until filled Salary: $4,506.00 - $5,100.00/Monthly DESCRIPTION: + Support and implement the State Engineer's Offices mission to protect the interstate waters of Wyoming + Support two of Wyoming's interstate compacts (Yellowstone and Bear River Basins), provide critical data and information to the ISS Administrator and the Governor-appointed Commissioner + Serve as the primary representative concerning interstate policy issues pertaining to the Upper Missouri River Basin and greater Missouri River Basin. + Act as the State Engineer's Office liaison to the Wyoming Water Development Office's River Basin Planning Program. + Provide important technical expertise to the Interstate Streams Division Administrator as needed. + These are some but not all of the duties required.

QUALIFICATIONS: + Preference given to Master's degree in civil engineering (water resources), hydrology, water planning, economics, watershed science, or other natural resources field PLUS three years of work experience in water resource management. + Bachelor's Degree (typically in The Sciences) + 1-2 years of progressive work experience (typically in The Sciences) with acquired knowledge at the level of a(n) Natural Resources Analyst or 4-6 years of progressive work experience (typically in The Sciences) with acquired knowledge at the level of a(n) Natural Resources Analyst + Knowledge of and ability to read, research, interpret and apply Federal, State, Local environmental laws and regulations. + Knowledge of and ability to read, research, interpret and apply state policies and procedures. + Knowledge of hydrogeologic processes. + Knowledge of multiple science and engineering disciplines. + Knowledge of principles of management.

IRRIGATION DISTRICT MANAGER Salary: Dependent upon skill DESCRIPTION: + The Fort Shaw Irrigation District is looking for an energetic individual to manage a 13,000-acre irrigation project.

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