Last July, the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) Board of Directors agreed to develop a five year plan to deliver water to farmers outside district boundaries but within its sphere of influence. Based on the board’s decision, several farmers who had petitioned for water began making good on their promises to provide infrastructure necessary for the deliveries. In some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent. Then, just last Tuesday, […]
Linda Santos Oakdale Irrigation District
Another Huge Loss for Oakdale Irrigation District
For any other public entity, the loss suffered on November 27 by Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) in Fresno’s Fifth Appellate District Court would amount to a wake-up call, but given the resistance to facts of three of its board members, General Manager and water attorney, it’s unlikely any of them will come away with a lesson learned. This, after all, is the water district whose own attorney told them they […]
Judge Calls Water District’s Bluff: “It is not even close.”
At one point during the conflict between the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) and the Oakdale Groundwater Alliance (OGA), Judge Roger Beauchesne scolded OID attorneys for their use of ad hominem tactics, reminding them that personal attacks are usually attempts to hide weak arguments. But it turns out personal attacks were all OID attorneys could offer when the district’s fallowing program was challenged under the authority of the California Environmental Quality […]
Stench Rises over OID Recall
Over the last few years, the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) has conducted a secret water sale, failed to re-district according to state law, sold water by abandoning its water rights, annexed out-of-the-region buyers into the district at bargain rates while rejecting offers from local farmers to pay more for OID water, lost a water sale because it failed to observe requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, barred newly elected […]