RE:RE:New Press Release - Greenbriar Plans to Break Ground on Sage Ranch in AprilIt's good to see they are moving ahead next month according to the news release.
A few offtakes from the release to followup on :
"The company owns and has access to all of the deeded water rights, and any additional sources." We will have to wait for the 2023 Water Report actually see if the required water rights have indeed been transferred to the company. What exactly are "any additional sources"?
"This has no impact on the schedule of building Sage Ranch nor stopping its progress." Great to see they have such confidence in the court outcome and are going full steam ahead. If the judge does side with the Water District request for the vacating of the project's approval the construction will assumingly need to be stopped until the required approvals are met. Once again its really up to the judge's decisions.
"The TCCWD uses deeded water rights of all owners who do not use those rights in any given year, and sells them on a yearly basis to ag companies who lease the land from certain TCCWD directors." This statement truly requires to be reviewed. If you look at the attached 2022 Water Report on page 14 it specifically shows who has pumpable excess water rights that they offered to have the Water District supply to other entities.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Y7YyPWA1LYdFruuwt9gzDqj07qbS-Ay/view There was 1065 AF temporarily transferred. Note the fact there was only 19AF to Green Rich Farms and another 18AF to two apple orchard operations, represntig just 3.5% to farmers. The remaining temporary transfers are all to the City, Golden Hills,Youth Sports Park, etc.
This is probably the most interesting aspect related to water rights usage though.
Kubicek Trust transferred 203.333AF to the City of Tehachapi These appear to be the same water rights that Ciachurski, Morris and Strasser purchased from H-Star Investments. The question lies there in that if these rights are transferred to the City for Sage Ranch then the City needs to find more water rights to supply itself.
A bit of the dog chasing its tail.
All these agicultural lands that are having their water rights stripped from them are basically worthless for farming. Without pumpable water rights the farmer really only has two choices. One is to apply to the district for water and hope some water is available. As shown this type of allocation decision quite often happens too late in the season to plant your crop.The other is to just plant and hope Mother Nature is on your side.
Really need to see the 2023 Water Report for more clarity.