An Abbreviated History of the North Yuba Water District
A historical record, mid-August 2021.
In 2005, the North Yuba Water District and South Feather entered into a water-sharing agreement for water through the The Water District - an abbreviated historical record, mid-August 2021In 2005, the North Yuba Water District and South Feather entered into a water-sharing agreement for water through the 10-mile Forbestown Ditch. Although the district had 23,700 acre-feet of water a year permitted to it, only 3,700 acre-feet would be able to go down the ditch without paying South Feather for lost power revenues.
This agreement established that South Feather would be paying the water district about $700K a year as part of South Feather's power generation revenues. It was understood that this money would go to pay for maintaining the main ditch. Unfortunately, this was not put in writing so the water district was not bound to keeping the ditch in order.
In 2010, this agreement went into effect and it changed everything. Now, instead of water from the main ditch adding to the supply of irrigation water, the ag water became dependent on the snowpack melt into Dry Creek.
At first, nothing much seemed to change until a major drought developed in 2014-15. Irrigation water became unreliable and even no irrigation water at times. Although water was available from South Feather, due to the sharing agreement, the cost to the water district was prohibitive.
After a couple of seasons, the rain and snow returned. But the years since, 2015-2021, ag water has been problematical. The irrigation water season runs from April 15 until October 15. Seasons have been shorter and shorter. There is no water allocated for 2021.
What was happening with the 3,700 acre-feet that could be provided by the water district? It turns out that the general manager has never run more than 2,700 acre-feet through the main ditch since he took over in 2011.
The general manager says all the irrigation water is dependent on Dry Creek. Other independent observations indicate that water for irrigation could be diverted from Dry Creek. At this point, what is going on is muddled and the general manager offers no clarity.
In late 2017, the North Yuba Water District was awarded a grant from the state for $500K to construct a pipe for the main ditch. At that point, the decision had to be made, how big was the Forbestown Ditch pipe to be?
In October of 2017, the Yuba Water Agency Project and Development committee met, and on the agenda was a proposal to grant the water district $35K for its piping project. YWA Director Randy Fletcher was at this meeting.
The money was granted to the water district at the next YWA Board meeting. Included in the information packet on the last page was a cross-section diagram of the proposed pipe. It was to be a plastic pipe 36" in diameter. This size meant that only 3,700 acre-feet could fit down the pipe in any given season. This would later raise the question, what is supposed to happen with the 20,000 acre-feet that could not fit down the pipe?
Now the story can begin
In March of 2018, there was a town hall style meeting at the Alcouffe Center. All five directors and the general manager were present to answer questions about the district. The big news was the project to, finally, pipe the main ditch. Left out of the discussion was any indication of how much water could flow through the pipe. The district led everybody to believe the pipe was the answer to all the irrigation water needs forever.
As it so happened, 2018 was an election year. One of the seats up for election was Division 4. Roughly speaking, Division 4 is everybody south of Marysville Rd. Division 3 is mostly north of Marysville Rd. All the irrigation customers are in Division 3 or 4. This includes about 1,200 voters and 115 odd irrigation customers.
North Yuba Water District Chairman Donnie Forguson was the Division 4 Director. He was challenged by Dr. Gretchen Flohr. Having already served several terms, Forguson was overly confident he would win. Dr. Flohr ran a true grass-roots campaign meeting and talking with whomever she could. This worked and Dr. Flohr won. At his last meeting in December of 2018, Forguson delivered an acrimonious farewell statement which set the stage for the controversy and troubles to come.
Dr. Flohr had upset this all male fraternity of directors. The male directors took an instant dislike to their colleague and refused to work with her. This continues to this day.
In December of 2018, in preparation for taking her seat in January, Dr. Flohr asked the general manager if she could review the engineering plans for the Forbestown Ditch piping project. He refused. This led to a lawsuit by Director Flohr in March of 2019. After 18 months of legal proceedings, Director Flohr prevailed and the Judge ordered the district to hand over the documents forthwith.
What was it that the general manager did not want to be revealed? The size of the pipe. Knowing the size meant one could determine that the pipe was designed to convey 3,700 acre-feet for use by the water district. The general manager did not want people asking questions about what was going to happen to the water that could not fit down the pipe.
At the board meeting on June 25, 2021, the four NYWD directors Gary Hawthorne, Doug Neilson, Fred Mitchell, and Ginger Hughes voted to hire Provost & Pritchard to research water markets and regulatory implications for selling water outside of the district's boundaries. The water district did not ask any of its customers or voters if they agreed to sell their water to the highest bidder downstream. The water permits the district has do not permit it to sell water outside of its service boundaries yet that is precisely what this board intends to do.
Let us go back to June of 2020. The water district made a presentation to the Yuba Water Agency about its Forbestown Ditch piping project. At the time, it was estimated the project would cost $12 million. The Water Agency pledged it would provide 60% in grant funding for the piping project. YWA Director Fletcher was at this presentation. As a director of the Water Agency, Director Fletcher has been strongly supportive of the district's general manager and, at the time, its four male board members.
Also in June of 2020, the water district filed what is called a Mitigated Negative Declaration for the piping project. This is an environmental document filed with the State listing all the environmental impacts and proposed mitigations to reduce or eliminate these impacts.
Mitigated Negative Declarations are rather weak documents that can be easily challenged. As was stated earlier, the project called for a plastic pipe that would be above ground for much of its 10-mile length. In August of 2020, the water district realized this filing would not stand up to a challenge and withdrew it. It should be noted that in March of 2020, a lawsuit was filed regarding an Environmental Impact Statement for the piping project.
About the same time, the North Complex Fire was burning through South Butte County and threatening Forbestown in the same area as where this above-ground plastic pipe was to be installed. A fire, of course, would melt the plastic pipe. This meant the whole project would have to go back to the drawing boards adding another layer of costs. This is where the project stands now.
In January of 2021, several new board members were elected to the Yuba Water Agency Board. As a result, Randy Fletcher lost his bid to be Chair of the Agency and his power to influence the Yuba Water Agency to support the North Yuba Water District.
The current YWA board does not want to grant money to the North Yuba Water District for a restrictive pipe, meaning a pipe could not handle all of the district's permitted water. In fact, the Agency wants no pipe all. The Agency understands that an improved ditch and properly maintained ditch could convey all of the district's permitted water.
As a result of losing financial support from the Yuba Water Agency, the water district is now restoring to selling its water to raise money. The 20,000 acre-feet it wants to sell is worth $900 an acre-foot on the California water market under the ticker NQH2O making this water worth about $18 million.
Until late last year, there was no openly traded water market in California. However, water managers, such as the Yuba Water Agency, would know exactly what they could sell water for. From the beginning of this piping project in 2017, Director Fletcher would have known that the district's water was worth many millions.
Public Relations
In late summer of 2019, the water district hired a local public relations firm Smart Marketing run by Crystal Martin. The district agreed to pay her $40,000 for her marketing services. Her job is to present the water district in the best possible light and anyone against the district in the worse possible light.
Among local politicians, Ms. Martin is known not to let ethical considerations get in the way of promoting candidates. She is currently under investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission for her role in mass mailing the district's newsletter in late October of last year with the intent to sway voters to vote for the incumbents. The general manager was quite sure he would be fired if the incumbents were not re-elected.
Since then, there has been an all-out public relations campaign run by Ms. Martin to defend the district's actions as noble, honest, and trustworthy. The water district board meetings sometimes amount to little more than shouting matches. Questions are never answered. The water district is a public agency, yet it strives to be secretive and non-transparent.
One of the lawsuits is about Brown Act Violations. All public agencies are subject to the Brown Act which prohibits meetings where public officials conclude secretly for some agenda they might have. Few have ever been prosecuted but officials are very much aware of this legislation. In the spirit of the law, most elected officials do try to abide by this law. The water district has shown little regard for the rule of law and the Brown Act.
20,000 acre-feet
How much water is 20,000 acre-feet? It is a block of water one acre on a side extending 20,000 feet into the air. Currently, the irrigation customers are slated to receive 145 miner's inches. A miner's inch is an archaic way of measuring water flow. One miner's inch is about 11 gallons per minute.
By bringing all of the district's 23,700 acre-feet to this area, this would provide for 1,000 miner's inches. This water would make it possible for the area's home-based farmers to develop a sustainable food security production, which would be awesome! Even more awesome would be the robust fire protection system we could have.
But this water is under attack. Supervisor Fletcher has been a key player in supporting arrangements that this water goes elsewhere where it can fetch many millions of dollars.
How might the directors of the North Yuba Water District, who are supporting the general manager's restrictive piping project and desire to sell the district's water, be profiting from this effort? These directors do not want to talk about it.
Questions, more questions than there are answers.
Selling the district's water
At the June 25, 2021, board meeting, four directors, Hawthorne, Neilson, Mitchell, and Hughes, voted to hire the consulting firm Provost & Pritchard to do a "Water Marketing Feasibility Study" to "promote future water sales within and/or outside the District's service area." Effectively this means selling the district's water to the highest bidder south.
The water district has water permits for 23,700 acre-feet. Since 2017, the general manager has been wanting to build a pipe that can only accommodate 3,700 acre-feet for customers of the North Yuba Water District. From its inception, the Forbestown Ditch pipe was intended to not to carry this 20,000 acre-feet so it could be sold. However, this was to be kept secret, no one was to know. If people knew about it, they might start asking questions about where was the 20,000 acre-feet going. The general manager did not want this discussion.
At the board meeting in April 2021, it was announced there would be no irrigation water this season. According to the general manager there was not enough irrigation water in Dry Creek to provide any water for irrigation use. It was suspected that there was water available through the main ditch and then down Costa Creek. This turned out to be the case.
On May 7, 2021, the law firm of Minasian, Meith, Soares, Sexton & Cooper, LLP, South Feather's legal counsel, sent a letter to Barbara Brennen, the North Yuba Water District's General Counsel offering to repair the Forbestown Ditch which would make it possible to run 30 CFS. South Feather also said it had 23,700 acre-feet of water in its reservoir system that would be available for the water district's use. The water district did not answer this letter in public, however, there was a response. With proper repairs and maintenance, the Forbestown Ditch could run up to 50 CFS. The pipe the general manager want to build can on run 24 CFS.
History of poor governance
The North Yuba Water District has had a history of poor governance subjecting its customers to years of poor service. The current way of managing this water is deeply flawed. The district's general manager wants to keep his job at any cost, including breaking the law. The water district has been a divisive element in the foothill communities, in the county, within itself. Nobody wants to talk about it, they want to keep things quiet.
The antidote is more press, more discussion, more questions, more participation. For a number of years, a few people have been fighting to secure this water. The water district, in particular the general manager, has been throw off his game several times. In the last year and a half, three directors have resigned. The district has replaced its legal council and no longer has support from the Yuba Water Agency. Most important, it has not been able to complete the general manager's aim to divert most of the district's water for the benefit of the people in the district and to the benefit of others outside of the district willing to pay top dollar for this water.
Circumventing CEQA
Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), every construction project has to provide documentation on how the project might impact the environment and mitigations to reduce or eliminate these impacts. The Forbestown Ditch piping project was no exception. CEQA specifies that every project needs a Lead Agency. This is the public agency that has the primary responsibility for carrying out and approving a project. It was obvious that the North Yuba Water District should be the Lead Agency. But, the general manager and NorthStar engineers had other ideas.
They certainly didn't want to go through all the filing requirements and cost of mitigations so they came up with a plan to avoid all this expense. They would make the US Department of Agriculture Rural Division to be designated as the Lead Agency. As this email July 9, 2019, shows the county sup (Randy Fletcher) was being apprised as to what was going on. With the US Department of Agriculture as the Lead Agency, the plan was to declare project to be classified under the National Environmental Projection Agency (NEPA), as a Categorial Exclusion. Piping the ten mile ditch built in the time of Abraham Lincoln is certainly going to impact the environment.
A Categorial Exclusion would mean the project would be exempted from any environmental impact reporting. As a Federal Agency, the USDA could report to CEQA that the project was exempt and therefore avoiding pesky environmental documentation and mitigations. A clever plan indeed.
It should be noted that CEQA is a kind of library. It houses environmental documents. It is not an enforcement agency. It does not check that filings are correct or accurate. They assume the Lead Agency is following the law and correctly portraying the proper documentation.
On July 11, 2019, the Yuba Water Agency assistant General Manager Willie Whittlesey hosted a meeting at the Yuba Water Agency offices on F Street in Marysville. At this meeting were the North Yuba Water District manager Jeff Maupin, people from NorthStar Engineering, and a number of US Department of Agriculture Rural Development representatives. The subject was about making the USDA the Lead Agency and declaring the Forbestown Ditch piping project exempt from any kind of environmental documentation about the project's impact on the environment.
At a Yuba Water Agency board meeting in the fall of 2019 the question of the Lead Agency was brought up by a member of the public. Subsequently, the idea was dropped and the North Yuba Water District remained the Lead Agency and remains so to this day. They had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and knew it. By the way, the F Street meeting was secret only the participants knew about it. Secrecy and hidden agendas are defining characteristics of the North Yuba Water District general manager Jeff Maupin.
But, the general manager was not finished with his CEQA avoidance strategy. As documentation for the piping project became public, there was a subtle shift in the naming nomenclature. The word "replacement" started creeping in. A replacement project is not subject to the rigors of CEQA documentation. This is because it is assumed a replacement project has already filed the necessary environmental documentation. The Forbestown Ditch piping project documentation now includes the word replacement as the title to the scope of work title shows. However, it is doubtful this naming trick is going to fool anybody.
The Newsletters
The district's newsletters have been a prominent feather of the water district public relations campaign since the first one in September 2019. This is how it started. On the agenda for the July 25, 2019, board meeting was item G.
Smart Marketing is a public relations firm in Yuba City owned and run by Crystal Martin. Let's remember the context, this is July of 2019. Director Flohr had filed her lawsuit for access to the Forbestown piping project drawings in March. The water district's public relations image was not looking to good. The district called on their favorite publicist, Crystal Martin, known far and wide as someone who got you elected. Ms. Martin had done some previous work for the district, so it seemed a natural fit.
When this item came up for consideration, it was revealed that Ms. Martin would be paid $20,000 for services. It was unclear for what time period this might be. At this point, Chairman Hansard dramatically declared, "make it $40,000".
$40K for a public relations effort for a tiny little water district with only eight employees seemed excessive, but Chairman Hansard was unhappy. Having taken over the Chair role in January he already had a lawsuit filed by a director on his hands. He wanted some good news about the district. Unfortunately, for Chair Hansard's entire tenure until he resigned in February of 2021, there wasn't much good news about the district.
Ms. Martin got to work and, in September, she produced a four page full color glossy print newsletter. On the front page was the CHAIRMAN'S UPDATE, Moving Forward Together, with a statement by Chairman Hansard and a smiling picture. However, even this bright and shiny newsletter never did much for the district's image. It wasn't long before the newsletter became a weapon.
When the January 2020 newsletter came out, the Chairmans Update was a diatribe from Chairman Hansard about Public Record Act request and how much they were costing the district. He called the people making these requests as "serial requestors" using PRA's as a political weapon and "... costing tremendous amount of your money to respond to these never-ending requests." Not being satisfied with this condemnation, the second page goes to list nine people and one organization along with what the district says were the legal costs of providing this information. As it turns out, the district had effectively outsourced the PRA requests to its legal counsel which, of course, was far more expensive than having the district's staff process the requests.
In any case, Ms. Martin had decided that it was the duty of a public agency to spend tax payer money listing these "enemies of the state" in the newsletter. This earned the district a lawsuit over the matter.
Let us step back a bit. Not only were PRA requests being made of the water district, they were also being made of other agencies that were involved with the district. One such request, of the Yuba Water Agency, it was disclosed that Chairman Hansard has written a letter dated April 11, 2019, to the Project and Development Committee addressed to POD Chairman Randy Fletcher thanking the Agency for the opportunity to be considered for grant money to construct the Forbestown Ditch pipe.
Chairman Hansard did not put this letter on the district's agenda for all to see. No, it was done in secret. This just a month after Director's Flohr's lawsuit that had been filled in March regarding the general manager's desire to keep everything secret.
When this letter to the Yuba Water Agency was presented at a board meeting, Chairman Hansard was not happy. He looked like a deer that had been caught in headlights. He vowed revenge. The January 2020 newsletter was Chairman Hansard's payback. But Crystal was not finished with her public relations tricks. Not at all.
In the Summer of 2020, another newsletter was produced. On the front page was a picture about ground breaking for the Oroleve Ditch piping. It is a nice picture and only has men in it. The three male board members present in the photograph did not include Director Flohr, who was not invited. Early on, this all male board had taken a strong dislike to their female board member and they did not want her at his photo-op. This is, of course, gender discrimination. But to these men such a detail mattered not, such was the make up of the North Yuba Water District board. A quintessential old-boys' club. The North Yuba Water District has never been known for having good governance which only ends up hurting the customers.
Back to the newsletter narrative, on the inside page there is a picture of Manager Maupin swearing in the new Division 2 board representative Fred Mitchell. No matter that Mr. Mitchell looked disheveled, the newsletter was going to press and a picture was needed. A few months earlier, Terry Brown had moved to Florida and resigned from as a director, in that order.
The 2020 elections are looming. There are three seats up for reelection. The general manager knows this and he is pretty sure if the incumbents are not elected, he is out of a job. Fearful of losing his job, he goes to Crystal and says, "what can we do?" Crystal had just the answer, she will send out the Summer 2020 newsletter just as the voters are receiving their mail-in ballots. This will leave the voter with impression that the current incumbents are doing a great job and should be reelected.
Ms. Martin mass-mails the newsletter to all the voters in the North Yuba Water District's service area. Never mind that this kind of mass-mailing violates the Fair Political Practices Commission guidelines and Ms. Martin knows that. She also knows she is likely to get away with it because she has done things like this in the past.
People who had never received anything from the water district starting wondering what was happening. Of course, this was picked up on the social media network Facebook. Several complaints were filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission against the general manager, the incumbents, and Ms. Martin. The FPPC's adjudication is pending. A Public Record Act request produced the invoice to the district for this mass mailing. This mailing cost $4,126.93.
In May of 2021 several Public Record Act requests were submitted regarding payments for Ms. Martin's services. Not liking the previous disclosures about Ms. Martin, the general manager asked the district's legal council, Dave Stouder of the Sacramento law firm Boutin Jones, if he could do something. Mr. Stouder designated Ms. Martin as a "litigation consultant" and thus, she was protected under attorney client privilege from PRA disclosures. Ms. Martin is a publicist and is not in the legal profession. Designating Ms. Martin as a litigation consultant is meant only to shield her from PRA requests and from embarrassing the general manager. The Yuba County District Attorney has been asked to investigate.
Maps are power
After months of working in secret, in March of 2020, the general manager revealed a new division map. All that was made available publicly at the time, were a couple of large format poster boards propped up in front of the conference table. (This would be the last in-person meeting due to the coming covid restrictions). About two weeks later, a special meeting was convened where the four male directors voted to adopt this new division map. Special meetings only require a one-day public notice. Director Flohr was purposely not given any access to the map before the meeting nor was she ever informed the district was working on a new map. It is not know what the other directors might have known, they do not answer questions.
It was immediately apparent that this map had been carefully crafted to shift power. The water district has five divisions with each having roughly the same number of voters. Traditionally, two divisions, Division 3 and 4, encompassed the irrigation customers giving these voters two board seats. This map changed all that. All of the irrigation customers had been carefully grouped into Division 4. Gary Hawthorne held the Division 3 seat. His property, which had been in Division 3, was now in Division 4. In other words, Hawthorne had voted himself out of office and he would not be able to run for the position in the upcoming election in November.
But this was not to be. The need for a new division map had been precipitated by the requirement from Yuba LAFCO that about 400 parcels which overlapped into the Browns Valley Irrigation District (BVID), be detached and removed from the water district's service boundary. However, during the LAFCO public meetings, the district did not follow public notice protocols and requirements. This resulted in this "packed and cracked" map not to be accepted by the County Elections Office for the upcoming elections. Despite his plans to retire as a director, Hawthorne found himself running again.
Unethical vote
As it turns out, Director Brown, who voted by phone, had moved to Florida in November 2019 and registered to vote as a Florida resident on February 20, 2020. To be qualified as an NYWD Director, one must be a registered California voter. Director Brown's vote did not count and in fact broke all ethical bounds as did the inclusion of him to the meeting by having him call in. He broke the rules, but this did not seem to matter to any of the other directors that voted to adopt this map. They wanted their map and that was it.
County frustrated
Fast forward to February 2021. Chairman Eric Hansard, who is in division 5, resigns. The next month, as one of his last acts as Chairman, Hansard votes, along with the three other male directors Neilson, Hawthorne, and Mitchell, to appoint Ginger Hughes to the vacant seat. But, Ms. Hughes had voted and was a resident of Division 2. No matter, they voted her in nevertheless. Later the general manager says that the new division map, curiously enough, showed that Ms. Hughes now was in Division 5.
However, to this date, the general manager has not provided a "certified" map to the County Elections Office. Therefore, officially, the voters, including Ms. Hughes, are still in the same geographical divisions as they were in November 2020. Since March, the Elections Office has been asking the general manager to certify the new map. He has refused, much as he did when Director Flohr requested the drawings for his piping project.
The County is frustrated with the general manager regarding this state of affairs. The water district is trying to have it both ways, one map for the county and one map for itself. One can only speculate why the general manager does not want to certify this map, but it is an example of how the general manager has little regard for the law. The map is power, the power to determine who is qualified to be on the NYWD board. The general manager knows this and has carefully tried to manipulate the map to suit his agenda.
It has been learned that sometime in the last month (July-August 2021), the NYWD has submitted its map to the county. Now, the county elections office is saying they cannot provide a database of voters until two months after the recall election for Governor Newsom. This filing date trick by the general manager is indented to delay due process.
What can you do?
You can email or call the NYWD directors and ask them why the district is not open and transparent. You can ask them why they want to sell the district's water and what are they going to do with the money. Here is the contact information.
| Doug Neilson | 530 675-2773 | douglas.j.neilson@gmail.com |
| Gary Hawthorne | 530 922-8686 | garyh@precisionservices.com |
| Fred Mitchell | 530 675-2163 | enjoy_the_week@yahoo.com |
| Ginger Hughes | 530 675-9175 | griffonlover7@gmail.com |
The directors will get the message people are concerned about what the district is doing. You can attend the board meetings which are on the last Friday of the month at 3:30 pm. Observe firsthand how the district runs its board meetings.
By all means, contact County Supervisor and Yuba Water Agency Director Randy Fletcher and ask him why he supports the water district selling its water. Also, you can write letters to the editor.
Be aware that the district's newsletter is trying to persuade you that the water district is doing good things. It is intended as a marketing tool to portray the district as honest, trustworthy, and working in the best interests of the people it serves. You may believe these newsletters as you wish.
Every voice counts. This is about the politics of who is going to control our water.
Keep in mind this is not going to be settled until it is settled. The general manager and his board are going to keep on fighting to have their way until they no longer have the power to do so.
August 2021 Newsletter
It is correct that the district has a water conveyance issue. However, this is only because the general manager does not want to repair and maintain the main ditch. It is sort of a manufactured dilemma. The general manager is using his refusal to maintaining the ditch as an excuse to construct his restrictive pipe. It is restrictive because it is designed only to carry 3,700 acre-feet for the NYWD. This frees up 20,000 acre-feet to be sold downstream for $900 an acre-foot making this water worth $18 million.
Instead of making efforts to provide the district's water to its customers, the general manager wants to sell this water to the highest bidder downstream. Now, if the district had asked people to approve and people agreed, that would be okay. It would be what the district's customers wanted.
As of mid August:
- 1) Water from irrigation use comes from the snow pack feeding Dry Creek
- 2) Due to the lack of maintenance, the Forbestown Ditch can only carry 22-24 CFS
- 3) At WD6, South Feather can take up to 11 CFS. As of August 2021, South Feather is only requiring 7 CFS
- 4) The general manager is only allowing 15 CFS at SF-14 instead of 22+ CFS
- 5) There water available for irrigaiton but the general manager is not providing it
- 6) The Slate Creek Power Tunnel is closed, all of the water from Slate Creek is flowing into Bullards Bar Reservoir
There is water that could be diverted from the main ditch to provide irrigation water. The general manager is trying to trick people by saying his pipe would provide irrigation water. If he won't provide water now, he won't provide water if there is a pipe.
