Irrigation Leader June 2020

VOLUME 11 ISSUE 6

Brad Wind of Northern Water: Water Supply on a Grand Scale

june 2020

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CONTENTS JUNE 2020 Volume 11 Issue 6

6 Northern Water: Water Supply on a Grand Scale

Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

an American company established in 2009.

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Abbey Lloyd, Media Intern Milo Schmitt, Media Intern SUBMISSIONS: Irrigation Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions.

However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request.

For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or irrigation.leader@waterstrategies.com.

5 H arnessing Nature, Advancing Irrigation

By Kris Polly

22 F rost, PLLC: Specialists in Irrigation District Accounting

6 N orthern Water: Water Supply on a Grand Scale

THE INNOVATORS

12 From

Sensors to Knowledge Products: Sentek Technologies 16 Teaching

Through TAPS, UNL’s Performance Competition

26 N ustreem’s HighTech, Modular Small Hydro Installations 32 W atervize’s Digital Water Accounting Platform for Small Irrigation Districts 38 JOB LISTINGS

CIRCULATION: Irrigation Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors.

For address corrections or additions, please contact our managing editor, Joshua Dill, at joshua.dill@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2020 Water Strategies LLC. Irrigation Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Irrigation Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Irrigation Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Irrigation Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised. /IrrigationLeader

@IrrigationLeadr

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COVER PHOTO:

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Brad Wind, General Manager, Northern Water.

Photo courtesy of Northern Water.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF NORTHERN WATER.

Editor’s Note: Cascade and Teton, which were discussed on page 34 of the May issue of Irrigation Leader, are registered trademarks and products of UPL.

ADVERTISING: Irrigation Leader accepts one-quarter, half-page, and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or irrigation.leader@waterstrategies.com.

Harnessing Nature, Advancing Irrigation

By Kris Polly

I

rrigation is a story of humans harnessing nature. We collect, measure, and move water—sometimes across a field, sometimes across a state or a mountain range— and make crops grow out of what was once barren ground.

The elemental power of irrigation is very much on display in our interview with General Manager Brad Wind of Colorado’s Northern Water. Northern Water sends hundreds of thousands of acre-feet a water a year under the Rockies to irrigate a swath of northeastern Colorado as large and populous as the state of Delaware. This is a feat of human ingenuity, engineering, and hard work.

The harnessing of nature also happens at the microscopic level, with farmers carefully measuring each drop of water and fertilizer they apply to their crops. Peter Buss of Australian sensor company Sentek tells us about how its sensors collect and digest data for the benefit of farmers. Krystle Rhoades, meanwhile, tells us about how the University of Nebraska– Lincoln’s Testing Ag Performance Solutions program uses yield contests as an alternative extension program to allow farmers to experiment with new management methods.

Doug Snell of Frost, PLLC, describes his accounting firm’s services and why it is particularly suited to serving irrigation districts.

We also check in with two innovators: Juliann Blanford of Nustreem describes how her company’s small hydro installations can be transported three to a shipping container and installed with reduced civil construction costs, and Jack Linke of Watervize has developed a water accounting and order management software platform designed specifically with smaller irrigation districts in mind.

From water capture and conveyance structures to the field, from university research centers to innovative businesses, human ingenuity and hard work are advancing irrigation every day. I hope this issue of Irrigation Leader gives you an insight into how our industry is developing today. IL Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and the president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Northern Water: Water Supply on a Grand Scale

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Brad Wind: I did my undergraduate studies at Colorado State University, where I got bachelor’s degrees in agricultural engineering and civil engineering. I went to grad school at the University of California, Davis, where I studied agricultural engineering, and shortly thereafter went back to Colorado State and got a master’s of business administration. I came to Northern Water in 1994, fresh out of graduate school. I had done some work for the agency as an intern during my undergraduate years. Early in my career at Northern Water, I worked in water resources and water rights as an entry-level engineer and did a little bit of project management along the way. Roughly 10 years after beginning at Northern Water, I started dabbling in policy modification related to Northern Water’s changing client base. We initially provided water to agriculture, but we are now a large provider of raw water supplies for many municipalities and some industries, which has required changes in how we allocate water. My work in that field led me into some leadership roles. I was deputy manager of our operations division for a few years. About 2 years ago, our general manager retired, and after an interview process, I was hired to replace him.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about Northern Water and its history.

Penstocks convey water to a hydropower generation station at Flatiron Reservoir, west of Loveland, Colorado.

N

6 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF NORTHERN WATER.

orthern Water works on a grand scale: It collects water from snowmelt on the Western Slope of the Continental Divide and sends it through tunnels to supply agriculture, municipalities, and industry in an area of northeastern Colorado as large and populous as the state of Delaware. To do this, it relies on a system of seven reservoirs and a canal network, some of it owned by the agency itself and some operated on behalf of the Bureau of Reclamation.

In this interview, Northern Water General Manager Brad Wind tells Irrigation Leader about the agency’s infrastructure and services and the challenges of providing water for a large and rapidly urbanizing area.

Brad Wind: Northern Water was created in 1937 to take advantage of the water supplies available on the Western Slope of Colorado, west of the Continental Divide, to meet the need for supplemental supply in northeastern Colorado.

It was created to sponsor a project with Reclamation called the Colorado–Big Thompson Project. That project captures and diverts water from the Western Slope and brings it to our service area while using it to generate power. The water is stored in terminal reservoirs on the Eastern Slope. Although we have staff involved in aspects of those operations, Northern Water’s main task is to allocate the water once it gets into the terminal reservoirs and deliver it to our allottees, or the owners of allotment contracts. We deliver it to agriculture directly or to rivers and streams from which municipal interests redivert it and send it to water filtering facilities.

I want to stress that we provide a supplemental supply.

The project provides roughly a quarter of the supply needed for irrigation; the rest is provided by native supplies from the Eastern Slope, the South Platte River and its tributaries, and groundwater.

We currently have about 640,000 irrigated acres within our service area, which covers 1.6 million acres in total. As of the middle of 2019, 1 million people reside in our service area. We’re about the same size and have about the same population as the state of Delaware. On average, we deliver about 225,000 acre-feet of water each year.

Mary's Lake, south of Estes Park, Colorado, is home to a hydropower plant that generates energy from water in the Colorado–Big Thompson Project. In the background is Longs Peak, the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Irrigation Leader: Would you give us a sense of the scope of Northern Water’s infrastructure?

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about Northern Water’s power generation facilities.

Brad Wind: Northern Water and Reclamation operate the Colorado–Big Thompson Project, which includes, on the Western Slope, Granby Reservoir, Willow Creek Reservoir, Shadow Mountain Reservoir, and Grand Lake. That’s where snow melt is captured, primarily from late May through mid-July. Over the course of the year, that water is repositioned to fill terminal reservoirs on the Eastern Slope after it passes through five power plants owned

by Reclamation. The terminal reservoirs on the Eastern Slope are Horsetooth Reservoir, Carter Lake, and Boulder Reservoir. It’s from those reservoirs that we deliver water to our allottees throughout the year.

Brad Wind: There are six power features on the Colorado– Big Thompson Project. One of them is in western Colorado and is tied to Green Mountain Reservoir, which was designed with compensatory storage for the Western Slope in mind. The power features tied to the Eastern Slope reservoirs produce 750 million kilowatt-hours per year. The five Eastern Slope power features are owned by Reclamation. The power is marketed through the Western Area Power Administration for customers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Recently, Northern Water built two smaller hydropower plants associated with the lease of power privilege program, which allows partners of Reclamation to finance and build their own power features on Reclamation dams and reservoirs that have not yet been tapped for power generation purposes in return for an annual lease. We built a small facility on Carter Lake with two 1,300‑kilowatt (kW) generators in it and a similar plant at Lake Granby Reservoir with two 600 kW generators. The two plants are owned by the Hydropower Enterprise Fund, a financially independent enterprise fund that provides a service by generating all its own revenue. The enterprise

Irrigation Leader: Do you have your own canal system to delivers that water?

Brad Wind: We do. Some of those canals are owned by Reclamation; we operate them on Reclamation’s behalf.

Other facilities that convey water from the reservoirs to our customers have been transferred to Northern Water and are fully owned and operated by us. irrigationleadermagazine.com

June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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Every summer, tours are offered of various components of the Colorado–Big Thompson Project, including the West Portal of the Alva B. Adams Tunnel at Grand Lake, shown here.

The spillway at Granby Dam, which holds back Lake Granby, the largest reservoir in the Colorado–Big Thompson Project.

The Conservation Gardens at the Berthoud, Colorado, headquarters of Northern Water offer demonstrations for water-efficient landscaping suitable to the climate of the Colorado Front Range.

fund is governed by the same directors who make up the Northern Water board of directors.

to that amount of water as an acre-foot unit, even though it is sometimes less than an acre-foot.

Irrigation Leader: How does Northern Water raise money?

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about some of the district’s top issues today?

8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Brad Wind: We’re advancing two other large regional projects to satisfy increasing municipal demand within our service area. Those projects are funded exclusively by their underlying participants, and they’re also Water Activity Enterprise projects. It is a challenge to advance those projects at a rate that keeps up with the growing demand that those participants anticipate. As we all know, in the West, it tends to take not just one but a couple of decades to find your way through the permitting process. It is a challenge when that demand is apparent and immediate and you don’t have the supply to meet it. That can put a lot of pressure on agriculture.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NORTHERN WATER.

Brad Wind: The majority of our funding comes through a 1‑mill ad valorem tax that is applied to property throughout our district. On an annual basis, we also charge owners of allotment contracts an assessment based on how many units they own in the project. Those costs are spread across the agricultural, industrial, and municipal water users that own project allotment contracts. Those charges are on a per-acre-foot-unit basis. Each year, our board goes through a rationing process in which it decides on a quota for water deliveries. For example, if the quota is 80 percent, an individual or municipal customer will receive 0.8 acre-feet of water for every acre-foot of water in their contract. We refer

The next issue is related. In Colorado, there continues to be a significant gap between future water supply and stable water demand. Often, that results in harm to agriculture, as municipal interests acquire agricultural waters and convert them to municipal supply. That is known as buy and dry here in Colorado.

or less has been for over a decade, we’re concerned about how the federal government will continue to contribute its portion of the project expenses.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the effects that urbanization is having on your services?

Brad Wind: That maintenance is conducted by Reclamation.

The tunnel goes into outage several times a year and is in good shape.

Brad Wind: The fact that we are providing more water to municipal interests is encouraging us to invest in our project to ensure that we can deliver water uninterruptedly to water treatment facilities. We used to be able to go into downtime for a significant length of time over the winter months to do maintenance. We have a much shorter window to do that now. The challenge is to get the work done but to continue to invest in the project and ensure that outages are minimal.

We want to have a project that is resilient to the things that Mother Nature can throw at it. If we happen to go down for some reason, we want to able to find a way to bring the project back online quickly.

One of the counties we serve with irrigation water is Weld County, which is among the top 10 counties in the nation for ag production. It an interesting dichotomy: We’re providing raw water for a million people, many of whom live in an urban area, but we’re also providing water to irrigators in one of the most productive seasonal or temperate regions of the country.

Irrigation Leader: Are you dealing with aging infrastructure that you need to either repair or replace?

Brad Wind: We did an appraisal of key aspects of our project 2 years ago, with the aim of better understanding what it would require to rebuild parts of it. I believe the estimate was that rebuilding key components of the project would cost about $4.9 billion. We did that appraisal to give our board a better sense of our justification for developing a reserve policy to help prepare for addressing that aging infrastructure. There are portions of the project, much of which is still owned by Reclamation, that are in great shape. There are other portions of the project, including the canal lines, that have been improved over the years but will continue to require investment. Recently, relining siphons has been an expensive proposition for Northern Water. We have completed one relining and plan to do another this summer. We think we’re pretty well prepared, as long as those investments are done over time. In most cases, the renovations to those facilities are what we call joint work—the expenses are shared between Northern Water and the federal government, since the latter is the beneficiary of the power production. We split a lot of costs 50/50. With Reclamation’s budget flatlined, as it more

irrigationleadermagazine.com

Irrigation Leader: Is there any concern about the state of the tunnel that brings water through the mountains?

Irrigation Leader: Where do the funds for these infrastructure investments come from?

Brad Wind: That money comes from our revenue, either from assessments on allotment contracts or from the ad valorem tax.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about how being a farmer yourself informs your work as general manager of Northern Water?

Brad Wind: Being raised on a farm added to my appreciation of the fact that delivering water on time at a desirable quality is paramount. Water delivery a day early or a day too late can be a problem.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future of Northern Water?

Brad Wind: Our organization is transitioning to providing water on a day-in, day-out basis. We are becoming a yearround water utility rather than being a purely irrigationbased district, as we have been historically. We expect that we will always have some irrigation customers, since some of our allotment contracts are on land that we do not see leaving agricultural production. Our challenge will be to become a better water utility for our municipal and industrial users, one that can run 24/7/365. There are also a lot of opportunities to develop the remaining water within northeastern Colorado. How can Northern Water supply nearby cities, municipalities, and towns? We’re growing rapidly and have increasing demand. What can we do or build to facilitate the regional use of water and to conserve water to make every drop go further than it historically has? IL

Brad Wind is the general manager of Northern Water. He can be contacted at bwind@northernwater.org.

June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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From Sensors to Knowledge Products: Sentek Technologies

Sentek sensors installed in a field.

Sentek users consult data on a tablet.

S

entek Technologies is an Australia-based irrigation solutions company active around the world. While sensor technology is its mainstay, Sentek’s broader offerings fall into the category of knowledge products. Knowledge products include data analysis and recommendations that help answer substantive questions like how deep to irrigate or how to space one’s crops.

In this interview, Sentek cofounder Peter Buss tells Irrigation Leader about the company’s origins, its products, and trends in the irrigation management world today.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background.

12 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

grown, similar to the case in California. We have a lot of visits from Californians and vice versa. I started an irrigation management service using a portable device called a neutron probe. It was labor intensive to collect data with this instrument. You had to have all sorts of security training, and you had to wear radiation badges. You would take readings by lowering the radioactive probe into an aluminum access tube that was installed in the ground, pressing a button, waiting 16 seconds for the reading, and lowering it to the next soil depth level. It sounds low tech, but in 1986 it was revolutionary, and the growers I worked with started to appreciate it. A lot of areas were severely overwatered. We had water tables at 1 meter, and a lot of money was spent putting drainage systems in.

That’s all gone today: Hardly anybody is using drainage systems anymore because of how fantastic a job irrigation scheduling did. Today, using the same amount of water they did in 1986 on a regional basis, growers can irrigate a significantly larger orchard area. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SENTEK.

Peter Buss: I was born in Germany and migrated to Australia in 1986. I studied tropical agriculture in Germany, specializing in irrigation management and plant nutrition in Australia. When I arrived in Australia, I was offered a job in the Australian Department of Agriculture to set up a commercial irrigation scheduling service. In Australia, citrus, almonds, and vines are the main crops

Sentek’s fully encapsulated Drill & Drop probe, installed in the ground.

The Department of Agriculture charged for this irrigation management service, so people valued the advice they were getting, rather than treating it as a free service.

The irrigation management service grew rapidly, and I had to hire three more people to extend the service to other growers. One day, my boss decided that we should do this on a fully commercial basis. We exited the Department of Agriculture and set up a company called Watson Buss & Associates. We provided the service full time and expanded from South Australia into the neighboring state of Victoria and the Northern Territory.

After 3 years, it dawned on me that we couldn’t go on like this because the instrumentation we were using to collect soil water data was too labor intensive. We spent most of our time collecting and retrieving data rather than analyzing the data. I realized that we needed a new technology, so I began to read scientific articles about capacitance probes. There was a Polish scientist in the 1940s who had built a sensor that was located inside a tube. I liked the tube approach because being able to measure at multiple depth levels is tremendously helpful in understanding soil moisture. It allows you to gauge the depth of the root zone, the depth of percolation of water, and so on. The capacitance sensor mentioned in the paper had never taken off because the sensor operated at a low frequency range, namely the kilohertz range. As I continued digging through scientific articles, I found that in the 1970s, scientists had suggested increasing the frequency into the megahertz range in order prevent soil salinity from affecting the moisture readings.

That was a little breakthrough.

I approached a friend of mine who was an electronic engineer and asked him to build me a high-frequency soil water capacitance sensor. He told me he’d have it

by Monday. The sensor he came back with measured everything: the fridge door opening and trucks going past.

I said, “Very nice, but I just want it to measure water.”

Like me, he was working full time, so it was probably another year until he came to me with a sensor he said was absolutely stable—it responded to water in the soil and nothing else. We tested it with encouraging results and went on to build 11 systems by hand, each of which consisted of a car battery, a lunch box, and a little probe with three sensors on it. The capacitor was basically two metal rings separated by a bit of plastic with the sensor itself in the center. We found a bit of water pipe, cut it into rings, assembled it on a little plastic stick, and inserted it into PVC tubes installed in some onion and potato fields just outside Adelaide whose owners allowed us to experiment with our sensors there.

I visited all the sites on a weekly basis, checking things and downloading the data. The growers were interested in the near-continuous data I was gathering—the measurements were recorded every 10 minutes. They were looking over my shoulder asking, “What does this mean?” I’d tell them, “Since you asked, the water from your pivot didn’t go deep enough—you’re running it way irrigationleadermagazine.com

too fast,” or, “You should have irrigated 2 days ago,” or, “You’re irrigating too much.” Toward the end of the season, one of the farmers asked me to convene a meeting in the town hall and talk about the data. I anonymized the data and did a presentation on the mistakes that the different individuals had made. Only the individual farmers knew which data came from their own farm. They looked on in awe. Suddenly, the main guy got up and said, “Peter, would you leave the room?” Rick, the electronic engineer, and I left the room. We heard a lot of murmuring inside, and after 15– 20 minutes, we were called back in again. The main grower said to me, “We cannot afford not to have this technology in the next growing season. We would like to put some money together for you to start a company.” It was like being struck by lightning. I had to go home to my wife and explain that.

I said to my business partner, “Something happened today that doesn’t happen every day,” and after some thought, I accepted their offer. These growers contributed the money, and Rick and I started Sentek in April 1991. The name stands for sensor technologies.

Irrigation Leader: Where are the company’s headquarters?

Peter Buss: They are in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. South Australia has a population of only 1.5 million, so it is sparsely populated. It’s actually the driest state in Australia—most of it is desert. Most of its agriculture is along the River Murray, which winds its way from the state of Victoria into South Australia. That is the major supply of irrigation water for a lot of horticultural crops and the vegetable industries. The rest of South Australia is basically dry-land agriculture, growing mainly wheat using sparse rainfall. Relying on that is always a gamble. People just plant wheat and wait for rain; sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t.

Irrigation Leader: How did Sentek become a global company?

Peter Buss: We set up a distribution network. We started in Australia in 1991, and in 1992 we went to California and met with Dr. Louise Ferguson, a professor from the University of California, Davis, who studied nut crops. She had attended some of my early talks in Australia and had offered to organize some meetings for me the next time I was in the United States. Our meetings in the United States sparked some interest. We set up some trial systems and one person took the technology to a large agricultural research center in Beltsville, Maryland. These people liked the technology, but they didn’t know anything about it. They actually took the devices apart and investigated how reliable and accurate they were. They published the first paper on the technology in the Soil Science Journal of America. This sparked customer interest from universities in California, Florida, and Washington State. After establishing a customer base in the United States, we branched out into other countries. Today, our technology June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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is being used in over 80 countries around the world, and we have about 35 employees.

A lot of our distributors are irrigation agronomists. For them, our technology is another tool they can use to offer a better service to their irrigator customers. We find that it is best to have trusted advisors who live locally and work with the growers to introduce any new technology. If those advisors get to know farmers and deliver results, people will start to trust them and likely adopt the new technology.

Learning to interpret the soil water data is the key to changing irrigation management. If you don’t successfully teach people to do that, then a soil moisture monitoring technology will never be successful. We have found that irrigation agronomists are the best people to do that.

Irrigation Leader: What kinds of probes and sensors do you manufacture today?

Peter Buss: We manufacture multisensor profiling probes that measure soil water, soil salinity, and soil temperature.

These probes come in different lengths: 1 foot, 2 feet, 3 feet, and 4 feet. We also have a single sensor that measures a soil horizon of 4 inches. All the sensors log data every 10–15 minutes and upload that data to our IrriMAX Live cloud around every 2–3 hours, where the information is used to update easy-to-understand graphs that guide growers in their irrigation management. The latest probe communicates with Bluetooth Low Energy. This means you can download the data to your phone when you are visiting the field and then upload them to the cloud. No cables, no modems, no solar panels, and no mounting poles are involved.

Irrigation Leader: What can your technology do for irrigated farmers?

Peter Buss: The business of agriculture relies on reducing inputs like water and fertilizer, and our technology can help prevent overirrigation and the waste of fertilizer. A lot of fertilizer leaches into the ground because of overirrigation, and unnecessary irrigation also requires labor that can’t be used elsewhere. Reducing inputs is one side of the coin; the other is increasing yield and crop quality. If you become more consistent, you become more attractive to supermarkets. If you can deliver a certain amount of produce of a certain quality in a certain window of time, your business becomes much more solid.

Irrigation Leader: What trends do you see in irrigation technology and management?

14 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to irrigating farmers and irrigation districts about Sentek?

Peter Buss: They should know that we’ve been around for almost 29 years. We’re not a startup. We have learned a lot, and what we’re selling is not just probes: We sell insights and solutions.

We really like to work with farmers. Generally, we put a system in, we watch an irrigator’s water management, we see what happens, and we gently educate them and correct them if there are any mistakes. That gets results. Then we expand to other parts of their property. That builds trust. We’re interested in building long-term relationships and helping farmers manage their irrigation in the best way possible. IL

Peter Buss is the manager of agronomic research and development at Sentek Technologies. He can be contacted at pbuss@sentek.com.au.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF SENTEK.

Peter Buss: The challenge today is understanding what water does in the soil and how it affects the crop, and then communicating that information to the end users quickly and in a way that is easy to understand. Rather than providing raw information to a user, we are delivering

predigested recommendations that we have used algorithms and artificial intelligence to create. We are also working on automatically detecting crop stress and other key variables for irrigation management.

Farmers need to be able monitor a lot of fields and prioritize irrigation management. If it rains overnight, priorities can change. Developing a way of quickly communicating information like that is one of our biggest challenges. Cloud and Internet-of-Things technology will assist with this irrigation decisionmaking by integrating data inputs like weather forecasting, plant measurements, power cost forecasting, and satellite images of crop canopy changes.

One factor that is often neglected is irrigation system health. Irrigation systems can have problems with the distribution uniformity of water, pressure, the spacing of drippers, and insufficient water delivery systems. Before people spend money on irrigation scheduling, they should first make sure they have a good system that enables excellent water distribution uniformity. If you’ve got a distribution uniformity of water of 40 percent, it is actually dangerous to use sensors because you don’t know whether they’re in dry or wet spots. Good irrigation management has to be built on the foundation of good irrigation system health.

Another factor is the cost of power. In Australia, our power prices fluctuate every half hour. That must be factored into irrigation management decisions along with weather, crop stage, and soil moisture. Crop stage is important because irrigation management changes as roots go deeper, particularly with field crops. How do you irrigate at the beginning, in the middle, and toward the end of the season?

The future of irrigation management is integrating all these factors in a multiparametric calculation.

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Teaching Through TAPS, UNL’s Performance Competition

Dr. Daran Rudnick shows TAPS team members from the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources their plots during the 2019 Field Day. Participants are able to visit their plots at any time throughout the season, but also have access to numerous technologies to monitor their crops.

T

he University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s (UNL) Testing Ag Performance Solutions (TAPS) program is an alternative to traditional, classroom-based extension programs. It is based around a series of farm-management competitions in which teams get to make a number of management decisions on test plots and then see how they play out in yield, input-use efficiency, and profitability. Aside from the cash prizes they stand to win, participants are able to experiment with different management tactics in a low-risk environment, use new equipment, and test marketing strategies.

In this interview, TAPS Program Manager Krystle Rhoades speaks with Irrigation Leader about the history and quick growth of the TAPS competition and its usefulness as a forum for experimentation and communication.

Krystle Rhoades: I grew up in Colorado and now live in North Platte, Nebraska. I have a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Wyoming. After working for a farm management company for almost 10 years, Chuck Burr contacted me about a position with TAPS. With the program growing exponentially, they

16 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about TAPS. Krystle Rhoades: TAPS was created in 2017 by a team of researchers at UNL’s West Central Research, Extension, and Education Center as a sprinkler corn farm-management competition. They wanted a way to connect producers with the extension team and to give them a way to learn in a hands-on manner, outside of the classroom setting.

There were 15 teams in the first year. In 2018, they added a sprinkler sorghum competition. The program has received great support from the Nebraska Corn Board, the Nebraska Grain Sorghum Board, and the U.S. Sorghum Checkoff, as well as many other industry companies and organizations.

Last year, Eco-Drip of Hastings, Nebraska, contributed a subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) system, which allowed an SDI competition to be added last year.

Among the three competitions last year, we had 50 teams with a total of around 150 participants. A team can be one producer or a group of people. The team that won the SDI competition last year included a couple of irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KRYSTLE RHOADES.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

were looking for somebody to help coordinate and manage everything from the competition events to the website to the promotion of the program.

producers and their seed salesmen. Several other teams have an extension educator or a natural resources district employee. We have had a couple of college groups that use our competitions as a hands-on educational experience for their students. We have also had some government groups compete, including the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality in 2018 and the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources in 2018 and 2019.

The TAPS program has not only expanded in Nebraska, adding a dryland competition in Sidney, Nebraska, but it has also expanded into Oklahoma. In 2019, TAPS launched a sprinkler-irrigated corn competition in partnership with Oklahoma State University near Eva, Oklahoma.

Irrigation Leader: How do the contests work? Are they straightforward yield contests?

Krystle Rhoades: The competitions are structured as research experiments in which each competition team is provided a series of randomized plots within a single field.

The contestants are allowed to alter specific management decisions. For example, contestants in the sprinkler corn, sprinkler sorghum, and SDI corn competitions in North Platte, Nebraska, have control over six management decisions: hybrid selection, seeding rate, irrigation scheduling and amount, nitrogen management, marketing, and crop insurance. The management decisions are submitted through a password-protected portal on the TAPS website.

The production decisions are implemented in the field by university faculty and staff. The production results are scaled up to reflect a typical farm size (e.g., 3,000Â acres for sprinkler corn) to allow for proper budgeting and marketing. At the end of the contest, awards are given for highest profitability, highest input-use efficiency, and greatest yield in each division. Its focus on profit and input-use efficiency is what sets it apart from traditional yield contests.

A variable rate irrigation system prepares for the first fertigation application of the 2019 season.

West Central Research, Extension, and Education Center employees collect samples prior to the 2019 harvest of the pivot corn plots.

Irrigation Leader: What are the prizes for the winners of the competition?

Krystle Rhoades: Historically, the profitability award has been a cash prize of $2,000; the input-use efficiency award has been a cash prize of $1,000; and the highest-yield award has been a cash prize of up to $500, based upon how profitable the team was. The winners of the competitions are recognized with an engraved plaque at our annual awards banquet.

Irrigation Leader: Are all the competitors from Nebraska?

Krystle Rhoades: No. Last year our competitors were from Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

Irrigation Leader: What observations and results have come out of the competition? irrigationleadermagazine.com

A combine harvests the first crop in the SDI corn competition in 2019.

June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 17

Krystle Rhoades: For participants, results have included a greater awareness of management decisions and a better understanding of how to evaluate what good management is. We have been fortunate to have a balance of new participants and returning competitors. The new participants bring in fresh ideas and strategies, while the prior participants provide continuity and vetting of their strategies. We have found that several of the participants who have competed multiple times have made steady improvements in one or more areas of their performance. For example, the Perkins Group, made up of producers from southwestern Nebraska, has competed for the past 3 years. In 2017, it was in the middle of the pack in terms of profitability; in 2018, it placed second, losing by just under $2 an acre; and in 2019, it won the profitability award. Its strategy this year was to benchmark its marketing. In other words, whenever corn prices hit a set price, the team would sell a certain amount of its grain.

This easy practice was one of several reasons the team performed well. Another example is a young producer who had one of the lowest input-use efficiency rates in 2017 because of excessive irrigation but was in the top 20 percent for input-use efficiency and top 25 percent for yield in 2018.

We have seen that many of our competitors are not familiar or comfortable with marketing and are interested in trying out new and different irrigation management technologies. The TAPS program provides participants with an opportunity to try out new practices and technologies or to vet their current practices. For example, one participant in our sorghum contest said she had never marketed on her own operation and that this contest provided her an opportunity to test out different marketing tactics without putting her farm at risk.

Irrigation Leader: How does this competition work as a communication tool?

18 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Irrigation Leader: How is this competition similar to or different from other similar programs in different states?

Krystle Rhoades: The TAPS program is distinctive in the sense that it connects growers, industry professionals, and researchers through a competition platform to identify what management solutions are working and what areas need attention. The TAPS competitions last for nearly 10 months, which provides ample time for peer-to-peer interaction, reflection on management techniques, and the opportunity to experiment with various technologies. The participants have described the program as one of their best extension experiences. Also, the program provides strength to other popular extension platforms, such as on-farm research, as ideas, technologies, and strategies vetted through TAPS can then be transferred and piloted on their operations prior to wide-scale adoption.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future of the competition?

Krystle Rhoades: We just received a Natural Resources Conservation Service Conservation Innovation Grant to strengthen and expand the TAPS program. Specifically, the TAPS program will expand to include additional participants from around the High Plains area to compete in either the Nebraska or Oklahoma competitions; include additional crops in the competition portfolio; and expand the types of data and technology available to the contestants. The program has grown exponentially in the last 3 years, and we’re excited to see where it could go in the future. IL

Krystle Rhoades is the program manager of the Testing Ag Performance Solutions program. She can be contacted at krystle.rhoades@unl.edu. To learn more about the TAPS program, visit www.taps.unl.edu.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF KRYSTLE RHOADES.

Krystle Rhoades: It has been exciting to see how engaged our participants, partners, and sponsors are. The TAPS program provides several opportunities to network and interact with peers, industry actors, researchers, and regulators. The program hosts a kick-off meeting, two summer field days, and a banquet. Last year, the kickoff meeting was held at the Bayer Water Utilization Center in Gothenburg, Nebraska, where the participants had a chance to learn about what is new in the seed industry. The in-season field days provide participants and spectators a chance to tour the competition plots and to interact with university researchers and staff.

In addition, one of the in-season field days hosts a TAPS growers’ panel, where prior winners and current participants can reflect on their strategies and share their experiences with attendees. Finally, we always finish

the competitions with an awards banquet. It is another opportunity for our growers to interact with their peers, partners, and supporters. The competition has enabled communication between the university and the producers, but more than that, it has created a network of growers, sponsors, ag service and technology providers, researchers, and partners. These TAPS events have created a solid network where individuals can interact and share their thoughts, strategies, and challenges. We have found that many individuals have developed strong networks and relationships with other competitors, and that now they interact on a regular basis.

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Frost, PLLC: Specialists in Irrigation District Accounting

Romaine lettuce being grown using furrow irrigation.

I

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

22 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Doug Snell: I was born and raised on a family farm in northeastern Missouri, which is where I got my firsthand knowledge of the operations of farms and agriculture. I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Northeast Missouri State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Then I went into public accounting, first working for a large, Missouri-based regional firm and eventually making my way to Arizona, which is where I am now. I became a certified public accountant in 1991 and spent about 9 years of my career in industry, working as a controller and chief financial officer for a couple of different organizations. I’ve spent the remaining 20 years in public accounting, providing audit, tax, and consulting services.

Irrigation Leader: When did you start working with Frost?

Doug Snell: In 2009, I started working for a firm called Gray & Terkelson, where I became a partner a couple of years later. I left in 2014 and went to work for a firm in irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE.

rrigation districts have distinctive tax and accounting requirements. Many are small special districts organized under state statute that are required to use governmental accounting standards and require audits that are performed under governmental auditing standards, even though their operations work on something more similar to a commercial fee-for-service model. Auditing firms that focus either on governmental clients or on commercial clients may not have the specific expertise necessary to address their issues. Further, because they often bill for annual water assessments before they are provided, irrigation districts must be careful about how they report their revenue.

Frost, PLLC, is a full-service accounting firm that focuses on agriculture-related clients nationwide, including many irrigation districts. In this interview, Frost Senior Manager Doug Snell tells Irrigation Leader about the idiosyncrasies of irrigation district finances and how his firm helps them with audits and reporting.

Colorado. While I was away, Gray & Terkelson merged with Frost, and the partners at Frost in Yuma asked me to come back to Arizona to work with them. I did so 2 years ago.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about Frost and its services.

Doug Snell: Frost is a full-service accounting firm.

We provide everything from traditional audit, tax, and consulting services to business valuations and litigation support. We also provide other services through our subsidiary Farm Animal Care Training and Auditing (FACTA), which is an animal welfare auditing group. It does animal welfare audits as well as verification audits for different U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, such as the Non-Hormone Treated Cattle Program for ranchers. It makes sense for us to provide services like that, given that we are an agriculture-focused firm. While we have clients in many different industries, the majority of our clients are in agriculture or are somehow related to the sector. Rather than being focused on one geographical area, like a lot of smaller firms, we are focused on an industry.

While we only have offices in five states, we serve clients all over the country. We have approximately 150 employees.

have to be done under governmental auditing standards, but they do business on a fee-for-service or fee-for-product model, and so they also operate as enterprises. Their audits and accounting are much like those of commercial enterprises, but they have to follow the rules for governmental entities.

A lot of accounting firms that serve governmental entities focus on governmental accounting, which is fund accounting and is not used by irrigation districts. Meanwhile, firms that don’t work on government accounting don’t have the expertise to do a governmental audit. Many water districts fall into a dead zone between governmental accounting and commercial accounting—it’s a special niche.

Irrigation Leader: Because many of them bill for water in advance, timing can be an issue for irrigation districts.

Would you expand on that and talk about how that interacts with their finances?

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about your work with irrigation and water districts?

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

Doug Snell: I began working with irrigation districts in 2009, when I started with Gray & Terkelson. The firm had been performing water district work for many years before I arrived.

When I got there, I took over the management of the water district work, so I’ve been involved with most of Frost’s current water district clients for years.

Irrigation Leader: What distinctive financial services needs do irrigation districts have?

Doug Snell: One thing that makes them distinctive is that most of them are special districts, so they’re governmental units and typically don’t have a tax return. That means that all they need is an audit or compliance or bookkeeping services.

From an accountant’s viewpoint, they’re a bit of a hybrid: Because they are considered governmental units, they have to use governmental accounting standards, and their audits irrigationleadermagazine.com

An irrigation canal in Idaho.

Doug Snell: Revenue recognition is a big issue for irrigation districts. A good number of them bill for water in advance.

Often, they’ll bill for the following year’s assessment in October, November, or December and start receiving payments as soon as they send out those bills. Anything that they receive prior to year-end is not actually revenue for that year. That’s a concept that seems to be difficult for some people to grasp, because it’s not a typical commercial fee-for-service model. You’re getting the money at a certain point and providing service later. We have to recognize anything that’s collected in advance as deferred revenue and June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 23

then recognize it as revenue in the year after it was billed. A lot of accounting systems aren’t built that way, so you have to jump through hoops to make sure it is recognized properly.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the importance of providing boards with timely information?

Doug Snell: Often, irrigation districts are audited by smaller firms that specialize in tax services, so they don’t do the work until after their busy tax season is over. That means that the December 31 year-end audit doesn’t get started until at least May and isn’t issued until October or November, 10–11 months after year-end. That’s not always the accounting firm’s fault. Sometimes the district itself doesn’t have the manpower or the accounting abilities to get things prepared for an audit or to get financial statements out in a timely manner. The districts usually do their budgeting for the coming year in October or November, and if they don’t have their financial statements for the previous year until October, they might be working on 2021 budgets without even having solid information from 2019. That is essentially working blind.

Irrigation Leader: What is the best way to resolve that issue?

Doug Snell: One is to spend the money and the time to get enough staff at the irrigation district level. Many times, districts just have a bookkeeper who may not be trained as an accountant. Of course, manpower is an issue because the districts are running on a shoestring budget and trying to keep their rates as low as possible. However, that can end up costing them in the long run, because they’re not getting financial information that they really need. The next step is to find a firm that has the resources and staffing to provide audit or review services in a timelier manner.

Irrigation Leader: What are some of the state or federal regulations that irrigation districts should keep in mind when considering their finances?

24 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the other important financial or accounting concerns that irrigation districts may be unaware of, neglect, or ignore?

Doug Snell: One issue is the large investment that has gone into constructing ditches and facilities. Often, those facilities have been granted to districts by the U.S. Department of the Interior or the Bureau of Reclamation. The costs were borne up front by the federal government, which then turned the infrastructure over to the district for safekeeping and operation. That situation requires special consideration when it comes to depreciation and related issues.

Another issue is that many of these districts hold money in reserve for emergency expenses or large repairs.

Commercial businesses don’t typically hold a lot of money back for future use, but the districts often do. These cash reserves come with additional accounting and disclosure requirements.

Finally, one thing I have seen over the years is that small organizations in general and irrigation districts and other nonprofits and governmental entities seem to be susceptible to embezzlement and fraud. When you have a small management or accounting team, there is often just one person, not necessarily paid very well, who has unfettered access to cash and bank accounts. There may be opportunities for individuals to misappropriate funds or use district resources to buy personal items or enrich themselves.

I have seen a few instances of that over the years.

Irrigation Leader: If there are any irrigation district staff who read this interview and are interested in potentially working with Frost, how should they get in touch with you?

Doug Snell: The best way to reach me is my cell number: (480) 250‑4210. My office phone number is (602) 765‑3089. I can also be reached by e-mail at dsnell@frostpllc.com. We are always happy to go to our clients and serve them where they are, so people don’t need to be concerned about coming to us. IL

Doug Snell is a senior manager at Frost, PLLC. For more about Frost, visit frostpllc.com.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF FROST, PLLC.

Doug Snell: Most districts are organized under state statute, and states set up reporting requirements for special districts.

That typically means that the districts have to provide financial information to the state by a given time, often 8–9 months after year-end. It’s not an onerous deadline, but districts often have a hard time meeting even that.

There are often reporting requirements based on revenue level. Typically, districts with over $100,000 in revenue are required to undergo an audit or a review. For instance, a district with over $100,00 but under $1 million in revenue may be required to have a review, which is a level of service a step below an audit, every year and an audit every 5–10 years, while a district with over $1 million in revenue may be required to have an audit every year.

Often, districts are unaware of these requirements or ignore them. Those requirements are set by the state, so the person doing the work, the board, and the district management need to be aware of their individual state’s reporting requirements.

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THE INNOVATORS

Nustreem’s High-Tech, Modular Small Hydro Installations

Three Nustreem turbines can be packaged in a shipping container.

N

ustreem builds proven modular small hydro installations that are suitable for irrigation districts or other water conveyance operators. With thousands of hours of run time on six preproduction units, Nustreem has a proven design to meet the demands for modular and intelligent turbines. By applying the concept of power feedback to hydropower design, Nustreem has created a highly efficient system. Moreover, it can fit up to three units in a shipping container, so an entire hydropower site can be built with very little civil construction.

In this interview, Nustreem General Manager Juliann Blanford tells Irrigation Leader about what makes Nustreem’s technology novel and what the company can offer to irrigation districts.

Juliann Blanford: I have a finance background and am a certified public accountant. I started my career as an auditor at Ernst and Young. More recently, I was a

26 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Irrigation Leader: How is Nustreem’s technology different from other hydropower installations that readers may be familiar with?

Juliann Blanford: Our hardware is modern, and we have full electronic controls capability, which provides a foundation for a variety of improvements. Our onsite performance is more efficient, and our equipment is simpler to maintain.

We also have shorter lead times and faster installation times. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NUSTREEM.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

financial controller at Froude Dynamometers. When I heard that Froude’s corporate office was going to add Nustreem to our group of companies, I started learning about small hydro. I liked that small hydro technology is a simple, sensible solution to our renewable energy pursuits.

I was excited by the opportunity to bring to market a proven and environmentally friendly energy technology. I applied to be Nustreem’s general manager and started in January 2018. I love it.

THE INNOVATORS

Nustreem employees with a turbine.

Irrigation Leader: Is your innovation both in the design of the turbine and the software that operates it?

Irrigation Leader: In one of your installations, would the entire flow of a river or canal be routed through the turbines?

Juliann Blanford: Yes. Our innovation in the design of the turbine modernizes the classic Kaplan turbine. We took older technology and replaced it with current technology. Instead of hydraulics for actuation and weights for emergency shutdown, we use electronic motors and an automatic braking system. The result is a family of turbines, sized from 75 to 250 kilowatts (kW), with the lifetime reliability of a classic design and the rewards of modern technology.

Our innovation in software is particularly exciting because it makes our machines perhaps the most efficient on the market. Our NuTech controller puts intelligence behind decisions about how to move water through the turbine. It is demonstrably better than other methods such as automating a cam curve. Our inventors were inspired by their knowledge of technology used in the aerospace industry, and this intelligence is what gives us our operational lift.

Juliann Blanford: In a run-of-river application, the hydropower site must leave some water for wildlife. In the case of irrigation districts, we must always maintain downstream flow in order to ensure the availability of water for the farmers. We use as much of the water as is available, but we must first uphold a river or canal’s wider priorities.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the modular design of your turbines and how that helps lower civil construction costs?

Juliann Blanford: Yes; this is a gamechanger. Nustreem’s modular approach to developing hydropower sites significantly reduces civil construction costs. That is key because civil construction costs often represent the largest part of costs for hydropower site development.

June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 27

THE INNOVATORS Our turbines can be packaged inside a shipping container that arrives on site ready to be installed. By building a hydropower site with prepackaged turbines, you save on the construction costs you would have incurred by scheduling and transporting people and materials to do the same work on site. It makes sense and saves money to have as much of a site as you can built inside a manufacturing plant by highly qualified people working with regular quality checks. It is an amazing advancement in this space.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the environmental effects of the product?

Juliann Blanford: Small hydropower has a huge positive effect on our environment. Small hydro technology does not require a dam, deforestation, the use of rare earth minerals, or the production of carbon. It has nearly zero impact on wildlife, and the sites themselves are quite discreet and charming.

Juliann Blanford: Yes, and I invite anyone who is interested to contact me to arrange a tour of our the turbines in person in Connecticut or virtually. Once people get on site, they can really see the robustness of our design. There are five 100 kW turbine units installed at the 0.5-megawatt run-of-river site 20 yards from our operations. These five units generate energy to power our building and the grid.

There is another turbine unit installed in Massachusetts.

That one was also installed at a run-of-river site and is paired with a 100 kW generator.

Irrigation Leader: Why is Nustreem’s technology appropriate for irrigation districts or irrigation water providers? How would a hydropower installation fit into their existing services?

Juliann Blanford: The water flow rate and elevation changes present in irrigation district canals are ideal for Nustreem’s technology. Elevation changes like canal drops offer ideal points for Nustreem turbines to be installed along the canal.

Another great fit is the ability to share support services like operations and administration with established irrigation district personnel. Many irrigation districts have sites that are ideal for developing a profitable hydropower site.

Irrigation Leader: Irrigation districts that are considering hydropower are focused on not slowing their water. Does your product avoid doing that?

Juliann Blanford: Yes. With our irrigation district applications, our number 1 priority is to not interrupt the flow of the water. We know that farmers’ crops are extremely valuable and that it is a big problem if they don’t get their water. That will not happen with our turbine generator installations.

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to potential irrigation district clients?

An array of NuStreem turbines.

Irrigation Leader: Where is the company active and who are its clients?

Juliann Blanford is the general manager of Nustreem. She can be contacted at juliann.blanford@nustreem.com.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about some of your existing installations?

28 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NUSTREEM.

Juliann Blanford: Nustreem is active globally. We have sold to classic hydropower owners and developers and will continue to do so while also responding to the interest we are seeing from other potential customers like irrigation districts, the mining industry, and native communities.

Juliann Blanford: With the renewable portfolio standards states have put into place, this is a great time to build a hydropower site! Irrigation districts have several attributes that make them highly suitable for hydropower site development. If you are interested in learning more about hydropower ownership, please reach out to us. IL

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THE INNOVATORS

Watervize’s Digital Water Accounting Platform for Small Irrigation Districts

Irrigation districts can use Watervize’s software to manage water orders.

E

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Jack Linke: I’m actually active duty in the military. I was stationed in Yuma, Arizona, for a few years, and I’m now

32 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

stationed in Virginia. I’ve always been technically savvy, and while in Yuma I started a business developing web applications and assisting businesses with other technical tasks. In discussions with businesses in Yuma, I learned that one of the local irrigation districts was searching for a solution to update its system for managing water orders and water accounting. It was still doing everything on paper and initially asked for help with making an Excel workbook to improve their processes. Once I started learning more about the intricacies of how irrigation works, it became clear that a spreadsheet wasn’t going to cut it. The current solutions on the market all focused on big irrigation districts, and there wasn’t anything out there for smaller and mediumsize irrigation districts—those with 500 customers or fewer.

That’s where Watervize started.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about Watervize as a company. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WATERVIZE.

ven the smallest irrigation district can benefit from making the leap to digital water accounting and order management, but for many small districts, enterprise software is unfeasibly expensive and complicated. That’s where Watervize steps in. Its digital platform has been designed specifically for small and medium-size water districts that need an affordable, basic tool to place and record water orders and manage operations.

In this interview, Watervize Managing Director Jack Linke tells Irrigation Leader what Watervize’s product does and what makes it appropriate for small water districts.

THE INNOVATORS Jack Linke: We were founded in early 2018 and are rapidly growing and improving. It has been an amazing experience to work with irrigation district staff and learn from professionals in irrigation. There are so many challenges in water these days, and there are a lot of products that can improve efficiency and accountability, but so many of them cater to the big guys, leaving hundreds of districts behind. We help irrigation districts meet these challenges by making enterprise-quality software tools available to anyone in irrigation.

Irrigation Leader: In what sense were existing products oriented toward bigger irrigation districts, and how is Watervize’s different?

Jack Linke: Pricing is significant. An irrigation district that has tens of millions of dollars coming in and out can afford a huge investment in conventional enterprise software like Rubicon or Truepoint. Another issue is operations. Existing software focuses on big districts that have already automated most of their equipment and operations and have the staff and experience for high-tech stuff. At many smaller districts, on the other hand, ditch riders still communicate in person with customers on a regular basis, take water measurements manually, and operate gates by hand. Smaller districts that have not taken the enormous leap to full automation within their district can benefit from the easy-to-use improvements Watervize brings without having to worry about the technical details and labor. It’s all in the cloud, it’s always up to date, and it does not require the district to manage special servers or hire technical staff.

Irrigation Leader: What tools are part of Watervize’s product? What can it do?

Jack Linke: We’ve made Watervize modular, since some districts need things that others don’t; however, the two primary tools we provide are water accounting and water order management. For districts that still read meters manually, Watervize makes it simple to record, track, and analyze the data. They can input relevant information at each gate and track water orders in real time from anywhere. We also provide a customer information portal where water users can place online water orders if they are technically inclined.

They can log in, place their orders, and see past orders—all the information that you would expect from a utility. It’s like ordering coffee from Starbucks, but it’s water for agriculture instead. District staff can manage orders, assign orders to ditch riders, and communicate with customers through the application. It can also track what crops are growing on a specific field, what kind of irrigation is being used, and much more. While all these functions are available in Watervize, districts do not need to use each module.

We also include role-based access control. It is easy for a district to give an auditor read-only access, for example. It’s also easy to provide ditch riders the ability to place orders but not, irrigationleadermagazine.com

say, to delete a customer. No matter the size of the district’s staff, it can easily set up the accounts it needs and make sure that the right people have access to the right information.

In the latest version of Watervize, we’re building in physical-asset and maintenance-management tools as well. Those tools will enable districts to track the history, maintenance needs, and manuals for all their waterways, gates, and other equipment.

Irrigation Leader: Were you the main programmer, or did you work with other programmers and developers?

Irrigation districts can use Watervize’s software to enter information about their waterways.

Jack Linke: While I am the main programmer, I have been fortunate enough to speak with and learn from a wide range of folks in agriculture, irrigation, and reclamation. In particular, we are pleased to have been able to work with North Gila Valley Irrigation & Drainage District as our launch customer. The insights we gained from in-depth conversations with district staff and from working closely with the manager made it possible to create a flexible suite of tools.

We partner with districts to understand their processes and help them become more efficient and effective.

Irrigation Leader: Can the platform be used on both computers and mobile devices?

Jack Linke: Watervize looks good on any device with internet access, whether that be a cell phone, a tablet, or a computer at the office.

Irrigation Leader: If your clients have some sort of issue with the software, can they call you and get support either remotely or in person?

Jack Linke: We have an online support desk that receives messages instantly. Additionally, we’ve got an automated June 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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THE INNOVATORS help system that has information for each section of the application, a frequently asked questions page, and a glossary. We help new customers with onboarding through a 2‑day, hands-on training session with district staff or online via webinars. Our service level agreement is included in every contract, with an aim of 99.8 percent uptime. All the data in Watervize are still owned by the customer, and they can download their information at any time. We’ve focused on industry standard software development and operations principles, including routine backups and test cycles of software development before production deployment.

Irrigation Leader: How does your product help resolve discrepancies between orders and deliveries?

Irrigation Leader: What results has North Gila seen from your product?

Jack Linke: When it started out, everything was on paper. Staff were printing out copies every day and doing the math manually. Watervize gives them the information that they need to manage their district and make sure they’re providing the water they’re supposed to. Calculations that used to be done manually are now automated. Watervize saves the district money by allowing ditch riders to focus on what’s important instead of fielding calls from customers all day. Customers always know when the water is coming and when it will stop.

The ability to view and download charts, spreadsheets, and reports detailing historical water usage is a big step toward responsible water accounting. Data are always at hand for sharing, trend analysis, and historical recordkeeping. Our upcoming maintenance management tools will help keep district staff safe and operations and maintenance costs under control.

Irrigation Leader: Have you changed the app during the time you’ve been working with the district in response to its needs?

Jack Linke: Absolutely; we’ve made several changes. As I mentioned, the newest version of Watervize incorporates input from North Gila and the other districts we’ve talked to over the past 2 years as well as research we’ve done on the operations and needs of a wide range of districts.

Watervize’s software allows water users to place orders online.

Jack Linke: Watervize puts the same information in front of the customer, the ditch rider, and the district management, so everybody’s on the same page. There are no questions about whether something was ordered or delivered. The statuses can be changed by the ditch rider in real time while they’re out in the field with the click of a button on their phone.

Irrigation Leader: Who are your existing clients?

34 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

Jack Linke: Our focus over the next several years is on the western United States, with a longerterm goal to provide service to all the irrigation districts west of the Mississippi. Our primary customers at this time include districts using surface or pipe water to provide irrigation water for agricultural customers. We help districts make a technological leap without the challenges that they face from enterprise software.

Enterprise products don’t always fit the business model and the business rules of a small irrigation district.

Watervize is ideally primed to serve that market. IL Jack Linke is the managing director of Watervize. He can be contacted at contact@watervize.com.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WATERVIZE.

Jack Linke: We have one right now, though we’re in talks with districts in Idaho, Nevada, and several more in the Phoenix and Yuma areas. The district we started with and still serve is North Gila Valley Irrigation & Drainage District in Yuma, Arizona. It’s relatively small, serving about 6,600 acres in a region often called the winter vegetable capital of the world, which made it perfect as a first customer. We were able to tailor a product to meet its needs, while learning more about what might be helpful to other irrigation districts and building out our service offerings.

Irrigation Leader: What are your plans for the future?

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JOB LISTINGS

Does your irrigation district have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages?

Irrigation Leader provides this service to irrigation districts free of charge.

For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

NEBRASKA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES DIRECTOR DESCRIPTION: +G overnor Ricketts is seeking a thoughtful, customer-focused, and business-minded leader to join his cabinet as director of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). DNR is responsible for Nebraska’s water resource management, soil and water conservation, flood prevention, watershed protection, and flood control. The department plans, develops and promotes the implementation of integrated management plans and state water planning in cooperation with other local, state and federal agencies and organizations. The department administers the state’s dam safety and flood plain management programs RESPONSIBILITIES +T he director is responsible for the development and execution of water management strategy, engaging with statewide stakeholders in public administration and industry, the operational oversight of an 100 employee agency with a $18 million budget, and acting as the governor’s subject matter expert and go-to person for all water policy issues.

REQUIREMENTS +T he successful candidate will have subject matter expertise in water management, a track record of effective stakeholder management, and a record of success in progressively more challenging executive roles. This position is subject to legislative confirmation and must be a professional engineer (PE) meeting the requirements of the Nebraska Engineers and Architects Regulations Act. FOR MORE INFORMATION Interested applicants should send resume and cover letter to Jason Jackson, care of Elise Woodward at elise.woodward@nebraska.gov.

SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT SENIOR ENGINEER OR SENIOR SCIENTIST Deadline: Until Filled RESPONSIBILITIES: + I ncumbent will perform work that requires application of conventional hydraulics and hydrologic practices but may also include a variety of complex features requiring proper use of design standards, selecting suitable materials, and difficult coordination.

38 | IRRIGATION LEADER | June 2020

REQUIREMENTS +A ssignments require a broad knowledge of hydraulic and/or hydrologic subjects within the discipline to effectively resolve technical issues and complete assignments.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Please visit www.sfwmd.gov/careers. The SFWMD offers competitive wages and benefits. EOE. Please refer to Job Reference: 2637BR for additional requirements, education, license and experience.

RUBICON ACCOUNT MANAGER - CENTRAL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA DESCRIPTION +R ubicon Water has a vision to sustainably increase global food and livestock production through improved water use efficiency. We do this by delivering advanced technology to managers of gravity fed irrigation networks, enabling them to manage their water resources with unprecedented levels of efficiency and control.

RESPONSIBILITIES +T he role of account manager is diverse in nature; it requires both sales of Rubicon solutions throughout the central valley of California, while partnering with management to execute sales strategy and new business development. +D evelop and maintain close customer relations to enhance the customer experience of key accounts while developing new accounts. +D evelop a range of proposals to improve customers’ business performance in collaboration with Rubicon’s Solutions Engineering Team. +D evelop and deliver project and equipment quotations. +W ork with the project delivery team to oversee the accurate and timely delivery of customer solutions. +S trategic business development within assigned region, including identifying, understanding and utilizing market growth opportunities.

REQUIREMENTS +A gricultural, engineering, or related technical degree (bachelor’s degree preferred). +E xcellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communications skills. +T echnical skills and understandings of hydraulics and basic engineering and construction principles.

TO APPLY Please send your resume to alisa.newton@rubiconwater.com. irrigationleadermagazine.com

QUINCY–COLUMBIA BASIN IRRIGATION DISTRICT DISTRICT ENGINEER RESPONSIBILITIES +T o ensure Quincy–Columbia Basin Irrigation District procedures and policies are followed and to safeguard the efficient and uninterrupted delivery of irrigation water to landowners.

REQUIREMENTS +B achelor’s degree in civil engineering or related field required +P rofessional Engineering certification desired +5 years’ civil engineering experience required; open channel flow experience desired +3 years’ drafting software experience required; 3 years’ GIS experience preferred +A bility to prepare plot plans from legal descriptions, survey data, and perform calculations to complete reclassification worksheets required +A bility to create, interpret, and communicate engineering plans and specifications including open-channel and pipeline hydraulics required +A bility to generate plans, charts, and graphs using word processing, spreadsheet, and database software required +M ust be able to obtain United States Bureau of Reclamation SCADA clearance +S trong computer skills and working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and Outlook) FOR MORE INFORMATION Contact humanresources@qcbid.org.

NAMPA & MERIDIAN IRRIGATION DISTRICT DITCH RIDER NAMPA, IDAHO Salary: $2,880 monthly REQUIREMENTS: +M ust live in the Nampa area, close to the district shop (5525 E. Greenhurst Rd, Nampa, ID, 83686) +W illingness to work 7 days a week during the irrigation season, then switch to four 10-hour days (Monday-Thursday) during the off-season. +C lass A CDL license (mandatory in 6 months) FOR MORE INFORMATION: Due to COVID-19, the shop office is currently closed to the public. Applications can be requested by phone at (208) 466-0663 or by e-mail at nmid@nmid.org.

NAMPA & MERIDIAN IRRIGATION DISTRICT HERBICIDE APPLICATOR NAMPA, IDAHO Salary: $15.40 hourly REQUIREMENTS: +M ust live within 20 minutes of the district shop (5525 E. Greenhurst Rd., Nampa, ID, 83686). +W illingness to work four 10hour days (Monday through Thursday). +E xperience applying herbicides. +A State of Idaho Applicator’s License. +A Class “A” CDL license (mandatory within 6 months).

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Due to COVID-19, the shop office is currently closed to the public. Applications can be requested by phone at (208) 466-0663 or by e-mail at nmid@nmid.org.

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Upcoming Events CANCELED: June 8–9 Idaho Water Users Association, Water Law & Resources Issues Seminar, Sun Valley, ID CANCELED: June 9–12 Groundwater Management Districts Association, Summer Conference, Colorado Springs, CO CANCELED: June 17–19 Texas Water Conservation Association, Mid-Year Conference, The Woodlands, TX July 7–9 North Dakota Water Resource Districts Association, Summer Meeting & North Dakota Water Education Foundation Executive Briefing, Grand Forks, ND POSTPONED: July 14–16 Hydrovision International, Envisioning a Hydro Future, Minneapolis, MN July 15 North Dakota Rural Water Systems Association, Summer Leadership Retreat, Medora, ND July 28–31 (new date) Association of California Water Agencies, Spring Conference & Exhibition, Monterey, CA July 30–31 (new date) National Ground Water Association, Workshop on Groundwater in the Northwest, Boise, ID August 3 Nebraska Water Center/Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources/North Platte Natural Resources District, Nebraska Water Conference: Irrigation in a Water-Deficit Region, Scottsbluff, NE (August 4–5, Optional Water Tour) August 4–8 National Water Resources Association, Western Water Seminar, Spokane, WA August 5–6 National Ground Water Association, Fate of PFAS: From Groundwater to Tap Water Conference, Durham, NH August 25–27 Colorado Water Congress, Summer Conference and Membership Meeting, Steamboat, CO September 14–16 (new date) WESTCAS, Annual Conference, San Diego, CA September 14–16 WaterPro Conference, Phoenix, AZ September 15–17 Husker Harvest Days, Grand Island, NE

Past issues of Irrigation Leader are archived at irrigationleadermagazine.com @IrrigationLeader

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