By Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
Tea Pot Dome Water District has agreed to pay Friant Water Authority $1.4 million in exchange for relief from its role in a contract designed to pay for damage to a 33-mile section of the Friant-Kern Canal.
It also agreed to give Friant pumping data that’s at the heart of a much larger dispute.
The deal is one small piece of the ongoing conflict between Friant and several of its own member contractors over who should pay – and how much – to fix the Friant-Kern Canal, which has been sinking due to excessive groundwater pumping.
Friant has already spent $326 million from a mix of local and federal funds to rebuild the worst section of canal, which runs through the Eastern Tulare Groundwater Sustainability Agency in southern Tulare County.
Four of Friant’s members, Tea Pot Dome and the Porverville, Saucelito and Terra Bella irrigation districts, once ran Eastern Tule.
But Friant says Eastern Tule policies not only exacerbated subsidence beneath the canal, but also shorted Friant on funding it needs to repay the federal government for a portion of that $326 million.
So, Friant went after the individual irrigation districts for that money.
Friant has only reached an agreement with Tea Pot Dome for a small fraction of the estimated $90 million to $295 million it needs to cover its portion of the bill for repairs already made and more coming.
Friant and the other three irrigation districts remain mired in a tangle of lawsuits and counter lawsuits.
For Tea Pot Dome, the agreement signed Feb. 20 means its farmers are protected against future litigation connected to Friant’s efforts to recoup that shortfall funding, according to Teapot Dome’s General Manager Eric Limas.
“By agreeing to pay the $1.4 million, Friant has assurance of appropriate funding from Tea Pot for the Middle Reach Capacity Correction Project and Tea Pot is able to move forward with a clean slate,” wrote Johnny Amaral, Friant Water Authority chief operating officer, in an email.
He referred to a 10-mile parallel canal completed in June to address the worst areas of subsidence damage. The sag in that section had cut the canal’s carrying capacity by 60%.
Part of Tea Pot Dome’s “clean slate” includes its decision last summer to break away from Eastern Tule and form its own groundwater sustainability agency.
Under this new agreement, Friant will be a kept apprised of Tea Pot Dome’s groundwater reporting.
Among other things, the agreement states Tea Pot Dome:
- Won’t annex new land without Friant’s prior written consent.
- Is not required to accept groundwater credits given to landowners by Eastern Tule.
- Will hand over all groundwater account information for landowners as assigned by Eastern Tule, including trades, credits and transfers, to Friant.
- Will assign its farmers a “transitional” pumping allocation at a fee through 2040 and pay Friant 90% of that fee.
- Will provide Friant quarterly reports summarizing landowner groundwater accounts.
The emphasis on groundwater accounting and transparency reflects Friant’s long running dispute with Eastern Tule over its groundwater crediting policies.
Friant and Eastern Tule signed an agreement in 2021 that Friant had hoped would provide up to $220 million toward the Friant-Kern Canal repairs.
The crux of the agreement was that Eastern Tule would set pumping allocations to ramp down over the years and charge substantial “penalty fees” for any pumping over those allocations then hand 90% of those amounts to Friant.
Over the past four years, however, Eastern Tule has only paid Friant about $21 million. Meanwhile, the canal, including the newly repaired portion, is still sinking, indicating excessive pumping continues.
Friant sued Eastern Tule alleging it had lavished its farmers with groundwater credits and allowed too much trading so they never dipped into the “penalty” pumping, which shorted Friant.
The lawsuit went into mediation last summer after a Tulare County judge found the 2021 agreement “…does not state an unconditional obligation to collect a minimum of $220,000,000.000 in penalties.”
Two months later, the Friant board assessed Tea Pot Dome, Porterville, Saucelito, and Terra Bella irrigation districts fees of $90 million up to $295 million.
While Tea Pot Dome sought an agreement with Friant, the other districts filed a flurry of lawsuits alleging Friant had violated the Brown Act, among other things.
Those districts are managed by Sean Geivet, who had no comment on the agreement between Friant and Tea Pot Dome.
Meanwhile, Eastern Tule is now a shell of its former configuration as Tea Pot Dome, Porterville, Saucelito and Terra Bella all fled to form their own groundwater agencies.
That has left the County of Tulare to pick up the pieces so farmers outside of irrigation district boundaries have representation as the region navigates its probationary status.
The Water Resources Control Board placed the region on probation in September and, in particular, questioned Eastern Tule’s groundwater accounting methods, calling them “alarming.”
