By Lisa McEwen, SJV Water
Fallout from the ongoing who-owes-what dispute over the still sinking Friant-Kern Canal led to some awkward and very carefully worded moments during a meeting to discuss replacement pump stations.
At its May 22 meeting, the Friant Water Authority ultimately voted to restart the bidding process to build four replacement pump stations to deliver water from the canal to the Saucelito Irrigation District.
But the board added some strings. It will only start construction if:
- Litigation filed by Saucelito and its sister districts, Porterville and Terra Bella, regarding the “Cost Recovery Methodology” was resolved through a settlement or verdict;
- Friant had sufficient cash on hand and certainty of funding sources necessary to cover future payments for the parallel canal and pump stations.
The vote elicited a mixed reaction.
Saucelito general manager Sean Geivet said the vote “at least confirms both (the federal Bureau of) Reclamation and Friant’s prior contractual commitments to build the pump stations.”
He called the pump stations critical to Saucelito’s operations saying without them, the canal provides “no benefit.”
“We need this project to move forward,” said Saucelito Irrigation District board president Steve Kisling. “We also need certainty on the conditions.”
Saucelito and other districts are still receiving water from the canal. But the pump stations are key to delivering full contracted amounts and extra water during high flow years that districts need to help replenish overpumped aquifers.
That hasn’t been possible in recent years as excessive groundwater pumping caused the ground to collapse beneath the canal, creating a 33-mile long “sag” in the structure that cut its carrying capacity by 60%.
The Friant Water Authority, which manages the canal on behalf of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, spent $326 million from a mix of local, state and federal money to repair the worst 10-mile section of the sag but has come up short on its required match for those federal dollars.
That’s where the dispute, and a tangle of lawsuits, comes in.
Friant sued Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency alleging it never paid its agreed share to fix the canal. As that lawsuit slowed, Friant then voted to assess the districts that once ran Eastern Tule, including Saucelito ID, up to $295 million in fees to help make up for the shortfall. Saucelito and two other districts fired back at Friant with their own raft of lawsuits accusing the authority of everything from extortion to Brown Act Violations.
Meanwhile, a decision on the pump stations has to be made as Friant is gearing up to start construction on the second phase of repairs to the canal while it’s also trying to figure out how to make annual $2.7 million payments to the Bureau of Reclamation starting in February 2026.
All of which led to nearly an hour of discussion about semantics, punctuated by strained silences over the pump stations during Friant’s May 22 meeting.
Friant Executive Director Jason Philips acknowledged the elephant in the room.
“It’s been a while since we have acted on this topic. But we need resolution of who will pay to finish out Phase I of the canal,” Phillips said.
Friant Chief Operating Officer Johnny Amaral agreed adding: “We also have to make sure that before we proceed with the construction of the pump stations, we have the funding to finish the project.”
Making sure funding for projects is in hand before going forward was at least one aspect all sides seemed to agree on.
“I just don’t want to walk down a road today that feels like we’ve got everything covered and it’s actually not. That’s what I’m worried about,” said Friant board member, Arlen Miller of Orange Cove Irrigation District.
Friant member water districts together kicked in $50 million toward canal repairs, including those not affected by crimped deliveries from the sag.
“Saucelito would have never approved the project at the outset had there not been a guarantee to build the pump stations, nor would Saucelito have approved the project if it was aware that it would be stuck paying millions of dollars for a shortfall caused by Friant staff’s mistakes in its initial financial plan for the project,” Saucelito’s Geivet said.
Amaral called that “really cute,” saying Geivet’s districts are “talking out of both sides of their mouths.”
“That disregards the urgency that Friant was faced with because of subsidence in and around those districts,” he said, referring to sinking caused by overpumping. “The board took some risk to get that started so we could realize the benefits of a reconstructed facility. It’s convenient to be critical now.”
Meanwhile, Eastern Tule GSA will cease to exist by the end of September. All of its member districts, including Saucelito, Porterville and Terra Bella irrigation districts have departed to form their own groundwater agencies.
