Plan for Water public comments and questions – June 7, 2022

SUMMARY OF PUBLIC COMMENTS PROVIDED DURING THE June 7, 2022 PLAN FOR WATER WORKSHOP #7

Workshop video available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aQ4Of5t5_o&list=PLPdajiT7cyXOIj020PVI7wZ8AMb-cTHCW&index=8&t=498s

Molly Nakahara, Sierra Harvest 1:33:45

Do the future water needs (and risk) projections take into account growth in the region's agricultural sector.  In order to meet just 20% of the food needs of Nevada County residents, we need to increase our cropland from 88 acres to over 1500 cultivated acres, and quadruple the current production on our rangeland.  Farmers are very efficient water users so it's likely that we can increase yields and water efficiency simultaneously!  Thanks, NID, for all you do.

A: Greg Jones (NID Assistant General Manager): The quick answer to that is no we did not get into the analytics of something to that degree of specificity.

A: Jennifer Hanson (General Manager): Some of these major analytics wouldn't be done till the master planning stage

Diana Gamzon 05:47 PM

Great meeting! I need to leave early. Thank you all.

C: Stewart Feldman 1:59:00

The presentation: I think it missed three points that I'd like to bring up that are consequences of what Nevada Irrigation District has already done. In terms of land acquisition and planning.

Number one: there's definitely a risk to the local real estate market because of the need for agents to disclose the potential of what might be Centennial Dam to buyers in Placer and Nevada counties, making it harder to sell their property. That isn't a risk to NID; it's a risk to another outside market.

It's a consequence of NID having acquisition plans and potentially eminent domain plans on land that would be in the inundated area.

Number two: the properties that NID has already acquired have a fire liability, which you've already discussed in forested lands.

Third: the risk of losing opportunities. There are many public sources tribes and non-profits that want to help resource management preserve areas, treat some areas, have trails improvement. And as long as that is hanging over the head, the potential for Centennial these funded opportunities cannot go forth.

So what I'm asking is a member of the public who is not part of your customer base is that you look at consequences as risks to others in the community and other areas the stakeholders that are not represented by the district. And I appreciate your time.   

Mark Henry 2:06:09

To the comment regarding taking into account how what we do here impacts those who are not necessarily shareholders: It leads me to wonder if we're going to expand this discussion beyond the shareholders of this region, should we ask the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles to join this discussion?

Jennifer Hanson:        
This discussion is really intended to talk about risk in terms of our existing mission, which is to provide a sustainable source of water. Some of those exterior risks that will come out in some of our SWOT analysis because those are really those items that are external to us. I don't think they're going to be lost. They're very valid points. I certainly can understand that's a hard one; the consequences of what you do outside of your direct mission can be difficult to define in a reasonable manner. A really good spot to try to do that is in the SWOT analysis.

Mike Pasner 2:07:47

I’ve been farming with NID water in Penn Valley for 36 years. I'm addressing this risk workshop today due to the continued use of aquatic and terrestrial herbicides in my agricultural water - copper-based K20 and Nautique are applied directly to the water; Roundup sprayed on the berms and banks of more than 100 miles of these irrigation ditches. Most of these applications are on private farms and ranches. Roundup is a known carcinogen. There are some questions and some facts here -- do these toxins end up in people's wells? Does NID test for them? Kids play in the ditch water on hot summer days; livestock drink out of the ditch water. NID paid over $70,000 for a study about one and a half years ago. The results of the study were to keep our toolboxes open for future action. Nothing very finite that I could tell with a safe sustainable and resilient water supply. There is no place for these toxins. What is the risk of not seriously looking at alternatives before this type of application directly to the water and sprayed on the berms and banks prohibited by regulation?

Jennifer Hanson: Some of that can definitely be referenced in the regulatory risk category because there are very strict regulations that keep evolving for any type of chemical use, which is going to constantly be an issue.

Jennifer Hanson: All the alternatives today are usually expensive. Technology is changing at such a rapid pace -- something that is a very time-consuming labor-intensive solution now may be much more viable in the future. You will see in the next two years we're going to continue to work on it. It hasn't been at the forefront of our conversations, but we haven't forgot about it.