Flathead Irrigation District Meeting, March 11, 2019
Lake County Community Development
407 Main Street, Ronan, Mt. 1:00 PM
Attending Commissioners: Paul Guenzler, Dave Vincent, David Lake, Janette Rosman
Excused Absence: Bruce White
Pledge of Allegiance.
Recording: Janette for FID and Gene Erb for David Passieri.
There was a change in agenda to allow Pete Plant’s report first.
Our monthly meeting started with Pete Plant introducing Laurence (Larry) Nelson who will be filling in as the assistant manager. He brings 26 years of Federal irrigation management experience to Flathead Indian Irrigation Project. Pete has 41 employees and has a couple of ISO’s coming on board, one ISO and one Engineer. He is advertising other positions and is trying to get up to 46 employees out of 51 on their chart. The Upper Mountain snow is not up to our normal average. The carry over storage is under average. Carry over on Pablo was only 10K because of the work being done on Crow Reservoir. Zim will be filling reservoirs. Pete stated we’re being cautious and wanting to capture all the water that can be stored. Pumps 1-3 ready to go. Number 2 bearings need to be put in and should be functioning by May. He presented a 2019 budget they just started in January. He came to tell us he anticipates this year to be difficult regarding water and snowpack. He doesn’t think the snow pack is as good as it should be compared to the last couple of years. A good water year is March, April and May rain with snow in the mountains. They will do the best they can. He also came to answer questions we may have. David Lake asked about the letter he received dated March 7, 2019. (Letter is posted on FID web site: www.FlatheadIrrigationDistrict.org Pete said the letter states the guidelines of operating codes, starting with Project Water Quotas, Water Orders, Turnout & Check Structures, Waterway Obstructions and Canal Roads, Prudent use of Water: Special Use Permits and Delinquent Operation and Maintenance. The letter is a gentle reminder of Codes they will attempt to adhere to. Paul asked how BIA was going to deal with Districts not paying for their water. David Lake asked if BIA can take individual money. Pete said BIA is not set up to take money from individuals. The Districts are set up to represent irrigators, take their money and pay BIA. If irrigators don’t pay their irrigation fees on their taxes it would show up at BIA as them being delinquent. BIA won’t deliver water or the District pays for water and District does the recovery of the funds. At the very beginning of letter it discusses Quotas an important fact. It is BIA duty to deliver water fair and equitably as much as possible. Dave V. stated he has a problem with fair and equitable. Pivots and corn crops use more water and they get by with it every year. Pete is aware of the problem, it is also a problem with people who run pivots and pull water directly out of the canal. There are problems that we have to attack in the near future and going forward BIA needs FID support in doing it. Paul Greico asked how much water is in Little Bitterroot Lake. He has concerns about water spilling over if it warms up. Pete is presently full time Project Manager before he was BIA superintendent and Project Manager. Now all of his time will be devoted back to irrigation Districts. Dick Erb asked a question regarding CFS’s. There are pivots running ______ and pivots that are trying to run_____and there isn’t enough water. (It was difficult hearing Dick and Zim discuss this). David Lake brought it up that he has a reporting package and can he keep using that? Zim responded that you need to tell your ditch rider. Dick brought up a concern about everyone wanting to jump in at the same time when there has been a problem; Zim is aware of the problem and has talked to some irrigators. Pete said it’s important to remember the 48 hour order and Ditch rider needs to know that. BIA will be holding a public meeting April in April. Janette asked if BIA was going to send out a list of the Ditch riders and the areas they work. We now can post that information on FlatheadIrrigationDistrict.com. Web site. Pete said yes, and as soon as he knows the quotas he plans to send out flyers to everyone and include ditch riders name. Paul asked if there was going to be a discussion with the ditch riders regarding quotas because it gets out of hand, Pete agreed. May 1st is the beginning of irrigation season but it depends on the weather, could be June.
February Minutes were read, David Lake made motion to approve, Dave Vincent second. Passed unanimously.
Treasurer Report: David Lake made a motion to table Transition Budget 1/1/18-12/31/18. Dave Vincent second. Janette Abstained. Passed.
David Vincent made motion to table 2019 budget, second by David Lake, Janette Abstained. Passed
Monthly budget report for review was tabled until the board will can together within this next month and go over 2018/19 budgets.
Warrants: Submitted warrants were: Access Montana $38.39, Blackfoot $65.81, Janette Rosman, payroll Jan/Feb $647.92, Mt. Water Resources registration $30.00, Janette Rosman paper reimbursement, Mission Valley Power (Dist. office) $209.47, St. Ig water/sewer $54.33, Christian Samson, PLLC. Cassie Dellwo services, Whaley Accounting $479.40. Balances with Lake Co Treas. through Jan, 2019 are: Flathead ADM $654,376.00, Flathead O&M $772, 834.00. David Vincent made motion to pass warrants, David Lake Second. Passed unanimously.
Susan Lake feels the public should be able to see the warrant list at meeting. Janette commented I often do not get financial package with warrant list until I pick up warrant checks/list Monday morning 45 minutes before meeting. Paul stated they can look online. (Janette will email anyone the list after they have been voted on).
Article XI. Fiscal Year: Second Reading of Fiscal year being November 1 thru October 31. There will be discussion on this Article at our budget meeting.
Cassie explained the Fiscal year matches the money coming in (from Assessments) and lines up with the budget better. Susan Lake asked why we don’t have our own checking account like the Conservation does. Janette explained we asked that question at the Internal Control meeting with Jennifer Cote. She stated the Conservation District does not deal with the dollar amount FID does and the legislature presently does not allow us to do so.
Paul Guenzler had an answer to Paul Greico question as to why he did not get a refund back on his Power Bills for Pumping charges: Paul stated: As a group the irrigators with pumps did not use enough power to get a payment back is what MVP told him this AM. Someone asked why hook up charges went up this year and Paul stated, hook up charges did no go up this year. Someone in the public stated you can call up MVP and ask for a statement covering several years. Another stated it is good to investigate the facts and kill the rumor.
Janette passed the Whaley Accounting $2016.00 around, it was not just the consulting hours there were also charges for revising/drawing up reports.
Commissioners agreed to have Ben Montgomery from NRCS do a 15 minute presentation at April meeting for improving our irrigation systems. Susan Gardner was in favor of having Ben come in because the state has changed the means of getting funds for projects. Paul has talked to Ben about it and feels it would be a good idea as well. There was not enough interest to have a discussion on Aquatic Species presentation at FID meeting.
Mailing of Ballots for 2016 election: Paul stated he polled the commissioners and wanted to know their opinion about mailing out ballots to every irrigator and let the election office handle it if they are qualified or not. Then about ½ hour ago Paul got a phone call and Steve Eschenbacher recommended we cancel the election until June or July. Eschenbacher stated some of the districts don’t have the paperwork done right, Flathead shows 6000 acres short in the report. Paul stated he learned about it ½ hour ago. Janette said she learned about it when she dropped off the designee signature forms before she picked up the warrants. Janette explained she emailed her spreadsheet to Black Mountain and Whaley Accounting on Monday. Black Mountain would then update their data, then send spreadsheet to Whaley Accounting and they did not send the excel spreadsheet to the election office until shortly after 5. I got a call on Friday afternoon and Judy Day wanted to make sure a Hot Springs irrigator I had been working with, his parcel was on the spreadsheet. When Janette delivered the papers, Katie was just learning the FID irrigated acres were not correct on her spreadsheet. The total of irrigated acres on her spreadsheet was 67,000. Janette wanted asked Katie to make sure Hot Springs Acreage was on it. Katie said it is a mess, she has already contacted Steve E., and Steve contacted Paul.
Susan said we are waiting for Senate bill 116 to pass so we don’t have to have designee’s.
Is there any way we can let the public know they don’t have to have a designee? The bill went out of the senate 50-0 in favor of it. Paul said we are going to wait until that bill passes. Susan L. asked can we put the election off until August or September and since the county elected to cancel the election can the existing officers stay in position? There were many thoughts and suggestions and Paul said, hopefully our county attorney is going to take care of telling us what we need to do. He’s the one that cancelled the election.
Cassie Dellwo informed the FID that she is presently working out of Five Valleys Law firm. Paul received a letter from the previous law firm asking if FID wants to continue working with Christian Samson, PLLC. Everyone said we want to continue to work with Cassie with our present terms, $200.00 per hour on as needed basis. No vote was needed. Paul will sign the papers that we prefer to stay with Cassie and she will get copies of our files from Christan Samson, PLLC.
FJBC funds that were paid out of FID account for Rocky Mountain Law firm and Arcadia Consulting firm in Washington, DC and FJBC $12K checking account funds and ownership of District office in Saint Ignatius were tabled until Judge Manley opens court documents on MVI case and defines the three Districts ownership of assets.
Public Comments: David Lake said we’ve been working with as a small group and have had productive, meaningful meetings with tribe regarding reestablishing CME. Any agreement they come to has to be approved by Tribal Council. The committee will not be committing to anything without approval from commissioners/irrigators. They identified the collapse of CME and BIA. Both parties have agreed they don’t want any radical, political environment to take it down again. They are working on placing language in the Compact for Cooperative Management of the Project. Tribal management has also recommended putting language in the Compact for removal of liens on property. The working group has had discussions on Tribal irrigator participation. Part of this discussion is we want every irrigator to have a vote. Tribal and Non-Tribal. There is discussion on the Tribes ownership above the river diversion of the project. The Tribes 80% ownership of the land supplies the entire watershed. Irrigators would be responsible for what Pete is doing right now, hands on ownership of the Project. Goals right now are to complete a draft to present to Tribal Council and Irrigators within months. That’s pretty aggressive and hopefully it will happen. Susan Lake would like some language in the CME, should the Compact not get passed for years. David Lake said part of the problem is if it takes years to pass the compact, there is no money to operate the project. Susan L., there would be irrigator money, David L. that is very little for running the project. Susan said we will never own the project but it would be nice to have operations of the project. Is it possible to have something that flows into the Compact but you don’t have to wait until the Compact passes? Without the discussion of getting the Compact passed, David L, doesn’t think there is motivation for the Tribe to have CME discussion. David L. assured those at this meeting that nothing the group is doing is going to be completed without an attorney representing us. Right now we don’t have an attorney in the room. Paul said we need to keep in mind who we are going to use for legal work.
David Vincent made motion to adjourn, David Lake second. Passed unanimously.
Janette Rosman
Secretary for FID