{"id":258,"date":"2017-08-04T04:02:06","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T04:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2017-08-08T22:24:39","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T22:24:39","slug":"lois-henry-cowboy-tactics-not-helping-turn-failed-mcallister-ranch-subdivision-into-kerns-newest-water-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/04\/lois-henry-cowboy-tactics-not-helping-turn-failed-mcallister-ranch-subdivision-into-kerns-newest-water-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"McAllister Ranch: Cowboy tactics not helping turn failed subdivision into Kern’s newest water bank"},"content":{"rendered":"
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http:\/\/www.bakersfield.com\/columnists\/lois-henry\/lois-henry-cowboy-tactics-not-helping-turn-failed-mcallister-ranch\/article_dc5ec966-6e79-11e7-afd6-f39647397db3.html<\/p>\n

July 22, 2017<\/p>\n

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Well, that didn\u2019t take long.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s been less than a month since Buena Vista Water Storage District bought the remaining 600 acres of the failed McAllister Ranch subdivision and it\u2019s already butting heads with Bakersfield city officials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Like, major league butting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And it fired off a letter to Buena Vista\u2019s attorneys threatening to revive a lawsuit over the district\u2019s plans to create a water bank on the former housing development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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No environmental reports have been done.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So recent excavation work done by Buena Vista violates the \u201cintent\u201d of the agreement, if not the \u201cexpress language,\u201d according to a letter from the city\u2019s water attorney, Colin Pearce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Things have gotten tense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s up to Buena Vista as to how close we are to going back to court,\u201d said Bakersfield City Attorney Ginny Gennaro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The city\u2019s position is that McAllister Ranch was annexed into the city and zoned for residential use, not water banking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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 \u201cjust like any other developer in the city,\u201d Gennaro said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For its part, Buena Vista is feeling a little picked on, said General Manager Maurice Etchechury.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The district has spent close to $70,000 cleaning up mountains of trash left on the property, cutting down weeds and chasing off trespassers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe city should be sending us a thank-you note,\u201d he said. \u201cThey let this (trash, illegal riding, shooting, etc.) go on out here for years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He pooh-poohed the city\u2019s concern over the ditches, saying they’re just barriers to keep dumpers and illegal off-roaders out of the property.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But, uh, the other \u201cditch\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The corrugated pipe in the end of that \u201cditch\u201d that goes into the James Canal and the new water gate also seem more intended for water movement than traffic control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Etchechury didn\u2019t comment when I pointed that out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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His view was that the agreement between Buena Vista and the city to stay the city\u2019s lawsuit didn\u2019t prohibit the kind of work Buena Vista has done so far.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As for the other citations about blocking public roads, Etchechury was a little exasperated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOK, fine, then the city can come out and maintain them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The city\u2019s 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\u2019t escape into the California Aqueduct.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A simple phone call, he said, would have been helpful if the city really wanted to know what Buena Vista was doing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cInstead, I get a citation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Interestingly, Gennaro felt the same way, saying she would like to see the parties \u201cget around a table\u201d and talk this through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Apparently, neither side wants to be the first to extend that olive branch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Anyhow, I know I spend a lot of time watching the twists and turns of the McAllister Ranch saga.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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First, without new dams, water banking has become California\u2019s main water storage option. And McAllister would be a huge new addition to Kern\u2019s collection so the public should know what we have in the ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And because of Buena Vista\u2019s rights to the Kern, a lot of what\u2019s banked in McAllister would be from our river.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We need to make sure it stays right here. Buena Vista has promised it will, but as Reagan used to say, \u201ctrust but verify.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Second, SGMA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act means we have to account for groundwater in\/groundwater out and McAllister presents an interesting wrinkle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So, if it became a water bank, who would get to claim that water?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Etchechury said water banks can choose their GSA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Gennaro countered that McAllister isn\u2019t a water bank and won\u2019t be unless Buena Vista stops its cowboy behavior and works with the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Finally, McAllister is important because of John Vidovich.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He\u2019s the president of Buena Vista\u2019s board and has been a driving force behind McAllister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Vidovich has cut a wide swath in water circles in the southern San Joaquin Valley, amassing control over a vast supply of groundwater.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He implied several weeks ago that if the city didn\u2019t want to work with Buena Vista on McAllister, he might take the issue to the voters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That means you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Contact Californian columnist Lois Henry at 661-395-7373 or\u00a0lhenry@bakersfield.com<\/a>. Her work appears on Sundays and Wednesdays; the views expressed are her own.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  http:\/\/www.bakersfield.com\/columnists\/lois-henry\/lois-henry-cowboy-tactics-not-helping-turn-failed-mcallister-ranch\/article_dc5ec966-6e79-11e7-afd6-f39647397db3.html July 22, 2017   Well, that didn\u2019t take long. It\u2019s been less than a month since Buena Vista Water Storage District bought the remaining 600 acres of the failed McAllister Ranch subdivision and it\u2019s already butting heads with Bakersfield city officials. Like, major league butting. The city cited the water district last week … Continue reading McAllister Ranch: Cowboy tactics not helping turn failed subdivision into Kern’s newest water bank<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}