Catheys Valley Community Hall

8am – 12pm

Update on activity since last meeting:

Len McKenzie – Attended regional area planning meeting with Madera, Merced, Mariposa, hosted by SNC, attended by DWR, seeking resolution to boundaries definition

Wendy Vittands – Updated on process by Brenda Ostrom

Rita Kidd – Encouraging participants to communicate via website, Met with East Merced RCD to give IRWM info, talked with Merced BOS

Bart Brown – Recognizing that MERG was avant guard on water issues in Mariposa

Marilyn Lidyoff – internal efforts on grant writing

Lyle Turpin – Helped define map with Mariposa BOS vote on Tuesday, 4-7-09

Mark Rowney – talked to MPUD board, generated support for Mariposa Creek and Merced River IRWM, water rights in Mariposa held by MID, looking for mutually satisfactory resolution to boundary issue, active in FERC relicensing

Janet Bibby – attended East San Joaquin Water Coalition meeting in Le Grand, have to have a team approach as these organizations set the stage and create foundations

Ken Harrington – This is his first meeting, getting grounded in the issues

Andy Stone USFS – Supervisor from Bass Lake District, Dave Martin, has signatory responsibility for IRWM participation, wants to hydrologically manage an area, expressed concern that the San Joaquin has representation of USFS as it manages the watershed

Terry McLaughlin – Attended SNC boundaries discussion on Monday 4-6-09, attended Merced BOS meeting, made a presentation about the Upper Merced River Watershed Council to MID Foundation which included IRWM introduction

Glenn Franklin – Updated Mariposa County RCD regarding IRWM.  MCRCD voted to participate in IRWM

Sally Punte – first meeting, getting grounded in issues

Charise Reeves – Don Pedro CSD has approved her to attend meetings, looking for next step to ask board to join IRWM (on April 20), contacted Tuolumne to be listed as a stakeholder

Brenda Ostrom gave an update of the boundaries issue, see attached map.

Boundary update: In an effort to manage the San Joaquin Watershed as a hydrological unit, the northern half of the San Joaquin will belong to the Central Cal IRWM (name yet to be determined), southern half of the San Joaquin to be in Southern Sierra IRWM.  Managed intact through an MOU between the two groups.  This will be proposed to the Madera County BOS on April 21, 2009.  Considerations in this decision were: 70% of water goes south, 30% flows north; 1/5 of Madera County is in section 8 flood zone; flood and fish concerns to the north; the goal is to jointly manage by a collective brain trust of both groups (Central Cal and Southern Sierra IRWM).

Cross hatch area in Merced County: MAGPI is a coalition of groundwater purveyors and is leading the effort to write a RAP proposal for that area alone.  MAGPI has a focus on the groundwater basin and considers the end users and purveyors.  They have expressed concern about participating with a larger IRWM right now.  The Eastern Merced RCD, NRCS, are considering being part of a larger IRWM right now.  Merced BOS voted no on the following resolution:

“Discuss and direct Staff to ascertain the viability and willingness of all potential stakeholders to be a part of and participate in an Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Program and return to the Board on April 14 with a recommendation.”

Therefore, the Central California IRWM will submit the boundaries as proposed in the attached map, acknowledging integrating Merced County as a staged process.  After completeing public and stakeholder outreach, as MAGPI/Merced considers and develops their Eastern Merced IRWM effort, CenCal will plan to work together or merge.  If this is written into this RAP and accepted, Eastern Merced may be able to phase into the CenCal IRWM without triggering a new RAP process.

There is flooding on the north side of the MAGPI boundary near the Merced River (which is excluded from the current MAGPI boundary).  CenCal will pick up the entirety of the Merced River Watershed, encompassing this area and considering its flooding issues.

State IRWM update: California is receiving more applications than expected.  Our goal is to make our application as attractive as possible.

There was a discussion of LA conservation efforts and San Francisco efforts, recommended to learn what we can from their model.

Groundwater use in California is maxed out, dropping 5 feet per year in some areas.  The new paradigm is for funding to go to the source as well as the end users.  The problem and solution area need to be linked together in an IRWM.

Tuolumne IRWM is preparing an MOU with San Francisco.

$310,000 allocated for Sierra National Forest for an assessment of meadow groundwater; distributed to 10 forests.  Each forest will assess 10 meadows (5 pristine and 5 degraded), 100 meadows total assessed for hydrologic function.  The study time frame is 2009-2012.  Healthy meadows = healthy water.  The goal is to generate successful meadow restoration design and understand the hydrological meadow function.

Following this update, the meeting broke up into work groups to generate information to accompany RAP application.