Happy anniversary, dear readers. This week marks the 6th anniversary of The Merry Mantonian in The Red Bluff Daily News - only a year and a half here on Substack. It is also the 300th column - the math doesn’t work because I took a couple of months off a few years ago. The late, great Robert Minch and his awesome sister Lizann suggested to late, great RBDN editor Chip Thompson that I might be a good fit for the Saturday space left empty when the late, great educator and community leader Joe Harrop left this world. I am grateful to all those folks and my “new” editor Rick Silva. And of course all of you. Thank you.
Monday’s marathon groundwater fees meeting, covered by Ace RBDN Reporter Heather Taylor (read it here), was packed with residents who had questions and strong opinions. The fee letters they received did not tell them how much they would be charged.
That turned out to be a fatal flaw. When it was my turn at the lectern, I asked the audience to raise their hands if they were homeowners with domestic wells. Almost every hand went up. City dwellers and farmers - a handful of hands. The vast majority of attendees would be charged around $5 a year. I doubt any of them would have taken off work or rearranged their schedules over $5. It would have been a much shorter meeting, but not a better one.
Excluding de minimis users completely would solve a lot of problems. They cannot legally be charged without being specifically regulated and that is not the case here. Exclude domestic users and the angry mobs disappear along with their pitchforks and torches. They would just have some angry farmers - nothing new there. Some overdrafted basins even exclude small farmers. I doubt that would happen here but wouldn’t it be nice?
Once it became clear the board couldn’t push the fees through in time to get them on this year’s property tax bills, they wisely chose to take a closer look at all of it and will meet twice a month to discuss it. And maybe even have a water lawyer on hand. Good - we need one.
What you may not know is that both litigators from the Garst Appeal attended. I saw Michael Colantuono in the lobby and asked him to autograph a copy of the $10,000 opinion letter he wrote advising the county NOT to charge the 29 cents per acre fee for the Well Registration Database in 2022. He chuckled a bit and signed it like a good sport.
And why wouldn’t he be a good sport? He made $10,000 to write a letter advising the county. They ignored his advice, then paid him and his firm somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 to defend them in court because they did the opposite of what he advised. One wonders what he was paid to be at Monday’s meeting in person at $400 an hour. Not to mention the drive from Grass Valley. I believe he was there to explain the illegalities of the resolutions and the meaning of the Garst decision, which ruled people on city water cannot be charged individually. That’s probably why the resolutions were tabled for more discussion.
Adam Pressman, who represented David Garst at the trial and appeal, was also in attendance. He spoke during the general Public Comment period at the beginning of the meeting, requesting the board consider placing an item on a future agenda to discuss the possibility of refunding all the 29 cent fees they charged illegally. The Appellate Court ruled that they didn’t have to give us back that money, so it would show the board wanted to do the right thing, which would be shockingly refreshing.
When Board Matters were being discussed, Director/Supe Rob Burroughs requested that agenda item. Chair Tom Walker said he did not wish to discuss it. D/S Steve Zane said he would like to, and D/S Greg Jones agreed. Consensus achieved. If they vote against it when discussed, don’t worry. There is a legal process (5097) through which we can request refunds, so it appears we’ll be able to get it back one way or another. More on that to come if necessary.
I subscribe to Aquafornia and Maven’s Notebook newsletters, two terrific resources for water issues, and not just in CA. They cover the Colorado River crisis, legal news, snowpack reports, and more. If you’d like to see the Big Picture on Water, I highly recommend getting both newsletters - they’ll come right to your Inbox and they’re free.
One article on Maven’s Notebook caught my attention recently and I shared it at the meeting. Eddy Teasdale, Vice President and Lead Hydrogeologist at Luhdorff and Scalmanini Civil Engineers, our handsomely paid consultants, is a frequent guest and speaker at Tehama groundwater meetings. He was caught being less than truthful at The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Adjudication Court. He and other “experts” hired by the Large Pumpers down there fudged data to enable more pumping in overdrafted basins. Read the press release here.
LSCE (and Teasdale) inflated Tehama’s domestic numbers in our Annual Reports, because they used an inappropriate metric in their calculations. Domestic numbers went up drastically over the past 5 years while Ag numbers decreased, even though planted acreage increased. When called out on it, Teasdale admitted the metric led to inaccurate numbers. Do you see a pattern here?
For 2025, Teasdale actually went back in and corrected the Rural Residential numbers, but all he did was copy and paste from 2024. What is happening here? Was this intentional? Are they dishonest or inept? Either way we need a new consulting firm.
This coming Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors’ Agenda Item #20 is an ordinance for a special election coinciding with the Nov. 3 election to amend the County Charter to give raises to the Supes and certain elected officials. Yes, raises for the Supes. I swear I am not making this up.
Our Supes make $1045 a month for full time work. They definitely need a raise. But after the groundwater fees fiasco and not wanting to give us back our 29 cents per acre, plus the Safety Tax (on the back burner for now), plus countless raises and settlements and other questionable expenditures, I doubt the voters will be feeling generous. Timing is everything, gentlemen. This is not a good time to be asking us to give you a raise.
If the verbiage could be amended to start in January of 2029, when three new Supe terms will start, (and might as well give it to the other two also,) passage becomes possible. As written it just looks like a money grab.
“All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine…”
~George Harrison
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