In Kern County oil and water do mix, in a way. I’m talking about a program in which “produced” water from a long-time oil field is cleaned up and shipped to the Cawelo Water District where it’s used to grow almonds and pistachios.
It’s a great way to handle excess water from oil production and helps out agriculture, particularly in years like this.
A true win-win for Kern’s two main economic engines.
The program has been around a good long time, starting some time back in the 1980s. In fact, it’s been going on so long, even those directly involved didn’t know when it started.
If it’s not new or controversial then why am I writing about it? Well, a lot of you may not know about this cool program, so that’s one reason.
But another is that the drought and recent anti-fracking hysteria has put this program on the radar.
So here are the basics.
The Kern River oil field produces lots of oil, but even more water, about 907,000 barrels a day, according to a handout from Chevron, which owns the field.
It is not, repeat, NOT, frack water. Fracking has nothing whatsoever to do with this oil field or this program.
Fracking refers to hydraulic fracturing, a process where water and chemicals are forced into oil wells far underground at high pressure to fracture (frack) the rock and allow oil to seep into the bore hole. There’s a lot of controversy over what’s in that water and how it’s handled after it’s extracted from the well.
The Kern River oil field is steam flooded, not fracked.
What that means is water, a good portion of it recycled from the water that comes up naturally with the oil, is super heated and the steam is injected into the field to help move along the sluggish, extremely thick oil.
And, like I said, a lot of excess water comes up with that oil.
Years ago, Chevron started shipping the water to agricultural water districts to the north. Initially the water was put into the Beardsley Canal.
Then, in the early 1990s, Chevron built a 42-inch, 8.5-mile pipeline from the Kern River oil field, which is north of the river near China Grade Loop and east of Meadows Field, north to Cawelo. The pipeline heads northwest to just south of Lerdo Highway where it dumps the water into a reservoir and Cawelo takes over from there.
In wet or average years, it’s a nice little extra for Cawelo. In dry years, it’s a lifeline.
That 907,000 barrels a day works out to about 30,000 acre feet per year.
As I said, Chevron keeps part of it to reuse in the field, so Cawelo gets between 20,000 and 24,000 acre feet a year, according to Cawelo General Manager David Ansolabehere. Cawelo pays about $30 per acre foot for the water, by the way.
This year, the Chevron water is by far the bulk of Cawelo’s surface supplies.
The district contracts with the State Water Project for 38,200 acre feet a year. It typically gets 40 percent to 60 percent of that allotment. This year, it’s only getting 5 percent, or about 1,900 acre feet.
The district also used to buy 27,000 acre feet of Kern River water each year from the City of Bakersfield. But that contract has ended and, besides, there’s no water on the Kern this year anyway.
All of which makes the Chevron water Cawelo’s most consistent surface supply and its largest this year.
Though the Chevron water does go through treatment to strip out the oil before it’s shipped, it’s still too salty to use on crops directly, Ansolabehere said.
It’s blended with fresh water and then delivered to farmers.
Cawelo’s total yearly demand is about 120,000 to 140,000 acre feet, which means Cawelo’s growers will be pulling hard on groundwater this year, even with the Chevron water.
Ansolabehere said there’s never been a problem with the program, other than in the early 2000s when the district was cited by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which found the Chevron water too high in arsenic.
The district had a permit back then to discharge the water directly into Poso Creek during the winter months, when the creek is typically dry.
Ansolabehere said the allowable level of arsenic had changed and Cawelo was found to be in violation.
“We paid the fine and corrected the problem and we’ve been in compliance ever since,” he said. “We continually test the water.”
And state regulatory agencies have “free reign” to test the water any time and they do, Ansolabehere said.
In fact, he said, studies have shown an improvement in Cawelo’s groundwater quality because, in normal years, the Chevron water allows growers to turn off their pumps, reducing pressure on the aquifer.
“It’s been a tremendous help to this district,” he said of the Chevron water.
Since the onset of the drought and stories about the program began popping up, both Cawelo and Chevron have gotten a lot of interest from media, other water districts and oil companies.
No other oilfields, at least in Kern, are helping water ag fields. The water on the west side is just too salty and would require far more treatment than is economically feasible at the moment.
Who knows, though?
With some growers paying princely sums this year for water (more than $1,300 an acre foot right here in Kern a few months ago), oil field water could some day find its way onto more and more Kern County crops.
An interesting solar/ag easement caper came to my attention recently.
It created quite a dust up among about half a dozen local farmers who felt Kern County had pulled the rug out from under what might have been a $10 million deal for them.
And why should you care whether some fat cat farmers get even fatter, you’re wondering?
Well, maybe you don’t care so much about that one particular aspect of the deal (which I shall lay it out for you in a bit). But that deal brought up a larger issue of land ownership and control in Kern County.
Seems someone is trying to preserve land for something in practically every corner of our fair county.
And while no one wants to lose irreplaceable places, it does beg the questions of how much land should be preserved and for what?
First, the dust up.
About a nine months ago, SunPower Corp., which wants to build a solar facility on 4,000 acres of farmland in the Antelope Valley, was told by the Kern County Planning Department it needed to mitigate for that lost farmland, about 2,700 acres. That means it has to replace the land by protecting land elsewhere.
The farmland was also a known Swainson’s hawk habitat, so SunPower had to find not only farmland, but farmland that was hawk friendly.
SunPower enlisted the aid of Sequoia Riverlands Trust, which makes a business of finding suitable mitigation lands, drawing up easements and then managing those easements.
An ag easement puts restrictions on land for a fee. In this case, farmers who sold an easement to SunPower would get paid to keep farming and Sequoia Riverlands Trust would get a cut to make sure everyone lived up to the easement.
SunPower paid several farmers here in the San Joaquin Valley option money and had easements ready to launch on 5,000 acres.
Everything was going just swell, the farmers thought. Until about a month ago when the county told SunPower to scrap the easements and fork over $14 million so the county could go get its own easements.
The farmers, then, were out all that anticipated money. Much angry grumbling ensued.
One working theory is that some very well-connected person pressured the county to switch the deal so he (or she) could sell a large piece of property to the county and pocket all that dough.
Other theories are the county wants shuffle the loot into the general fund.
Kern County Planning Director Lorelei Oviatt did tell me the county is more than likely going to buy one large single piece of property, or an easement on a large property, to mitigate for the SunPower farmland.
But she assured me the money will not be used to buy a fire truck or pay for road repairs. It is in a fund dedicated to project mitigation and that project is the SunPower project. It can’t be used for anything else.
Other criticisms of the county’s switch up are that governments don’t have the expertise to search out, negotiate and hold such easements. That’s exactly why groups like Sequoia Riverlands Trust evolved. Oviatt did acknowledge this is the first time Kern has ever attempted to buy such an easement. But she said the county has, in the past, negotiated land mitigation for the Metropolitan Bakersfield Habitat Conservation Plan, so she was confident it would all work out.
She felt bad if farmers had been promised the easement money. But she noted that SunPower had options on far more land than the county required, so someone was going to lose out once the county picked which easements were acceptable. Besides, she said, SunPower knew the county had to review the easements before closing escrow. And it had been notified that the county might initiate the cash payment mitigation measure.
“I know these folks are upset,” Oviatt said. “And it’s understandable. If I’d known SunPower had gone that far, I would have told them not to.”
We shall see whether the “well-connected person” theory is accurate as any easement or property purchase will come before the Board of Supervisors.
In the meantime, Oviatt told me her main concern with the SunPower land mitigation was the overall conservation picture.
While SunPower was scampering around talking to farmers, another ag group had come to the Board of Supervisors in July concerned about a US Fish and Wildlife plan to buy properties or easements in the foothills. The Kern County Catttleman’s Association told supervisors these easements can have a detrimental effect on property values and operations for neighboring farmers and ranchers.
Who do you complain to when easement restrictions possibly impede on your own land use and the easement owner is a middle man management company not even located in Kern, Oviatt asked?
The US Fish and Wildlife agency and the California Department of Fish and Game, for example, are “notorious” for managing the “fringes” of their wildlife preserves, Oviatt said.
“I started looking at maps and there’s a need for conservation for this and mitigation for that,” she said.
Already, groups like the Nature Conservancy own or control swaths 50 miles long and three miles wide linking the Tehachapis to Tejon Ranch.
“That’s a good thing for species protection,” she said. “But comments to the board were ‘Wow, all of Kern County is going to be owned by someone else.'”
And then there was the High Speed Rail Authority that Oviatt said was down here “snooping around” for large blocks of land to preserve for endangered species impacts several counties to the north of Kern.
Aside from that being patently unfair, she wondered at what point is there no more “mitigation land” for local development because it’s all owned or controlled by other entities for other conservation purposes.
“Say Paramount wants to build another Cuties plant and everything’s locked up?”
She noted in Inyo County there are only about 30,000 acres left that aren’t owned outright by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power or aren’t covered by some protective easement.
“Inyo provides a cautionary tale for us. Do we really want to be a drive-through wildlife preserve?” she asked. “In Kern County, we like jobs.”
All of which led to the county demanding $14 million from SunPower and left a handful of farmers with a bad taste in their mouths.
Like I said, one small caper that opens an interesting bigger picture.
Feb. 16, 2013
By LOIS HENRY
The Bakersfield Californian
There’s nothing like a water deal to bring out big money, big ideas and even bigger pitfalls.
And Rosedale Rio-Bravo Water Storage District has come up with one doozy of a deal.
It has entered into escrow to buy 3,300 acres of the old Onyx Ranch east of Lake Isabella for $25 million.
The prize: potentially 4,000 to 6,000 acre feet a year of water from the South Fork of the Kern River.
Rosedale’s plan is to move most of that water through Lake Isabella in partnership with one or more other local water districts and use it as a buffer against drought and reduced yields from the State Water Project.
“We view this as a viable alternative to replacing water lost through the State Water Project as a result of environmental restrictions,” Rosedale General Manager Eric Averett said.
If this seems like a simple plan, it’s not.
More than a few entities have floated similar ideas only to get stalled at the “what if” stage. I’ll come back to why that is in a sec.
As audacious as the water deal alone is, Rosedale also has been in talks with the county to include a farmland mitigation/water sharing deal on top of the Onyx purchase.
Talk about a lot of balls in the air.
The farmland mitigation portion of the scheme actually gave me a little “aHA!” moment.
What is mitigation? It simply means the company has to try and make up for what it destroys or displaces.
***
The SunPower connection
Back in December (2012, see above post) I wrote about a curious situation where Kern County had required solar developer SunPower Corp. to buy conservation easements on prime farmland that was also habitat for Swainson’s hawk. This would have allowed SunPower to make up for farmland it would have destroyed with its 4,000-acre project in the Antelope Valley.
SunPower had all but signed several easements with local farmers in late October when the county suddenly switched tacks and demanded SunPower instead pay Kern $14 million. The county would use the cash to buy easements on its own, I was told.
The farmers were very upset, having lost out on that money and rumor had it a single, large land owner was pressuring the county to buy an easement on his/her land.
I’m not sure about the “pressure” part, but the county was definitely talking to Rosedale about buying an easement on the Onyx ranch.
In early to mid-October, Rosedale approached the county offering to sell the conservation easement for $14 million and also provide the county with 30 percent of the Onyx water yield each year, up to a maximum of 1,500 acre feet at no charge for 30 years.
That water could be used in the Kern River Valley where residents now pay hefty bills to Cal Water, which has to buy supplies from elsewhere.
As I said, “aHA!”
So, that’s why the county wanted that $14 million in cash from SunPower. (I like it when loose ends tie themselves up so neatly.)
Though Averett said Rosedale is still in talks with the county, I got the feeling the county’s not that into Rosedale anymore.
“We danced together for a while,” Director of General Services Jeff Frapwell told me. “But I suspect it isn’t a good synergy for us.”
He said the county is actively seeking other conservation easements.
“We’re poised to go either way,” Frapwell said.
***
Concerns over water rights
The county is worried there isn’t as much water as Rosedale thinks, that other rights holders on the South Fork may sue, that fallowing farmland to free up water might devalue the Swainson’s hawk habitat, etc.
The county hasn’t even decided whether to study Onyx as possible mitigation for SunPower.
“We would only engage in the study if we felt the other parts of the partnership worked,” Frapwell said.
And that’s after six closed session meetings with the Board of Supervisors.
Doesn’t seem like a love match to me.
Averett was undeterred, saying Rosedale would go forward with or without the county.
Which brings us to the pitfalls of just the water portion of Rosedale’s plan.
As I said, many other entities have been tempted by the Onyx water only to walk away.
That includes the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which, according to Averett, did a feasibility study back in the 1950s or ’60s that looked at getting at the Onyx water. DWP apparently decided to drop the idea.
“We think there are real water rights up there,” said Richard Diamond, general manager of North Kern Water Storage District, which looked at Onyx with Rosedale several years ago.
The only problem:
“You have to move the water through Lake Isabella, and that’s where you may have difficulty.”
Mark Mulkay, general manager of Kern Delta Water district, agreed saying any plans to move Onyx water would run into the same wall.
“How do you prove your water is getting to the reservoir?”
***
The Isabella problem
Lake Isabella is divided up by storage rights.
Buena Vista and North Kern water storage districts hold the rights and sublease space to various other entities, including Kern Delta and the city of Bakersfield.
These are the so-called “river interests,” or entities that have rights to Kern River water.
And they get along about as well as a bag of wet cats.
For Rosedale’s plan to work, it would have to prove exactly how much of its Onyx water actually hits the lake.
There are rights holders between Onyx Ranch and the lake. That raises questions of whose water is running into Isabella.
If Rosedale releases say, 100 acre feet, from Onyx and a downstream user picks it up before it makes it to the lake, how would Rosedale account for that?
The fear is that 100 acre feet would come out of someone else’s water already in the lake. Translation: Lawsuits.
“Clearly we need the cooperation of the river interests to move water,” Averett said. “We want to work with them to put a program together that provides them value.”
Such as, allowing the river interests to take some of the Onyx water in dry years and, in wet years when they need storage space, allowing them to deliver excess water to Rosedale.
“We’re trying to make it mutually beneficial.”
Averett said this project is no different from any other project that moves water from its place of origin to a different place of use.
Um. Yeah, that hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for moving water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento delta south. Just sayin’.
Considering all the hurdles Rosedale faces, it’s a good thing they got a six-month escrow.
And growers in the massive Semitropic Water Storage District are learning that sooner than most.
Though the state has set a series of short- and long-term deadlines to restore the depleted water table, Semitropic is so far in the hole it got special legislation passed in September allowing it to ramp up its own timeline — and landowner fees.
It’s holding a vote on Wednesday to slap a $500-per-acre surcharge on any “new” ground developed for farming and is proposing to use satellite imagery to determine exact water consumption by crop.
If those crops use more water than is considered average, growers will have to pay an extra $90 per acre-foot, on top of land assessments and water charges they’re already paying.
Some farmers are saying it’s just too much.
“The water’s going to get so high, it won’t be worth it to farm,” said longtime farmer Peter Andreotti.
But the district insists it’s the only way forward under new groundwater laws.
GETTING OUT OF WHACK
Almost as soon as the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, in 2014 mandating overdrafted aquifers get into balance, Semitropic got busy on the plan that will come to a vote Wednesday.
It’s no secret how upside down Semitropic is on groundwater.
“Given SGMA … we’re already in a deficit position,” said Semitropic General Manager Jason Gianquinto.
A lot of factors have paved the road to Semitropic’s groundwater woes.
Part of the problem is that Semitropic is just flat huge, sprawling over 220,000 acres from south of Shafter to the Kings and Tulare county lines.
It never contracted for enough State Water Project, or SWP, water to farm every one of those acres.
Then SWP water was cut due to endangered species issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Restricted supplies, however, didn’t slow the “nut gold rush.”
When the price of almonds went through the roof, Semitropic suddenly had everyone and their brother, including investment firms, gobbling up district land without contracts for surface supplies.
It was just “plant and pump.”
The problem wasn’t ignored by Semitropic, which has been aggressive, if not always successful, in looking for new ways to bring in more water.
BANKING ON BANKING
One of Semitropic’s longest-running efforts, though, hasn’t been as effective as hoped.
Semitropic was an early adopter of banking water for outside entities, including the often-despised Southern California water gorilla, the Metropolitan Water District, or MWD.
It seemed like a good deal with MWD paying fees to park its water and leaving 10 percent of its banked supplies.
Then MWD water — and its storage fees — bypassed Semitropic in the California Aqueduct when delta supplies tightened.
And that 10 percent “leaveback water” (or “magic water” as one farmer called it) wasn’t a match for the massive pumping going on in the district.
Semitropic continued to lose ground.
Around 2013, Semitropic started buying and fallowing farmland, amassing more than 10,000 acres.
But it was still behind, spurring it to look for water in what some have seen as questionable places.
ISLAND DREAMS
Decades ago, Semitropic joined an effort with the Delta Wetlands Project in which several privately held delta islands would be flooded and that stored water later banked in Semitropic.
The plan successfully emerged from court challenges in 2013 and Semitropic leased the islands for $3 million in 2014 ready to reap that water.
First, though, it hired a contractor to spray weed killer, which drifted onto nearby vineyards.
Lawsuits (five so far) ensued.
The drift was, apparently, so bad the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s office was investigating whether criminal charges were warranted. None have been filed to date.
That same year, by the way, the state Water Resources Control Board issued curtailments on water transfers out of the delta due to drought concerns.
Semitropic ended up with no water and no crops but a lot of legal bills.
It has continued to lease the islands (later bought by MWD) for between $1 million and $1.2 million a year and rented them out to farmers, Gianquinto said.
DESERT DREAMS
In an effort to increase its water banking options, Semitropic entered into a joint powers agreement with the then-Antelope Valley Water Bank (now called the Willow Springs Water Bank), the Rosamond Community Services District and CalPERS (yes, the public employee pension agency) to develop a water bank on the desert.
“It was a marketing strategy at the time,” Gianquinto explained. “The idea was someone who banked with us could choose to have capacity up there and have more flexibility to move water between the two programs.”
It never took off, he said.
Even so, he added, Semitropic didn’t come “out of pocket” on that effort.
KINGS RIVER DREAMS
Semitropic has already come out of pocket — big time — on its latest scheme.
It plans to build a small reservoir next to the California Aqueduct near Kettleman City, capture floodwater off the Kings River and bank it in Semitropic.
The district has already spent $40 million to buy an easement on the property owned by John Vidovich.
The plan also involves increasing Semitropic’s banking capabilities by 15,000 acres.
The environmental work has been chugging along but the district will need $500 million to actually build the reservoir, punch a pipeline into the aqueduct and plumb in the water bank.
It plans to seek $250 million of that from Proposition 1 funds.
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE RANCH
Some of Semitropic’s efforts make sense to district farmers.
Some, not so much.
Both Andreotti and John Wedel, whose family goes back three generations in Semitropic, were good with the district’s plan to charge $500 an acre for any new farming in the district.
That will nip the “plant and pump” crowd in the bud, they felt. Or at least force those growers to help pay for new water.
But the satellite imagery plan and extra charges had them shaking their heads. (Especially since Semitropic just raised land assessments by $100 per acre in 2014.)
Working with California Polytechnic State University, Semitropic has gathered satellite imagery of crops in the district going back to 2005 and determined the average amount of evapotranspiration, or ET, is 2.28 acre-feet per acre.
That is proposed to be the baseline.
If a grower goes over that, he’ll pay $90 per acre-foot for every additional acre-foot.
If growers use less than that, they receive a $60 credit, according to the proposal being voted on Wednesday.
Wedel, who grows walnuts and almonds, had lots of concerns.
He keeps very close track of his crops and has devised a way to rotate blocks of trees and is using the fallowed land to flood with excess water and replenish the ground.
“I’ve spent a lot of money, do I get credit for that?” he asked.
He’s also meticulous about how much water he runs on crops.
“What happens if their calculation of how much water I used don’t match mine?”
And the vote is based on parcels — one vote per parcel.
Wedel owns 1,400 acres in one spot but it’s spread over two parcels. He has friends with only 300 acres, but they’re divvied up in 54 parcels.
How is that fair, he wondered.
Before charging farmers more, Wedel argued Semitropic should renegotiate its banking deal with MWD for more water.
In fact, most other banking deals, including some other Semitropic deals, require 30 percent or more of banked water to be left in the ground.
But Semitropic’s deal with MWD focused more on fees than water.
Now, Gianquinto said, it could be hard to renegotiate with so many other banking options available to MWD.
Either way, he insisted, everything Semitropic is doing is about maintaining or growing its water in order to keep farmers in business.
Other local ag water districts are likewise planning to use ET to determine consumption and may also attach tiered rates to that consumption.
“In order to accommodate that use, districts have to buy more supplies or reduce demand in other areas,” said Rosedale Rio-Bravo Water Storage District General Manager Eric Averett.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act doesn’t allow for much else.
That didn’t alleviate Andreotti’s frustration at how the new rules are affecting everything from the cost of farming to the value of his land.
“I bought land that had water underneath it,” he said. “How am I gonna sell it with none?”
Contact Californian columnist Lois Henry at 661-395-7373 or lhenry@bakersfield.com. Her work appears on Sundays and Wednesdays; the views expressed are her own.
When you first meet John Vidovich, everything from his ball cap to his dirty boots tells you he’s a farmer.
He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts.
But this outwardly unassuming multimillionaire has become a lightning rod of controversy.
Because, while he does farm thousands of acres of pistachios, almonds and grapes, many believe the only harvest Vidovich is truly interested in is water.
Water that he will take, critics fear, and eventually sell to Southern California cities.
In fact, his detractors call him the single greatest threat to Central Valley farming ever to come down the pike.
Not a chance. No way, according to Vidovich and his longtime associates.
First of all, the myriad laws and rules that govern water wouldn’t allow that to happen, they say.
Second, “I’m a farmer,” Vidovich says. “And I want to keep farming.”
The truth, as always, probably lies somewhere in between.
What is indisputable is that over the past 20-plus years, Vidovich has quietly amassed more than 100,000 acres in the Central Valley, gaining footholds on numerous water boards, which has given him control over vast amounts of groundwater — the valley’s lifeblood.
Now, he’s involved in a project that could set him up as a water marketer on an extreme scale.
Observers worry that Vidovich plans to pump Kings and Tulare counties dry, park that water in Kern County and then sell it to the highest bidder in dry years, leaving a once-thriving farm district barren.
If their fears come true, the Los Angeles water grab in Owens Valley would pale in comparison.
And one Kern County water district could be the linchpin to it all.
Semitropic Water Storage District, in northwestern Kern, has raised a lot of eyebrows with its ambitious, some say audacious, Tulare Lake Storage and Floodwater Protection Project.
The project would consist of a small reservoir, more like short-term storage “cells,” along the California Aqueduct just north of Kettleman City where floodwater off the south fork of the Kings River would be captured.
That water would then be moved south through the aqueduct and banked in Semitropic.
It’s a $500 million project, of which Semitropic is hoping to get $250 million from Proposition 1 funding.
Proposition 1 is a $7 billion bond passed in 2014 that would pay for a host of projects from flood control to water quality. It specifically set aside $2.7 billion for water storage projects.
In exchange, the state would get banking rights in Semitropic, said General Manager Jason Gianquinto.
The idea of capturing Kings River floodwaters isn’t new. But Semitropic is the first district to get this close to making it a reality.
The Kings is as erratic a river as the Kern so floodwaters are unpredictable.
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The Kings River flows under Highway 99 on Saturday. Usually this area of the river is popular for water recreation.Henry A. Barrios / The Californian
But when the Kings does flood, as it’s doing now, millions of acre feet rush north to join up with the San Joaquin River and empty into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Often an equal amount of water splits south, wreaking havoc on farmland in the old Tulare Lake bottom, about 60 miles northwest of Bakersfield.
So, capturing that south fork floodwater would benefit both Kings and Kern county farmers, according to Semitropic’s Gianquinto.
Except when you plug John Vidovich’s name into the equation.
He owns the land next to the aqueduct where the reservoir would be built and is the one who brought the floodwater project idea to Semitropic a few years ago.
The district has already paid him $40 million for an easement, or right of way, on that land and signed an agreement with him for how the project would operate.
Though the project is billed as flood control, the agreement also allows Vidovich to move groundwater.
Groundwater and floodwater are two very different things.
Floodwater is considered a nuisance, a menace even. Once a river is at flood stage, that usually means all other rights have been filled and the overflow is free game.
Groundwater is much trickier.
There are often laws binding it to a basin.
And it’s that groundwater part of Semitropic’s agreement with Vidovich that is raising hackles along with eyebrows.
Exactly what groundwater would be moved? Kings and Tulare farmers and water managers want to know.
Where to?
How much?
How would it be monitored?
And what’s the end game of moving that water?
Gianquinto and Vidovich have repeatedly said that it would be nearly impossible for an individual to use state facilities to create a private water market using any water, let alone groundwater.
Even if he has access to the California Aqueduct, Vidovich would have to jump through a lot of state hoops to move water independently of Semitropic.
It would involve a public permitting process and be very difficult, not to mention expensive, both men said.
When pressed, though, they acknowledged it could be done.
MEET JOHN VIDOVICH
Before we go much further, you should probably know a little more about Vidovich.
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John Vidovich flies in from Northern California to the Wasco airport to give a tour of some of his farmland in the area.Henry A. Barrios/The Californian
He’s a 61-year-old developer who grew up on a farm in Sunnyvale in the heart of what would become the Silicon Valley.
His father, Stephen Vidovich, formed De Anza Properties and helped develop the valley.
John Vidovich, ultimately, followed in his father’s footsteps after obtaining a law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law.
He recalled bidding on a construction project while studying for the bar exam.
“It was kind of a crutch in case I flunked,” he said. “You know so I could say, ‘Well, I didn’t pass because I was so busy with this project.’”
But he did pass and was admitted to the bar in 1980 at the age of 24. His law license is “inactive,” according to the California State Bar Association website.
He became more involved with De Anza, working with his dad, whom he describes as “bigger than life.”
That shadow drove him to work hard in an effort to “be useful” to De Anza.
While he was just starting out, he also enlisted in the Navy and served in the reserves for six or eight years, he can’t recall the exact term.
He was in military intelligence and had a top secret clearance that involved gathering data and evaluating products they made, he said.
“I’m actually not supposed to talk about it.”
When asked if he applies the skills he learned in his military intelligence training to his life today, he answers that we all use the things we learn through life.
Stephen Vidovich retired but kept a watchful eye on the company, getting daily reports and giving advice, John Vidovich told the San Jose Mercury News after his father’s death.
Stephen Vidovich died in 2007, at the age of 81, driving a tractor near one of his remaining vineyards.
“He made friends everywhere he went,” John Vidovich told the Mercury News in 2007. “There’s a lot of people who don’t like me, but nobody didn’t like my dad.”
HANDS-ON APPROACH
Vidovich continues to run De Anza and in a surprisingly hands-on manner.
He ran, unsuccessfully for city council in his hometown of Los Altos Hills in 2006. And he served two terms on the Santa Clara County Planning Commission, appointed once in 1990 and he again in 2010, igniting controversy among activists concerned about sprawl.
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John Vidovich answers a question from a farmer at the June 21 meeting of the Buena Vista Water Storage District. Vidovich is president of the board.Lois Henry / The Californian
More recently, he filed a voter initiative in 2016 to allow a 48-foot-tall hotel after the Cupertino City Council shot down a De Anza proposal for building a 105-foot-tall hotel in the western Santa Clara Valley town.
“It got to a point where the only way we could get an approval was to go to the voters,” he told the Silicon Valley Business Journal hours after filing the initiative paperwork in April 2016.
The city sued. A judge found this past March that the initiative was flawed because Vidovich used his own project description instead of the “neutral” description by the Cupertino city attorney.
Vidovich shrugged it off, saying the flaw amounted to putting the descriptions on the wrong pages and quickly appealed.
If those seem like minute details for the head of a major development company to trouble with, he’s even more hands-on with Sandridge Partners LP, the family business he formed for farming acquisitions.
He’s so involved, in fact, he even chairs the monthly meetings for Buena Vista Water Storage District where Sandridge owns thousands of acres.
“I run a very tight meeting,” he said.
Indeed, as president of the board, Vidovich has a great deal of influence in directing much of the water district’s business.
Under his leadership, Buena Vista has installed a pipeline system to reduce reliance on canals, which lose a lot of water to seepage and the district has become extremely active in buying up land for water banking.
BUYING IN
Vidovich has been buying land in the Central Valley for more than 20 years.
He said he bought his first parcel here in 1994 when he invested in a foreclosed property in Kings County.
He started buying consistently in Kern, Kings and Tulare counties throughout the early and mid-2000s and continues to add properties sometimes at a blistering pace.
Between March and May of this year, 25 new sales were recorded in Kern alone, according to ParcelQuest, a web service that tracks real estate deals by county.
Through Sandridge, Vidovich owns about 130,000 acres with 38,500 acres in Kern, 82,000 acres in Kings, 9,500 acres in Tulare and 300 acres in Fresno county, per ParcelQuest. (Vidovich said he didn’t think Sandridge had hit 100,000 acres, total, yet.)
Those figures don’t include recent land purchases he’s made in the Kern Delta Water District and Fresno Irrigation District — both areas Sandridge is targeting for even more land purchases because of its solid rights to the Kern and San Joaquin rivers.
“I’ve learned that I have to be diversified in my water,” Vidovich said.
At this point, he said, he uses about 30 percent of his land for farming and 70 percent for water.
Understanding water, water rights and the often complex structures of water districts has become a Vidovich hallmark.
A skill his detractors say he’s used to maneuver water away from its rightful place to his own benefit.
A STINK THAT LINGERS
Vidovich says the animus against him goes back to his 2009 sale of State Water Project (SWP) contract rights tied to land he owned in the Dudley Ridge Water District in Kings County.
He sold rights to more than 14,000 acre feet a year to the Mojave Water Agency in San Bernardino County for a headline-grabbing $73 million.
It was a permanent water loss for Kings County and put Vidovich under a lingering cloud of suspicion among area farmers and water managers.
“I did sell water out of Kings County to an urban user and people didn’t like it,” Vidovich said. “At the time, I was heavy with state water but the state water had low allocations and I had no other water source over there (Dudley Ridge land in western Kings County).”
Looking back, he said he wouldn’t make that sale today.
But “that money enabled me to go into Angiola (a water district in Tulare County) and have other water sources.”
Vidovich used the $73 million in 2010 to buy nearly 75 percent of the land in the Angiola Water District.
It should be noted here that Angiola’s general manager is Matthew Hurley.
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Matt Hurley, general manager of the Angiola Water District, is causing concern among Tulare and Kings county farmers over groundwater.Profile shot from LinkedIn
Hurley and Vidovich go way back.
They went to law school together and joined the same program in the Navy reserves.
Though Vidovich describes them as simply having known each other at school, others in Tulare and Kings water circles say Hurley is Vidovich’s right-hand man — some say henchman.
In any event, Vidovich fallowed his Angiola land and took its groundwater about 25 miles west to his Dudley Ridge lands.
At one point, he was moving nearly 30,000 acre feet a year, according to Angiola’s records.
Other water districts contended it was much more.
Satellite images from NASA show the area around the well fields Angiola was pulling from is the epicenter for land subsidence in eastern Tulare County from overpumping.
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NASA released satellite photos earlier this year that it used to determine land subsidence in California from overpumping groundwater. The area with the worst subsidence was in Tulare County around the town of Corcoran. The red depicts land that has sunk 20 to 24 inches.Courtesy of NASA
Vidovich isn’t the only pumper in that area, his supporters note. The giant J.G. Boswell farming company pumps there too.
Yes, critics agree, but Boswell uses that water to irrigate in the district. Their concern is where Vidovich is taking the groundwater.
Vidovich says he uses that Angiola groundwater to farm in Dudley Ridge, so the groundwater isn’t leaving its home basin.
Though he also acknowledged that during the drought he sold some to fellow Dudley Ridge landowner Stewart Resnick, who owns the massive Wonderful Company.
Resnick also has lands just south of the Kings/Kern county line in Lost Hills and many of Vidovich’s detractors believe that’s where a lot of that Angiola groundwater is going.
They point to three new pump stations along Angiola’s main canal just north of the county line that have the ability to move 100,000 acre feet a year into pipes that head south and west.
Whether those pipes end on Vidovich lands or Resnick’s is hard to know.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
One of Angiola’s main well fields is actually inside the Pixley Irrigation District boundaries where water managers were concerned by the amount of water leaving their district.
Angiola was rehabbing old wells, drilling new ones and installed a large pipeline.
That was the last straw for Pixley, which sued in 2013.
Angiola was ordered to stop pumping and eventually the districts came to a settlement.
Angiola agreed not to pump more than 36,000 acre feet a year, or more than 130,000 acre feet in any consecutive five-year period. It agreed to pay Pixley/Lower Tule $240,000 a year to bring in federal water to recharge the groundwater.
And, importantly, Angiola promised not to take the groundwater outside of Tulare or Kings counties or allow any of its landowners to do so.
That means Vidovich.
WAY OUT FRONT
Yes, locals have a bad taste in their mouths from Vidovich’s water moves, I was told by several people, many of whom said they were too afraid of retaliation to use their names.
Vidovich is, after all, a powerful landowner in the Central Valley.
But farmers Jack Mitchell and Milt Pace are upfront about their distaste for Vidovich and especially Hurley.
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Farmers Jack Mitchell, right, and Milt Pace are battling with John Vidovich to keep him away from the water they use to farm their land.Henry A. Barrios/The Californian
They are suing Angiola for what they say was Hurley’s illegal takeover of the tiny Atwell Island Water District. (See sidebar online.)
Every move Vidovich has made, through Hurley and other public water districts, has been about gaining control of water, they say.
“He’s serious about taking water out of this valley,” Pace said.
It’s happened before, he said, up in Green Valley, which is west of Interstate 5 and a few miles north of the Kern County line.
Pace farmed in the valley and partnered with Vidovich for a while.
“The only water Green Valley got was some surplus state water and natural groundwater,” Pace said.
After Vidovich sold his Dudley Ridge state water, Pace said he drilled several wells in Green Valley, built a pipeline across I-5 and took the valley’s groundwater to keep his Dudley Ridge trees alive.
Now, Pace said, Vidovich will do the same thing on a larger scale by moving Kings and Tulare groundwater to Kern County.
“He does enough farming in the area to make it look like he’s a farmer. But it’s just a cover for taking water out,” Pace said.
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Farmer Milt PaceHenry A. Barrios/The Californian
Hurley, who also serves as general manager of Green Valley, said that basin, which is separate from the Tulare Lake basin, is actually in balance.
Vidovich freely admits that most of his land is for water rights. With water from the delta becoming more unreliable, he said, farmers have to hoard land for the groundwater. It’s just smart business.
Pace gave a nod to Vidovich on that count.
“His operation is extensive and very smart.”
Mitchell agreed, giving Vidovich credit for seeing where groundwater laws were headed before anyone else.
“They’ve (Vidovich and Hurley) been way out front on SGMA,” Mitchell said.
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Farmer Jack Mitchell walks out of the Atwell Island Water District board room.Henry A. Barrios/The Californian
SGMA refers to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed in 2014 that mandates water basins be in balance by 2040. To do that, the state requires each area to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to account for what’s going in and coming out of the aquifer. The GSAs are supposed to set pumping limits to stop overdraft.
Numbers haven’t been set in stone just yet, but it’s looking like the Kings/Tulare farming areas will settle somewhere near allowing 1.5 acre feet of water to be pumped per acre.
“Vidovich is gobbling up all the parcels he can so he can keep on pumping,” Mitchell said.
By locking up the land, he said, Vidovich will be able to deny smaller farmers like him and Pace the water they need for their own operations.
Both men saw Hurley’s involvement in numerous local districts including Angiola, Deer Creek Storm Water District, Green Valley Water District and the Tri-County Water Authority, a newly formed GSA, as more Vidovich control.
“They just do what they want and you have to sue to stop ‘em,” Mitchell said.
ALWAYS ABOUT THE WATER
First off, Hurley said, he’s not Vidovich’s henchman.
He was semi-retired living in Clovis when another Kings County farmer, Pat McCarthy — not Vidovich — called him to do some work for Angiola.
He came on board full-time in 2011, give or take, he said.
“There’s a mythology out there that Angiola is stealing water,” he said. “I understand the fear, but it’s not based on reason.”
Number one, the settlement agreement between Angiola and Lower Tule/Pixley irrigation districts won’t allow Angiola or Sandridge to move the water out of Kings County.
Number two, Angiola is trying to maintain the local aquifer by retiring land to limit pumping.
Number three, water from Angiola can’t physically get to Semitropic’s proposed storage cells.
True, Angiola’s canal stops about 23 miles southeast of the project.
But a pipeline, which Vidovich is allowed to build under the Semitropic agreement, could span that distance.
In fact, Vidovich frequently moves water by pipeline, Pace said, pointing to a massive line Vidovich installed that appears to take Angiola groundwater through his Dudley Ridge lands.
Besides, Pace and others say, overreaching is another Vidovich hallmark.
Vidovich and a co-defendant were found guilty in 2014 of conspiracy to breach a land sale contract and ordered to pay nearly $130 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The punitive damage portion, about $73 million, was overturned on appeal and the case has been sent back to Kings County.
But the appellate court still found Vidovich liable and he could still have to pay out a major amount.
At issue? About 25,000 acre feet of groundwater.
THE NAT GEO QUOTE
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John Vidovich walks through his almond orchard near Wasco and explains the spray irrigation system he uses. He is a San Joaquin Valley farmer from Northern California.Henry A. Barrios / The Californian
Then there was the “nail in the coffin” for folks like Pace and Mitchell when Vidovich appeared in a National Geographic film called “Water and Power: A California Heist,” which ran in mid-March and again on June 25.
In it, Vidovich says:
“My business approach right now is to acquire as much water as I can to be diversified in water. And, you know, at some point in time that water is in risk of going to an urban area.
“Because the urban places would pay a hell of a lot of money for it.
“So, if i can’t make money on that water farming, I will sell it eventually to an urban area and that’s a right I have.
“If they pass a law saying I can’t sell it, then I can’t sell it. But that’s the way it is.
“That’s business.”
Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad.
“I don’t believe we should be sending water to LA,” he said. “Absolutely not. Even if I were to move water and sell it, it would be to farming operations.”
‘JEALOUSY AND INNUENDO’
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John Vidovich talks to a farmer after the Buena Vista Water Storage District meeting June 21.Lois Henry / The Californian
Longtime friend and associate Ted Page defended Vidovich’s operations.
“The biggest misconception about John is that he wants to sell water to LA,” he said. “It’s not true, he wants to farm.”
Page met Vidovich in 2005 when Page was farming 400 acres out near Wasco.
Vidovich made an offer on the land and Page took it.
Vidovich later made an offer for Page to come work for him as a consultant or, as Page says in his slow drawl, his “fireman…’cause I put out fires.”
Page had been a longtime board member of the Semitropic Water District and Vidovich wanted that kind of expertise.
Later, Page would run for and win a seat on the Kern County Water Agency board. He’s now the president of that powerful panel.
Page said Vidovich is a tough businessman but that’s all.
As for making a major water grab in the Central Valley, Page said Vidovich has nothing on the Wonderful or JG Boswell companies, both of which have far larger land holdings than Vidovich.
“Yeah, he’s got a lot of money and he’s been buying up land, makes some people nervous,” Page said.
But out in the Buena Vista Water Storage District where Vidovich chairs the board, his original detractors all love him, Page said.
“He paid ’em three times what anyone else would’ve for their land and now they’re all gettin’ water because of his policies,” Page said. “All the rest of that stuff … it’s just jealousy and innuendo, jealousy and innuendo, jealousy and innuendo.”
Vidovich, he said, is just the new water baron on the block, that’s all.
Contact Californian columnist Lois Henry at 661-395-7373 or lhenry@bakersfield.com. Her work appears on Sundays and Wednesdays; the views expressed are her own.
He’s a rich guy with lots of land, lots of water and lots of power.
I can’t lie, it was the water I was most interested in — and suspicious of.
But John Vidovich turned out to be quite a surprise.
Haven’t heard of him? Well, let me enlighten you.
He’s the main player in Sandridge Partners, which owns thousands of acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. More than 4,000 of those acres are located right here in the Buena Vista Water Storage District, which is where I became interested in him.
Buena Vista along with Rosedale Rio-Bravo Water Storage District teamed last May to buy the bankrupt McAllister Ranch housing development for $22 million. They’ve been working ever since to remake it into a groundwater bank.
But the City of Bakersfield has put roadblocks in their way, saying the city should be lead agency on any environmental docs, the districts must pay fees that the housing development would have paid and the city wants promises the districts will not use McAllister as a launching pad to sell water out of the county. (That’s a particular sticking point with Buena Vista, which owns rights to a lot of Kern River water and has steadfastly refused to promise no out-of-county sales.)
To me, it seems as if the city is unwilling to let go of the land even though the housing project planned for the site went belly up.
I’ve been following this story for a while and heard rumors that Vidovich, who joined the board shortly before the districts bought McAllister, was the main force behind the ground water bank.
Hmmm.
Further, I was highly suspicious that perhaps he was also behind Buena Vista’s refusal to promise not to sell water.
Vidovich is, after all, the Kings County land owner who sold his State Water Project rights to 14,000 acre feet for $73 million — more than $5,000 an acre foot! — to San Bernardino County in 2009.
“Yes, I was one of the big pushers for us buying McAllister Ranch,” Vidovich told me straight out.
Aha! Clearly, he was no match for my cunning interrogation skills.
And, do you plan to sell water out of the county? I asked, trying not to smirk.
“I’m opposed to the sale of any water out of the county,” he said. “I think that’s a reasonable condition by the city and Buena Vista should agree to it. But I’m just one vote on the board.”
Uh, what?
“I’m opposed to the sale of water for very selfish reasons, I have trees,” he said. “I want to farm here, make money in the county and employ people here. You have to have water to do that.”
The only time he could foresee sales of banked water from McAllister is if local needs weren’t being met because of poor state supplies. Then Buena Vista and Rosedale should sell water to help their neighbors.
“It’s a very slippery slope when you start selling water to Los Angeles,” he said. “You have to think twice when you’re talking about selling water that originates in this area. State water is different.”
OK, so that conspiracy theory was up in smoke, but I still wanted to know whether the McAllister plan was part of a larger effort to out maneuver Stewart Resnick on the water front.
Resnick, owner of Paramount Farming, which essentially controls the massive Kern Water Bank, has been Kern’s long standing water baron.
Vidovich went toe to toe with him and Fred Starrh and Starrh Cotton Growers, back in the mid 2000s, suing over allegations they had colluded to keep water from flowing to Sandridge owned properties.
A settlement was reached that Vidovich said Resnick got the better end of. But he now considers Resnick a friend.
That may be true, but it hasn’t stopped Vidovich from hedging his bets. Such as helping get Sandridge employee Ted Page elected to the board of the Kern County Water Agency by ousting longtime incumbent Starrh.
Yeah, no bad blood there.
Vidovich got into farming through his father, Stephen Vidovich, who began buying property in the San Jose area in the 1920s.
The family later developed land in Cupertino into the De Anza Square Shopping Center. Vidovich’s real estate company, De Anza Properties, still operates in that area.
So far, his Kern County moves have been quite interesting and make me wonder what else Vidovich has up his sleeve.
But back to McAllister Ranch.
If Vidovich is so set against out-of-county water sales, then why has Buena Vista insisted it wants “keep our options open” on water sales.
Vidovich said he honestly doesn’t know as he’s not been at the negotiation table.
He was perfectly willing to take sales off the table and get down to what the city’s really after, which he believes has nothing to do with water sales.
“I’ve heard other things,” he said
And he wouldn’t speculate further.
Buena Vista’s water rights are extremely good, he said and the district routinely has excess water. They need a banking operation.
Particularly as farmers transition from row crops to higher value permanent crops such as pistachios, pomegranates and vines, he said. That makes a reliable, year-round water supply crucial.
“It’s very frustrating that we’ve made no progress on this. We should have come to terms with the city,” he said.
Somehow, I think Vidovich will find a way to make that happen.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at http://www.bakersfield.com, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com
If all had gone as planned six years ago, the failed McAllister Ranch housing development would be brimming with water right now.
Instead, the two agricultural water districts that had hoped to turn the foreclosed subdivision into a groundwater bank are now in court over the 2,000-acre property.
The whirlwind courtship that brought Rosedale-Rio Bravo and Buena Vista water storage districts together, spending $22 million to buy McAllister out of bankruptcy, is officially over.
Buena Vista filed a partition complaint in mid-January seeking a court-ordered sale of the property.
“We want to dissolve the partnership,” said Tim Ashlock, Buena Vista’s engineer.
Buena Vista felt Rosedale was bogging down the process and no matter how many meetings they had, nothing ever seemed to happen.
I was told last week that Rosedale will recommend that the court preserve the part of the property that can be developed for groundwater banking, sell the remainder and each district can then make their own groundwater banks.
“I can’t say how we differed over the project because (Buena Vista) never communicated that to us,” said Eric Averett, general manager for Rosedale.
Buena Vista wanted to control the project, which wasn’t acceptable, he said.
“We’re disappointed we ended up here,” Averett added. “Of all the years to fragment, we’re really missing an opportunity this year.”
Not just this year.
If climate change predictions come to fruition, groundwater banking may be California’s preferred method of water storage.
Scientists have predicted that climate change will actually increase precipitation over the Golden State but in the form of rain, rather than snow.
California’s plumbing system was created with the idea that the mountains store most of our water each winter in the form of snow.
As it melts in spring, we capture that water in reservoirs and then move it around the state through a series of canals.
But if the future holds less snow and more rain, that plumbing may need to be altered.
Groundwater banking, where water is spread over percolation ponds and allowed to seep into the ground, is considered a critical water management strategy going forward.
In fact, Rosedale has been very active in creating groundwater banks for itself, such as the ponds at Allen Road and the Westpark Freeway.
And what I consider a more dubious relationship Rosedale has with Irvine Ranch Water District, which owns land along the Kern River west of town where Rosedale banks water. (I call it dubious because I’m naturally suspicious of any southern California agencies nosing around our river.)
Buena Vista has recently begun to up its groundwater banking opportunities, buying a 320-acre piece of land near the Tule Elk Reserve west of Interstate 5.
And both districts said they are still interested in developing groundwater banking on the McAllister land as well. Just independent of one another.
Regardless of who ends up with the land, or how things are split up, McAllister may never store a drop of water.
That’s because the City of Bakersfield holds an interest in this little drama as well.
And the city has never been super excited by the idea of ducks floating over that land.
McAllister is zoned for development (which means development fees) and that’s what the city expects for that area.
In fact, housing developer SunCal exercised an option to buy back the middle third of the land, which has streets and some infrastructure, and had made noise in 2014 about restarting the development.
Then… nothing.
The last contact SunCal had with Bakersfield’s Planning Department was in mid-2016, according to Planning Director Jacqui Kitchen.
But there is nothing “active,” she said.
That leaves just the western 600 acres for possible groundwater banking and the city continues to insist it must be the lead environmental agency on any kind of development — whether it’s houses or groundwater banking — on that land.
That little wrinkle was never ironed out with the ag water agencies and the city’s lawsuit over that issue, though dormant, is still out there.
There’s also the little trick of getting water onto the land, which can’t be done without the city’s assistance since Bakersfield owns or controls the canals and pipelines that would be needed to bring water to McAllister.
So, here we sit.
McAllister remains as it was, a dilapidated icon to the busted real estate bubble of the early 2000s, mostly used for illegal off-roading.
Meanwhile, hundreds of acre feet of Kern River water goes splashing by every day just a few miles to the north.
It’s been less than a month since Buena Vista Water Storage District bought the remaining 600 acres of the failed McAllister Ranch subdivision and it’s already butting heads with Bakersfield city officials.
Like, major league butting.
The city cited the water district last week for excavating several ditches on the property without permits and for putting up K-rail barriers blocking public roads.
And it fired off a letter to Buena Vista’s attorneys threatening to revive a lawsuit over the district’s plans to create a water bank on the former housing development.
The lawsuit was stayed several years ago under an agreement that no work in connection with water banking would be done on the property prior to a completed environmental impact report.
No environmental reports have been done.
So recent excavation work done by Buena Vista violates the “intent” of the agreement, if not the “express language,” according to a letter from the city’s water attorney, Colin Pearce.
Things have gotten tense.
“It’s up to Buena Vista as to how close we are to going back to court,” said Bakersfield City Attorney Ginny Gennaro.
The city’s position is that McAllister Ranch was annexed into the city and zoned for residential use, not water banking.
If Buena Vista wants to bank water on the land, it has to seek a General Plan amendment and do the proper environmental impact reports “just like any other developer in the city,” Gennaro said.
For its part, Buena Vista is feeling a little picked on, said General Manager Maurice Etchechury.
The district has spent close to $70,000 cleaning up mountains of trash left on the property, cutting down weeds and chasing off trespassers.
“The city should be sending us a thank-you note,” he said. “They let this (trash, illegal riding, shooting, etc.) go on out here for years.”
He pooh-poohed the city’s concern over the ditches, saying they’re just barriers to keep dumpers and illegal off-roaders out of the property.
I could see that with one ditch that’s scratched deep into the earth from the main entrance of the old subdivision west along Panama Lane.
But, uh, the other “ditch” on the northern edge of the property, with its packed-down sides, that runs from a deep section of the old golf course straight to the James Canal, looks an awful lot like a funnel to move water.
The corrugated pipe in the end of that “ditch” that goes into the James Canal and the new water gate also seem more intended for water movement than traffic control.
Etchechury didn’t comment when I pointed that out.
His view was that the agreement between Buena Vista and the city to stay the city’s lawsuit didn’t prohibit the kind of work Buena Vista has done so far.
As for the other citations about blocking public roads, Etchechury was a little exasperated.
“OK, fine, then the city can come out and maintain them.”
The city’s actions, he said, were a little shocking after how well the Kern River interests cooperated in past months to find places to stash water so it wouldn’t escape into the California Aqueduct.
A simple phone call, he said, would have been helpful if the city really wanted to know what Buena Vista was doing.
“Instead, I get a citation.”
Interestingly, Gennaro felt the same way, saying she would like to see the parties “get around a table” and talk this through.
Apparently, neither side wants to be the first to extend that olive branch.
Anyhow, I know I spend a lot of time watching the twists and turns of the McAllister Ranch saga.
That’s for a couple of reasons.
First, without new dams, water banking has become California’s main water storage option. And McAllister would be a huge new addition to Kern’s collection so the public should know what we have in the ground.
And because of Buena Vista’s rights to the Kern, a lot of what’s banked in McAllister would be from our river.
We need to make sure it stays right here. Buena Vista has promised it will, but as Reagan used to say, “trust but verify.”
Second, SGMA.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act means we have to account for groundwater in/groundwater out and McAllister presents an interesting wrinkle.
It’s actually inside the boundaries of the Kern River Groundwater Sustainability Agency, or GSA, which is run by Bakersfield, the Kern County Water Agency and Kern Delta Water District.
But the land is owned by Buena Vista (600 acres exclusively and 1,500 acres jointly with Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District), which has its own GSA.
So, if it became a water bank, who would get to claim that water?
Etchechury said water banks can choose their GSA.
Gennaro countered that McAllister isn’t a water bank and won’t be unless Buena Vista stops its cowboy behavior and works with the city.
Finally, McAllister is important because of John Vidovich.
He’s the president of Buena Vista’s board and has been a driving force behind McAllister.
Vidovich has cut a wide swath in water circles in the southern San Joaquin Valley, amassing control over a vast supply of groundwater.
He implied several weeks ago that if the city didn’t want to work with Buena Vista on McAllister, he might take the issue to the voters.
That means you.
Stay tuned.
Contact Californian columnist Lois Henry at 661-395-7373 or lhenry@bakersfield.com. Her work appears on Sundays and Wednesdays; the views expressed are her own.
