-November 4,2020-
New fire station planned at Rancheria
Kings County representatives are in negotiations with the Tribal Council of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut Tribe for a new Memorandum of Understanding for county services. As part of the negotiation, there is a proposal to build a new County operated fire station on tribal land. The site would be at the corner of 16th and Jersey Avenues owned by the tribe.
Goldman Sachs makes new Kings solar investment
The Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs is working on a second investment expanding its solar and battery storage in Kings County. The new project has the company retrofitting the existing 100MW Mustang Solar plant near Lemoore adding a 75 MW or 4-hour 300 MWh energy storage system. Canadian Solar who built the plant, will construct the addition. Goldman Sachs owns the Mustang facility already.
Construction of the energy storage component of the project will begin in early 2021 and is expected to be operational by the second half of the year.
By pairing solar PV with advanced battery technology operators can generate and store solar power during the day for use in the evening. This approach allows California’s power grid to absorb and integrate higher levels of reliable, safe and affordable renewable energy while contributing to the state’s climate mitigation efforts.
Earlier this year First Solar announced that Goldman Sachs acquired the 123-megawatt American Kings Solar project in a transaction that closed at the end of June 2020.
Fresno judge slams Wonderful in Pistachio Wars
Fresno judge Kimberly Gaab issued a strongly worded ruling October 26 against Wonderful Pistachios saying the company had engaged in unfair business practices – the latest chapter in what has been called the Valley’s ”pistachio wars.”
The ruling comes in the ongoing dispute between Wonderful, the industry’s largest player and Fresno growers the Assemi family who brought the latest suit.
The Superior Court judge ruled that the Assimis “have sufficiently alleged that defendant engaged in “unfair” conduct. The judge added that Wonderful who controls 60% of the industry “is using its market power to significantly threaten and harm competition.”
Among the allegations against Wonderful, the judge cited” When two processors accepted the Assemis’ pistachios, Wonderful sued them. Wonderful also filed suit to accelerate repayment of a loan it had made to plaintiffs, even though they were not in breach of the terms of the loan. In addition, Wonderful filed a CEQA action to prevent or delay the construction of plaintiffs’ new pistachio processing facility” (proposed in western Fresno County). Wonderful also tried to interfere with plaintiffs’ plans to purchase another pistachio processing facility in Terra Bella, California.
“When plaintiffs launched their new brand, Touchstone, they succeeded in selling part of their crop in the Chinese market. However, Wonderful zealously guards its position in the Chinese market. Wonderful told a set of powerful Chinese brokers that plaintiffs were treating their pistachios with hydrogen peroxide, which was false and created the impression that plaintiffs’ pistachios were of lower quality. Wonderful also acted to illegally remove Darius and Farshid Assemi from the board of the
Wonderful Almond Co-op in order to prevent them from obtaining financial information about Wonderful’s operations.”
The Assemi group is now building a new pistachio plant near I-5.
Shelving Temperance Flat Dam
Central California farm leaders have long championed construction of a new dam above Fresno. That includes leaders from Kings County. But after 20-plus years of lobbying for federal and state funding for the $3 billion Temperance Flat facility – the project has been put on the shelf.
At the the October meeting of the California Water Commission, Aaron Fakuda representing Temperance Flat Authority and Bill Swanson, Principal Engineer with Stantec informed the Commission the group would not be moving forward for now.They said they would not be able to meet Commission deadlines to receive $171 million that has been earmarked in state funding although not withdrawing formally, as of yet.
Among the factors – the impact of the drought and the formation of groundwater management districts (SGMA) that are near term demands and a higher priority for farmers. They are “ strongly focusing on their long-term implementation for SGMA and they have not yet figured out how Temperance Flat fits into their ultimate portfolio.” says Swanson according to an account of the meeting in Aquafornia.
To make Temperance Flat happen farmers need to cobble together financial support from the state,federal government and farmer investors.
Farmer investors for now, don’t appear to be encouraged by the relatively small dollar amount offered by the state – $171 million.Some Valley interests had hoped this new dam would be one of three major storage projects that could be funded by a $7.5 billion water bond approved by voters in 2014. But the state has not bought into the argument.
”That amount is about 5% of the total capital cost of the project, and so that raised a lot of concerns obviously among the potential investors of where is the rest of the money going to come from and how would that be allocated among the participants,” said Mr. Swanson.” So proponents can’t convince enough investors to meet Water Commission deadlines.
“The consequence of that is we don’t have the funding commitments that would allow us to advance foreseeably, to demonstrate a 75% funding commitment by January 1st, 2022.”the Commission was told.
Without a final operational plan the federal government can’t complete their analysis of the proposed project either. The Temperance Flat Reservoir Authority has requested that Reclamation place the feasibility study in deferral status until such time that an operating plan is defined, they say.
Still the Temperance Flat Authority said they’re not ready to throw in the towel but hope the Commission will allow the money to stay in the Central Valley for some water-related project.
“In determining how we move forward, we would like to make the request that the Water Commission to work with us to try and return some of those funds back to the Central Valley to help meet some of those priorities that we’ve been dealing with locally,” said Aaron Fakuda. The priorities within the Central Valley have shifted and timing is not on our side, suggested the group.Fakuda added “If even $150 million” that was awarded to Temperance Flat went into the Central Valley, “you would rival all of the money currently invested in all of the SGMA programs in the Valley.“
Another huge new priority-not related to new storage – is fixing the water delivery infrastructure already in place that has been impacted by subsidence due to vigorous groundwater pumping.The capacity of the CVP’s Friant Kern Canal and the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct has been limited by sinking land along their route.It will take hundreds of millions to repair.
Critics of Temperance Flat say farmers don’t want to invest in the project because it makes more sense to add recharge capacity in the Valley.
Flower growers express concern on import ruling
California Farm Bureau says low-priced flowers from Central and South America have driven many California flower growers out of business—and representatives say a new decision may accelerate that trend. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office says it will allow roses from Ecuador to enter the U.S. duty-free. The California Cut Flower Commission describes its members as disappointed, and says imports have already pushed more than three-quarters of U.S. rose growers out of business including some here in the Central Valley