February 24, 2021 Board Meeting Highlights

Held Wednesday February 24, 2021 commencing at 11:20 AM in the RID Board Room. Covid19 provincial health guidelines were followed during the meeting.

The Agenda for the meeting was approved on motion by Craig Palmer and carried.

The Minutes of the January 20, 2021 board meeting were approved on motion by Rod Wendorff and carried.

BUISNESS ARISING

O&M Report and IRP Project Update:

Cody Heggie showed a slide presentation of the work performed over the past month. The new excavator has been a great asset in completing IRP 2356. The longer stick and larger bucket have help keep the project on track to be finishing by early April. Cody reported that Scott Blair and Lee Robson are doing an excellent job learning to run the excavators for pipelining.

Irrican – Kelvin Kado reported:

The Irrican year-end is now completed. SMRID used the wrong back up and we lost some December information (mainly payables and payments for that period). Kelvin will re-enter the information. Due to age of the plants, it seems like winter maintenance costs are getting a little higher each year.

RID financial – Kelvin Kado reported:

Year-end financial information will be completed and delivered to accountants for the annual audit this week. We will begin the 2021 budget process next week. R7-1 and R8-2 billings will also be completed next week.

AGM – Thursday March 25, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. – Jason Miller reported:

The AGM will be done by zoom this year. Notice of the AGM will be advertised in the Westwind Weekly, posted on the RID website, and a notice will be mailed out to irrigators. The board discussed reducing mailout notices in the future by advising irrigators that information is available on the RID website. The RID has also been collecting email addresses and cell phone numbers so that in the future emails and texts could be used to convey information to irrigators.

Raymond Ward Election – Nominations Close Feb 25:

Nominations for the director position close on February 25, 2021. To-date, one nomination form has been received by the RID.

Modernizations Agreement with Gov’t & CIB – Brief Update -Jason Miller Reported:

Kelvin and Jason have received training from the CIB on how to upload monthly progress reports. Bank accounts are being opened up to facilitate the flow of funds for the modernization projects.

RID Policy Manual Review:

The board reviewed policies 9-36.

NEW BUISNESS

Directors’ Items:

The board discussed the upcoming audit and discussed the possibly of tendering out the audit after the current year audit is completed. The board likes using a local auditor from Lethbridge, but wondered if there were any auditors within the RID that would like the opportunity to bid on the audit.

Application to transfer acres: 60 acres from E1/2 16-6-20 to SW25-6-20:

On motion made by Craig Palmer and carried, the Board approved the transfer of 60 acres from E1/2 16-6-20-W4 to SW25-6-20-W4 contingent on SW25-6-20-W4 being successfully classified as irrigable.

AIDA Executive Committee Meeting Update – John McKee reported:

The AIDA Executive Committee held a meeting on February 3, 2021 that John McKee attended. Key items from the meeting included:

  1. Alberta Agriculture – staff have been reduced so districts will have to increase their involvement with programs such as the water quality sampling
  2. Magnicide H is being monitored very closely
  3. Department of Oceans and Fisheries is concerned about the impact of dewatering of canals on fish. We have to make sure to fill out the annual dewatering paperwork each fall.
  4. November 29-December 1 is the AIDA conference, but may change because of Covid19.

Acre Allocation Committee Update:

The acre allocation committee has met twice. The committee is pleased to report that the RID received 22 applications requesting a total of 3,185 acres. Using the criteria set out by the RID board in the RID seminar in November 2020, the committee has successfully narrowed down the applications to 1,595. While this number is 595 acres more than originally planned for year 1, the bulk of these acres are already being irrigated with rented acres so selling them permanent irrigation acres will not adversely impact the ability of the RID to deliver water.

On motion made by Rod Wendorff and carried, the board approves the sale of irrigation acres as recommended by the acre allocation committee, conditional upon:

  1. The land being classified as irrigable;
  2. The land being added to the Raymond Irrigation District;
  3. If needed, a remote delivery agreement is signed by the purchaser;
  4. If needed, when multiple parcels are involved, an easement is granted by the purchaser in favor of the owner of the land title, so that future landowners have access to related turnouts, pump sites and mainline;
  5. If needed, when multiple pivots are operating from the same RID turnout, the purchaser will consent to a land title caveat on all parcels operating from the same pivot, acknowledging the maximum flow rate the turnout is designed for and that the landowners sharing the riser must operate their systems in an alternating fashion, or in a mutually agreed upon method;
  6. If needed, a reservoir pumping agreement is signed by the purchaser; and,
  7. If needed, a SMRID or Alberta Environment turnout agreement is signed.

On motion made by Rod Wendorff and carried, the board approves compensating non-RID board members and non-RID employees that are on the acre allocation committee $250 per meeting.

The board thanks the committee for their work. The board also thanks everyone that submitted applications for acres and encourages anyone that did not receive acres from this round to apply again in the fall of 2021 for the second round of selling irrigation acres.

Main Canal Agreement:

SMRID has approached RID and TID with proposed changes to the SMRID Main Canal Agreement.

Presentation by Trevor Helwig, SMRID via zoom:

Board members from TID joined the zoom meeting and Trevor presented an overview of the SMRID Main Canal from Horsefly Check to Sauder.

Next Meeting Date

The next meeting is set for March 17, 2021.