Highlights of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Raymond Irrigation District held Wednesday March 22, 2017 commencing at 9:00 AM in the RID Board Room.
Attending: Byron Wilde Chairman, John McKee Vice Chairman, Craig Palmer Director, Gordon ZoBell, General Manager and recording clerk, Mark Jensen Operations Manager and Kelvin Kado, Office Manager as required.
IRP 2321 W#5 phase #5 – The installation of pipe is nearly complete.
Maintenance report – Mark showed the board a slide presentation of work completed under the district’s IRP and maintenance program over the past month.
Irrican Power – (Kelvin Kado) – Irrican has signed a new commitment letter and loan agreement with ATB.
New revolving line of credit for $1MM has been set up and is ready for use. It will revolve in exact dollar amounts, real time. Loan #784 31090642500.
New term loan approved for $8,875,000. Has been set up and the first advance of $7,185,000. Has been completed.
Existing term loans 784 21260584800 and 784 10229675600 have been paid out.
All loans are at a rate of ATB Prime + .5%, all loans are currently interest monthly only.
$160,000.00 has been transferred from 1st Choice Savings in March
$395,000.00 will be transferred from 1st Choice Savings later this year.
RID financial – (Kelvin Kado) – Rate enforcement will not be needed this year. The last 2 rate payers came in this week and all accounts have been paid up to date as required.
Motion by John McKee to transfer $44,905.00 into the districts IRP account for 2016 and 2017 carried.
We met With Doug Wilde, district auditor, and the RID books were in good shape. There were a couple of discussion items; $1.00/acre for capital works need a manual transfer for 2016 and going forward, also our system is not properly posting penalty revenue. This will be corrected.
Expansion Plebiscite in the RID – The process is ongoing nothing to report this month.
Moving Forward 2 grant – Gordon, Mark and Len Ring met with Kevin Whitmire of MPE engineering on March 8th to begin the project. Assignments were made and all parties will now move forward. The project must be completed by September of 2017. Some funding has been received.
Budget items – There is no major purchases planned for the coming year.
RID Seminar and Annual meeting – date is March 23, 2017 – Gordon went over the agenda for the seminar with the board. The seminar and annual meeting will be held in the Raymond Agricultural Society main building on the date noted.
Welling #2 – Darin Wilde entered the meeting at 10:00 AM. A further review was conducted regarding the delivery to E1/2-14-6-21-W4. After Darin left the meeting the board determined that they would stand by their decision of the February meeting with no changes.
Murray Turner – Murray entered the meeting at 10:45 AM. The board questioned Murray of his intentions regarding water delivery and irrigated acres on NE-7-5-19-W4. The land has been classified as irrigable and there is an Alberta Environment permit in place that gives the district permission to access water from Ridge reservoir at that location. The land is also included in the RID on the title. Murray noted that he has changed his mind and would like to use alternate parcel acres for the 2017 year and is not looking to purchase permanent acres as quickly as he originally intended. The board noted this and will approve alternate parcel acres in the April 2017 board meeting. The manager noted that he had sent an email to officials of Alberta Environment regarding the delivery permit from Ridge reservoir but had not heard back from them to date.
Directors Items – Byron Wilde noted that Keelers had called him and noted that they were interested in obtaining more permanent irrigation acres for sections 34&27-5-21-W4.
Stirling wind project newsletter – John Mckee has been watching the development of the project on behalf of the RID.
Raymond Chautauqua – horse breaking and many other events donation request – $500.00 – On motion by Byron Wilde the board approved the donation as requested. Carried.
AIPA – 9 cent per acre water quality study – RID is in again for this season.
New acre by-law – list of interested land owners – The board reviewed a list of parcels whose owners are interested in purchasing new acres made available due to the cancelation of 1595 terminable acres. After much discussion the board determined that they would like a form made available to all RID water users requesting pertinent information regarding parcels, acres, locations, land classification, is the parcel included in the RID and if there is current irrigation taking place on the parcel or not. This form will be placed on the RID website as soon as possible and water users are requested to make their wishes known by completing the form and returning it to the district. There will also be a mail out directing water users to the website. The completed forms will be reviewed by the board as they come in. New acres will not be made available for the 2017 irrigation season. The board will carefully consider locations and the district’s ability to deliver water before approving any new acres.
Transfer Irrigation acres – Section 26 of ID Act – 65 acres from Brenda Diebel cust # 1038 SE-12-7-21-W4 to East Raymond Colony cust # 1067– 14-5-20-W4. This request was approved by the board on motion by Craig Palmer and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Bluegrass Colony NW-34-5-16-W4 130 acres. This request was approved by the board on motion by John McKee and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Diane Salmon SE-30-5-20-W4 – N1/2 of NW of IRR 50 – This request was approved by the board on motion by Byron Wilde and carried.
2017 Annual Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Rod Nelson NE-34-5-15-W4 30 acres and W1/2-35-5-15-W4 – 30 acres -. This request was approved by the board on motion by Craig Palmer and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Delco Farming Company – NW-17-6-17-W4 – 50 acres – This request was approved by the board on motion by Byron Wilde and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Delco Farming Company – NE-17-6-17-W4 – 50 acres – This request was approved by the board on motion by Byron Wilde and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Delco Farming Company – SW-17-6-17-W4 – 80 acres – This request was approved by the board on motion by Byron Wilde and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Delco Farming Company – SE -17-6-17-W4 – 100 acres – This request was approved by the board on motion by Byron Wilde and carried.
2017 Annual Water Agreement – Section 16 ID Act – Delco Farming Company – 7-6-16-W4 – 380 acres – This request was approved by the board on motion by Byron Wilde and carried.
Household purposes agreement – Carl Friesen – NW-32-6-20-W4 – This request was approved by the board on motion by John McKee and carried.
Next meeting date – Wednesday, April 18, 2017 commencing at 9:00 AM in the RID board room.
Motion to adjourn and time meeting ended. – There being no further business the meeting adjourned at 3:45 PM on motion by Byron Wilde.
Note: This meeting was the last for Byron Wilde. Rod Wendorff will replace Byron beginning March 23, 2017 as RID director for the Welling area.