Last week, the Idyllwild Water District board adopted its fiscal year 2016-17 budget. The total budget (water and sewer programs) is expected to be $1.7 million, which is about $100,000 less than the current year. These amounts do not include capital program investments.

Revenues are estimated to be $2.3 million (the combination of both programs) compared to $2 million in the combined revenue budget for fiscal year 2015-16. However, actual revenue in the previous fiscal year was $2.3 million, according to the district’s audit.

“The district is in good financial shape based on your actions taken in previous years,” General Manager Tom Lynch told the directors.

IWD’s net operating margin would be about $550,000. The capital improvement program, which is estimated to require $800,000, will result in a combined net loss of about $260,000 for fiscal year 2016-17.

Capital investments are projected to be about $3.3 million. But federal and state grants and loans reduce IWD’s direct cost to about $800,000. The largest project will be completing plans and designs for the recycled water facility and, possibly the beginning of its construction. This project will cost nearly $2.1 million, all paid from grants and loans, according to Lynch.

At the urging of Director Steve Kunkle, the board added $100,000 for new well drilling next year. Also, Lynch had budgeted $225,000 for well rehabilitation to increase water supply.

The other major capital program is the planned pipeline replacement. Nearly a third of the total cost, $455,000, comes from a county grant.

While the dedicated reserve funds will decline from $650,000 to $390,000, IWD will still have about $2 million in other cash assets.

In water business, Lynch reported that the district is staying in Water Conservation Stage 2. Foster Lake remains empty, Lynch stated, and added that the groundwater level of several wells seems to be improving.

May’s water production was 6.4 million gallons, which was 112,000 gallons more than last May. Since January, production is 200,000 gallons less than the first five months of 2015.

May water revenues were $103,000, which is $7,300 more than the estimated budget and $12,000 more than May 2015, although production increased only 2 percent.

For the first 11 months of the fiscal year, production was 67.7 million gallons, which is about 10 percent less than the first 11 months of fiscal year 2014-15.

In other business, the district set July 20 as the date to hold a public hearing for its annual standby charges. These remain the same as last year, $30 per acre on unimproved property.

During the directors’ comments portion of the Idyllwild Water District’s board meeting last week, Director Steven Kunkle began to discuss the difficultly he has encountered trying to get information about the district’s wells.

Director John Cook, who was acting as president during the meeting, replied that it was unfair to ask a question of staff and expect a response by the next Monday.

However, Kunkle’s initial request for a list of the district’s wells - and for those that are operational and those not, including their output - was made on May 5, nearly six weeks prior to the June 15 session.

Well output is used to calculate monthly production, but was not available to a director.

Although Foster Lake remains empty, water supply comes from wells. IWD can divert water into Foster Lake from Strawberry Creek but has not made a diversion for several years. However, Fern Valley Water District has found the creek’s flow sufficient to divert water for its use. In May, wells supplied only 10 percent of the FVWD production.

In response to Kunkle’s request, Lynch replied that “… we are short on staff, so this special request for detailed information will take some time to put together.”

The Gold Spotted Oak Borer continues its invasive spread northward from San Diego County. It is now found in both Orange and Riverside counties, infesting and ultimately killing coast live oak and California black oak.

GSOB-infested firewood is suspected to be the transportation agent, since beetle flight could not account for the significant distance jumps from points of infestation in San Diego County to Riverside and Orange counties locations.

The beetle, which has already killed 100,000 oaks in San Diego County, first reached Idyllwild in 2012. It was discovered in one tree on Highway 243 in Idyllwild’s downtown corridor. In the succeeding four years, GSOB spread has been gradual and relatively modest — to about 112 trees in Idyllwild and 15 on U.S. Forest Service land in the San Jacinto Ranger District. It reached Weir Canyon in Orange County in 2015 and currently infests more than 100 trees.

These figures are courtesy of Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Division Chief Forester Greg Bratcher and John Miller, USFS public information officer.

Bratcher credits the slower spread on the Hill to the fact that Idyllwild has a mixed forest of oaks and conifers, in contrast to San Diego County’s concentrated oak woodlands. A varied forest acts to impede beetle flight, since oaks are not necessarily contiguous as they are in oak woodlands.

“In Idyllwild, GSOB spread has been gradual and in spurts,” said Bratcher. “If GSOB could make the jump [from Idyllwild] into the oak woodlands in Banning and Beaumont, the results would be catastrophic.”

Dr. Tom Scott, University of California, Riverside, adjunct professor, said statewide damage could be immense. “This may be the biggest oak-mortality event since the Pleistocene [12,000 years ago],” he said. “If we can keep firewood from moving out of the region, we may be able to stop one of the biggest invasive pests to reach California in a long time.

“Quarantines don’t work,” said Scott. “But enlightened self-interest could keep oak woodland residents from importing GSOB-infested firewood.”

But, regardless of the severity of the threat and a public education campaign against importing firewood, GSOB now infests more than 100 trees in Idyllwild and in Orange County — in the Weir Canyon Nature Preserve on the Irvine Ranch, north of Tustin and south of Anaheim.

Damaged trees can be identified by crown thinning, smaller leaves of less robust color, bark staining on the main stem, and D-shaped exit holes on the main stem and larger branches of the tree. According to the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program, trees with excessive crown thinning and dieback, and more than 100 emergence holes on the lower trunk, are considered severely infested and will die.

Current best practice is to remove severely infested trees to prevent GSOB spread to contiguous oaks. Prophylactic spray treatments can help prevent tree death on oaks that still appear healthy and where dieback evidence is less than 40 percent, according to latest research. “Spraying trees is not a one-time treatment,” said Bratcher, “because trees will continue to have hot spots.”

Bratcher noted, even with more than 100 trees identified as infested in Idyllwild, some landowners remain reluctant to permit inspection. “People are afraid Cal Fire will come out and remove their trees,” he said. But failure to remove severely infested trees will result in further GSOB spread, said Bratcher.

The farther north one goes in California, the greater the risk of massive GSOB damage. Riverside and Orange counties have relatively modest acreage in oak woodlands — 72,000 acres in Riverside County and 40,000 in Orange County. By comparison, San Luis Obispo County has 724,000 acres of oak woodlands and Monterey County has 921,000. San Diego County, where the beetle was first identified, has 320,000 acres in oak.

Currently, no financial assistance is available for removing infested oaks but Bratcher said there could be some coming. If you need further information or suspect your oaks are infested, contact the GSOB hotline at 951-659-8328 to arrange inspection.