Agenda
in Blue
Notes in Black
Approval
of Minutes
Approval
of vouchers and warrants
Old
Business
KID has filed written direct testimony that included 48
affidavits, 700+ pages with 10,000 pages of exhibits on CD’s.
The Nicholson Group filed one affidavit using an expert and
an old BOR map that doesn’t show the Van Brimmer Ditch.
The Group is claiming that Van Brimmer was not in existence before 1910
and never conveyed water from the Klamath or
Nicholson also filed for a six month delay in the hearings.
The State and KID objected and hearings officer Bailey ruled that there
would not be a delay.
The US Gov is using Cecil Lesley from the BOR as a witness
to testify about the tribes. Bill
Ganong can’t wait to ask him questions! The
Tribes filed exhibits but not much testimony.
The “claims” portion of the project adjudication should
be over by the end of this summer. Then
it will sit until 2010 when the hearing judge will rule on our claims.
Money spend on the adjudication will decline until we face
the Tribes in the “claims” process. Since
most of the stipulated facts, testimony, and exhibit work have already been
done, expenses should be low when we face the Tribes.
Hearing dates have not yet been set for these “claims.”
a.
Takings
At the end of March, the US Gov will file its final brief
on whether we have a constitutional right to water as a property right.
There has already been a ruling to the affect that the irrigators have a
contract claim and we are 3rd party beneficiaries of the contract.
The US Gov has prepared the next questions for the judge to
rule on: “Whose right is it?
The irrigators or the BOR’s?”
KID believes the next question should be:
“If there is a property right, was it taken?”
The US Gov also wants the judge to rule on whether the
irrigators should file a class action suit.
They are hoping that if we have to file a class action suit, many
irrigators will drop out because of the time and money a suit like this takes.
b.
PCFFA II: fish die-off trial
Hearing has been postponed will April 8th.
c.
ONRC v EPA NPDES Permit
Still stayed.
d.
ONRC v BOR
This suit is on hold until the US Supreme Court rules on South
Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians.
Except for clean up and some small finishing job, the
tunnel rehabilitation job is complete. There
will be a walk through/final inspection next Monday.
Solem showed before, during, and after digital pictures of
the tunnel. Showed pictures of the
inflow portal and the outflow portal showing the 3 pipes that funnel city drain
water into the canal. Dave is
getting a letter ready to send to the city asking for reimbursement on the job
to fix the major city drain.
The contractor has reported that they didn’t use 200
yards of concrete that the contract allowed for.
At $711/per yard, this is a substantial savings on the project.
The job came in under budget estimate.
The board approved the next payment to Adkins and Thompson
and they expect the third and final payment to be much less then anticipated
because of the change orders and the nonuse of 200 yards of concrete.
(Notes taken from the February 19th District
Planning Session Meeting Minutes)
Urgent Concerns:
Power:
Major structure repair/replacement:
Environmental compliance:
Modernization:
Office:
Litigation
Project transfer
District Consolidation
A new IRS ruling on pay and per diem 1099 charges for board
members is causing quite a few problems for the board.
They are worried about taxable items. The IRS considers the board members
employees of the district.
They are paid $50 per board meeting and sometimes must
handle district business through conference calls.
The IRS has also ruled that per diem can’t be paid to board members
when they attend out of town meetings unless they stay over night.
The board decided that from now on, all members who go to
meetings out of town will turn in expense receipts and will be paid for mileage.
Any conference call meeting will also be paid.
These amounts will be reimbursed and show up on their yearly 1099’s.
Solem also showed us digital pictures of the
New
Business
All the checks for KID and KBID have been mailed.
A few have come back already and the district has to hold them for 2
years before turning the money over to the Oregon State Division of State Lands.
Some new problems have cropped up, i.e. death of 2001 landowners, divorces, etc.
Walter:
Closed on his property in February of 2001 but Klamath County was
behind in posting the transfer of ownership till after the March 8, 2001 date.
His $5/acre refund and $800 reimbursement check went to the previous
owner. The post office in Merrill
has reported that the forwarding order has expired and the check will be
returned to KID.
Roelle:
KID and KBID checks were sent to the previous owner and Roelle had
the checks in his hand. The Board
suggested that he just have the previous owner sign the checks over to him so he
could cash them.
b.
Letter to other districts concerning 2001
KID refund
Solem has sent a letter to the other districts asking for a
return of the 2001 refund. So far,
only KBID has responded and they think it’s only fair to return the money to
KID.
c.
Administrative costs
KID is preparing a list of all the administrative costs to
process and mail out the 3231 checks. Costs
include $2288 for materials, newspaper ad, postage, making copies of each check,
etc; $6158 for labor and equipment. The
total bill will be almost $9000. KID
will send this bill to the BOR for reimbursement out of the Congress
appropriated funds.
a.
2004 Operations Plan
Solem and Kandra had an early morning meeting today with the BOR. They are working on a new
Pilot program to base the lake levels on inflow instead of
the current Sucker BO rigid levels per water year type.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service agrees that there has to be a better way
to handle the lake elevation then the “step” method which doesn’t match up
with the downriver BO.
This is not a formal re-consult on the Sucker BO, just a
pilot program to be run this year. When
inflows are low – the lake elevation should be low and flows down the river
should be low. The pilot program
allows for spring “spikes” from snowmelt that will quickly drop off.
According to the BOR, they are holding water back in the
lake and Link River Dam is cranked down to almost as low a flow as it can go.
I don’t think so:
Hydrology
Data For
|
Beginning
Date = |
Ending
Date = |
|
Date
|
Flow |
|
|
579.0 |
|
|
490.0 |
|
|
484.0 |
|
|
494.0 |
|
|
518.0 |
|
|
813.0 |
|
|
720.0 |
|
|
676.0 |
|
|
531.0 |
|
Beginning
Date = |
Ending
Date = |
|
Date
|
Flow |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
|
|
265.0 |
http://www.usbr.gov/mp/kbaodb/operations/water/index.html
I sent this information to Solem and am awaiting an answer back. According to the USGS site for the Williamson River http://waterdata.usgs.gov/or/nwis/uv?site_no=11502500
more water is flowing into the lake then flowing out so the
lake elevation will continue to rise.
Inflow into the lake has almost caused a change in the year
type. The March forecast for inflow
was right on the money but April’s will be a concern – this is going to be
an odd year, snow pack runoff is going to be variable. Right
now we don’t know what year type this will be.
Could it change mid-year like last year?
The lake never reaches “full pool” before the
irrigation season starts.
b.
Water Bank
BOR has one more meeting scheduled with the pumpers before
a final agreement is reached. This
year it will be all pumped water and no land idling.
After April 1st, any flows from
The excess required BO flows from
c.
2003 pumping letters
Three irrigators who pumped water last year for the water
bank have come into the KID office and asked KID to write a letter for them
saying that the extra water they pumped and weren’t paid for went/was donated
to the Wildlife Refuges. They can
get tax credit for this water. KID
has written letters that say that “they accepted more water then was paid for
but has no idea where the water went; somewhere between the pumps and the
districts drains.”
d.
Water start schedule
The headgates on the A-canal will open on Friday April 2nd.
This will allow the canal to fill over the weekend and KID will be able
to start moving water down the system on Monday.
KID has talked to the owner and he has no asking price but
asked KID to make an offer. KID
agreed to make a $1000 offer and then convey the land to BOR and let them handle
the asbestos problem.
Avalon:
KID is now the owner of 2.93 acres on Avalon.
Solem showed us pictures of the property and it is an eyesore.
Old abandoned vehicles, junk, trash, and an old single wide mobile home
with no windows. The board discussed
how to get rid of the property. Clean
the place up, contact a realtor, and put it up for sale; or sell it by closed
bid with a minimum asking price.
Contract negotiations with the union will start late this
summer. This change will be worked
out during the new contract talks. Past
policy will stay in affect (no cell phones for ditch riders).
OWRC has advised districts to go ahead and pay $2260 for
our 2004 permit to keep a paper trail and to show that we think it’s valid.
The board approved the voucher.
Case 850:
Has been delivered and has been working on the A3C piping job.
Due to the narrowness of the engine housing and the front windows, the
operator can see the bottom leading edge of the bottom of the blade.
Good safety option.
JD 2020 Tractor: Needs
major repair to the transmission and new tires.
Tires alone cost over $700 a piece.
Pam applicator:
The BOR has had built a truck mounted (on a KID flatbed pickup) PAM
applicator that uses a hopper to hold the PAM crystals, a gas operated blower,
and a large tube that’s movable during application.
The blower is turned on, the crystals drop out of the hopper and into the
tube, and the operator directs the spray into the ditch from the back of the
truck. This is a better way to apply
PAM; KID was using a small hand held fertilizer spreader in 2002-03.
The BOR still has lots of PAM waiting to be applied and has asked KID to
use the new applicator and evaluate it. Solem
says its working great and they are applying PAM to many more ditches and
laterals.
a.
30” pipe bid
Missed this discussion.
b.
BOR grant
Missed this discussion.
c.
WRDA
Water Resources Development Act of 2002
http://www.doi.gov/initiatives/water2025.html
There is $1.6 million
dollars available for the
d.
2025
Water 2025
The board is looking into applying to help with some of the
major structure repair/replacement issues of the district.
This program has 50% matching funds but the board is concerned about
spending money now on prelim engineering work that this program requires.
e.
At the last OWRC annual meeting, some of the Oregon
Irrigation Districts formed a consortium to have GIS maps prepared of their
districts. (Talent,
f. Geo Spatial Solutions GIS presentation
http://www.geospatialsolutions.com/about.htm
|
|
This is a long story – The Tanners bought land and a
house from the Arbuckle’s down near
Just for the Board's information:
Adkins changed the zoning from non-resource to R-10, which allowed him to
sell 10-acre lots. Now he wants to
build a subdivision instead. Just a
small portion of the land is under KID, the rest is KBID.
Only suggestion by the board was that Adkins needs a drainage plan for
the property.
Same as every year; the weather turns nice and 4-wheelers
are using the canal banks. The board
will continue their usual policy.
Ross Fleming, board member; brought up the subject of KID
taking over the operations of the Link River Dam and the two PacifiCorp power
plants on the Link River. If
PacifiCorp pulls out or walks away from the LR Dam, control will go to BOR.
PP&L has a contract to operate the dam as a part of the power
contract, which expires in 2006. The
Solem stated that PP&L wants more water released in
March to produce power – not in April when the out migrating fish need it –
some kind of power peak. The board
cannot believe the PP&L does not want control of the LR dam.
Question for the board is to find out what they need to do
to look into this. Steve Kandra
suggested that they talk to the KWUA’s lawyer from Cable Huston Benedict
Haagensen & Lloyd, LLP from
During this discussion, I learned the Klamath Drainage
District has applied for control of the Keno Dam with the possibility of adding
a hydroelectric plant.
March
29 KWUA Information meeting
Since the April forecast won’t be out till April 5th,
KWUA will probably reschedule this meeting for the middle to end of April.
Also learned that plans are firming up to have Governor
Kulongoski speak at the KWUA annual meeting.
This governor has been much more help to the
Missed information
from the February meeting – from the minutes:
9. NPDES permit
a. Lost River SB1010
b.
Straits
Drain settlement
Solem reported that the BOR has hired David Evans and
Associates to develop a settlement proposal for the Klamath Straits Drain
lawsuit
Public meetings are scheduled during the month of March,
2004, to discuss SB1010 and water management plans.
Solem updated the Board on the Power Committee.
Cable Huston has been provided with background information.
They now need to start to initiate the proposal they have developed.
10.
No
1 Drain work; culvert, easement issues
Solem updated the board on winter maintenance projects.
District crews have cleaned the No. 1 Drain from
The No. 1 Drain crossing at
11.
Hoist,
pipe, misc materials
The Board authorized the purchase of a 4000 pound, overhead
hoist, for the shop, in the amount of $1200.
Using pip provided by the BOR grant, District crews have
piped a portion of the A-1 lateral North of the fairgrounds and a portion of the
A3c lateral between Summers Lane and
Solem is trying to get more pipe from the BOR for additional projects.
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