The internet is like a living entity when you consider the constantly evolving and growing “bank” of information and the new and various options for accessing and retrieving such. Strange, one day a submitted question will produce a particular list of results, yet later the same worded question may produce a completely different set of results. Why the difference on the same machine? Was this “apparent new information” actually entered somewhere in the system between the two requesting times, or was a server or some other transporting/reporting device nonoperational at one point? Were search parameters or the process somehow temporarily reinterpreted or reconfigured to produce differing results? Could the amount of computer traffic at a specific hub during a request be a variable? Or how I parted, or did not part, my hair this morning? Who knows? Perhaps I’ll research it later when I have more time. lol
Here’s something that is a real pain in the posterior with this research stuff – after you FINALLY locate the information and select the file to print, which often contains multiple pages, sometimes the printed result is less than satisfactory for a variety of reasons. Obvious print failures are actually preferred because I know right away what’s screwed up and must be reprinted – like in a low or malfunctioning ink cartridge situation, however, there are other subtle – less obvious errors that will drive me up a wall ass backwards with frustration, like with the information I am posting today.
“Hey Lew! Could you make a short story a bit longer?”
“sure, if you want”
So this morning while browsing the internet I discovered some interesting December 1991 – January 1992 correspondence regarding Resolution 92-13 prepared by the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors requesting the STATE WATER BOARD to expand the PLACE OF USE Boundary (for Merced River water under license 11395) so the South Shore Club project could develop. (NOTE: South Shore Club was/is also known as La Ventana Development.) That project was ALSO SPLIT between the counties of Mariposa and Tuolumne along Bonds Flat Road between HWY 59 and HWY 132. (Like the LAKE SHORE 900 acre proposed subdivision across from the LDPCSD annexed by Mariposa in 1995 – it is also in both Mariposa and Tuolumne.) The La Ventana Development consisted of 2,010 acres for residential development and another golf course (among other things) with 772 acre feet of Merced River water per year to be permitted if …..
(THE BIG QUALIFIER)
IF
….THE STATE WATER BOARD CONDITIONS FOR APPROVAL WERE MET BY DEVELOPERS AND OTHER JURISDICTIONAL ENTITIES INVOLVED – WHICH THEY
WERE NOT.
REM? I posted that informative STATE DECISION because of the excellent WL history cited?
Here it is again:
wro93-02
The below documents may help answer why subsequent annexations into the LDPCSD (such as the proposed LAKE SHORE RANCH annexed in 1995 by Mariposa County LAFCo when Pete Kampa worked here the first time) do not have similar refusals by the STATE WATER BOARD…..Apparently “they” (County Officials, Planning Departments, LAFCos, LDPCSD Directors/Management, outside POU land developers, etc.), chose to pursue a different plan in obtaining water from the district THAT DID NOT INVOLVE PERMISSION FROM THE STATE WATER BOARD OR ADJUSTMENTS TO THE WATER LICENSE.
GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION QUIETLY PAID FOR BY THE MAJORITY MANDATORY LDPCSD MERCED RIVER WATER ENTITLED CUSTOMERS OF THE LAKE DON PEDRO SUBDIVISION WHO DO NOT REQUIRE SUCH SUBSTITUTION TO BE COMPLIANT WITH THE WATER LICENSE.
Groundwater substitution?
Frankly I still do not understand the logic behind the GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION IN LAKE DON PEDRO.
I can understand the common meaning of conserving surface water through groundwater transfers for one reason or another, but that is NOT WHAT THE LDPCSD IS DOING.
How can a remedy for existing PAST VIOLATIONS be turned into a PERMANENT DISTRICT POLICY to expand water service outside the POU of the license?
I have read much about GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION on various state websites (and else where) and thus far have not found how “LDPCSD’s groundwater substitution policy” has been sanctioned by “AUTHORITIES” as a legitimate policy or method for a public water company to intentionally, and repeatedly, “circumvent state water license restrictions” to serve water where it would otherwise be unavailable.
Here is some very interesting research into this GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION: (Link to download)
CORRECT A KNOWN VIOLATION IS ONE THING, BUT A POLICY FOR THE FUTURE?
I can understand existing prior violations having been corrected with groundwater substitution but a policy for continued expansion outside the POU for perpetuity? You know what they say, follow the money. Who benefits? Well, certainly the private developer who otherwise could not receive MERCED RIVER WATER gets cheap quality water as though entitled like in the subdivision; the counties benefit because they don’t have to supply the water for developments they tax and receive revenue; and of course water district mangers, engineers, management companies etc., all benefit because more work equates to more compensation. Seems the only ones losing on this scam are the MR WECs!
(And of course the MERCED RIVER.)
Maybe this “GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION FOR DROUGHT AREA WATER SERVICE EXPANSION WITH PUBLIC FUNDS” is on the internet somewhere but I haven’t discovered it yet – maybe tomorrow I’ll try parting my hair differently? Lol Still would be strange though.
Why would the State claim to support conservation and responsible use of such a natural resource (Merced River water from Yosemite National Park is a watershed icon) when it simultaneously provides an illogical, unethical, and unsustainable alternative to specifically circumvent other state regulations and restrictions governing responsible use?
Yup, I do not understand considering this recognized drought prone area, designated high fire severity zone (and disadvantaged community), unreliable groundwater production from extremely expensive wells in a fractured rock geology requiring arsenic and other contaminant removal with various monitoring and state reporting requirements. Groundwater sources that the State of California has been attempting to protect for future generations with strict detailed regulation and enforcement?
But a permissible and authorized special benefit water service in the LDPCSD for private land developers paid for with public funds by
MERCED RIVER WATER ENTITLED CUSTOMERS
None of this makes sense.
“PSST! HEY LEW! BACK TO THE SUBJECT”
“sure”
So I was preparing to scan those pages into the computer this morning (so I could post on lakedonpedro.org for viewers) but noticed the last line on a number of pages was missing so there was no continuity of thought between the end of the preceding page and beginning of the next. (Hum, rather like this post, eh?) This doesn’t happen all the time but it sure does slow down the routine when it does! (Print, cuss, scan, cuss, download, cuss, and upload cuss, then write around…..you get the idea lol, cuss)
I certainly didn’t want suspicious handwritten or typed additional words to “complete” these official government documents (what do you think I am? A local public agency!) So, I cleared the print spooler (always have to look that up) and printed each page separately. I thought these documents were important as clearly illustrating another reason why the SOUTH SHORE CLUB project had been abandoned – it wasn’t
JUST ABOUT MONEY.
This was the project containing the “shape file” (map) that Pete Kampa ultimately used 24 years later in his recent attempt to fabricate a new PLACE OF USE map as the FINAL ANSWER TO THE LDPCSD WATER SERVICE AREA FOR MERCED RIVER WATER using a $35,000 digital mapping project the Board of Directors approved.
Do you recall how that “shape file” played such an important role in Pete Kampa’s plan?
Kampa and his Board of Directors steadfastly refused to SIMPLY CONTACT THE STATE WATER BOARD for an official water service map with PETE KAMPA as “THE VOICE OF THE DISTRICT” repeatedly advising:
“WE WILL USE THE MAP THE STATE HAS ON FILE”.
Sounded good, yeah?
Ahhhhhh, but it was only
traditional
KAMPASPEAK – KAMPAGANDA!
Pssst…. Kampa never revealed which state agency possessed his “secret map” (and the foundation for his digital mapping project to create an incorrect map with an expanded POU), much less how old, obsolete and immaterial that map would be to current circumstances – but he certainly knew the facts.
Pete Kampa has been very disingenuous regarding this subject for over twenty years.
Why would he change now?
My best to you and yours, Lew
POSTED DOCUMENTS BELOW:
December 6, 1991 – MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT LETTER TO SWRCB RE MARIPOSA PROPOSED ORDER TO SWRCB
December 27, 1991 – ATTORNEY LETTER TO COUNTY COUNSEL
December 30, 1991 – MARIPOSA COUNTY COUNSEL LETTER TO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
January 7, 1992- AGENDA ACTION FORM MARIPOSA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISOR
January 7, 1992 – MARIPOSA COUNTY RESOLUTION NO. 92-13
88888888888888888
MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT LETTER TO SWRCB RE MARIPOSA PROPOSED ORDER TO SWRCB
ATTORNEY LETTER TO COUNTY COUNSEL
MARIPOSA COUNTY COUNSEL LETTER TO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
AGENDA ACTION FORM MARIPOSA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISOR
MARIPOSA COUNTY RESOLUTION NO. 92-13
My best to you and yours, Lew
