By Tina Fisher Cunningham
Fisher Forde Media
Tehachapi banks abundant water supplies
The Forde Files No 139
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Tina Fisher Cunningham
Raymond Smith of Rosamond waits for a fish to bite at Brite Lake (Jacobsen Reservoir) on the morning of Jan. 18, 2017. Smith said his church, Wayside Chapel, has a fishing ministry as well as a grilling and a sports ministry, and Brite Lake is one of the lakes the group frequents.
With the Sierra snowpack high and rainstorms washing over California, water availability has taken a dramatic turn.
Over a period of 10 days recently, the statewide snowpack rose from 63 percent of normal to 161 percent of normal, Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District General Manager Tom Neisler said at the Jan. 18 board of directors meeting at the Golden Hills Community Services District board room.
Neisler called the impact of the ensuing abundance of water on statewide infrastructure "unprecedented and unpredicted."
"There is no room to convey storm flow," he said. "Everything statewide is operating at full capacity."
He said that telephone calls among the water agencies and the California Department of Water Resources are urgent, constant and lengthy.
"As rain and snow continue to fall, the water managers in the state are scrambling to make arrangements to maximize and protect their existing supplies," Neisler said in a statement Jan. 19.
As the water district board met on Jan. 18, the Department of Water Resources announced an increase of the State Water Project (SWP) contractor water allotment to 60 percent from 45 percent. During the recent drought years, the allotments started at five percent and barely inched up.
With its ability to regulate the amount of State Water Project water it pumps up the hill, the Tehachapi water district can control excess flow and is spreading water to recharge the underground basins. The district is faced with different problem. Tehachapi's SWP carryover from 2016 is stored in the San Luis Reservoir, located 12 miles west of Los Banos in Merced County. As of Jan. 18, the reservoir was at 73 percent of capacity and 99 percent of historical average for this time of year. It is expected to reach capacity of 2.02 million acre feet and ultimately may spill over. Tehachapi's 4,275 acre feet share of carryover in San Luis water is at risk of being converted to current year allocation "if we get to the point of spilling if there are not enough takers [agencies taking the water]," Neisler said. "We've already paid for it last year. It's our water."
Neisler said that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves Los Angeles and owns half the water in the SWP, may come to the rescue. "They have the capacity to move water through their system and to their reservoirs. It would solve everybody's problem. Sometimes it's good to be a little guy – the big guys may solve our problems."
Tina Fisher Cunningham
Mud Ducks cruise the lake.
In other business, water board newcomer Rick Zanutto, in his first meeting after being appointed a director at the Dec. 21, 2016 meeting, became president of the board by a unanimous vote.
At the closed session following the board meeting, the directors officially named Neisler General Manager, making him the fourth general manager in the district's 52 years. The board and Neisler had been in contract negotiations since August 26, when the directors offered him the position.
Neisler said in an email statement that he was honored to be filling [previous GM] John Martin's "very large shoes" and "I look forward to working with the board to implement their vision and to working with our team of dedicated professional staff."
