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Tulare County Farmers Lose Millerton Water Starting May 15

Screen Shot 2014-05-14 at 6.00.20 AMTulare County farmers along the Friant Kern Canal will see water they had counted on to irrigate about a million acres of trees and vines instead flow down the porous San Joaquin River channel to wet fields in Los Banos and Mendota, the Bureau of Reclamation announced this week.The flows down the river will begin this Thursday says the federal agency, ramping up to 1000 cfs.

That translates to about 60,000 acre ft in a months time says Friant Water Authority General Manager Ron Jacobsma.”We’re not clear at all how long the Bureau expects to release water from Millerton to satisfy the Exchange Contractors as opposed to supplying their needs from north of the Delta.”

The Bureau’s news release May 13 references both sources but offers no details.

Theoretically they could drain all the water available in Millerton this summer leaving farmers from Fresno south to Tulare and Kern counties with a “zero allocation” this year. That could cause some billions in economic havoc in the South Valley suggests California Citrus Mutual with many trees dying. This is California’s citrus belt.

Dumping the stored Friant water down the river remains an inefficient way to deliver irrigation water with loses to seepage ranging from 40 to 20 percent as it moves across the sandy soils of the dry riverbed in 100plus degrees expected this week.

In the late 1930s, the Exchange Contractors agreed to “exchange” water received under their long-held senior water rights from the San Joaquin and Kings River for water delivered from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta through the Delta-Mendota Canal by Reclamation. The exchange contract generally provides that whenever Reclamation is unable to satisfy the contractual entitlement from the DMC that Reclamation would provide water to the Exchange Contractors from Friant Dam.

Friant’s Jacobsma has been working with the Bureau urging them to consider more releases from Shasta reservoir this summer to meet the Exchange Contractors needs and freeing up some water for  hard-pressed Friant districts along the east side of the Valley.

He notes that late season storms have upped the amount of water expected to flow into Shasta by September to 1.1 million acre ft, some 150,000 acre ft more than was estimated in April.

Biologists want keep a pool of cold water for late summer salmon season but Friant is lobbying  for increased supply for this region on verge of economic collapse.

“In the end we may have to turn it over to the lawyers.”

Farmers in some Tulare County water districts with little or no groundwater are ready to pull trees if no relief is expected.Terra Bella ID farmer Ed Chambers says he manages an 108 year old, 40 acre block of citrus that will likely be pulled in the next few weeks.The trees are “in a dead wilt right now.”

The Bureau did announce a program to trade 30,000 acre ft of water in San Luis Reservoir that will allow Friant to run water from Miilerton in the Friant Kern Canal to help make trades possible.Some 5000 acre ft will be offered to Terra Bella ID and sold to farmers willing to pay $1200 an acre ft. Orange Cove will also benefit.

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