by Dr. John Menke

Scott Valley and Shasta Valley Watermaster District Board:

I would like you to help me and others being taken for a lot of money, very likely illegally, under the scam of a handed-off, corrupted Department of Water Resources (DWR) watermaster service program. Jennifer's and my watermaster fee went from about $1230 to $8500 per year this year. Charlie Friden's went to over $13,000. Nancy Carver's, Dolores Tozier's and Heidi Gray's went to nearly $10,000 each. We request relief before our next due fee payment with our property tax bill--due April 10, 2012!

Having attended all the local district watermaster service planning meetings for years, we all now know that the high fees being charged are due to pass-along charges well beyond the service traditionally included in watermaster service. The Bureau of Reclamation backfill funding from the Federal Government of all sources, allowed DWR to not to have to manage their budget for several years following Nancy Carver's and my Quartz Valley diverter organized resistance meeting (6/22/2004) to stop the raising of fees in 2005. Since that time watermaster service has gone from a 6-month $85,000 service to a year-round $668,000 job for DWR personnel--$18,000 per month per Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE). California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) threats to DWR and diverters, The Nature Conservancy's purchase of the Busk Ranch with its desire to contribute water to instream flows delivered near the head of the anadromous-fish-accessible Shasta River, and the local Water Trust programs led to installation of continuous flow monitoring meter facilities numbering 17 stations in Shasta Valley and 6 in Scott Valley, lots of required reporting by DWR to CDFG, etc.  The meters cost between $7,000 and $22,000 for installation, and more than that per year for annual maintenance according to handouts provided by DWR Northern California Area Manager Bill Mendenhall. CDFG should pay for meters and metering if they want them--they are not necessary for watermastering.

The DWR fees already collected by Siskiyou County this tax year, and the half due April 10th, do not represent diverter-specific cost allocations correctly since a newly arranged payment by the Montague Water Conservation District (MWCD) was arranged after the tax/fee bills were sent out by the County. Scott Valley diverters have not held such a meeting as MWCD, so we have not had a chance to choose to abandon or keep some of the 6 meters in Scott Valley. The fee billing by Siskiyou County was based on keeping all the meters, all the extra CDFG reporting, year-round personnel employment--a Cadillac consulting opportunity loaded on marginally profitable ranch/farm businesses or, in some cases, retirement couples not even diverting any water at their diversions. This is immoral, unfair and probably illegal.  It is a government rip-off in which Siskiyou County collected our money.

Bill Mendenhall has stated openly at meetings that his department could no longer provide watermaster service to Siskiyou County because of coho salmon incidental take liability for his field staff personally.  CDFG obviously created this tenuous situation for DWR while CDFG attempted to enact its Watershed Wide ITP Program. We are now being burned financially because the new Scott Valley and Shasta Valley Watermaster District Board has largely and unnecessarily applied the same DWR program and the billing this year reflects that. As stated below at least 43 of us in Quartz Valley and Oro Fino Valley are seeking to get out of watermaster service since we all play fair with each other and abide by the applicable decrees. Remember that watermaster service is provided to settle disputes among or between diverters along an independent conduit.  Without disputes, expensive service is not necessary.

Bill told me the continuous flow meters were necessary to be "legally defensible". Dave Webb (Shasta Valley RCD) confirmed my suspicion that the purpose of the meters is to allow 'shepherding water' around downstream diversions when either The Nature Conservancy (TNC) or the local Water Trusts need accounting for water released for instream flow enhancement. Mendenhall told me TNC should foot the bill for 'shepherding their water around downstream diversions', but the bill gets passed on to diverters presently. In reality, the legal defense need Mendenhall fails to mention is violation of the Superior Court Ordered Decrees with 'shepherding' around diversions without a Water Code 1707 authorization, or negotiated payment to downstream diversion owners not being allowed access to flows at their points of diversion.

With Shasta Valley diverters numbering more than 700, their enormous bill gets split so many ways it seemed tolerable to many of them, but not to us in Scott Valley especially in Quartz Valley and Oro Fino Valley because we are few or individual diverters (109 in Scott Valley total), and some of us have large water rights  By the way, we also produce most of the coho salmon in the Klamath River Watershed. Red Emerson's ranch in Shasta Valley is an extreme example of prorated charging with his annual bill for watermaster service of over $33,000. It is just as easy to measure large flows over a weir as a 2-cubic-foot-per-second flow rate for a small water diversion. This is a ripoff for him!

Incidentally, Oro Fino Valley diverters receive no watermaster service and don't want any, and because Fish and Game has disallowed repair of a large Kidder Creek diversion facility (not water mastered) serving Oro Fino Valley, Oro Fino Creek flows are not supplemented and the Dolcini's receive no water, yet are charged $7,000 per year for watermaster service along Oro Fino Creek. Charlie Friden pays over $13,000 for no watermaster service on Shackleford Creek and Oro Fino Creek watermastering which is not provided, wanted or needed, purely a product of a dispute prior to 1984 that no longer exists. This is a complete ripoff!

Paul Boos and his wife at the extreme north end of Shasta Valley do not use their Cold Creek diversion but are billed for it an unaffordable level for their income, and the fee may force them to sell their ranch. Our immediate neighbors, the Eastlicks, Kasts, Potts, and Pereira's, have not diverted water from their Mill Creek and Shackleford Creek diversions, respectively, in the nearly 19 years Jennifer and I have lived in Siskiyou County, yet they have paid fees to DWR for watermaster service all that time and continue to be billed.

The myth of DWR that if you don't pay DWR for watermaster service, even though you don't divert water, you will loose your water right is a patent lie! These are all adjudicated water rights! A similar lie by DWR, use your water at least once each 5-years or lose your right, caused diverters diverting water from the Kidder Creek diversion mentioned above to divert water in the fifth year. This diversion effort led to a disinterested neighbor near the diversion to be trespassed upon and an altercation with a pair of CDFG Wardens looking for a 1600 violation. The risk created by this event was already reported by me to District Attorney Kirk Andrus and Sheriff Jon Lopey--however, I have not been informed of the outcome of their investigation. All these inequities should be remedied while the local watermaster service board is taking on their new job.

With reference to my illegality statement in my first sentence, now that we are learning from several attorney's in the DefendRuralAmerica effort with Kirk Mackenzie, his associates and our Sheriff Coordination Team, we have been enlightened now to understand that the County's appointed Siskiyou Resource Conservation District Board and staff, Shasta Valley Resource Conservation District Board and staff, Scott River Watershed Council Board and staff, the Scott Valley Ground Water Advisory Committee, and Scott Valley and Shasta Valley Watermaster District Board are extensions of local government. These entities as local governments serve We the People 

With our new Scott Valley and Shasta Valley Watermaster District and their willingness to just continue the unnecessary expensive meters, year-round watermaster jobs, and not listen to our requests, we are seeking justice from our civil servants.  Since many of us have informed the Scott Valley and Shasta Valley Watermaster District Board that we no longer need watermaster service in several independent conduits in Quartz Valley and all of Oro Fino Valley, the secretary, on her own apparently, issued at the last meeting a policy of charging each diverter seeking to be removed from watermaster service a legal charge of $1,000 each. One Board Member's response to me was the Board had not discussed such a policy--is this a Brown Act violation?

Water Code 4032 was included in the Superior Court Judge's ruling in transferring watermaster service from DWR to the Scott Valley and Shasta Valley Watermaster District.  Water CODE 4032 reads as follows:  "Service areas may be enlarged, reduced, consolidated, or abolished from time to time as convenience of administration may require." The excessive costs charged today for watermaster service is a great incentive for diverters to stop stealing each others water. If no service is needed for conduct of the Court Decree, no service is necessary.

If you are unable to solve these problems for us would you suggest we file a complaint with the Civil Grand Jury?  Or the Criminal Grand Jury?

Thank you,

John and Jennifer Menke